The
World Mother
As Symbol and Fact
BY
C. W. Leadbeater
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE
ADYAR, MADRAS 600020, INDIA
First Edition 1928
IT will be best for me to begin with a definite statement as to what I
personally know with regard to the World-Mother, dealing with the facts as they
are, and with the way in which they concern us and the work which we have to do
– leaving aside for the time all the myths which have gathered around Her.
The World-Mother, then, is a mighty Being who is at the head of a great
department of the organization and government of the world. She is in truth a
mighty Angel, having under Her a vast host of subordinate Angels, whom She keeps
perpetually employed in the work which is especially committed to Her. That work
has so many and such wonderful ramifications that it is not easy to give even
the most general idea of it in a few sentences. Let it suffice for the moment to
say that in a very real sense all the women of the world are
[Page1]
under Her charge, and most especially so at the time of their greatest
trial, when they are exercising the supreme function given to them by God, and
thus becoming mothers in very deed.
Many stories are told, more especially among the peasantry, of women who have
seen the World-Mother standing beside them in those terrible hours, and many who
have not been privileged to see have yet felt the help and the strength which
She outpours. Why should it be the peasants who see, and not the more
intellectual people? Just because those who have intellectual development have
so often thrown themselves into that part of their consciousness that they have
largely lost the impressionability of the others, who live closer to Nature.
Nevertheless, sometimes those more developed people see also. I was myself told
by a member of the English nobility that under similar circumstances she saw
standing beside her bed a great Angel, who marvellously poured a kind of
unconsciousness into her, a dulling of the pain at certain times.
This is perhaps Her greatest and most impressive function; but She has yet
another [2]
which brings Her into the very closest connection with humanity, for She has
made it a part of Her work to try to mitigate the suffering of the world, to act
as the Consoler, the Comforter, the Helper of all who are in trouble, sorrow,
need, sickness or any other adversity. To those to whom this train of ideas is
unfamiliar I would recommend the perusal of a touching story entitled "Consolatrix
Afllictorum" in Monsignor R. H. Benson's book The Light Invisible, and
also a little volume, The Call of the Mother, by the Lady Emily Lutyens.
All students of Theosophy are aware of the existence of the mighty and glorious
Hierarchy which is the inner and spiritual Government of the world. One who
wishes to understand something of the organization of this Government would do
well to consult a very clear and useful diagram which appears in Mr. C.
Jinarajadasa's First Principles of Theosophy (Fig. 118). From that
diagram we see that while the Spiritual King, the Lord of the World, stands
supreme above all, and the Lord Buddha stands next to Him as the spiritual Head
of the Second Ray, the other five Rays [3]
(though each is directed by its own special Ruler or Chohan) are all
under the management of a high Official called the Mahachohan. We see then that
the Lord Vaivasvata Manu, the Lord Maitreya Bodhisattva and our Lord the
Mahachohan stand at a certain definite level as the representatives, as far as
work on these lower planes is concerned, of the Three Aspects of the Solar
Logos; and we know of no other Great Ones who stand at this level except some
who, having held high office in the past, are now working elsewhere.
The grades of the Hierarchy being thus clearly laid down, and the arrangement of
the different rays and their Leaders or Chohans tabulated, it will at once be
seen that the work of the World-Mother could not be entered upon such a list,
for the work does not belong to anyone Ray, but deals in a protective way with
women-folk on all Rays. Furthermore, the list there given to us indicates the
lines of activity of what we may call the human part of the Hierarchy only. But
it will be remembered that the Lord Maitreya is the Teacher of Angels as well as
of men, and just in the same way the great Lord of the World is the
[4] Spiritual
King not only of the human evolution, but also of the Angelic kingdom on this
planet as well. We know that there is an Angelic side of the Hierarchy, but we
have not as yet any information which would enable us to compile a similar table
for that.
We know that just as Adepts have divided the world into parishes, so that all
nations have some sort of Adept guidance, so also has each nation its presiding
Deva or Angel. We know furthermore that the Angels take a very great part in the
direction of evolution – that they also preside over certain districts, and that
there is an elaborate scheme of lesser and greater Devas, coming down even to
the local spirit who acts as guardian to a wood, a valley, a lake. But our
knowledge along all these lines is limited and fragmentary, and the political
geography of the world from the point of view of the Angelic Hosts has yet to be
written. It is probably rash therefore to attempt any comparison between
highly-advanced people of two evolutions; but I think we shall not be far wrong
if we regard the World-Mother, Our Lady of Light, as being
[5] of equal dignity with the Chohans who are
Heads of the Rays.
I am afraid that in most English-speaking countries the principal difficulty
that we shall find in our way in endeavouring to explain the office and work of
the World-Mother will be the extraordinarily bitter and unreasoning prejudice of
the average Protestant against the Catholic doctrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
We shall inevitably be accused of trying to introduce Mariolatry, of secretly
attempting to influence our readers in the direction of the teaching of the
Roman Church; for there is a vast amount of misconception connected with this
subject. The Roman and Greek Churches hold the name of the Blessed Virgin in
deep reverence, although many of their members know little of the real meaning
of the beautiful and poetic symbolism connected with that name. The Church of
England has curtailed somewhat the reverence paid to Her, while those Christians
who do not belong to her communion usually remark that it is idolatrous to
worship a woman – an attitude of mind which is merely the result of narrowness
and ignorance. [6]
If we want really to understand the truth in these matters, we must begin by
freeing our minds altogether from prejudice; and the first point to realize is
that no one ever has worshipped a woman (or a man either) in the sense in
which the rabid Protestant means the word. He is incapable of comprehending – he
does not want to comprehend – the Catholic attitude towards Our Lady or the
saints. We who are Theosophical students, however, must adopt a fairer position
than that, and try to discover what the Catholic position really is before we
condemn it. Let us quote from The Catholic Encyclopedia (article
"Worship") what may be taken as an approved and authoritative statement of the
Roman view on the subject:
There are several degrees of worship; if it is addressed directly to God, it is
superior, absolute, supreme worship, or worship of adoration, or, according to
the consecrated theological term, a worship of latria.*
[* This word is an amphibrach. Accentuate the second syllable pronouncing it
exactly like the English word "try".] This sovereign worship is due to
God alone; addressed to a creature, it would become idolatry.
When worship is addressed only indirectly to God – that is, when its object is
the veneration of martyrs, of angels, or of saints, it is a subordinate worship,
dependent on the first, and relative, in so far as it honours the creatures of
God for their [7]
peculiar relations with Him. It is designated by theologians as the
worship of dulia,*
[* Again an amphibrach. Accentuate the second syllable, pronouncing it like the
English "lie". The first syllable is pronounced like the English word "do".]
a term denoting servitude, and implying, when used to signify Our
worship of distinguished servants of God, that their service to Him is their
title to our veneration.
As the Blessed Virgin has a separate and absolutely super-eminent rank among the
saints, the worship paid to her is called hyperdulia.
That seems to me to make the whole matter admirably clear, and to present a
correct and defensible attitude. Much confusion has arisen from the translation
of those three Greek words, with their delicate shades of meaning, by the one
English word "worship". I think that this mistake, coupled with the blank
ignorance of most people of the niceties of theological distinctions, and their
fatal readiness to believe ill of those from whom they differ, has been
responsible for much of the misunderstanding and the consequent hatred. I
suggest that among ourselves and in our literature we make the distinction
clearly by translating only latreia*
[* Here the true Greek spelling is given; the
Encyclopedia uses the medieval Latin.] as worship; douleia*
[* Here the true Greek spelling is given; the
Encyclopedia uses the medieval Latin.] might be rendered as
reverence or [8]
veneration, and hyperdouleia*
[* Here the true Greek spelling is given; the
Encyclopedia uses the medieval Latin.] as deep reverence. But the
point for us to bear in mind is that no instructed person has ever, anywhere or
at any time, confused such reverence as may duly and properly be offered to all
great and holy beings with that higher worship which may be given to God alone.
Let there be no mistake about that fact.
Much nonsense has been talked about idolatry, chiefly by people who are too
anxious to force their own beliefs upon others to have either time or
inclination to try to understand the point of view of wiser and more tolerant
thinkers. If they knew enough of etymology to be aware that the word idol means
an image or representation, they might perhaps ask themselves of what this thing
is an image, and whether it is not that reality behind which these much-maligned
savages are worshipping, instead of the wood and stone about which missionaries
prate so glibly.
The image, the picture, the cross, the lingam of the Saivite, the sacred
book of the Sikh – all these things are symbols; not in
[9] themselves
objects of worship, but reverenced by those who understand, precisely because
they are intended to remind us of some aspect of God, and to turn our thoughts
to Him. In India these aspects are called by many different names, and the
missionary makes haste to revile the Hindu as a polytheist; yet the coolie who
works in his garden could tell him that there is but one God, and that all these
are but aspects of Him, lines of approach to Him, divided and materialized in
order to bring infinity a little nearer to the grasp of out very finite minds.
There is great need for charity and understanding, for a kindly and sympathetic
attitude towards those who are travelling along another road to the feet of the
God in whom all alike believe – the loving Father of whom the Christ tells us,
the one true God who said through another of His manifestations: "All true
worship comes to Me, through whatsoever name it may be offered"; and again: "By
whatsoever path men approach Me, along that path do I meet them; for the paths
by which men come from every side are Mine." [10]
There is nothing but God; and for whomsoever we feel reverence, adoration, love,
it is to the God manifesting through him (however partially) that that
reverence, adoration or love is offered. "Many sheep I have which are not of
this fold; them also will I bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall
be one fold, and one shepherd."
Having thus endeavoured to rise above the miasma of ignorance and bigotry into
the purer air of justice and comprehension, let us in that spirit approach the
consideration of the beautiful and wonderful manifestation of the divine power
and love which is enshrined within the name of the World-Mother.
I do not think that anyone with our Western education finds it easy to
understand the wealth of symbolism which is used in Oriental religions; and
people forget that Christianity is an Oriental religion, just as much as
Buddhism, Hinduism or Zoroastrianism. The Christ took a Jewish body – an
Oriental body; and those to whom He spoke had the Oriental methods of thought,
and not ours at all. They have a wonderful and most elaborate method of
symbolism in all these religions, and they [11]
take great delight in their symbols; they weave them in and out and
combine, them, and treat them lovingly in poetry and in art. But our tendency is
towards what we call practicality, and we are apt to materialize all these
ideas, and often greatly degrade them in consequence.
Let us never forget that our religion comes from the East, and that if we want
to understand it, we must look at it first of all as an Oriental would look at
it, and not apply our modern scientific theories until we are able to see how
they fit in. They can be made to fit in, but unless we know how, we are likely
to make shipwreck of the whole thing, and we run a serious risk of assuming that
the people who hold the allegory know nothing whatever, and are hopelessly
wrong. They are not wrong at all. Those beautiful old myths convey the meaning,
without necessarily putting the cold scientific facts before those who have not
developed their minds sufficiently to grasp them in that form. That was well
understood in the early Church.
There is always much more behind these quaint and poetical thoughts of the men
of old [12]
than most people believe. It is foolish to be filled with ignorant prejudice; it
is better by far to try to understand. Whatever in religion anywhere has been
artistic and helpful to man has always behind it a real truth. It is for us to
disinter that truth; it is for us to clear away the crust of the ages and to let
the truth shine forth.
That is true with regard to the beautiful Christian glyph of the Blessed Virgin
Mary. There are three distinct ideas involved in the ordinary thought of Her:
1. The story of the mother of the disciple Jesus; what She was and what She
afterwards became.
2. The sea of virgin matter, the Great Deep, the water over the face of which
the Spirit of God moved.
3. The feminine Aspect of the Deity.
These ideas have in the course of centuries been confused, degraded,
materialized, until in the form in which the story is now presented, it has
become impossible for any thinking man. But that is not so if we analyze it and
understand its real meaning, if we separate the myth and the symbol from the
chronicle of the living person. [13]
The Roman Church teaches her children of the Virgin Birth of Jesus and of the
Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Herself from Her mother St. Anne. The first
of these events is contrary to the laws of Nature (which are the laws of God,
the expression of His will) and therefore cannot possibly have happened. The
second is, I think, usually supposed (by those at least who have not made a
special study of theology) to mean that Our Lady was conceived, like Her divine
Son, by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost; but on referring to authorized
Roman Catholic publications I see that this is not so, for the teaching is that
She was conceived in the ordinary manner, like the rest of mankind, Her parents
being St. Joachim and St. Anne. It is explained that the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception means only that the mythical primal curse of what they
call original sin (supposed to have been inherited from Adam) was not imposed by
God upon the embryo of Our Lady.
I wish to be absolutely fair in my statement of this remarkable doctrine; but I
must admit that it seems to me an unnecessary and even fantastic theological
invention. I have never [14]
found the slightest historical evidence for the grotesque story of Adam
and Eve and the apple; and I believe that the whole theory of original sin is
simply a clumsy way of stating the fact that man brings over with him from his
previous birth a certain amount of karma. If one tries to interpret it along
that line, perhaps this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception might be taken as
amounting to a statement that Our Lady had already worked out all evil karma and
consequently entered upon Her life in Palestine practically karma-less. On that
subject I have no information.
To present these ideas as actual occurrences in the life of a Jewish lady is an
error; they could not have been so, therefore they were not so. But if we
understand them as symbols of a certain stage in the process of creation, of the
evolution of a solar system, they fall quite naturally into place, and are seen
to be beautiful and significant. Divested of them, the life-story is coherent
and credible.
The same Church represents the Festival of the Assumption as commemorating the
carrying up of a physical body into the heaven-world – once more a manifest
impossibility; [15]
but when we realize that this is but a poetic description of the entry of
a triumphant Adept into the Angelic kingdom, we see at once the appropriateness
of much that has been written about it, and of the wonderful paintings which it
has inspired.
Let us then first of all consider the last physical life of Our Lady of Light,
and the consequences which followed it and led up later on to Her acceptance of
the Office which She at present holds.
THE MOTHER OF JESUS
It must be understood that the disciple Jesus was born precisely as other men
are born. This strange doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, an attempt to
explain which we have just made, the story of the overshadowing of the Blessed
Virgin by the Holy Ghost, and of the Virgin Birth – all that group of ideas
refers to the myth, to the symbol; it has a real meaning and a beautiful
interpretation, as I shall presently try to show, but it is not concerned with
the physical body of the disciple Jesus. The mother of that physical
[16] body was
a Jewish lady of noble birth, but, if tradition is to be believed, of no great
wealth. We need not think of Joseph (who, remember, was also of the seed of
David) as a carpenter, because that is part of the symbolism, and not of the
history. In that symbolism Joseph is the guardian of the Blessed Virgin – of the
soul in man. He represents the mind; and because the mind is not the creator of
the soul, but only its furnisher and its decorator, Joseph is not a mason, like
the Great Architect of the Universe, but a carpenter. We need not think of Our
Lord as working in a carpenter's shop; that is simply an instance of the
confusion and materialization introduced by those who do not understand the
symbolism.
The mother of Jesus, then, was a noble-woman of Judaea, a descendant of the
royal house of David. Truly She who was chosen for so high an honour must have
been pure and true and of flawless character – a great saint; for none but such
could have given birth to so pure, so wonderful, so glorious a body. A saintly
and a godly life She led; one of terrible suffering (which She bore with
marvellous patience and nobility of soul) yet with
[17] wondrous consolations. We know but
little of its details; we glimpse it only occasionally in the scant contemporary
narrative; but it was a life which it will do us good to imagine to ourselves,
an example for which we may well thank God. It carried Her far along the upward
path – far enough to make possible a curious and beautiful later development,
which I must now explain.
Students of the inner life know that when man has reached the end of the purely
human part of his evolution – when the next step will lift him into the
superhuman condition of the Adept – into a kingdom as definitely above humanity
as man is above the animal kingdom –
When he has wrought the purpose through
Of that which made him man –
several lines of growth lie open before him, and it is left to him to choose
which he will take. Occasionally, too, there are conditions under which this
choice may be to some extent anticipated. This is not the place to discuss the
alternative; let it suffice here to say that one of the possibilities is to
become a great [18]
Angel or messenger of God – to join the Deva evolution, as an Indian
would put it. And this was the line which the Lady Mary chose, when She reached
the level at which human birth was no longer necessary for Her.
Vast numbers of Angels have never been human because their evolution has come
along another line, but there are Angels who have been men, who at a certain
stage of this development have chosen to follow the Angel line; and a very
glorious, magnificent and helpful line it is. So She, who, two thousand years
ago, bore the body of Jesus in order that it might later on be taken by the
Christ, is now a mighty Spirit.
Much beautiful enthusiasm and devotion has all through the centuries been poured
out at Her feet; thousands upon thousands of monks and nuns, thousands upon
thousands of suffering men and women, have come before Her and poured out their
sorrows, and have prayed to Her that She in turn would present their petition to
Her Son. This last prayer is a misconception, because He who is the Eternal Son
of God and at the same the Christ within everyone of us, needs none to
[19] intercede
with Him for us. He knows before we speak far better than we what is best for
us. We are in Him, and through Him were we made, and without Him was not
anything made which was made, neither we nor the smallest speck of dust in all
the universe. "Closer is He than breathing, nearer than hands and feet."
One does not pray to great Angels for intercession if one understands, because
one knows that He, in whom all Angels live and move and have their being, is
already doing for every one of us very best that can be done. But just as one
may ask help from a human friend in the flesh – as, for example, one may ask of
him the encouragement of his thought – so may one ask aid from the same human
friend when he has cast aside his robe of flesh; and in the same way one may ask
the same kind of help from these great Spirits at their higher level.
There is nothing unreasonable or unscientific in this. I myself have often had
letters from people who know that I have studied these matters, telling me that
at such-and-such a time they would be going through some
[20]
difficulty – a surgical operation perhaps, or some other specially trying
experience – and asking me to think of them at that moment, and to send them
helpful thought. Naturally I always do it. And as I know there can be no effect
without a cause, and in exactly the same way there can be no due cause which
does not produce its effect, I know that if I (or if any of you) take the
trouble to fix our thought upon anyone in sorrow or difficulty, and try to send
him helpful ideas, try to put before him something which will strengthen him in
his troubles, we may be perfectly sure that that thought-force does produce its
effect, that it goes and reacts upon that person. To what extent it will help
him depends on his receptivity, upon the strength of the thought, and upon
various other circumstances; but that some effect will be produced we may
be absolutely sure. And so when we send a request for kindly, helpful,
strengthening thought to one of these great ones – whether it be a saint now in
the flesh, or one who has laid aside that flesh, or one of the great Angels –
assuredly that help will come to us, and will strengthen us.
[21]
That is the case with the World-Mother; yet there are those who would have us
believe that all that splendid good feeling, all that love and uttermost
devotion, have run to waste and been useless. Incredible as it appears to us who
are used to wider and saner thought, I really think that in their curious
ignorance the more rabid enemies of the Church actually believe this. They even
go further still, and say that it is wrong, wicked and blasphemous for a man to
feel that love and devotion towards Her! It sounds like madness, but I am afraid
it is true that there are such people. Of course the truth is that no
devotion, no love, no good feeling has ever been wrong, to
whomsoever it has been sent. It may have been wrongly directed. Devotion and
affection have often been lavished on unworthy objects, but it has not been a
wrong act on the part of the lavisher – only a lack of discrimination; always it
has been good for him that he should pour himself out in love, and develop his
soul thereby.
Remember that if we love any person, it is the God within that person that we
are loving; the God within us recognizes the God within
[22] him; deep
calleth unto deep, and the recognition of the Godhead is bliss. The lover often
sees in the beloved qualities which no one else can discern; but those good
qualities are there in latency, because the Spirit of God is within
everyone of us; and the earnest belief and strong affection of the lover tend to
call those latent qualities into manifestation. He who idealizes another tends
to make that other what he thinks him to be.
Could we suppose then that all the wonderful and beautiful devotion addressed to
the World-Mother has been wasted? Any man who thinks so must understand the
divine economy very poorly. No true and holy feeling has ever been wasted since
time began, or ever will be; for God, who knows us all, so arranges that the
least touch of devotion, the least feeling of comprehension, the least thought
of worship, shall always be received, shall always work out to its fullest
possibility, and shall always bring its response from Him. . In this case in His
loving-kindness He has appointed the Mother of Jesus as a mighty Angel to
receive those prayers – to be a channel for them, to accept that devotion, and
to forward [23]
it to Him. Therefore the reverence offered to Her, and the love poured
out at Her feet have never for one moment been wasted; they have brought their
result, they have done their work.
Century after century the richest treasures of art have drawn their inspiration
from the beauty of Her divine motherhood; Her glories have been hymned in the
measured tones of the most magnificent music; Her wisdom has inspired the great
doctors and teachers of the Church, for She is the Heart of Wisdom, the Mother
of fair love, of patience and perseverance and of holy hope – She who kept all
the sayings of Jesus in Her heart.
If we try to understand it, we shall see how very far grander is that reality
than the barren conception that all high thought, all worship, all praise not
directed through a particular Name must inevitably go astray. Why should God
limit Himself by our mistakes as to names? He looks at the heart; not at the
words. The words are conditioned by outer circumstances – by the birthplace of
the speaker, for example. We are Christians because we happen to be born in
England, or America, or some other Christian land – not because we
[24] have
examined and compared all religions, and deliberately chosen Christianity. We
are Christians because it was the faith amidst which we found ourselves, and so
we accepted it.
Did it ever occur to you that if we had been born as natives of India we should
have been Hindus or Muhammadans just as naturally, and should have poured out
our devotion to God under the name of Shiva, Krishna; Allah, instead of the name
of Christ? If we had been born in Ceylon or Burma we should have been ardent
Buddhists. What do these local considerations matter to God? It is under His law
of perfect justice, under His scheme of evolution, that one of His creatures is
born in England and another in India or Ceylon, according to his needs and his
deserts. When devotion is poured out by any man, God receives it through the
channel which He has appointed for that man, and so every one alike is
satisfied, and justice is done. It would be a gross and glaring injustice if any
honest devotion should be thrown aside or rejected. Never has the least mite of
it been rejected. God's ways are other than ours, and His
[25] grasp of
these things is wider and greater than ours. As Faber wrote:
For we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own,
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.
The stories that we hear about the World-Mother may well have a basis of fact.
We hear of Her appearing in various places to various people – to Joan of Arc,
for example. It is exceedingly probable that She did – that this great Angel did
so show Herself or Himself (for there is nothing that we can call sex at such a
height as that). There is no antecedent improbability in this, and it is most
unlikely that all the people who testify to these apparitions were deluded or
hypnotized, or under some strange error. All students know that earnest thought
upon any subject produces strong thought-forms, which are very near the edge of
visibility; many thousands of such thought-forms have been made of the Lady of
Light, and we may be sure that She has never failed to respond, and most
thoroughly and effectually to fill them. It is certain that, out of all these,
some would under [26]
favourable circumstances become physically visible; and even when they
remain astral, sensitive people are often able to see them. The terrible and
unexampled strain and stress of the war made many people sensitive to psychic
impressions who were never so before. Thus it happens that we hear many stories
of apparitions just now, and visions or manifestations of the World-Mother take
a prominent place among them.
It is said, too, that wonderful cures have been produced at Lourdes and other
places by faith in Her. Probably they have. There is nothing in the least
unscientific, there is nothing outside reason and common sense in supposing
that. We know perfectly well that a strong down-pouring of mesmeric force will
produce certain cures; we have no knowledge as to the limit of such power, but
it is well to remember that all these things have truth behind them.
Such then is She, the Lady of Light, who has sent forth through our President
that wonderful Call to the women of the world. In The Brotherhood of Angels
and of Men, Geoffrey Hodson writes of Her: [27]
She labours ever for the cause of human motherhood, and even now is bending all
Her mighty strength and calling all Her Angel court to labour for the upliftment
of motherhood throughout the world. Through Her Angel messengers She Herself is
present at every human birth – unseen and unknown, it is true, but if men would
open their eyes She would be revealed. She sends this message through the
Brotherhood to men:
"In the Name of Him whom long ago I bore, I come to your aid. I have taken every
woman to my heart, to hold there a part of her, that through it I may help her
in her time of need. Uplift the women of your race till all are seen as Queens,
and to such Queens let every man be as a King, that each may honour each, seeing
the other's royalty. Let every home, however small, become a court, every son a
knight, every child a page. Let all treat all with chivalry, honouring in each
their royal parentage, their kingly birth; for there is royal blood in every
man; all are the children of the King."
It remains now for us to consider how we can avail ourselves of this privilege
of serving Her which She offers to us; and also to treat of the symbolic aspects
of the World-Mother.
THE WORK OF TODAY
We have to turn now to modern history and to consider the work of the
World-Mother today, and the opportunity which She has recently offered to us of
taking a certain part [28]
in it. It is now some three years since She first spoke to some of us of
this matter; in fact, I believe that it was to me that the honour fell of
introducing the subject to the notice of a select group of our brethren, in
consequence of an audience which the World-Mother was so gracious as to accord
to me.
In Her capacity as guardian of womankind She naturally works in especially close
collaboration with the agents of the Lipika, the Lords of Karma, whose business
it is to find suitable births for the vast host of egos waiting to come into
incarnation. This is often a matter of considerable difficulty, requiring the
most delicate adjustment in reconciling conflicting claims, for of course the
karma operates in both directions. If it be the karma of the incoming ego to
have such-and-such parents, who will give him (or withhold from him) the
opportunities which he has earned, so is it also the karma of those parents to
have such-and-such a child, who may obviously affect their lives very seriously,
and bring to them much joy or much sorrow.
At this particular point of history the Manu of our Fifth Root-Race is working
towards [29]
the development of a new sub-race, the sixth, which is to possess a number of
new characteristics, considerably in advance of those commonly exhibited by the
average man of the present day. How is He working to bring His new sub-race into
existence?
Remember, there is no miracle about the thing. The new sub-race is not created
by a single stroke; it must grow up by slow degrees from that which already
exists. I suppose that, if the Lord Vaivasvata chose so to do, He might seize
upon a number of people and say: "You shall be the new sub-race"; and He might
arrange some changes in their bodies and brains which would make it possible.
But Nature does not work in that way; and when we say: "Nature does not work in
that way", we mean: "That is not how the Will of the Logos acts." All change is
gradual, and we can see why that must be so.
We are living entities, all of us, and therefore we can be changed fundamentally
only very slowly. You can take what you call the inanimate matter – of course it
is not really inanimate – you can take metal and you can melt it and you can
mould it into any shape [30]
comparatively quickly. But if you are a gardener, and you want to train a
plant or a tree into a certain shape, you cannot seize it and change its shape
all at once, as you did with the metal. If you did, you would probably destroy
the tree. You have gradually to persuade it to grow in this direction or in
that. It is the same with all living organisms.
I know that all organisms are living, but some are more alive than others.
It is certainly the same with ourselves. We have within us the possibility of
unfolding all the characteristics which are needed for this new sub-race. I have
no doubt we have, everyone of us – at least I hope we have. So it is also with
your children. They have within them the necessary capacity, but they do need
development, and the development must be gradual, if you are to preserve the
unity and the sanity of the living being. And so the method of the Manu and of
His lieutenants (for there are thousands upon thousands of Devas and men working
under Him) is that of gradual development.
Sometimes you hear us speak of promising children or young people. What do we
mean [31] by
that? At least at this particular time, what we mean is that there are children
who are already showing some of the characteristics of that new sub-race. Not
all of them; it would be an exceedingly rare thing to find a child showing all
the characteristics of the new sub-race. If there were such an one, he would
grow up into Adeptship perhaps, or at least Arhatship; but such manifestations
are as yet very rare. You might find a child born among you who showed
twenty-five per cent of the characteristics of the new sub-race. Even then you
are very fortunate, for even that is very unusual, and it is worth while giving
– nay, it is a solemn duty to give – every opportunity for growth in the right
direction.
So it comes that Our Lady the World-Mother is just now much preoccupied with
this matter of providing suitable incarnations for well-developed egos, and it
is by no means an easy task. Many thousands of advanced egos are ready for
incarnation and anxious to take it, in order that they may help in the work of
the World-Teacher; but the difficulty of finding suitable bodies is very great.
For example, [32]
we have the case of those who died in the great war, who laid down their
lives on the field of battle in defence of truth and righteousness.
The war was indeed a terrible thing; on the part of its aggressors it was
perhaps the greatest crime in human history; but since it had to be, Those who
direct evolution utilized it as a means for sorting out Their material, for
winnowing the wheat from the chaff. All the noblest men of its generation took
part in it in one way or other; it was a tremendous test which was applied to
them. They rose to the emergency, they passed the test, they seized the
opportunity. Therefore they earned wonderfully good karma, therefore they won
for themselves an amount of progress which under more ordinary conditions they
could not have obtained in a dozen incarnations. They gained for themselves the
boon of birth in the sixth sub-race.
They were of all types and at all levels – some refined and artistic, some rough
and rude; but they all had this one great quality in common, that they were
ready to make the supreme sacrifice, ready to risk their lives for
[33] an ideal.
The change into the new sub-race will not suddenly polish them all; it cannot
alter their main characteristics. They are heroes, but they have not necessarily
become saints, nor highly refined and cultured men. But the sixth sub-race will
not be composed entirely of Adepts, as some people seem to suppose! We cannot
all be priests, physicians, artists: we shall need carpenters, blacksmiths,
agriculturists then, as we do now. That new race will contain men of all
classes, just as does our present sub-race out of which it evolves. We shall be
at various levels of advancement, then as now; but I hope and believe that we
shall all have certain great qualities in common which only a few have had in
the fifth sub-race. We shall be far more liberal, less prejudiced, freer in
thought and action, more brotherly and compassionate. The Rev. T. W. Chignell
well expressed this:
See what triumphs are before us
As the years and ages move!
Error banished by true knowledge,
Coldness by the breath of love.
Till of men a nobler pattern
Sun and earth at length behold –
Broader-minded, broader-hearted,
Tender, manly, reverent, bold. [34]
So there will eventually be a place for all. But here and now decent bodies are
needed for this vast host, and as far as possible among new and progressive
peoples; where are they to be found in sufficient numbers? The private soldiers
are gradually, though slowly being accommodated; the officers present a serious
problem. In consequence of foolish and wasteful ostentation, an evil tradition
is growing up in the Western world that men and women cannot afford to marry,
and that large families are too expensive to be practically possible. Not
understanding the wonderful opportunity which their sex gives them, women desire
to be free from the restraints of marriage in order that they may ape the lives
and actions of men, instead of taking advantage of their peculiar privileges.
Such a line of thought and action is obviously disastrous to the future of the
race, for it means that many of the better class parents take no part in its
perpetuation, but leave it entirely in the hands of the more undesirable and
undeveloped egos.
From the occult standpoint the greatest glory of a woman is not to become a
leader in [35]
society, nor is it to take a high university degree and live in a flat in
scornful isolation, but to provide vehicles for the egos that are to come into
incarnation, and to preside over a home in which her children can be properly
and happily trained to live their life and to do their appointed work in the
world. And that function of hers is regarded not as something to hide and to put
away, something of which one should be half-ashamed; it is the greatest glory of
the feminine incarnation, the great opportunity which women have and men have
not. Men have other opportunities, but that really wonderful privilege of
motherhood is not theirs. It is the women who do this great work for the helping
of the world, for the continuance of the race; and they do it at a cost of
suffering of which we who are men can have no idea.
It is just because this is so – because of the great work done and the terrible
suffering which it entails – that there is this special department of the
government of the world; and the duty of its officials is to look after every
woman in the time of her suffering and give her such help and strength as her
[36] karma
allows. The World-Mother has at Her command vast hosts of Angelic beings, and at
the birth of every child one of these is always present as Her representative;
so that we may quite truly say that in and through that representative, the
World-Mother Herself is present at the bedside of every suffering mother. Her
ministrations are extended to all alike; She makes no distinction between rich
and poor, between saint and sinner, between the married and the unmarried; She
is the very embodiment of the divine pity and compassion, and it is sufficient
for Her that a child-body is coming into the world, that a mother needs the
service which it is Her joy to provide.
What the World-Mother wishes is to achieve the spiritualization of the whole
idea of motherhood and of marriage, and those of us who wish to serve Her must
endeavour to use in that direction whatever influence we may have. Some of us
perhaps can deliver lectures; others can write articles. She is by no means
satisfied with the general position of public opinion in Europe on this subject.
She says that motherhood is not really understood at
[37] all by most people in Western
countries; it is not regarded, as it should be, as a high and wondrous
privilege, but is rather considered as almost degrading. She fully sympathizes
with those women who quite truly and properly rebel against the idea of being
slaves to the lusts of men, but says that nevertheless the general view on the
subject is not at all what it should be.
She asserts that people marry for all sorts of wrong and material reasons –
sometimes merely through lust and desire, sometimes for reasons of expediency,
such as to unite two estates which happen to adjoin, sometimes to obtain
position and title, and sometimes merely for money. She maintains that the only
real reason for marriage is when a true and spiritual love of great intensity
exists between the two parties, because it IS only under that condition that
they can provide suitable vehicles for highly developed egos. Hindu ideas on
these points are usually very far better, but even there they are not put
thoroughly into practice.
Just now She considers it of vital importance to try to convert the Western
world to the more spiritual point of view, because it is
[38] chiefly
from parents of the fifth sub-race that the children of the sixth must be born.
In many ways it seems that a new age is opening before us – that there are signs
of the dawn of a new day. That age, that day should be the woman's age and the
woman's day; for, as one of our Masters long ago pointed out, it is not until
the woman takes her rightful place in the world that she can bear bodies fit for
the Buddha or the Christ. In a note at the end of The Paradoxes of the
Highest Science, by Eliphas Levi, we find the following:
The authors of The Perfect Way are right; woman must not be considered as
only an appanage of man, since she was not made for his mere benefit or pleasure
any more than he for hers: but the two must be realized as equal powers though
unlike individualities.
Until the age of seven the skeletons of girls do not differ in any way from
those of boys, and the osteologist would be puzzled to discriminate them.
Woman's mission is to become the mother of future occultists – of those who will
be born without sin.
On the elevation of woman the world's redemption and salvation hinge. And not
till woman bursts the bonds of her sexual slavery, to which she has ever been
subjected, will the world obtain an inkling of what she really is arid of her
proper place in the economy of nature. Old India, the India of the Rishis, made
the first sounding with her plummet-line in this ocean of Truth, but the
[39] post-Mahabaratean India, with all her
profundity of learning, has neglected and forgotten it.
The light that will come to it and to the world at large, when the latter shall
discover and really appreciate the truths that underlie this vast problem of
sex, will be like “the light that never shone on sea or land," and has to come
to man through the Theosophical Society. That light will lead on and up to the
true spiritual intuition. Then the world will have a race of Buddhas and
Christs, for the world will have discovered that individuals have it in their
own power to procreate Buddha-like children or demons. When that knowledge
comes, all dogmatic religions, and with these the demons, will die out. – E. O.*
[* E. 0. signifies ‘Eminent Occultist’. It was a
pseudonym given by Mr. Sinnett to the Master Kuthumi.]
In connection with these ideas Our Lady the World-Mother naturally attaches the
greatest importance to the upbringing of children. The requirements of the
present time force Her to seek for prospective parents principally among the
cultured classes; but ladies in high society so often shirk their
responsibilities, and leave their children almost entirely to nurses – nurses
who are probably quite kind and good to them, but are usually lower in the
social scale than the parents, and consequently surround the children with
thoughts and feelings of a less refined character [40]
than the father and mother would give them. I have heard a lady say: "I
am engaged all day in philanthropic work; I have no time to think about my
children, but I employ a most excellent nurse." She apparently did not grasp the
obvious fact that if the Logos had intended to confide the care of those
children to that most excellent nurse, they would have been born as the nurse's
offspring, and not as hers!
In India the conditions are different, for every one marries as a matter of
course; but even in the higher castes there is often a lamentable lack of
supervision, and the surroundings provided are very unfavourable for the
production of sound and healthy bodies. This is a very serious matter, earnestly
to be commended to all students of occultism, who should assuredly do everything
in their power to bring about a more satisfactory state of affairs.
It is the earnest desire of the World-Mother that every woman in her time of
trial should have the best possible surroundings – that she should be enfolded
in deep and true affection, that she should be filled with the holiest and
noblest thoughts so that none but the highest [41]
influences may be brought to bear upon the child who is to be born, so
that he may have the best possible chance of a favourable start in life. Nothing
but the purest and best physical magnetism should await him, and it is
imperatively necessary that the most scrupulous physical cleanliness should be
observed in all particulars. Only by the strictest attention to the rules of
hygiene can such favourable conditions be obtained as will permit of the birth
of a noble and healthy body fit for the habitation of an advanced ego.
It would indeed be well that women in all countries should band themselves
together in an endeavour to spread abroad among their sisters accurate
information on this most important subject. Every woman should fully realize the
magnificent opportunities which the feminine incarnation gives her; every woman
should be taught the absolute necessity for proper conditions before, during and
after her pregnancy. Not only the most perfect cleanliness and the most careful
attention should surround the baby body, but also it should be encompassed by
perfect astral and [42]
mental conditions, by love and trust, by happiness and holiness. In this
way the work of the World-Mother would be immensely facilitated and the future
of the race would be assured.
Of course I do not say that it is the absolute duty of every woman to marry, any
more than it is for every man. There are souls who need to learn the lesson of
the celibate life, who in a given incarnation can do better work under its
conditions. This is a matter in the decision of which every individual must be
left entirely free; for an unsuitable or loveless marriage is obviously far
worse than no marriage at all. But it should be fully recognized that the wedded
life is a noble state, a high and honourable vocation, and that it offers
magnificent opportunities for the most valuable altruistic work.
It is to help in promoting such recognition that we are just now drawing special
attention to the existence of this great and splendid Being who holds the office
of the Universal Mother, and to the fact that She needs many recruits for Her
world-wide band of helpers, many channels through which Her wonderful
[43] love and compassion can be outpoured upon
the world which owes so much to Her care.
For the love her heart o'er flowing,
‘Mid the Angels, splendid, glowing,
Now she reigneth, evermore
Giving from her endless store.
Of the afflicted chief Consoler,
Of a thousand hearts Controller,
Queen of heaven, the ocean's Star
She hath shed her rays afar.
Another point in which the World-Mother naturally takes the very keenest
interest is that of the education of children. Just as She maintains that the
whole attitude of Western civilization to the question of wifehood and
motherhood is mistaken, so does She also warn us that we have entirely missed
the mark in our clumsy attempts to educate the future generation. The Latin word
educere means to lead out, and the primary object of all education should
be to develop the latent capacities of the child – to discover what he can do
well, and then to help him to learn how to do it. But we are only now beginning
to understand this, and for centuries the method of those to whom we have
entrusted the training of the young has been to repress
[44] all
individuality and to force them all into the same mould, to fill their brains
with vast masses of undigested and largely useless facts, instead of explaining
to them the real intention of life, and showing them how best to fulfil it.
We are placed in this world that we may learn to live our lives therein with
credit to ourselves and with benefit to our fellow-men, yet hardly any effort is
made by our schoolmasters to instruct our children as to how this is to be done.
The way in which each man spends this incarnation will affect his future
progress through the ages, will help or hinder his growth as a soul; yet on this
most important of all subjects, how little help is given to him by those who
undertake to prepare him for it!
Putting aside for the moment the admirable methods adopted by the Kindergarten
and the Montessori systems for the development of very young children it is
hardly an exaggeration to say that the only training at present available for
those a little older which is moving at all in the right direction is that given
by the Boy-Scout and the Girl-Guide movements, or by the Round Table. The
[45] motto of
the latter body: "Live pure, speak true, right wrong, and follow the King,"
covers all that is most important in life. And the Scout's promise to do his
duty to God and the King, and to help other people at all times, is only another
presentation of the same idea, elaborated a little further in the Scout Law
which instructs him to be honourable, loyal, useful, courteous, thrifty, clean
in thought, word and deed, and a friend to all – to animals as well as to men.
This is the true education – the education which makes life worth while; if a
boy has this training, it matters little whether he passes examinations or takes
University degrees. The examination is one of the greatest curses of modern
life; in many cases and in many countries a boy is debarred even from applying
for a situation in Government service, or for any position worth having – not,
mark you, unless he can show some aptitude for the work which he will have to do
in that situation, but – unless he has passed a wickedly severe examination in a
number of subjects which have no connection whatever with practical life. To
prepare for that examination often [46] means
years of unnatural and unhealthy life of mental overstrain, of lack of proper
exercise and sleep, of confinement indoors, of weary work by insufficient
artificial light, of all that is most undesirable for a growing physical body.
One of our Masters, in giving us minute directions for the training of a young
person whom He had committed to our care, said: "Five hours a day, carefully
distributed and with frequent intervals for relaxation, is the utmost that
should ever be devoted to mental work by a growing boy or girl; what cannot be
learnt in that time should be left unlearnt." The World-Mother, speaking
recently on this subject of education, said: "I do not object to book-learning;
a certain amount of it is good, and even necessary for successful work; but I do
object to the imposition of incessant strain and slavery upon a young life which
ought to be full of happiness. The harm done by that far outweighs any possible
hypothetical benefit which might be derived from the cramming of the brain with
alleged facts."
Every year these examinations are becoming more and more difficult, more and
more [47]
soul-destroying. It will soon be necessary for sensible, far-seeing parents to
make a determined strike against this disastrous system, and to say: "You may
keep your college degrees; we do not want them; the price exacted is too high,
and the result too meagre." This can be done, however, only when Governments
relax their unnecessary restrictions, or when a large band of practical
common-sense employers join together and agree to accept applicants who show
capability, eagerness and aptitude for their work, without reference to the
labels with which they happen to be ticketed.
Also the World-Mother strongly urges that the spiritual view of parentage, love,
marriage, motherhood and the relation of the sexes generally should be tactfully
and delicately but quite clearly impressed upon children, so that they may learn
such facts of life as are necessary for them in the right way instead of in the
wrong, from the highest point of view and not from the lowest.
If, then, we wish to join the glorious band of those who work for the
World-Mother, there are several lines of activity open to us.
[48] By
lecturing, by writing, or by using private influence among friends, we may try
our best to promote and to expound the great idea of the spiritualization of
love and marriage, to put before all, young and old, the highest ideals in these
matters, urging them to accept nothing less. Or we may try to assist in the
instruction of women in the hygiene of childbirth, and in the necessity of both
spiritual and physical preparation for it; or again, in the provision of
suitable conditions for poor women both before and after the time of
parturition. Yet again, we may devote ourselves to anyone of the branches of
work connected with the furthering of the right sort of education for children
of various ages. We should bear in mind the great function of the World-Mother
as Consolatrix Afflictorum, the Consoler of the Afflicted; so that any help
whatever that we can give to a neighbour in distress may be given in Her name,
thereby drawing down upon the sufferer Her benign influence and blessing.
Now at last let us turn to a brief consideration of the symbolism which through
all the ages has been associated with the knowledge
[49] and with the cult of the
World-Mother; for the attempt to mingle this symbolism with the facts already
described has been responsible for much of the confusion which has surrounded
the central idea and often seem to make it incredible.
THE VIRGIN MATTER
God in the Absolute is eternally One; but God in manifestation is twain – life
and substance, spirit and matter – or, as science would say, force and matter.
When Christ, alone-born of the Father, springs from His bosom, and looks back
upon that which remains, He sees as it were a veil thrown over it – a veil to
which the philosophers of ancient India gave the name of Mulaprakriti,
the root of matter; not matter as we know it, but the potential essence of
matter; not space, but the within of space; that from which all proceeds, the
containing element of Deity, of which space is a manifestation.
But that veil of matter also is God; it is just as much part of God as is the
Spirit which acts upon it. The Spirit of God moved
[50] upon the face of the waters of
space; but the waters of space are divine in their making just as much as the
Spirit that moves upon them, because there is nothing but God anywhere. That is
the original substance underlying that whereof all things are made. That in
ancient philosophy is the Great Deep, and then, because it surrounds and
contains all things, so is it the heavenly wisdom which encircles and embraces
all. For that in speech the philosophers used always the feminine pronoun; they
speak of that Great Deep – of the eternal wisdom – as "She". She is thus the
soul, macrocosmic and microcosmic, for what is true above is also true below.
These ideas are somewhat complex and foreign to our modern thought, but if we
want to understand an Oriental religion we must give ourselves the trouble to
grasp this Oriental way of looking at things. And so we realize how it is that
She, this other aspect of the Deity, is spoken of as Mother, Daughter and Spouse
of God. Daughter, because She also comes forth from the same Eternal Father;
Spouse, because through the action of the Holy Ghost upon the virgin matter the
[51] birth of
the Christ into the world takes place; Mother, because through matter alone is
that evolution possible which brings the Christ-spirit to birth in man.
Above and beyond the Solar Trinity, of which we usually think, there is the
First Trinity of all, formed when out of what seems to us nothing there came the
First Manifestation. For in that First and highest of all Trinities God the
Father is the Absolute – what we may with all reverence call the Static Mode of
the Deity. From that leaps forth the Christ, the Second Aspect truly of the
Godhead and yet the First Manifestation, for God the Father is "seen of none".
Then through the interaction of the Deity in His next Aspect – that of the Holy
Ghost, who represents the Dynamic Mode of the Deity (Will in action) – from that
essence, that root of all matter, come all the worlds and all the further
manifestations at lower levels, of whatever kind they may be, including even the
Holy Trinity of our own solar system.
The Mother-Aspect of Deity thus manifests as the aether of space – not the ether
which conveys vibrations of light to our eyes, for
[52] that is a physical thing; but the
aether of space which in Occult Chemistry*
[* Occult Chemistry, by Annie Besant and
C. W. Leadbeater: Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, is now out of print.]
we call koilon, without which no evolution could be, and yet it is virgin
and unaffected after all the evolution has passed.
Into that koilon or finer aether, the Christ, the energizing Logos or Word of
God, breathes the breath of life, and in breathing it He makes those bubbles of
which all that we call matter is built; (because matter is not the koilon, but
the absence of koilon); and so when He draws in that mighty Breath the
bubbles cease to be. The aether is absolutely unchanged; it is as it was before
– virgin – after the birth of matter from it; it is quite unstirred by all that
has happened; and because of this, Our Lady of Light is hailed as Virgin, though
Mother of All.
She is thus the essence of the great sea of matter, and so She is symbolized as
Aphrodite, the Sea-Queen, and as Mary, the Star of the Sea, and in pictures She
is always dressed in the blue of the sea and of the sky. Because it is only by
means of our passage through [53]
matter that we evolve, She is also to us Isis the Initiator, the
Virgin-Mother of whom the Christ in us is born, the causal body, the vehicle of
the soul in man, the Mother of God in whom the divine Spirit unfolds itself
within us; for the symbol of the womb is the same as the Cup of the Holy Grail.
She is represented as Eve, descending into matter and generation; as Mary
Magdalene while in unnatural union with matter, and then when She rises clear of
matter, once more as Mary the Queen of heaven, assumed into life eternal.
While we are in the lower stage of our evolution, and subject to the dominion of
matter, She is to us truly the Mater Dolorosa – the sorrowful Mother, or the
Mother of Sorrows, because all our sorrows and troubles come to us through our
contact with matter; but as soon as we conquer matter, so soon as for us the
triangle can never again be obscured by the square, then She is for us Our Lady
of Victory, the glory of the Church triumphant, the Woman clothed with the sun,
and having the moon under Her feet, and around Her head a crown of twelve stars.
[54]
If we look at it along this line of symbolism, the doctrine of the final drawing
up of the root of matter into the Absolute, so that God may be all in all, is
what is typified by the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The great
festivals of the Christian Church are all meant to show its members stage by
stage what it is that happens in the work of the Great Architect of the
Universe, in the evolution of the cosmos as well as in the development of man.
In studying these mysteries we must never forget the rule of the philosophers of
old: "As above, so below." So that whatever we see taking place in that mighty
world-evolution we shall also find repeated at this far lower level in the
growth of man; and conversely, if we are able to study the methods of the
unfoldment of the God in man down here, we shall find that study of invaluable
assistance in helping us towards a comprehension of that infinitely more
glorious development which is God's will for the universe as a whole. And,
learning thus, we must not fail to put the lesson into practice. As a poet has
written: [55]
I must become Queen Mary,
And birth to God must give,
If I in heavenly blessedness
For evermore would live.
Note also, for the better understanding of the symbolism, that Christ the
Spirit, being deific in nature, ascends by His own power and volition, even as
of His own will He sprang forth in the beginning from the bosom of the Father;
but Mary the soul is assumed, drawn up by the will of Him who is at the same
time Her Father and Her Son; for the first Adam (said St. Paul) was made a
living soul, but the last Adam, the Christ, is Himself a quickening or
life-giving Spirit. So in following Adam, who typifies the mind, all die; but in
Christ all are made alive.
THE FEMININE ASPECT OF THE DEITY
We must realize also that our highest conception of Deity combines all that is
best of the characteristics of the two sexes. God, containing everything within
Himself, cannot be spoken of as exclusively male or female. He cannot but have
many aspects, and in the Christian religion there has been a great
[56] tendency to forget that cardinal fact of
manifold manifestation. In the perfection of the Godhead all that is most
beautiful, all that is most glorious in human character is shown forth. In that
character we have two sets of qualities, some of which we attach in our thought
chiefly to the male or the more positive side of man, and others which we attach
more generally in our thought to the feminine side. For example, strength,
wisdom, scientific direction, and that destroying power which is symbolized in
the Hindu religion by Shiva – all that we usually regarded as masculine. But
love, beauty, gentleness, harmony, tenderness, we consider as more especially
feminine.
Yet all these characteristics are equally envisaged for us in the Deity, and it
is natural that men should have separated those two aspects of Him, and should
have thought of Him as Father-Mother. In all the great religions of the world
until quite recently those two aspects have been brought out; so that their
followers recognized not only gods but also goddesses. In India we have Parvati,
Lakshmi, Uma, Sarasvati; in Greece we had [57]
Hera, Aphrodite, Demeter, Pallas Athene; in Egypt, Isis and Nephthys; in
China Kwan-yin; in Rome, Juno, Venus, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Bellona. In yet
other religions we find Astarte or Ashtaroth, the Queen of heaven. Images of
Isis with the Infant Horus in her arms are exactly like those of the Blessed
Virgin carrying the Infant Jesus; indeed, it is said that the old Egyptian
statues are still in use in several Christian churches to-day.
Ignorant Christians accuse those old religions of polytheism – of the worship of
many gods. That is simply a misunderstanding of what is meant. All instructed
people have always known that there is but One God; but they have also known
that that One God manifests Himself in divers manners, and in every respect as
much and as fully through the feminine as through the masculine body through
what is called the negative side of life as well as through the positive.
We who have been brought up in the Christian ideas sometimes find it a little
difficult to realize that we have narrowed down the teaching of the Christ so
much that in many [58] cases what we now hold
is only a travesty of what He originally taught. We have been brought up, as far
as religion goes, non-philosophically. We have never learnt to appreciate the
value of comparative religion and comparative mythology. Those who have been
studying it for many years find that it throws a flood of light on many points
which are otherwise incomprehensible. We see that if all be God, and if there be
nothing but God, then matter is God as well as spirit, and there is a feminine
and a passive side or aspect to the Deity as well as a masculine side, and yet
that God is One, and there is no duplication of any sort in Him.
All that is, is God; but we may see Him through many differently coloured
glasses and from many different points of view. We may see Him as the mighty
Spirit informing all things; but those things which are informed – those forms –
they are no less God, for there is nothing but God. And so we see what we may
call the feminine side of the Godhead; and just as the masculine side of the
Deity has many manifestations, so has the feminine side many manifestations. So
in those earlier days [59] there were many gods
and goddesses, each representing an aspect, and the gods had their priests, and
the Goddesses their priestesses, who took just as important a part in religion
as did the priests. But in the last great religions, Christianity and
Muhammadanism (both coming forth from Judaism, which ignored the feminine side),
the World-Teacher has not chosen to make that division prominent; therefore in
Christianity and in Muhammadanism we have the priest only; and the forces which
are poured down through the services of the Church, although they include all
the qualities, are yet so arranged, so directed, as to run through the male form
only – at present at least.
In ancient Egypt we divided those forces, because that was the will of the
World-Teacher when He founded the Egyptian religion, so some of them ran through
the manifestation of Osiris, and some through the manifestation of Isis.
Therefore some of them were administered by the priests of Amen-Ra, the Sun-God,
and others by the priestesses of Isis. And Isis was in every way as deeply
honoured, and considered as high in every [60]
respect as any of the male aspects. She was the great beneficent Goddess
and Mother, whose influence and love pervaded all heaven and earth.
It is time that those who are Christians learnt to understand the symbolism of
their Church – learnt to see how many-sided it is, so that each idea which is
put before us calls up a host of useful and elevating thoughts, and not one
only. Reference has already been made to that other line of symbols in which the
different stages in the earth-life of the Christ typify the four great
Initiations, and His Ascension represents the fifth. Into that line also the
story of Our Lady Mary enters, for in it Her Nativity represents the first
appearance of matter in connection with the ego at his individualization, while
the Annunciation stands for what is commonly called conversion, that which turns
the man in the right direction, and makes the birth of the Christ within him a
necessary result, when the long gestation period shall be over. In the same
scheme the Assumption means the full and final drawing up of the ego or soul
into the Monad. [61]
If we take the other form of the symbology, that which refers to the descent of
the Christ into matter at His Birth, Her Nativity is the formation of
Mulaprakriti by the leaping forth of the Second Person, as before mentioned,
while the Annunciation is the First descent of the Holy Ghost into matter. The
Holy Spirit descends and overshadows the maria, the seas of virgin
matter; the Spirit of God moved over the face of the deep, and so the
Annunciation is that First Descent which in other phraseology we call the First
Outpouring, which brings the chemical elements into existence. But only after a
long period of gestation is the matter prepared for the Second Outpouring which
comes from the Second Person of the Trinity, and Christ is born in matter (as on
Christmas Day). Later still comes the Third Outpouring, when each man
individually receives into himself the divine spark, the Monad, and so the soul
or ego in man is born. But that is at a much later stage.
In older faiths, as we have said, there were several presentations of the
Feminine Aspect. For the Romans, Venus typified it as love,
[62] Minerva
as wisdom, Ceres as the earth-mother, Bellona as the defender. Our Lady the
World-Mother does not exactly correspond to any of these, or rather perhaps, She
includes several of them raised to a higher plane of thought. The nearest
approximation in antiquity to our conception of Her is probably the figure of
Kwan-yin, the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge, in Northern Buddhism, as
promulgated in China and Tibet. Our Lady is essentially Mary the Mother, the
type of love, devotion and pity; the heavenly Wisdom indeed, but most of all
Consolatrix Afflictorum, the consoler, comforter, helper of all who are in
trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity. For not only is She a
channel through which love and devotion pass to Christ, Her Son and King, but
She is in turn a channel for the outpouring of His love in response.
So that, both from the point of view of symbolism and from that of fact, the
Christian has good reason to keep the festivals of Our Blessed Lady, and to
rejoice in and be thankful for the wisdom and the love that have provided for us
this line of approach – [63]
thankful to Christ who gives this, and to Our Lady through whom it is
given. So we all may join in the world-wide chorus of praise; and repeat the
words of the Angel Gabriel: "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;
blessed art Thou among women."
Ave Maria! Thou whose name,
All but adoring love may claim,
Yet may we reach Thy shrine;
For He, Thy Son, our Leader, vows
To crown all lowly, lofty brows
With love and joy like Thine.
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