Hindu Women > Spirituality > Featured Article : What is the Importance of the Divine Mother?

[From "Hinduism" By Dr. David Frawley] In predominant Western religions the Divine is worshiped as Father but not as Mother. This heavenly Father is often portrayed as a stern, angry or jealous God, a strict judge and giver of punishment to those of his children who violate his seemingly arbitrary laws. Protestant Christianity and Islam have banished the Divine Mother from their religions. Catholic and Greek Orthodox Christianity have accepted the feminine as the mother of Jesus, not as God in her own right, though it appears that devotion to the Madonna has been the strongest living mystical force within Christianity. Sanatana Dharma as a universal tradition recognizes the importance of the Divine Mother. According to Hinduism the deepest relationship that we can have with God is that of the Mother. No human relationship is closer than that of the mother and child. It best mirrors our relationship with God. India itself is looked upon as the Mother. The Hindu religion itself is regarded as a mother and its teachings are her milk. In the modern world wherein we are recognizing the equality of the sexes we can no longer reject the feminine aspect of Divinity. The rejection of the feminine aspect of the Divine - which includes loving kindness, tolerance and caring nurturence - has led to much of the religious animosity and holy wars which have devastated humanity over the last two thousand years. What religion has aggressively promoted a belief in the Divine Mother? What form of religious fundamentalism or exclusivism has ever been made in the name of the Goddess? Who could ever kill people in the name of a God named Mother? What Mother would condemn her own children as sinners, however much they may have fallen? Who could say: "Believe in the Divine Mother or you must go to hell?" Not surprisingly Hinduism, the world's major religion that has honored the Goddess, has seldom promoted religious hostility, and has never created such ideas as eternal damnation. The female is the form aspect of the Divine. Woman represents the Divine embodied. Her worship requires the creation of appropriate forms in which to revere her. We must once again create images of the Divine Mother to allow her healing grace, which is essential for world peace, to descend. Without acknowledging the forms of the Divine Mother our religions must be imbalanced and lead to various excesses in human behavior.

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Published on: 2003-06-13 (12471 reads)