The Motherhood of God

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Introduction

The first word the baby utter is 'Ma' or 'Amma' which means mother. The baby invokes the mother as it were. Instinctively it realizes that from the mother it has come, by the mother it is nourished, with the mother it grows and by the mother it is protected in every way. To the baby the mother is all-in-all.

Our case is the same with God. We are the children of God. From God we have come, by God are we sustained, with God-consciousness we evolve, and in God we finally merge. God is our all-in-all.

We can thus see that 'Mother' is the most appropriate symbol for God. No doubt, in many religions God is looked upon as the Father. He is the Judge of dispenses rewards and punishments. He is Almighty, His power id supreme. He is therefore to be approached with fear. But the Indian tradition has a more intimate approach. By considering God as mother we feel much closer to the Divine. Certainly God is beyond sex. The Ultimate is neither He nor She. But our finite minds for a God who is a person. The Impersonal is difficult to contemplate. It is only with a Personal God that we can commune. And it is easier to commune with the mother than with the father. Before God, the Father, we quake in fear; before God, the Mother, we melt in love.

The Motherhood of God, therefore, opens up a delightful path for the sincere devotee to pursue, a very sublime one. Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda, each one of them, illustrates, in his or her own way, the Divine Motherhood in action. In their doings and sayings we have a live television of God, the Mother, revealing to us the joy of the Life Divine.

This volume is a compilation of seven essays contributed by Swami Brahmeshananda of our Order at different times to periodicals like the Prabuddha Bharata, the Vedanta Kesari and the Samvit. He has taken great pains to glean from the vast literature about the Trinity facts that convincingly bring out the motherly love and boundless compassion that characterized their holy lives. Sri Ramakrishna talked and joked with the Divine Mother, so did Swamiji undertake his own famous mission empowered by Her and Sri Sarada Devi was the embodiment of the Divine Mother Herself though under a deceptive garb. The book devotes one chapter each to Sri Ramakrishna and to Swamiji and four chapters to the Holy Mother. The last chapter, Three-in-one, reveals how all these three are one in radiating that infinite love which certainly God, the Mother Divine is.