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. |
