“Mother Always Comes First”

He Is often called Sai Maa, Mother Sai, Who Is verily The Supreme Creator. From That Hiranya Garbha of Sri Sathya Sai emerged this vast physical creation and the many mysterious realms of existence, that Mother Sai is verily The Surpeme Source n’ Force. On Earth, He preached the supreme importance of Motherhood, which always stands first and foremost.  A beautiful illustration on the beauty called ‘Mother!’ by Ms Loraine Burrows from the UK, livng in Thailand.

My mind goes back to the first Christmas that I spent in our Lord’s Divine presence. It was in 1977 in Whitefield. It was one of the most special days of my life as we spent almost the entire day with our beloved Lord. But to relate the story properly I have to go back a few months. At the time I was living in the United States and I had come to Prasanthi for a visit. Swami called me and a small group of Americans for interviews,  twice  in Whitefield. After the second day, Swami called Dr Hislop to come and talk with us about the changes in the Sai international Organisation.

Dr Hislop explained how things were changing globally and more and more people were learning about (Sri) Sathya Sai Baba. He said that Swami had asked all countries outside India to make their centres and practise more in accordance to the country in question. In other words bhajans should be sung in local languages as well as Sanskrit and Hindi. A group of us around New York got together and tried to make English bhajans, mostly translating the original bhajans into English. One day I was driving my car and a song came into my head in its entirety. It was “You are Lord of the Universe”.  When I got home I sang it to my husband and he said it was OK but the last verse was wrong- “Mother of the Universe, Father of the Universe, the Light of mankind (Sri Sathya) Sai Baba.” He explained that (Sri Sathya) Sai Baba was a man, therefore it should be “Father of the Universe, Mother of the Universe…” So I changed it!

Later that year I was in India.  Swami was to perform the marriage of one of my dearest friends on Christmas Day 1977. The marriage took place in Swami’s house in Brindavan. At the end of the beautiful ceremony Swami said: “It is an Indian tradition – wedding song.” There was silence because no one knew any wedding song. Then Swami said: “Happy song? English song?” Swami looked at Faith and she glanced over to me. Swami then looked at me, waiting for me to sing at the same time someone nudged me and said: “Loraine, you sing.” I thought that this was my chance to sing this new song “Lord of the Universe”, so I started to sing. It was a total disaster because no one had ever heard this song before and the rhythm was off and it sounded awful. Swami told everyone to be quiet and then He looked at me and said “sing”, so I sung and Swami sang with me! We got to the last verse and I sang “Father of the Universe, Mother of the Universe” and Swami sang “Mother of the Universe, Father of the Universe.” He looked at me as if to say – “you got it wrong!!” He also said: “Mother Always Comes First!”

II Samastha Lokah Sukhino Bhavantu II