During the refurbishment of the Palazzo in Cabella, in the second year, (1992) Shri Mataji cancelled most of the planned trips and remained in Her apartments and organized the building works. Although Shri Mataji never actually went to see the loft or the basement, She could give accurate details of how to overcome problems and change designs for the better. We were trying to build a kitchen in the basement to cater for the workers and for pujas. Shri Mataji called Michael, the Greek architect, and myself up to Her room to ponder over the design of the kitchen.
‘What we need is a window here,’ She said, putting Her finger on the outside wall on the plans.
‘Yes, Shri Mataji,’ we said, gulping hard.
‘What’s the problem?’ She asked.
‘The walls are five feet thick there, Shri Mataji.’ They were made of stones about two-foot cubed.
‘Well, just have a look,’ She said.
So we went down to the basement, which had been a prison. In the next room there was a window, which someone had decided would be better as a door and two French yogis had spent two weeks with jack-hammers trying to lower it down. The job was finally finished by a whole group of Swiss who took a weekend, so we knew how tough it could be.
We started hacking the plaster off the wall at the point Shri Mataji had indicated with Her finger. After a while, we became aware that there was a line in the stonework and a stone archway at the top. It was an old window. By the end of the day, we had pulled out all the stones filling up the hole, and the daylight was flooding in.
The next day, Shri Mataji asked how it had gone and laughed when we told Her how there had been an old window just where She had pointed with Her finger.
Chris Marlow