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Mother's Love
No matter how far away from home her children wander or every stray, a mother's love and blessing for them remain unaffected. How extraordinary is mother's love! There is no limit to it. Her love knows no "thus far and no further". She overlooks everything that is wrong with her child. Mother is mother, none can find her peer. Mother's love stands alone, above all others. Her love does not depend upon any condition. You will find "mother" everywhere the same all over the world. Her children may be indifferent to her, even forsake her - and there are ungrateful children in the world - but her love stands on its own bottom, never abating on any account. The whole world is full of praise for the "mother" and quite rightly. It is only now that I realize the significance of the saying that but for mother there would never have been any spirit, any dynamism, activity, energy, joy or interest in life.
The sweetness of feeling - sweeter that honey itself - that gushes out from her heart wipes off hardness, wickedness and dryness wherever they exist, and replaces them with tenderness, love, and sympathy. Mother transforms indolence into zest, hatred into love, cruelty into kindness, differentiation into unity, and dislikes into likes. Mother passes her hand, saturated with the ambrosia emanating from her heart, again and again over the body of her offspring and keeps them full of joy and vivacity.
Mother does get angry at times with her child, but the spirit behind it is only her desire for the child's welfare. In order to create bhaava (noble sentiment) Mother (the author refers hence forth to Mother Divine) has to make the three gunas (sattwa, rajas, and tamas) play among themselves. Mother becomes the Creator inorder to maintain continuity in life. How wonderful is Mother's lila (sport) in her creating of the (earthly) mother! But that is her creation of only a gross physical body. There is also another abstruse objective in her power of creation. It is to bring out in full bloom the seed of the Oversoul lying hidden in every soul.
When the proper time of their fitness arrives, children must, for the sake of their spiritual progress, give up their fondness for the mother who gave them birth. Without that renunciation it is difficult to gain the darshan (vision) of Mother Divine.
We may not be able to realize that every individual is but the outer visible expression of Mother Divine hidden behind human form. But by repeatedly ruminating over Mother's divine power and her divine animating spirit, and by thus becoming attuned with her and then absorbed in her. We can become not merely luke-warm but full-blown devotees. And then how immeasurable our joy in playing dexterous games with her will be!
Joy of Mother's Lap
The joy one feels in lying down with one's head on mother's lap is indescribable and unique. Even now (after Self-realization) I run to her from distance and cry out, "Dear Mamma, O ma!" AT that short single word, "Ma," such intense love overflows my heart that sometimes I actually embrace you, dear Mamma! "As it is now, so was it before."
In early morning (during my sadhana period) when I returned home from my nightly stay in some quiet far-off place, I revelled in te supreme joy of lying down by your side; I found an increase in the warmth of my love then. On your part, you abused me right and left. You would burst out, " You rogue! You rascal! Idiot! Fool! Have some sense. You are now a giant. Are you a baby that you hug me like that?" But all her volley of reviling fell that upon me. Mother might not have liked it, but I would cling to her all the more closely, lock her up in my embrace despite her increasingly furious protests.*
*The above paragraph refers to Pujya Sri Mota's natural mother.
The Purpose Behind
We certainly must roll in the luxurious joy of our love for our mother, but only in order to raise our life to a higher state, Mother (Divine) is ethereal joy personified. She makes us full of bliss, but she is also Fury herself, monstrosity incarnate. All the same, if we, by deep love and devotion, concretise before our vision, the Divine Mother's spirit, we will be able to take long strides in our spiritual progress that we never could by our personal Herculean efforts. When we become endowed with the Mother's power, it gives us a spring-board that carries us to a very exalted spiritual state. That Mother is an actual living entity, no fancy, no make-believe, but a dead certain fact. We can see the truth of Mother's real existence by intensely loving our earthly mother, thus increasing our spirit of love for Mother (Divine).
After 1939, i.e. after going beyond some specific states of spiritual life and entering a definite state in the evolution of my life, I gained, by Mother's grace, the knowledge and awareness of what Mother really is and how infinitely great she is. Mother is Mother. She stands alone in glory and greatness. But Mother's spirit does not work on its own initiative. She responds to you relative to your attitude towards her and confirms and increases the sincerity of that attitude.
Tangible Presence of Mother
By her own independent will Mother does help us. But that she deigns to do when, by our deep love and devotion, our separateness from her is wiped away, our individuality completely dissolved in her.
Mother's identity is substantial, neither illusory nor a frail vision due to a temporary upsurge of emotion. Mother is as real and always present as is this sporting, moving rotating earth. In order to get her help, we must surrender ourselves to our earthly mother and satisfy her by our deep love for her. That satisfaction must be given to our mother with the conscious desire of gaining intense love for the Divine Mother. Then our (earthly) mother's responding love for us will keep our yearning for spiritual progress not insipid, dry, and hard, but tender and saturated with devotion for Mother Divine. This has been my personal experience.