Reply to Mother

Collected Works

When Bhagavan left home his family tried to trace him but at first without success. Only some years later they discovered him in Tiruvannamaliai. The Mother, not yet ripe to renounce the world and join him, went to try to persude hiom to return to her. At this time he was not speaking, so he wrote briefly that whatever is destined to happen will happen. The poetical rendering of his reply is given below:

The fate of souls are all by God ordained
According to the deeds that they have done.
That end that's destined ne'er to be attained
Will never be achieved by anyone
However hard they try. All those things, too
That it is destined must occur, one day
Will come to pass, whatever you may do
To interfere and try their course to stay.
And this is certain. At length we come to see
That it is best that we should silent be.