Holy Mother

[Guest guest]

Dear Brother Jay,

 

I have gotten permission from Nirvana at Vedanta Press, you are most

welcome to use the selection. Nirvana asked that you might include a

link to http://vedanta.com which is the Vedanta Press web site, but

said it is not necessary.

 

Yours in Mother,

Jayanti

 

 

 

The following is adapted from an article by Swami Nikhilananda, a

disciple of Sri Sarada Devi, published in Living Wisdom: Vedanta in

the West, edited by Pravrajika Vrajaprana, 1994. Read the complete

article on the Internet at http://www.srisarada.org/mother/lw.html

courtesy of Vedanta Press, Hollywood.

 

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Her innate motherliness put visitors at ease. To a person coming to

her for the first time, she conveyed the feeling that she had been

eagerly waiting for him. Holy Mother always inspired reverence but

never a feeling of remoteness...

 

It is extremely difficult for ordinary men to recognize God when he

is embodied as man. An apparent victim of hunger and thirst, pain and

pleasure, hope and despair, sickness and fear, he weeps, laughs, and

suffers without really losing awareness of his divine nature. In the

God-man humanity blends with divinity. When living at the phenomenal

level the God-man is alert about human affairs, possesses practical

knowledge and realism, and observes the conventions of society. Side

by side with divine ecstasies, he cultivates humility, magnanimity,

ethical sensitivity, love, the spirit of service, modesty, and other

similar traits in order to set a model for others. He also shows how

one living in the world can rise above it and enjoy inner peace in

the midst of life's turmoil and worry.

 

The life of Holy Mother is a demonstration of these facts. Though an

embodiment of divinity, she identified herself of her own accord with

the lives of her relatives, the people of her village, and her

devotees. She rejoiced at the happiness of others and wept at their

suffering. Purposely she often suppressed her true nature, because,

as she said, " The excessive manifestation of divinity creates fear in

the minds of devotees; they cannot feel intimate. " Once a disciple

spoke of her being the Divine Mother, and she said, " You always harp

on that one theme. I say that I am your mother, and that does not

satisfy you. " Her language was simple and natural, and her conduct

spontaneous and unostentatious. She never lost these characteristics,

even while giving initiation or spiritual instruction. In her conduct

she was always alert, remembering that in the future people would

regard her as an ideal to follow...

 

Her brothers regarded her as their affectionate big sister, her

nieces and nephews as their indulgent aunt, and her disciples as

their mother. Many ladies, after visiting her, said that she was just

like one of them. Yet she said to a disciple that, even in the midst

of all her activities, by a mere wish she could remember her divine

nature in a flash, and realize the world to be the playground of

maya. If she was constantly conscious of her true self, how could she

fulfill her mission?