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Chapter 10
CONTEMPLATION OF GOD’S MANIFESTATIONS
51. God In Human Form
7. The first and the foremost form of the Lord for us is our mother. The Veda says, ‘मातृदेवो भव ।’ (‘Let your mother be your God.’) Who but the mother does the new-born baby see first? The Lord Himself stands there as the embodiment of tenderness. We can move on from the worship of the mother to the worship of Mother India and still further to the worship of Mother Earth. But in the beginning the mother is the highest form in which the Lord appears before the child. It is quite possible to attain moksha through the worship of the mother. Worship of the mother means worship of the Lord as love incarnate; the mother is just the medium. The Lord endows her with His affection and impels her to toil for her child. The poor mother does not understand why she feels so much love and affection for the child. Does she do everything for the child with the calculation that it might be of use to her in her old age? Not at all. She undergoes labour pains while giving birth to the child. That pain makes her passionately attached to her child. That pain makes her love the child. She just cannot help loving it. The mother is the embodiment of boundless service. To worship her is the highest form of the worship of the Lord. It is as ‘Mother’ that we should address the Lord. Is there a word nobler and more exalted than this? Mother is the most prominent and the simplest manifestation of the Lord that we come across. Learn to see God in her; and then in the father and in the guru. The guru imparts knowledge to us, makes of us human beings in the true sense. How indebted are we to him! Thus, we should start with seeing God in the conspicuous forms of the mother, the father, the guru and the saints, in this order. Where else can we see Him if not there? |
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