An incident occurred during Shri Mataji’s third visit to Bristol, in 1982. We had a flat in a former vicarage, on St Andrew’s Road, Montpelier. It was the second morning of Her stay, and we drove down to Exeter for a puja and a public programme. In Exeter about a dozen of us performed a puja to Shri Mataji. She gave a TV interview and then in the evening held a public programme. Afterwards, we returned to Bristol.
My wife travelled with Shri Mataji in one car. I went back in another. The only problem was that we had just the one key to our flat, and it was in my pocket. This shouldn’t have mattered, had the car I was travelling in not broken down. Fortunately this happened just as we were coming to a service station. We called the AA (Automobile Association) and made ourselves comfortable. But these were the days before mobile phones, and there was no way we could let my wife know what had happened. The AA man took a good while to arrive; he decided to tow the car back to Bristol, and a long, slow journey homeward ensued.
Meanwhile, Shri Mataji, my wife Ruth and the others arrived at our flat but could not get in. They parked in the car park outside the building and waited. Time went by. Shri Mataji let them try Her keys in the door, but none of them fitted. Eventually She suggested that they go to get a drink somewhere. By now it was one in the morning and everywhere was shut. They drove around for some time and finally found a street vendor. They drank hot chocolate out of plastic cups, then returned to our flat. Still no sign of us.
They continued to wait. Shri Mataji slept for a while. Of course, they could have gone to a hotel, but this was never Shri Mataji’s practice; She preferred to be with Her children. A further hour or two went by, and then as a last resort Ruth proposed that they go to another flat a mile or two away, where some Sahaja Yogis lived. It was a basement flat with a tiny kitchen and an even smaller toilet. We had lived there for a few months before moving to the Old Vicarage, and it had hardly seemed a proper place to bring the Adi Shakti.
‘Yes, why not?’ Shri Mataji said, so they drove there and woke up a very surprised – and sleepy – yogi. Nothing had been prepared and there wasn’t even a bed in the only bedroom, so Shri Mataji slept on a mattress on the floor. Ruth and Janet, another Sahaja Yogini who had been in Shri Mataji’s car, slept in the corridor outside, while the men who were present slept in the sitting room.
Mother asked to be woken at eight in the morning, so Ruth and Janet went into Her room where She was still asleep. They knelt down on the floor, uncertain what to do – and promptly fell back asleep themselves! By the time they woke again, Shri Mataji was also awake. She asked them where they had spent the night.
‘Oh, but you should have slept in here with Me,’ She said when they told Her. Ruth apologised for the wholly unsuitable arrangements, but Mother only asked ‘What’s wrong? I’ve had a lovely bed to sleep on and everything’s fine. There’s nothing to apologise for.’ She told Ruth to go and ring the Old Vicarage and see what had happened to us, at which point Ruth learned of our breakdown on the motorway. Then we all met up in order to see our Mother off to London.
There were further aspects to this. Next door to the Old Vicarage and its car park was a public garden which included a children’s playground. Although there was very little outward sign of it, this garden had formerly been a graveyard attached to a church which had long since been pulled down. What was more, although we didn’t know it at the time, we were soon to have our first child. Hence the long wait in the car at night enabled Shri Mataji to clear the little park of dead souls etc.
Chris Greaves