Worship Your Mother
The life of a man who cannot respect and love his
mother is utterly useless. Recognising one’s mother as the
very embodiment of all divine forces, one must show reverence to
her and treat her with love. This is the true message that the Navarathri,
the Festival of Nine Nights gives us. The supreme Shakti
manifests Herself in the form of Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi.
Durga grants us energy—physical, mental and spiritual. Lakshmi
bestows on us wealth of many kinds—not just money but intellectual
wealth, the wealth of character and others. Even health is a kind
of wealth. She grants untold riches to us. And Saraswathi bestows
on us intelligence, the capacity for intellectual enquiry and the
power of discrimination. The Navarathri Festival is celebrated
in order to proclaim to the world the power of the Goddesses. One’s
own mother is the combination of all these Divine Beings. She provides
us energy, wealth and intelligence. She constantly desires our advancement
in life. So she represents all the three Goddesses that we worship
during the Navarathri Festival.
If the Pandavas were able to become so dear to Krishna and make
their lives worthy by serving Him, it was not on account of their
own merit or austerities. It was mother Kunti Devi’s love
for them that brought to them such a great fortune. Even when they
had to live in a forest or in the House of Wax, she always stayed
with them and prayed for their welfare. The Pandavas also reciprocated
her love, and that accounts for their final victory.
Lakshmana,
likewise, was able to dwell in the forest with his brother Rama,
serving him ceaselessly, only because of his mother Sumitra’s
blessings. She told her son that Ayodhya without Rama was like a
forest, and that the forest in which Rama lived would be a veritable
Ayodhya to him. It was on account of the hearty blessings of his
mother that Lakshmana was able to spend fourteen years in the forest
even without food or sleep.
All our epics and sacred books emphasise the power
of the mother’s love, her blessings and grace. Consider the
story of Gandhari and the Kauravas. When Krishna visited Gandhari
to console her after the Kurukshetra war, she accused him of partiality
towards the Pandavas. “Though you are God, how could you be
so partial? Why did you support the Pandavas in full measure, and
allow the destruction of all my sons?” she asked Him. Krishna
replied to her that she herself was to blame for the death of her
children. He reminded her that though she gave birth to a hundred
sons, she didn’t cast her loving glance on even one of them
at any time. As she chose to remain blindfolded, she never looked
at any of her sons with great care, attention and affection. He
asked her “How could such sinners who couldn’t even
enjoy their own mother’s loving glance thrive and flourish?”
There is no need to propitiate Durga, Lakshmi
and Saraswathi for energy, material prosperity and worldly knowledge.
If we love and adore the mother, we shall be showing our love and
devotion to all Goddesses.
-Baba |