CHAPTER III.
THE OMNIPOTENT MOTHER
Is God Partial? Are all men equal?
Master:—As I have already said the Personal God creates, preserves and destroys. She has made Herself manifest on the one hand as powers or phenomena leading Godward1 and on the other hand as powers or phenomena leading away from God.2 The manifestation of this Omnipotent power3 varies in varying centres of activity. In men as well as in other creatures, it varies. For variety is the law—not sameness.
Vidyâsâgar:—Am I then, sir, to believe that we come into the world with unequal endowments? Is the Lord partial to a select few?
Master:—Well, I am afraid you will have to take the facts of the universe as they stand. It is not given to man to see clearly into the ways of the Lord.
As the Omnipresent,4 He is present in and through all creatures,—in and through all things—even in the smallest of His creatures, the ant for instance. Yes, God is immanent in all His creatures. But the fact remains, that these creatures do vary in their endowments and powers.
If it were not the case, how could one man often be a match for ten and beat them single-handed? We all know how another will flee from the face of a single individual who is more than his match.
1 Vidyâ Sakti.
2 Avidyâ Sakti.
3 Sakti.
4 Vibhu.
As in the physical, so in the moral world. So, too, in the spiritual. Morality varies. And there are diffierent degrees of spirituality.
Allow me to put it to you, why is it that you enjoy the respect of all so much more than others? Surely you do not mean to say that you are a phenomenon, that you have a couple of horns standing out from the front of your head and that, therefore, people come to see you! (Laughter.)
No. Variety is the law and my Divine Mother is that One Being who is manifest as many. Herself of Infinite Power She has differentiated Herself into living creatures,1 and all other beings2 of this universe with all their varying powers and endowments—physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual.
And this my Divine Mother is no other than the Absolute, the Brahman of the Vedanta.
And the Master sang:—
PSALM
My Divine Mother: Omnipotent, Unknown, Unknowable.
1. Lives there one who knows Kali, my Divine Mother, She who is the Consort of the Absolute3, the Spirit of Eternity. Even the Six Schools of Philosophy cannot get a sight of Her.
The Yogi always meditates upon Her at the Muladhara* and at the Sahasrara†.
* The Muladhâra is the first lotus with four petals in which the yogi meditates upon Siva and Sakti (God Impersonal and Personal) as manifest in their glory. It is the root of the Sushumnâ in the spinal cord.
† Sahasrâra is the lotus with a thousand petals which is the goal of Sakti waked up by the Yogi at the Mulâdhâra. When the Sakti reaches the Sahasrâra and gets united to Siva or Brahman, the Impersonal God, the result is Samâdhi in Brahma-jnâna.
1 Jiva,
2 Jagat.
3 Kâla.
There go about a Goose and a Gander in this lotus wilderness and these are mated with each other. Verily they are the Spirit of Eternity1 and His Consort.
2. My Divine Mother is the most beloved of the Absolute,2 even as Sita is the most beloved of Rama.
It is the Spirit of Eternity3 (the Absolute) only who knows the greatness of My Divine Mother—greatness which is hidden from ordinary beings. Who else can know so well as He.
3. My Divine Mother gives birth to the Universe—now think of Her greatness!
She appears in Her majesty in each finite being4 as an individual just as she pleases. She has her own way5 in everything.
4. Says Prasad, the Psalmist: To think that a man can know Her is to think that one can swim across the Great Mighty Ocean. People will only laugh at the idea!
I understand this well enough by the mind but alas! my heart6 will not see this. It is a dwarf that must aspire to reach the Moon.
The Master in Samadhi: Revelations in Samadhi.
At the end of this hymn the Master is seen to be once more in the Indescribable Region of Samadhi. The sweet angelic voice is still. The outer-eyes are fixed and steadfast. The inner eye looks within and beholds the Vision of Glory. This Blessed Vision the Master enjoys for a while. His face shines with a heavenly lustre and at last breaks into smiles.
Half returning to the plane of consciousness, he says, Yes, my Holy Mother is none other than the Absolute*. She it is to whom the six systems of Philosophy with all their learned disquisitions furnish no clue.
1 Siva or Brahma.
2 Siva.
3 Mahâkâla.
4 Ghata.
5 Ichhâmai.
6 Prâna.
* Brahman of the Vedanta: Atmani Chaibam Vichitras chahi:—Brahma Sutras, 28 i, ii.
The Omnipotent Mother.
When the differentiated ego is taken away by my Mother, there comes the realization of the Impersonal in Samadhi, and then it is the Impersonal God, not the individual soul, that realizes the Impersonal. When the ego is purified and so retained, the seeing or realization of the Personal God or any of Her manifestations is possible by Her Grace—manifestations such as Sree Krishna, Chaitanya Deva and other Divine Incarnations; or as men, women, children, all living creatures; nay, all the twenty-four categories.
It pleases my Mother, the Personal God, to efface the self in self-less1 Samadhi. The result is the realization of the Impersonal God in Samadhi.
Sometimes it pleases Her to keep that self on in Her devotees and then to appear before them as the Personal God, and talk with them.
Revelation versus Reason: The Personal God how proved: The Impersonal God how proved.
The key to the realization of the Absolute is with the Divine Person alone, the Saguna Brahma of the Upanishads, the Personal God of devotees. That power of discrimination2 which the philosopher relies on comes from Her, my Divine Mother, the Personal God.
Prayer, meditation, devotion, self-surrender, are all likewise derived from my Omnipotent Mother.
Again, the sage in Samadhi is sometimes kept on in that state and sometimes not. Who keeps him on in that blessed state? Who brings him down to the lower plane of sense-consciousness? Why, it is the Divine Person, my Holy Mother.
1 Nirvikalpa.
2 Vichâra.
Such a Person cannot be unreal. She is the Personal side of the one Reality, the Absolute (Brahma of the Vedanta). Yes, my Mother Herself has declared to Her children, 'I am'; 'I am the Mother of the Universe', 'I am the Brahma of the Vedanta', 'I am the Atman of the Upanishads.'
Thus the Personal God reveals Herself. That Revelation is the proof of Her existence.
Again, the Impersonal, Undifferentiated God, the Absolute, is revealed by the Personal God, that is, the Personal side of God the Absolute1. The Saint in Samadhi cannot say anything about the Absolute. Like the salt-doll, getting in touch with the Mighty Ocean, he is lost! Nor can he, coming down from Samadhi, say anything about the Absolute. Once differentiated, he is mute as to the Undifferentiated. Once in the relative world his mouth is shut as to the Absolute and Unconditioned.
My Mother (the Personal side of the Absolute) says 'I am the Absolute, (the Nirguna Brahma of the Upanishads).'
Thus too Revelation is the only proof of the Impersonal God.
However one may describe the Absolute or the Impersonal, one must throw one's differentiated ego into the description. His Absolute is covered, so to speak, by this ego.
1 Mahâkâla.
Surely with our feeble powers of ratiocination and discrimination1 we cannot reach the Absolute. Hence, Revelation not ratiocination! Inspiration not reason.
Spiritual Forms of the Deity.
The manifestation of the Personal God is often a Spiritual Form which is seen only by the purified human soul. In other words, these Forms are realised by the organs of Spiritual Vision, belonging to that Spiritual Body2 which is derived from the Lord.
Not every one, but only the Perfect Man can see these Divine Forms through the grace of my Mother.
The Path of Knowledge or Philosophy and the Path of Devotion or Love equally lead to Realisation.
Once Ramachandra (God Incarnate) said to his great devotee3, 'My son, tell me in what relation thou regardest me, and how thou meditatest upon me.' The devotee replied, 'O Rama, at times when the conviction4, I am the body, clingeth to me, I worship Thee as the one Undivided5 God; then I look upon myself as part6 of Thee—a fragment, as it were, of Divinity! At other times I meditate upon Thee as my Divine Master, and think myself as Thy servant. When, however, I am blessed, O Rama, with Knowledge7 of God the Absolute, I see, I realise, that I am Thou and Thou art me.'
1 Vichâra.
2 Bhâgavatî Tanu.
3 Hanumân.
4 Dehâtma-buddhi.
5 Pûrna.
6 Amsa.
7 Tatwa-jnâna.
The devotee meant that after Samadhi his 'I' was merged or lost in Rama; by which he meant the Undifferentiated Ego, God the Absolute and Unconditioned. This is Brahmajnana.
Water to Ice and Ice to Water.
Again, suppose there is an Infinite Expanse of Water—water above, water beneath, water in all directions. Portions of this water we may imagine get changed into ice by contact with cold. Again, the same ice may be exposed to heat, and thus get liquefied. It has become water once more.
The Absolute is the Infinite Expanse of Water. The portions of this water that are changed into ice are the Spiritual Personal Forms of the Deity manifest to devotees. The cold is the Bhakti of the devotee, his love, his devotion, his self-surrender. The heat again is his discrimination between the Real (that is, God the Absolute) and the Unreal or Phenomenal universe, leading up to self-less1 Samadhi and the total effacement of that self which says 'I,' 'I.'
To a devotee (dualistic worshipper) the Lord may manifest Himself in various Forms. To one who has reached by my Mother's will, to the height of Absolute Knowledge in Samadhi, He is the Absolute once more, Formless, Unconditioned.
Herein lies the reconciliation between Realisation by Philosophy2 and that by Love.3
1 Nirvikalpa.
2 Jnâna.
3 Bhakti.
What is the external world? Identity of God, the Soul and Nature.
To him unto whom it has been given to realise the Impersonal-Personal God, it has been revealed that the twenty-four categories* (taking in the external world) have all been evolved from the Mother.
Be it known that the Holy Mother is both One and Many and the Absolute beyond One and Many. She has not only differentiated into the ego within man but also into the various other categories.
The New Philosophy.
The Advaitist's position, that Brahman is God, the Absolute and Unconditioned, must be accepted in its entirety; because, first, Brahman has been realised in Samadhi; and secondly, because Brahman has been revealed by my Mother as the Unconditioned that may be realised in Samadhi alone, and as being the Impersonal side of Her own Self. Let not any one, however, say, 'My position is the only correct, rational, and tenable position; those that believe in a Personal God are wrong. The Personal God is a myth. The Personal God has no power to give liberation1, etc.'
I Mukti.
* The five gross elements, the five subtle elements, the five external instruments, viz., the eyes, &c., the five organs of sense, the mind, the determinative faculty (buddhi) and the ego.
The Problem for the Philosophical Advaitist:—How can the Perfect Soul be led to think that it is imperfect?
The philosophical Advaitist, so long as he relies on the unaided powers of his reason, answers this question by saying, 'I do not know how this delusion, namely, the fact of the Undifferentiated Ego1 being differentiated into the individual soul has come about.
The answer which realisation gives is conclusive. My Mother (the Personal side of God, the Absolute) says: 'It is I, the Brahman of the Vedanta, who have caused this differentiation.' So long as you say 'I know' or 'I do not know,' you look upon yourself as a person. Being a person, you must take these differentiations as facts—not delusions.
My Divine Mother says again, 'It is only when I efface all personality that the Undifferentiated (my Impersonal aspect) may be realised in Samadhi.' And then it is all silence about delusion or no delusion, fact or no fact, knowing or not knowing. This is Knowledge2 of the Absolute.