October 17, 2016

Look Upon God as Mother


Sri Ramakrishna describes a spiritual vision: 
"The Divine Mother revealed to me in the Kāli temple that it was She who had become everything. She showed me that everything was full of Consciousness. The image was Consciousness, the altar was Consciousness, the water-vessels were Consciousness, the door-sill was Consciousness, the marble floor was Consciousness - all was Consciousness. I found everything inside the room soaked, as it were, in Bliss - the Bliss of God. I saw a wicked man in front of the Kāli temple; but in him also I saw the power of the Divine Mother vibrating. That was why I fed a cat with the food that was to be offered to the Divine Mother. I clearly perceived that all this was the Divine Mother - even the cat."

Nectar of Self Awareness

I honor the God and the Goddess,
The eternal parents of the universe.

The Lover, out of boundless love, takes the form of the Beloved.
What beauty!
Both are made of the same nectar and share the same food.

Out of Supreme Love they swallow up each other
But separate again for the joy of being two.

They are not completely the same but neither are they different.
No one can tell exactly what they are.

How intense is their longing to be with each other.
This is their greatest bliss.
Never, not even in jest,
Do they allow their unity to be disturbed.

They are so averse to separation
That even though they have become this entire world,
Never for a moment do they let a difference come between them.

Even though they see all that is animate and inanimate, arising from within themselves,
They never recognize a third.

They sit together in the same place,
Both wearing a garment of light.
From the beginning of time they have been together,
Reveling in their own Supreme Love.

They created a difference to enjoy this world.
When that "difference" had one glimpse of their intimacy
It could not help but merge back into the bliss
Of their eternal union.

Without the God, there is no Goddess,
And without the Goddess, there is no God.

How sweet is their Love!
The entire universe is too small to contain them,
Yet they live happily in the tiniest particle.

The life of one is the life of the other,
And not even a blade of grass can grow without both of them.

Only these two live in this house called the universe.
When either one is asleep
The other stays awake and plays the part of both.

Should both of them awake, the whole universe would vanish without a trace.

They became two for the sake of divine play,
But in every moment they seek to become one again...

How can we distinguish these two from each other?
He appears because of Her,
And She exists because of Him.

We cannot tell sugar from its sweetness,
Nor camphor from its fragrance.

To capture light we take hold of fire.
To capture the Supreme Shiva we must take hold of Shakti.

Light illumines the Sun,
But the Sun itself creates that light.
The glorious Sun and its light are one and the same.

An object has a reflection:
When looking we see two images, yet there is only one thing.
Likewise, this work is a reflection of the Supreme Lord.

We may see two, yet only One exists...

Shiva and Shakti are One,
Like air and the wind,
Like gold and luster.

Shiva and Shakti cannot be separated.
They are like musk and its fragrance, like fire and its heat.

In the light of the Sun there is no difference between day and night.
In the light of the Supreme Truth there is no difference between Shiva and Shakti.

Shiva and Shakti envy the Primordial Sound "OM" because they are seen as two while the sound OM is always regarded as One.

Jnanadeva says,
"I honor the union of Shiva and Shakti, who devour this world of name and form like a sweet dish.
All that remains is the One."

- by Jnanadeva from "The Inner Treasure" by Jonathan Star





SHIVA
The archetypal masculine
The Seer
Pure witness consciousness
Pure being
The One
Transcendent
The still point
Spirit
The unmanifest
The sun
Light
Nirguna Brahman
Unity
Wave
Consciousness


-----------------


SHAKTI
The archetypal feminine
The Mother
Pure embodiment
Pure becoming
The many
Immanent
The dance
Matter
The phenomenal world
The moon
Dark
Saguna Brahman
Multiplicity
Particle
Energy



By Swami Tyagananda 
at Ramakrishna Math, Chennai, India





Mother of All Things
The universe had a beginning
Called the Mother of All Things.
Once you have found the Mother
You can know her children.
Having known the children,
Hold tightly to the Mother.

Your whole life will be preserved from peril.
Open up the openings,
Multiply your affairs,
Your whole life will become a burden.

Those who see the small are called clear-headed;
Those who hold to gentleness are called strong.

Use the light.
Come home to your true nature.
Don't cause yourself injury:
This is known as seizing truth.

- Lao Tzu