God as Divine Mother

By Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda

God as Divine Mother Wisdom and Inspiration for Love and Acceptance By Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda

“The role of the Divine Mother is to draw all Her children, all self-aware beings everywhere, back to oneness with God.”—Paramhansa Yogananda

For many of us, the image of God we grew-up with conjures more thoughts of judgment and condemnation than of loving acceptance.

“The Mother is closer than the Father. No matter what you do, She still loves you. She won’t judge you. No matter who you are, She’s your friend. She’s on your side and will always forgive you.”

In this book, you will discover: Who is Divine Mother?; How to develop the heart’s natural love; What attitudes draw Her grace; How to tune in to Divine Mother.

Included also are over thirty poems and prayers dedicated to God in the form of Divine Mother, as well as original chants and songs by the authors. 

We long for a God who loves us exactly as we are, who doesn’t judge us but rather helps and encourages us in achieving our highest potential. In this book, discover the teachings and inspirations on Divine Mother from Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the spiritual classic Autobiorgaphy of a Yogi. These teachings are universal: No matter your religious background, or lack thereof, you will find these messages of love and acceptance resonating on a soul-level. Included also are over thirty poems and prayers dedicated to God in the form of Divine Mother, and original chants and songs by the authors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crystal Clarity Publishers
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781565895485

Paramhansa Yogananda

Born in 1893, Paramhansa Yogananda was the first yoga master of India to take up permanent residence in the West. He arrived in America in 1920 and traveled throughout the country on what he called his “spiritual campaigns.” Hundreds of thousands filled the largest halls in major cities to see the yoga master from India. Yogananda continued to lecture and write up to his passing in 1952. Yogananda’s initial impact on Western culture was truly impressive. His lasting spiritual legacy has been even greater. His Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in 1946, helped launch a spiritual revolution in the West. Translated into more than fifty languages, it remains a best-selling spiritual classic to this day. Before embarking on his mission, Yogananda received this admonition from his teacher, Swami Sri Yukteswar: “The West is high in material attainments but lacking in spiritual understanding. It is God’s will that you play a role in teaching mankind the value of balancing the material with an inner, spiritual life.” In addition to Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda’s spiritual legacy includes music, poetry, and extensive commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the Christian Bible, showing the principles of Self-realization as the unifying truth underlying all true religions. Through his teachings and his Kriya Yoga path millions of people around the world have found a new way to connect personally with God. His mission, however, was far broader than all this. It was to help usher the whole world into Dwapara Yuga, the new Age of Energy in which we live. “Someday,” Swami Kriyananda wrote, “I believe he will be seen as the avatar of Dwapara Yuga: the way shower for a new age.”

Book preview

Part One

Yogananda’s Teachings on Divine Mother

O lullaby of all soothing, rising, crashing waves, sing to me the song of my beloved Mother, Eternity.

Chapter One

WHO IS DIVINE MOTHER?

Divine Mother, I care not what I may permanently possess, but give to me the power to acquire at will whatever I may daily need.

Human Motherhood vs the Divine Mother

Hindus fondly quote the refrain from a famous poem by Shankaracharya:

Bad sons there are many,

But never has there been a bad Mother.

Considering how little this statement jibes with the evidence, since many mothers show themselves to be uncaring, indifferent, and capable of mistreating and even, occasionally, murdering their own children, it says much for Indian womanhood that Hindus can even quote this statement sentimentally. Yet I’ve never heard it quoted except with heartfelt and quite touching conviction.

It must be added, nevertheless, that Shankaracharya’s poem was not written in praise of human motherhood. He himself was nothing if not realistic; he saw human existence itself as an illusion. His poem, then, was in praise of the Divine Mother. And of Her he spoke truly: Never has there been a bad Mother.

There are many kinds of love, but love for the mother, inspired initially by the mother’s love for us, is very special.

I don’t mean to imply that the mother aspect of love stands alone, nor that it is, necessarily, the most satisfying for everyone. It is simply very special.

It is difficult even for mothers to expand to others the love they feel for their own children. It is not so difficult, however, to create an abstraction of love for one’s own mother, and refine it to such a degree that one visualizes motherly love as smiling at one from Nature herself — from every hillside, from every flower.

The Mother-Instinct

We should try always to refer present to cosmic realities. No human mother is perfect, unless indeed she has attained saintly perfection in God. All human mothers are, however, channels for the Divine Mother–consciousness. Some of them, it must be granted, are clearer channels than others. Some of them, conversely, are quite impure channels: Their selfishness muddies, or desiccates with sirocco winds of anger and hatred, the flow of pure love. It is women’s responsibility to open their hearts to the love that is implanted in them by Nature, like a seed, through the miracle of birth. This gift is an irrefragable instinct. Human beings have — unfortunately, in this case — the free will to override their own natural instincts. It helps, therefore, to study the instinctual ways of animals.

The Divine Mother is the source of the mother-instinct. We are Her own. As Yogananda prayed, "Divine Mother, naughty or good, I am Thy child. Thou must release me from this nightmare of delusion!" You can pray like that, with confidence, to the Divine Mother: scoldingly if you like; with pressing urgency if you like; demanding of Her in ways that you might not dare to address the Heavenly Father. We are Her own; She is forever ours. It is easier to establish a relation of mutual trust with the Divine Mother than with God in any other aspect.

God in Nature

All nature that we behold is the Mother aspect of God. In nature, we find beauty, gentleness, and kindness. The flowers, birds, and the beauties of nature all speak of the Mother aspect of God. When we look at all the good things in nature and feel a tenderness rise within us, we are seeing and feeling God in nature.

For the devotee, it is natural to worship God in some human aspect: as his Divine Mother, for example. The Father aspect of God represents that part which is aloof from His creation. The Mother is creation itself.

Divine Mother is so beautiful! But remember, in Her higher manifestation even that beauty is formless. She is in everything. Her divine, compassionate love is expressed in the raindrops. Her beauty is reflected in the colors of the rainbow. She offers fresh hope to mankind with the rose-tinted clouds at dawn. Above all, be ever conscious of Her presence in your heart.

Form vs Formless

Usually, human beings need some sort of human image to inspire them: the brave hero, rather than the abstraction, courage; the noble public servant, not that abstraction, service; the kindly healer, not that indefinite quality, kindness; the wise elder counselor, not the vague abstraction, wisdom; the living person who expresses joy in adversity, not simply joy-in-adversity; the serenely humble monk or nun, not the somewhat nebulous virtue, humility.

We need to think of God, too, as our own nearest and dearest, and not as the cosmic abstraction, only: Love. With this clearer focus on the Divine, we can relax into that calm acceptance which is the foundation of true devotion. God, as an even more abstract concept than Love, appeals still less instantly to the heart. We want to know that He, or She, is Love, but then we also want something we can love in more human terms.

God is your own higher Self, but it helps us to visualize Him with a form. In a very real sense God is neither father nor mother, but in another and broader sense He is both father and mother — and beloved, and friend, and anything you want Him to be. Even if all of us defined God as mother, it would still be a different image to each person. It can’t be otherwise. There may be a particular image of that infinite consciousness that everybody worships, but even so, it will mean something different to each person according to his or her training and life experiences.

It would help everyone to understand that the Mother aspect of God is not limited to a specific form, any more than God the Father has the form of an old man with a beard.

Ideal Worship Not Idol Worship

Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, In whatsoever form people worship Me, I Myself accept their offering. Such worship is not idolatry. Idolatry means worship with selfish motive instead of offering one’s self to God with expansive aspiration. To worship even a stone is not idolatrous if, through that symbol, one invokes God, and views the stone as a reminder of the Infinite Lord. To reject images outright in the name of worshiping only God is to be left with an arid heart, and a mind drifting on a dark sea, directionless, through fogs of abstraction.

Mukunda [Yogananda] worshiped God especially in the form of Mother. Westerners have scoffed at Hindus for what they consider idol worship. In reality, it is not idol worship, but ideal worship. Idol worship means to seek the things of this world: wealth, power, fame, and the like. None but the completely ignorant in India imagine that God is anything