One day, in the castle at Cabella, Shri Mataji decided that She wanted to see all the paintings which had been presented to Her. She asked somebody to go and find where they all were and he discovered that they were stored all over the place. Shri Mataji wanted an inventory. We went up into the attic, took the paintings out, showed them to Her and then She would comment on them. I remember there was a really nice one that had the shape of Africa, and it was a mother and child.
‘Ah, Africa, the mother,’ Shri Mataji was saying. There was a Sahaja Yogi who’d done a painting and he hadn’t presented it to Shri Mataji.
‘Shri Mataji’s looking at paintings. This may be your opportunity,’ I said to him. So he quickly brought his painting and managed to present it to Shri Mataji and She made a comment that it was nice.
One thing I remember Her talking about — there were some paintings done by the Russians and She was saying how different they were, and very professional. She wanted to send the Russians the paintings which were damaged, to be repaired, because they were very good repairers.
So over a period of time, Shri Mataji would sit in a chair — it must have happened over nearly a week, they took the paintings to Her. Then we had to wrap up some of the ones that were proper, and number them and then itemize them, and then there were several numbers on them, and finally we had to put them back. Everything was done systematically and with no confusion.
Everyone asks what happens to all these presents. Quite a few times Shri Mataji would send the things to India or give them back to different people. Every now and again people would have to go out and buy suitcases and load them up with all manner of things to be taken to various places.
Derek Ferguson
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