MATRI-PUJA
C. SUBRAMANIA BHARATI
God
the Father is the Ideal. God the Mother is the actual. That I am one with Pure
Being is a spiritual realisation. That I am one with
the manifested world is an actual, everyday experience. Indeed, ultimately, the
Ideal is the same as the actual; but we, children of earth, find in the
motherhood of God a dearer relation, a sweeter rapport. Nor need we erect
shrines for her worship, nor invent symbols. She is there, standing before us;
ever-shining, ever-beautiful. She stands revealed as Nature.
In
the light of the sun, in the music of the winds, in the soft ray of the star,
and the rage of a storm, in the loves and hates, fears and hopes, dreams and
deeds of men and women, in the subtlety of a thought and the majesty of a
volcano–in these and in all things we behold the mother of our worship. The
land of one’s birth and the human mother that nourished one in her womb are
natural and concentrated symbols of this all-making Goddess. Womanhood itself
is a sublimer representation.
Our
ancestors were great apostles of this Mother-Worship. Para Shakti, supreme energy, is the name whereby they Knew her. In the dark ages of our history, this worship of
the supreme energy began to be misunderstood and misrepresented by its votaries.
Has not the same thing be done with the Veda? The wheel of time throws all
things down and again all things aloft. Mother-worship will save humanity; for
the supreme energy renders immortal all that reflects
her beauty and her fire.