Worship your mother

[Guest guest]

The life of a man who cannot respect and love his mother is utterly

useless. Recognising one's mother as the very embodiment of all

divine forces, one must show reverence to her and treat her with

love. This is the true message that the Navarathri, the Festival of

Nine Nights gives us. The supreme Shakti manifests Herself in the

form of Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi. Durga grants us energy—

physical, mental and spiritual. Lakshmi bestows on us wealth of many

kinds—not just money but intellectual wealth, the wealth of character

and others. Even health is a kind of wealth. She grants untold riches

to us. And Saraswathi bestows on us intelligence, the capacity for

intellectual enquiry and the power of discrimination. The Navarathri

Festival is celebrated in order to proclaim to the world the power of

the Goddesses. One's own mother is the combination of all these

Divine Beings. She provides us energy, wealth and intelligence. She

constantly desires our advancement in life. So she represents all the

three Goddesses that we worship during the Navarathri Festival.

If the Pandavas were able to become so dear to Krishna and make their

lives worthy by serving Him, it was not on account of their own merit

or austerities. It was mother Kunti Devi's love for them that brought

to them such a great fortune. Even when they had to live in a forest

or in the House of Wax, she always stayed with them and prayed for

their welfare. The Pandavas also reciprocated her love, and that

accounts for their final victory.

 

Lakshmana, likewise, was able to dwell in the forest with his brother

Rama, serving him ceaselessly, only because of his mother Sumitra's

blessings. She told her son that Ayodhya without Rama was like a

forest, and that the forest in which Rama lived would be a veritable

Ayodhya to him. It was on account of the hearty blessings of his

mother that Lakshmana was able to spend fourteen years in the forest

even without food or sleep.

 

All our epics and sacred books emphasise the power of the mother's

love, her blessings and grace. Consider the story of Gandhari and the

Kauravas. When Krishna visited Gandhari to console her after the

Kurukshetra war, she accused him of partiality towards the

Pandavas. " Though you are God, how could you be so partial? Why did

you support the Pandavas in full measure, and allow the destruction

of all my sons? " she asked Him. Krishna replied to her that she

herself was to blame for the death of her children. He reminded her

that though she gave birth to a hundred sons, she didn't cast her

loving glance on even one of them at any time. As she chose to remain

blindfolded, she never looked at any of her sons with great care,

attention and affection. He asked her " How could such sinners who

couldn't even enjoy their own mother's loving glance thrive and

flourish? "

 

There is no need to propitiate Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi for

energy, material prosperity and worldly knowledge. If we love and

adore the mother, we shall be showing our love and devotion to all

Goddesses.

 

-Baba

 

Ram Chugani

Kobe, Japan