October 2011 - Advaita Ashrama

The great Divine Mother smiles at
our foibles and is ever indulgent about our
conscious or unconscious failings. She even
tricks and pokes fun at us in her inscrutably mismischievous ways. When we are blind with pride,
passions, and thick ignorance she just laughs.
We know from Sri Ramakrishna that she for
sure laughs on two occasions, and as these occasions
occur ad in� nitum all over the world,
Mother’s laughter is also ceaseless. We do not
know whether it is a chuckle, a chortle, or a guffaw—I
think it is a giggle. But in simple and clear
words Sri Ramakrishna tells:
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God laughs on two occasions. He laughs when
the physician says to the patient’s mother, ‘Don’t
be afraid, mother; I shall certainly cure your
boy.’ God laughs, saying to Himself, ‘I am going
to take his life, and this man says he will save it!’
� e physician thinks he is the master, forgetting
that God is the master. God laughs again when
two brothers divide their land with a string, saying
to each other, ‘� is side is mine and that side
is yours.’ He laughs and says to Himself, ‘� e
whole universe belongs to Me, but they say they
own this portion or that portion.’ 1
Mother’s Laughter
Joyesh Bagchi
Of course God is also Mother, as Sri Ramakrishna
teaches: ‘A man once saw the image of the
Divine Mother wearing a sacred thread. He said to
the worshipper: “What? You have put the sacred
thread on the Mother’s neck!” � e worshipper
said: “Brother, I see that you have truly known
the Mother. But I have not yet been able to � nd
out whether She is male or female; that is why I
have put the sacred thread on Her image” ’ (271).
Medical Practice and
the Spiritual Pursuit
At some point in life we are all confronted with
the inevitability of death. Many scriptures and
saints say we should always contemplate on this
� nal event, which makes us realize the transitoriness
of this world and its pleasures, pains,
and sorrows. � ere is a principle of indeterminacy
involved in the relation between medical science
and the phenomenon of disease and death.
Howsoever confident we may feel with our
medical knowledge, there is always an element
of randomness in medicine too. Philosophers of
science of di� erent ages have tried to develop a
criterion to demarcate science from non-science.
PB October 2011