The first time I saw Shri Mataji was Easter 1987, in Rome about six months after I got my realisation. We Austrians all went in a bus from Vienna. We stayed in a school, all the girls and ladies squeezed into a room, sleeping on the floor. We arrived in the dark and I remember hearing the birds singing in the middle of the night, as if nature herself was jubilant in anticipation of the arrival of Shri Mataji, just as much as we were.
We went to the airport to receive Shri Mataji and there was a big crowd of yogis, and I was in the back and could not see properly. I got a small glimpse of a top of a head and black hair, and I knew it must be Her. She was not tall, which surprised me.
The puja was held in the ashram in Rome, and I was amazed at how humble everything was. I had expected gold and marble, and there was this ordinary, if nice Italian house, and the makeshift stage was small, in the garden at the back of the house, and the decoration was made of a few cotton saris. We sat on the ground and had the Easter Puja. Shri Mataji was presented with a live lamb.
Later, there was a musical evening, and we sat in the hall. I was in pain and very uncomfortable, as my back was hurting badly, and thought I might get ill from the cold, but after a few minutes of sitting there, all the pain vanished, being sucked into the stone floor. That was one of my first strong experiences of Shri Mataji in person; to see how everything just works out and negative thoughts or feelings just vanish in Her presence.
Sigrid Jones