"By giving to another human being, of yourself, certain vibrations inside you are released. You become the Great Mother because you are using that which must be used in honor of humanity. Service is not about religion. My God, it¹s not even about spirituality. One and one is two. If the child is hungry, the mother feeds it. It's that simple. If the child is cold, the mother covers him or her. Male or female, when you serve, you become the mother."
 
Ma dismisses the idea that doing service or charitable work is consuming. "If you let service consume you, then you are the type of person who can let anything consume you. Genuine service does not consume; service gives. People come here from all over the world and ask why we don't burn out. The answer is simple. We drink as we pour; we pour as we drink. We keep moving the current of service (seva) through our own selves and bring it out into the world. Serving also brings great joy. But you don't think about that in the moment. In the moment, you don't think, 'Well, this is making me happy!' You think, 'I got a smile out of that kid. I got a twinkle in the eye of that child who is fighting AIDS or cancer.' And you say, 'Thank you God for letting me do this.' I wish there wasn't all this pain in the world, but each of us has the ability to make life a little bit better for someone else. You don¹t have to do what I do. You know when you have a big heart, something must fill it up. Caring is so deep in your heart that it must come out. It can be anything. Giving compliments to people is a form of service. When I see a beautiful woman or a handsome man, I'll stop and tell them."
 
"Give away what you want the most for yourself," she advises. "When I go into hospitals or into a county home, the first thing I say to myself is, 'Okay, Ma, you're in that bed. What do you want in this moment?' Most people are afraid of the sick. Most people are afraid to touch a homeless person. You don¹t have to, but there¹s never a reason not to smile. I learned that as a very young girl when my mom was dying in a charity ward in Coney Island Hospital. On her deathbed, my mom would tell me to go around the ward and make people laugh. I was 8 or 9 years old at the time, and I did what my mother told me. I ran around the ward and made everybody laugh. When I told her what I had done, she said, 'Who did you touch with your own hand?" I said, 'Nobody, Mom, nobody, but I made them all laugh.' She said, 'Now you go and you hug and you touch.' I said, 'But Mommy, they stink.' And my mom said, 'So do I.' That was my first lesson in total service and giving everything I have of myself. And I never tire. I cry a lot, but I never tire. 
 
"The Native American Indians do not have a word for me. They only have a word for we. The earth is in great need of mothering. All one has to do to become the mother is to recognize that we is more important than me. Women are coming to the forefront of the battle for humanity's needs, but this is the moment for all of us to remember that one does not have to have breasts filled with milk or a womb that was once full to be a mother; one only has to have a mother¹s heart. When one embraces the spirit of the mother, then there is no difference between a man's heart and a woman's heart.
 
The earth needs nourishment. A feminine touch must be felt, or this great, great Mother Earth is doomed. All of us must share the responsibility of alleviating the abundance of suffering on this planet. Anybody can say let me get involved: I'll give a week, I'll give a day, I'll give an hour, or perhaps I'll just talk to somebody as a hotline volunteer. It's not about money, although money is desperately needed. As I said before, it's about what you are willing to give of yourself."
 
Although many spiritual teachers stress meditation and prayer as the key to awakening, Ma believes that the soul finds liberation through service. "My God, you talk about liberation! You're in prison if you don¹t take care of another human being. How much time do we need to sit in prayer to take care of ourselves? I teach a sacred yoga that is going out all over the world called Kali Natha Yoga. It combines movement with prayer and worship. It allows for a feeling of health, vitality, and deep inner peace. But it comes right down to this: when there are people who are hurt and you are someone who is capable of stopping that hurt, you have to take responsibility. It's not that God doesn't answer prayers. She, the Mother looks down upon us all and says, 'Take care of my children.'"
 
To find out more about Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati and all of Kashi Ashram's charitable activities, visit (www.kashi.org) or call (772) 589-1403. Kashi offers workshops and retreats throughout the year. Classes in Kali Natha Yoga are held in Miami on the second Sunday of each month.

--Sorah Dubitsky is Miracle Journeys founder