29-01-2016 Friday
Holy Mother By Swami Nikhilananda: 025

Introduction: Women of India - 22

The Vedic truths are regarded by the Hindus as eternal and uncreated by human intellect, but revealed to certain highly developed souls called rishis or seers. These seers gave expression to their experiences through the Vedic hymns. Among the seers on finds women. The Vedas mention twenty-seven Brahmavadinis or women seers. One of them, perhaps an exceptional one, known as Vach, expressed in an excellent hymn the experience of her oneness with the Power behind the universe. In that hymn she declared that she was the Queen of the land, the bringer of treasure. She was the Knower and the first among the gods to be propitiated by sacrifice. She was manifold in forms and immanent in everything. By her one are, one saw, and one breathed. They who did not know her declined. Whomsoever she loved, him she made formidable: the Creator God, the man of vision, the man of intellect. She entered and possessed the heavens and the earth. She gave birth to the Sky-god. Her birthplace was the ocean above and below the sky. She stood pervading the universe with her body. Blowing like a wind, she brought into being all the worlds. By her own greatness she transcended the heavens and the earth.2 (2 Rig-Veda X. 125.)

In this revelation one sees the germ of the concepts of Motherhood of God and the divinity of woman, which are special features of Hinduism.

In the foregoing pages we have pointed out some of the outstanding virtues of Indian womanhood: courage, serenity, self-control, sweetness, compassion, wisdom, and an intimate relationship with God. We have also tried to indicate how great women of India have risen to the occasion, however perilous, and with dignity suited their conduct to the demands of the time, place, and particular situation. In the pages to follow we shall try to show that Sarada Devi, Holy Mother, possessed all these virtues. Though she was our contemporary, through her a Hindu can look farthest into India’s past and also far into her future. Since the acquisition of the virtues found in Holy Mother is the dream of all good women, Holy Mother may aptly become a symbol of the aspiration of women everywhere.

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Holy Mother - Being the Life of Sri Sarada Devi Wife of Sri Ramakrishna And Helpmate in his Mission By Swami Nikhilananda p: 17 – 18

Location: Bangalore