THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD

The mother is preeminent in the Hindu culture. The Hindus have exalted the woman to the highest level of the motherhood of God. 'Ya Devi sarvabhuteshu matrirupena sangsthita / Namastasyai namastasyai namastasyai namao namaha' (O Goddess that dwelleth in every element of the universe as the Mother of all, I venerate Thee, I venerate Thee, I venerate Thee again and again).

From Vedic times this motherhood of God has dominated the Hindu mind and has occupied its pristine position in the Hindu conception of godhead. The worship of Adya Shakti (primeval cosmic energy or force) as embodied in a female form and as a disembodied being has been at the root of the Hindu devotional exercise. The cosmic being has always been venerated as the Divine Mother more than as the Divine Father and this has been the characteristic departure of the Hindu way of spiritual thinking from the Semitic religions, Judaism and Christianity, where God is worshipped as the Divine Father.

Even in the case of the immaculate conception of a divine incarnation such as Christ or Buddha or Ramakrishna, the earthly father has no role to play, so to say, in the procreation. He is, thus, the caretaker father and not the biological one. Here also the mother's position is preeminent as she is the one that rears the baby in her womb before giving it birth. As such she remains the biological mother and in a sense the only biological earthly parent of the immaculately-born divine child. No biological father but, sure enough,  the Avatar has his biological mother. And herein lies the supreme significance of motherhood as the gateway to terrestrial life. Herein does motherhood gain ascendancy over fatherhood and this principle was noted as being of cosmic significance by the Hindu rishis who forthwith raised the status of womanhood to that of universal motherhood and the highest dualistic principle of godhead to the universal motherhood of God.

The cosmic delusive manifesting principle or the primordial power is conceived of as feminine by the Hindu mind. Mahamaya or Adya Shakti is a feminine principle and is the creator, preserver and destroyer of phenomena. All power is invested in Her and She dispenses with the universe as She wills. Further, all power is derived from Her and She has to be propitiated for all achievement or, in the ultimate analysis, for renunciation of life and its ephemeral pleasures. Finally, She is the one that guards the gate to freedom and none can escape into freedom without Her grace. Thus, Hinduism lays supreme importance to the worship of the Divine Mother as the means to all good and eventual liberation from the shackles of Maya. The dynamic aspect of Nature being feminine in the Hindu conception, all action deriving from it is also feminine and the supreme custodian of all action is feminine as well. And this supreme principle is the Universal Mother whose earthly embodiment each woman is and it therefore becomes spiritually mandatory to venerate womanhood as divine, else spirituality remains a distant dream in this terrestrial plane where the pitfalls of Maya are many and the delight of delusion binds man to this repetitive cycle of terrestrial transmigration.

Our earthly mother is the gateway to this world and the Divine Mother is the final exit-point of phenomena. From the alpha to the omega it is Mother and Mother alone, creating us, preserving us and eventually guiding us to liberation. She is Nature and She is the controller of Nature. She is the confluence of the three gunas, sattwa, rajas and tamas and She is every combination of these. Propellor She is, propelled She is, She is all that is. Hers is the omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence. Perceiver, perceived and perception She is and She is the transcendental unity that enfolds the trinity.

The Hindu rishis were wise people and not ignorant pastoral people or foolish farmers with antiquated notions about God and man. They full well understood the significance of the motherhood of God and in glowing terms recited hymns in Her praise. From time immemorial, where history dares not peep, this living principle of the motherhood of God has rolled down to the plains of India from its mountainous habitat like the waters of the Ganga, the Sindhu and the Saraswati to fertilise the vast moving mass of humanity that has trodden the soil of India. This spiritual conception, this philosophical idea has over time gripped the psyche of the Hindus and impregnated their very consciousness till it has undergone a transition to its corresponding human phase where the Hindu mother is venerated as the earthly representation of the Universal Mother. This transformation has been so complete that the mother is the pivotal link in every Hindu family and the very cornerstone of familial life. And, in this way, the idea of the divinity of the earthly mother, nay, of all women has so diffused through the national psyche that the venerable Hindu law-giver, Manu, pronounced 'Yatra naryastu pujyantey, ramantey tatra devata' (Where women are worshipped, there the gods dwell).

No country on earth has conceived of womanhood in loftier terms than India. Alas, through conquest and the consequent degeneration of civilisation, the state of woman in India is no more what it used to be in her days of political and cultural freedom. Now the time has come at last to reverse this evil cycle of history and raise woman to her natural elevated state as envisaged by the rishis of yore and as it obtained in ancient India of supreme spiritual excellence. Only then may we as a nation hope to rise and occupy our true place in the comity of nations. Else, nation-building will remain a distant dream for, to quote Swami Vivekananda, 'a one-winged bird cannot fly.' And, this emancipation of woman must begin with the identification of the divine focus within woman, that of the motherhood of God. The Divine Mother, the earthly mother and the earthly wife are all manifestations of the same feminine cosmic principle.

To sum up the story, so to say, let me take you all to Dakshineswar in the 1870s when Ramakrishna reigned as the spiritual monarch of all he surveyed and his young wife Sarada came over from Joyrambati to Dakshineswar to test the truth of the rumour that was then doing the rounds that her husband had lost his sanity of mind. Suddenly confronted by the spiritual altitude of her husband, the young Sarada, somewhat perplexed and, so, unsure of her status in her husband's altered state of consciousness, hazarded the question while massaging his feet, "Tell me, who am I to you?" The husband promptly answered, "She who is the Mother in the temple (the Kali Temple), She who is my earthly mother now residing at the Nahabat (the Concert House) is the very mother who is now massaging my feet here." The young wife understood and never broached the topic again. She had set up her relation with her divine husband that very instant and never for an instant changed again to lay any special claim (to which she had ample right) on him. When in later years, decades after the demise of the Master, Holy Mother was queried as to her relation with her husband, she startled the questioner by saying that she was Thakur's mother. And when Ramakrishna passed away on that fateful day of 16 August, 1886, at Cossipore Garden House, Holy Mother broke down into tears lamenting thus, "O Mother Kali, where have you gone away?"

Such was the divine conjugal relation of Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Sarada Devi, each envisioning in the other the Divine Mother. And this is India's legacy to the world, worship of God as Mother and, reversing the scale, worship of the earthly mother as the Divine Mother. Jai Ma!

THE SECOND COMING OF RAMAKRISHNA ... LEAFLET 1

Sri Ramakrishna had prophesied that he would return to this terrestrial plane after residing in his subtle body in the hearts of his devotees for a hundred years. Now, we cannot for sure ascertain the exact date of his prophetic statement and, hence, cannot for sure know exactly when the period of his hundred-year stay in his devotees' hearts has ended. If it be assumed that even at the latest it is from the date of his demise, then he ought to have returned amongst us in 1986. Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi has said that the Master would return after a hundred years when a lot of white-skinned devotees of his would visit this land. Is it possible then that Thakur was reborn in the year 1986, the year of the 500th birth anniversary of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu when in point of fact thousands of white-skinned Western devotees had flocked to Kolkata and Mayapur in connection with the anniversary celebrations. True it is that in 1986 Kolkata and Mayapur were literally inundated with Western devotees, Vaishnavs ordained in the Iskcon Movement. It is phenomenal that Holy Mother had spoken of the fact that at this time many white-skinned devotees of Thakur would flock even as the like of Nivedita, Christine and MacLeod were then assembling in Thakur's name. But, surely, Holy Mother could have had no inkling about Mahaprabhu's 500th birth anniversary as coinciding with Sri Ramakrishna's 100th year from his great disappearance. And herein lies the significance of her remarkable statement.

Holy Mother described Thakur in his new incarnation as one dressed in the garb of a Baul with a broken stone-pot in his hand and a hubble-bubble and walking along the path leading to Burdwan, oblivious of surroundings. On the way there would be a boy excreting by the wayside. Clad in the ochre robe and sporting a long beard, Thakur would be walking seemingly endlessly and eating likewise as he trudged along. He would be born once more a Bengali and would appear in the direction of Bali and Uttarpara, two districts to the north-west of Dakshineswar. When Holy Mother had remonstrated that she would under no circumstance come to this Earth again, Thakur had laughingly retorted that she had no way to escape for the eternal companions of Thakur were all inextricably bound to him even as the stalks of the Kalmi creeper and a single tug by him would bring them all to the terrestrial plane with Thakur in his next incarnation. Even Laksmi Didi, Thakur's niece said that she would not come even if she were cut to shreds like tobacco leaves but met with a similar response.

Swami Saradananda has however claimed to have heard that Thakur would return after the lapse of 200 years and this piece of information he has recorded in his magnum opus biography of the Master, 'Sri Sri Ramakrishna Leela Prasanga' (Sri Ramakrishna and his Divine Play). Thus, there is a confusion as to the lapse of time from the last incarnation when the Master will reincarnate himself.

In the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna the Master boldly announces that he will be reincarnated in the Vayu-Kon, a specific direction among the ten directions of the Hindu astronomical system. He says that he has not imparted total knowledge to his disciples as then they will refuse to come with him when he reincarnates. Those of his inner circle of devotees will not be liberated as they will have to accompany him when he is embodied again in the Vayu-Kon.

In America one afternoon Swami Vivekananda suddenly brought up this subject and said that he would have to once more come to planet Earth with the Master after a lapse of 200 years. When queried  as to why he would have to come just because Sri Ramakrishna had so determined it, Swamiji said,"You do not know the power of these souls madam. When the Master comes, he brings his entourage along."

Swami Vijnanananda has said that the Master will reincarnate after 100 years and then and not until then will his movement rapidly spread. This he said in response to a devotee's query as to why there was such a paucity of spiritual awareness in the world and so much of material meanness despite the fact that the Master had just the other day conducted his terrestrial play.

So from all these accounts it seems that there are two plausible timelines of the the Master's reincarnation---100 years and 200 years. Well, 100 years have passed since his death in 1886 and if he has been born in 1986 then he is now 28 years of age and in all probability in the midst of his spiritual austerities. It is for us then to wait for his emergence on the human stage sooner or later to bring to it the fruit of his realizations. We anxiously wait on.

HAPPY DEEPAVALI

Dear devotees,

Festive time it is. But let us not, in our moment of merriment, forget those whose lives are a perennial misery, those that suffer the pangs of hunger, squalor, ignorance and disease. This is the opportune moment to do something for them, to help them survive in this unequal battle of life where all the odds are pitted against them, where the inequities of life make their very existence on earth perilous. Deepavali is the festival of light. So, let us light up the lives of these, our hapless brethren, fast sinking in the mire of material misery with no hope of redemption from or redress of their appalling human situation. Billions will be spent now to light up the night sky and to bring colour to the hearts of all. Let us not leave these millions of our very own flesh and blood as we run a riot of colours and light in the coming days. May we all spend a little less on our own delight and give the rest to bringing succour to the lives of our poor sisters and brothers. Then, and then alone, will our Deepavali be a festival of light for it will be a festival of love as well.

Happy Deepavali to all!

Yours in the Divine Mother,
Sugata Bose.

HARMONY OF RELIGIONS

Your catholicity of writing, Bhaskar, is redolent of the universality of the message of the sages of yore who had discovered these truths in their Himalayan caves, in their forest retreats and on the banks of the great Indian rivers, the Ganga, the Sindhu and the Saraswati. 'Ekam sad vipra vahudha vadanti' (Truth is One but sages have given utterance to it variously) was the clarion call of the Vedas. 'Yo ekovarno vahudha shakti yogat' (That is of a single colour but has assumed multiplicity through the enjoining of the Primordial Power) is another great aphorism that has rolled down the ages with the waters of the Ganga and has permeated the psyche of the Indian people. These and countless other aphorisms are literally littered across the holy books of the Hindus and have impregnated the very being of the Hindu people and rendered the religion of this ancient land Bharatvarsha sublimely synthetic with its spirit tending to the oneness of all existence amidst the rich natural diversity of this phenomenal universe. This is the music of India, the marvellous melody of moods, the sublime symphony of the soul.

The Sanatan Dharma (The Eternal Religion/The Perennial Philosophy) is the vast body of spiritual laws that governs phenomena. Natural Law holds the physical universe together. In a like manner Spiritual Law holds the spiritual universe together and the Veda is the aggregate or the universal set of such spiritual laws. The Veda is not a book but the cumulative body of spiritual vibrations which associate and dissociate in varying patterns to give rise to phenomena, sustain phenomena and eventually dissolve phenomena into its potential state whence a fresh cycle of cosmic manifestation begins. And thus, the eternal play of forces goes on in manifesting space-time through cosmic cycle after cycle, beginningless, endless manifestation in alternating mode, perennial oscillation of the cosmos within limits. This is Vedic cosmology, completely in tune with the findings of modern astrophysics. And this is the vast basis of the Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) so far as its explanation of cosmic phenomena goes. Thus, the religion of the Hindus, profoundly spiritual as it is, nonetheless has a strong rational basis and is founded on the realizations of thousands of sages down the ages and not some special messenger of God whose articulations are thrust down on all to be accepted as Gospel Truth without scientific scrutiny or rational enquiry. It is heresy to challenge the message of such messiahs of men for theirs is the inviolable truth of God after all and a pious submission to it is all that goes by in the name of truth-seeking which may never be in contra-disposition to the so-called 'revealed truth' and should it be perchance so, then, which ought to be discarded into the cosmic bin whence it had arisen as so much material garbage while the 'original' or 'final revealed truth' ought to be worshipped in the sanctum sanctorum of the human heart. It is outright degrading for humanity to continue to subject itself to such baneful irrationality and to the will of an archaic personality or principle that has outlived its time. Time it is to live like 21st century people with a clear head and a compassionate heart with a rational truth-seeking mind guiding us on to higher human aspirations where a vision uncluttered by superstition and dogma is the guardian angel and not arbitrary assumptions of apostles of God and their scriptural injunctions, unverified, unalterable, inviolable, archaic and flawed conception of truth relative and absolute. And to supplant this age-old tyranny of a vast unreason that has cast a hypnotic spell over the masses and is the primary force of fanaticism that has spelled the doom of civilization, a vaster network of liberal scientific education for children must be established so that future generations may be spared the inheritance of superstition masquerading as truth and may stand in the clear sunshine of truth, reasoned, experimented and verified through instruments external and the inner eye of introspection, intuition and inspiration, never exclusive or peculiar to a particular person but common to all humanity and well-founded on reason though transcending it where relativity breaks down and thoughts and words may not reach (Avaangmanasogocharam/Yato vacho nivartantey aprapya manasa saha).

If this world has to rise, it will have to adopt scientific principles as its guiding light, liberalism of thought as its creed if there be one and investigative rationalism as the method of enquiry into truth, be they secular or spiritual. But mere external observation of phenomena, arrangement of data and arrival at scientific principles will not suffice for knowing the subtle truths of the spiritual world. Meditation, introspection, purity and charity must all go hand in hand as well for spiritual knowledge comes from the study of the mind by the mind and the culture of the heart comes from practising charity, the humble service of humanity and the world around. And all this must be founded on a spontaneous chastity of living, ever free and never forced by doctrine or dogma for purity is the basis of concentration of the mind which must focus itself on itself to reveal the truths embedded deep inside its recesses culminating in the discovery of the supreme Self of man which is his trans-organic reality irrespective of his religious affiliation or any ideological associations whatsoever. But the entire process of spiritual investigation must follow strict scientific rigour adjusted to the demands of subjective enquiry to avoid the age-old pitfalls of superstition, assertions of ignorance, consequent on 'stumbling upon truth' without adequate organic and cerebral preparation, as inviolable truth and to allow the evolution of human spiritual thinking through the rationalization process called philosophy. Only when a vast section of humanity practises this liberal scientific spiritual philosophy which may today sound like a contradiction in terms but which has been the age-old Vedantic practice in India can humanity hope to extricate itself from religious and ideological fanaticism and a harmony of forces of the human mind have its full play. Then and then alone will peace reign and all faiths co-exist complementing each other in this panoramic drama of human life.

Jai Ramakrishna, the embodiment of the harmony of religions!
Jai Vivekananda, the incarnation of the harmony of all human forces!                     

FRIEND 20 ... REF. RAMAKRISHNA 1

Stylistic representation, hyperbolic expression you see, dear friend, standard flaw of the dualistic school that falls into a literary flourish careless of balance or mathematical rigour in expounding a principle. The idea being to highlight the extraordinary role played by the divine duo of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda in countering materialism following the Avatar Principle of the Geeta that ushers in a new Age by the establishment of Dharma (Virtue/Spirituality) and the annihilation of Adharma (Vice/Irreligion), here statistical estimations have been flouted to allow for flow of the idea. This is the bane of all dualistic literature but is the way of the literary word with its onrush of imagery and affirmations that do scant justice to the essential Vedantic principle of the universality of the underlying Truth of the Self and the eternal unlost freedom of the human soul, nay, of the spirit of all that exists. But the dynamics of history and the recurrence of the downfall of civilization over and over again prompts one to pen such flights of fancy, sublime as they are though in the terrestrial emergence of a Ramakrishna-Vivekananda. I wholeheartedly appreciate your concern over, should I say, the sole cornering of glory for Ramakrishna-Vivekananda as being the saving grace for fallen humanity, a term perhaps which you may have reservations as well for. It is heartening to behold a soul so bright and perceptive as you are, dear Diptaroop, at such a young age and it fills my heart with hope for the resurgence of our beloved country and its golden message of the divinity of all.