Gauri Ma was a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramhans. She had attained an elevated spiritual status and was highly revered by other disciples. Once she was teaching some young girls in the ashram. To make sure that no one would disturb her at that time she asked a person to stay at the door and tell whoever wishes to meet her that Gauri Ma is busy worshipping the Mother Goddess.

By chance, Swami Vivekanand desired to meet Gauri Ma just then. When he reached her room, the helper standing out repeated verbatim whatever he was told.  Swami ji still entered the room. Inside he saw Gauri Ma completely engrossed in teaching the girls. He stood there silently and waited for a long while. When Gauri Ma's attention was drawn to him, he smiled and said, "What your helper told me was right. This indeed is the true worship of Mother Goddess."

Signs of True Devotion

In the village of Aundhia in Maharashtra lived a noble person named Visova. He was a jeweller by profession and was quite rich. He was very devoted to God.

Once Maharashtra and the region around Aundhia was afflicted by severe famine. Being very kind-hearted Visova could not bear to see the agony around him. He began to help out all the needy and poor with open arms. He distributed food grains to all the famished people and soon gave away all his wealth for the noble cause. It filled him with great pain to see so many people still dying around him of hunger. Visova decided to use his reputation to take some loan and help the needy with the money. Once the famine was over he could pay back the money he took on loan. His wife also supported him.

There was only one greedy money lender in the village who had enough money and storage of grains with him. Visova borrowed money from him and began to distribute food grains bought using the loaned amount. Some slanderers came to know of this and they informed the money lender. The money lender understood that Visova has gone bankrupt and would not be able to pay back the loan now. He went to Visova and demanded back his money. He gave Visova a deadline of seven days or face dire consequences.

Visova had no money or means to return the loan amount in seven days. The money lender began to create a lot of trouble and began to harass him in public. Visova with a cool-head tried to explain to the money lender several times that he would return the amount as soon as it was possible, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Finally, he proposed to the money lender that he and his family would become his bonded labourers and do whatever he asked for till the loan was repaid.

An old accountant of Visova came to hear of this and could not not bear to see his master's fate. He rescued his master by giving all his earnings to the money lender. From then on he also joined Visova in his charitable deeds.

When God's love enters a human heart, a fountain of feelings like compassion, kindness and benevolence towards all others erupts. Then no amount of personal loss can stop the overflow of such emotions. One whose heart has not developed these emotions is still far from God, and his devotion has not matured enough.