Talks

Transcript:

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Title: Motherhood is a Parnership with the Divine

Date: May 9, 1976, Location: Seattle, WA

In India, motherhood is highly respected, and Swami Ramdas proved this in the poem that he wrote in homage to Mother Krishnabai, on the occasion of her 25th anniversary as his devotee. He has written pages and pages and pages about the Mother, beautiful, beautiful poetry, which I’m not going to read all of it to you. It would take too long. But I have chosen to read a part of it at least, to show you just how he regarded this woman who in fact became his spiritual mother, even though he was her spiritual father.

Sweet, sweet thou art, Mother. Thy name is nectar to my thirsting ear. The moonbeam is not cooler than the ray from thine eyes. Thy heart ever melts for all who come to thee for comfort and solace. Thou art a goddess, lily-hued, soft, fragrant, sublime and lovely. Thy breath is air of peace.

Compassion like a jewel adorns thy heart. Thy life is an oblation, sacrifice supreme. Thy thought and feeling, hands and feet, move to one celestial symphony that heals the aches, lightens the load of sorrow that beset the souls struck by ill fortune.

The shade of the tree, the homely shelter of the poor and sick, the sparkling waters of the running brook, the impulse of the man of kindly thought, love’s cheerful offer of all it has, hero’s valour, artist’s sense of beauty, the winged words of poets’ ecstasy, the enthusing warble of tiny birds, the tinkling laughter of many merry children, all are so many rapturous notes in thy lyre.

O Mother, thou art still a greater home of wholeness and perfection past, pen-picturer of even lofty poets inspired. O angelic form of light and grace, all excellences of art and song are minstrels that sing peons to thy glory.

Man, beast and plant, and all creation look to thee for care and succor. Thy love for them has a unique grandeur, for thou hast become all these. Being all, thou loveth all. This is thy life.

The splendour of this vision dazzles and dazes our senses and intellect. Still it devotes sweetest emotion in our heart. “I am all. All is mine.” This thy heart silently sings.

Thou art a genius, a super being, a rare image of all virtues. Goodness itself is shamed before thee. Liberality is a poor word to describe the bounties that pour from thee. O goddess of love and grace, to whom shall I compare thee, the incomparable?

The children’s woes wring thy heart with anguish. Thou giveth away all that thou art— heart, soul, life and power. To stop a tear, to heal a heart lacerated, to sooth the pains, agonies and agitations of those of thy children whom misfortune’s heavy hand has laid low, this is thy mission.

Once I saw thee looking through eyes dimmed with tears, those pearly drops that glistened, in which I saw the rainbow of all the mercies, the adornments of gods; this when thou stood before a soul in pangs of death. Again went thine arms, entwined the mother that lost her child; another sight, when thou wert fomenting a man in sore pain; when thou fed the hungry ones, watching them as compassion incarnate; when thou clothed the naked with new-made robes, thy heart elated. The ailing woman comes helpless to thee for refuge, care and love. O, how thou hast made all things easy for her, sparing nothing that thou couldst command.

Thou art like a heroine standing up, intrepid in all situations of stress and strain, thy face dauntless, daring, ever with wisdom gifted, meeting all phases of life with a quick wit, sparkling from a scintillating and resourceful mind, born organizer, prodigy and genius, an integral personality, a many-faceted gem of infinite splendour.

And then at the end of the poem, she wrote,

My own blessed Papa, bless me with a vision that I am all-pervading, existing in every being, yet am above all. I hale from the Purusha and have become Prakriti. Of the innumerable forms and ways for self‑realization, by a continuous meditation and obvious [?] on His Nirguna Nirakaraswara, [?] by following the principle that Brahma alone is real, the world is real, and all this is verily Brahman, I have at last reached the state of my Guru.

That he loved her immeasurably, there can be no doubt. I lived in the ashram for a year during his life there, and I saw the tremendous love that went between the two of them. This is very hard for people to understand sometimes. In the beginning, people misunderstood their relationship, and at one time when she had given up her home, her children, everything, to follow God in her Guru, people of the village of Kasaragod thought that she was an evil woman because she was living at the ashram and Papa was the only inmate there at that time. But she waited on him, she fed him, she washed his clothes, she scrubbed the floor. She did everything to serve God in her Guru.

Finally, one night, she was out in the moonlight doing something or other, and two men from the village came up and attacked her. And they were going to murder her because they said she was evil because she was living in the ashram with her Guru. But she fell on a pail. And her back injury continued, and probably still does to this day, because I know she was still having trouble with it when I was in India. But nevertheless, she called out the one name—Ram! Ram!—and Papa came running. And all of a sudden, the men let go of her, just by magic—as though by magic—and her life was saved.

I witnessed also her bounty to the poor, how wonderfully she took care of them. I witnessed the fact that she worked from early morning until early the next morning. I saw her as the supreme organizer and manager, because at one time they had thousands of people there, and yet Krishnabai was the one who organized the whole thing. I think there were 10,000 there for her anniversary celebration. She had to provide housing for these people; she had to provide food for them. She had to provide for everything that went on. And I remember reading about that in the magazine later, and I was lifted up into ecstasy because it told about the tremendous influence of this great saint, and this also woman saint who served him. And it said that the feeling there was so great that the people sang the Ram Nam chant and danced to the name of God. Imagine 10,000 people chanting to God and dancing at the same time, inebriated with the glory of His Presence in such a sacred occasion. It was beautiful beyond all expression.

I saw the boundless charity. I saw her give away things that the ashram itself needed. I saw her give a cow away once to Catholic missionaries who had asked for the cow, that they might have milk to feed their orphans. And she gave it without any thought of self because everything, everyone, was her very self, her own; and yet, she was their child. And I remember the story they told at the ashram, that the first cow that was chosen, when they went to lead her away, had tears in her eyes. And the tears ran down her face. And so Mother said that she need not go. And she chose another one.

Now, that is something to believe, isn’t it? But they don’t lie over there; they’re very honest. This is one thing I enjoyed about the ashram over there. There was no cover up at all. Anything that happened got written down in the diary, regardless of what it was, because they realized that God is both human and Divine, and they just don’t try to glorify everything that comes along. We are prone to do that, as we think of saints, but nevertheless, they are also human, and I remember one time particularly. Mother Krishnabai was always very selfless in the way that she gave up everything of herself for Papa, or anyone else who came along. And she was sleeping on the floor, and they had rats there, the same as they do here, and of course perhaps more of them because they don’t believe in killing. And so the rat nibbled on Mother Krishnabai’s toenails. And so Papa said the next day that the rat had to go.

And I said to him, “Just exactly what do you do with them, Papa? Do you put them in a cage? Do you kill them in a rat trap, as they do in America?”

He said, “Oh, we put them in a rat trap alright, but we do not have springs on them like you do over there.” He said, “We just put them in the cage.” And then he said, “We put them in the car with Joseph, and he takes them to the next village so that the other people can enjoy the chaps.” [laughter]

And so there were so many wonderful things that happened over there, so many very wonderful things. And I saw this woman, as I say, working day and night, selflessly. There was only one time that I disagreed with her, in the treatment that she gave her own son. But perhaps God had a reason for it. But she seemed to—He was a great doctor, and he loved her so much. And he wanted her attention as a mother so much. And of course she had given him up when he was a little boy and he’d been raised by his uncle. But it seemed to me, at one point when he needed her very, very badly, that she was more interested in feeding the other poor around her and taking care of them than she was to realize the need of her own son for just plain motherhood in her.

Now, I’m sure she loved him with all her heart, and I’m sure that she loved him just like everybody else, but she had become, attained, the impersonal aspect of God and so she saw all as her own and she didn’t single him out specially. But I remember in this one time when she had to have some teeth pulled and she went to Mangalore to have this done, and she had quite a bad time. And he had her over afterward for a meal, and he was so thrilled that she was gracing his home. And he wanted her to stay just overnight so that he could have her with him. But she was very stubborn and she wouldn’t do it. So she went back on the train, and then her gums started to hemorrhage. And it would’ve been much better if she had stayed. But she felt that her presence was needed for the many instead of the one.

That’s a very difficult thing to do and to go through. I know a little bit about that myself because I adore every one of my children. I am not impersonal like Mother was, and to me they are the ones that God has given me and they are beautiful and wonderful. But they’ve had to share me with everybody else. And it’s been very difficult for me too because I haven’t had the same relationship with them. In one sense, we haven’t lost anything, but yet in another sense it’s been difficult because one thing about it, you know—you will always listen to somebody else’s mother but you won’t listen to your own. So when you find yourself in the position of being both Guru and mother, it gets a little complicated sometimes. [Mother laughs.] So I see exactly the predicament that she was in.

But anyway, my heart ached so for this man, when I saw him in this great need for this motherhood within his own mother, that I sat down and I think I must have cried an hour. And I wasn’t very happy with her about that time, but I have changed in many ways and come to see that God works in so many ways that I didn’t understand before.

And our Bible reading for today is from Galatians, Chapter 4, Verse 21:

1. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
2. For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
3. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
4. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
5. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
6. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

This is very pertinent. Human motherhood entails two different aspects. First, it entails the physical because the woman bears the child in her womb, and when she does this, she becomes one with all of nature. And she is one with the tree that brings forth its fruit and its blossom. She is one with all of the animal kingdom when she brings forth this act of motherhood. And yet, she is very, very different from the animal kingdom or the plant kingdom because she alone is able to bring forth a man, who is made in the image and likeness of God.

This is the most tremendous thing that anybody can imagine. She, in effect, has union with God, marriage with God, is in partnership with God when such an act happens because, you see, it is God Himself who comes as that spark of Divinity in the womb of the mother. And that spark, as we know it, is called a soul. And also, He comes in the form of the mother herself, who is able, through the workings of own being, her own flesh, to clothe that soul, that spark of life, with a garment of flesh of its own. And when you think of that, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.

Motherhood spells purity. Man, today particularly, as he did in ancient days, looks upon woman with lust, but sees in her his own desire, his own lust, his own need for sense gratification, and sometimes the woman also sees that same thing in the man. And this is God’s pattern in the beginning, apparently. If we could only do as they did in the early days in India, regard the mother as the vehicle which will bring forth a child of God, a man form. And she has a tremendous responsibility, because in the way that she trains and teaches that child she will bring the world into whatever future development and state that it will be.

This is an amazing thing when you think of that responsibility because we’re so prone in the beginning to spoil the child, to think how wonderful, how cute it is in the human sense, and we don’t realize, as mothers, that we have nurtured within us this spark of the Divine, and that we have brought forth a man child, a son of man who eventually will become a Son of God.

Now, it tells about these two states in motherhood here, because the second state is the spiritual state. And if she conceives a child in spiritual consciousness, there is no doubt but what that child will become a great soul in God. She has invoked that type of child to come and reside in her body.

In here, it says. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. Now, Abraham represents the father aspect. And he does have two aspects because, you see, under the law the female part is bound through feeling, but under the Spirit it is lifted up and released, and becomes a free person. And so, each woman has these two aspects within herself that she brings forth.

But he who was born of the bondswoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. So we come born as the son of man, but nevertheless, if we will set our feet on the path, if we will dedicate every act of our life, every thought of our life, every action, in every way, to God and to the realization of our oneness with Him, we will certainly gain our freedom. There are many ways of doing this, there are many paths, and they are all yoga. Even the Christian path is yoga because that word means union with God. We call it “salvation,” but salvation is a little different because, in the Christian sense today, it is thought that all you have to do is to believe in Jesus the Christ and you will be saved. It is not so simple because each one comes bound under the law and must pay the price under the law. He cannot escape it. But this “vicarious atonement” comes within ourselves, and it is the savior within each and every one who atones vicariously for that humanness within himself, which has been with him not only for centuries but for incarnations after incarnations. And finally, when he is ready to atone for all of his sins, when he repents, then he is lifted up and put through whatever is necessary in accordance with God’s will, in accordance with his own past actions, in order that he might become one with God.

God is both Father and Mother. God, in the form of Spirit, exists beyond duality, but He becomes a Father when He starts to create His creation. And the amazing thing is that He sends forth this spark from Himself, this flame from Himself, into the womb of nature, and that womb brings forth a child. It has brought forth all of creation. It is a tremendous thing when you think of what happens when that event takes place.

I remember one time when Papa was here and we had invited him over to our home to speak to our group, and he gave a discourse on saints and their value. And so after the sermon was over, everybody was very uplifted. I asked him if he would bless everybody in the group. Well, usually he doesn’t do this, but he agreed to this time. And the Maharani, Lalita Devi, who was there at that time and who had financed the trip for his whole entourage, ran up, the first one to be blessed, because she wasn’t going to miss this opportunity at all.

Well, I was the last one up there because, naturally, I would let everyone else go first, and when I knelt before him for his blessing, with everything in me I wanted oneness with the Divine Mother. And so I asked him, “Papa, will you grant me this boon of becoming one with the Divine Mother?”

And he laughed this joyous little laugh he had, and he raised both hands and then he put them on my head, and he says, “Ah, it shall be so.”

What a wonderful thing that was. What a wonderful promise. What a wonderful experience it was to know that eventually, if I did my part, that this could happen to me. But it can happen not only to me but to everyone in this room, to everyone all over, if they would only make the effort.

But we don’t do this, you see? We are so engrossed in the things of the senses, in our pleasures, in our duties, in the things that we just have to do—so we have to neglect God—that we are always putting those things first, and not Him. You can hear excuses from here to eternity, of all of those who profess so greatly to love God, and yet when it comes to putting themselves out to attend a service for an hour, or to go more than once a week, they can always find an excuse. And they can’t possibly do it.

And as I’ve said many times before, I wonder what in the world we would think if we should be in terrible need and we should call out to God, our Father, for help, and He should tell us that He was too busy to take care of us, that He had another engagement. It is something to think about. And we don’t realize the peace, the bliss, the wonder and the glory that we can have if we can keep Him in our consciousness every single moment of the day—every single moment.

No matter what you’re doing, you can think of God, because you can think of Him as doing everything through you. In this case, you have to surrender yourself to Him totally, don’t you see? And yet you think of doing everything for Him. So, in either case, whatever you’re doing you can be conscious of God. You can be saying His sacred Name, you can be working for Him, you can be worshiping Him, you can be adoring Him. You can be expressing all of the great gifts which He has given to each and every one of us.

Everybody has something within themselves in the way of motherhood. Men have the male and the female within themselves, and woman has the male and the female within themselves, and it is only when you come to a perfect balance with that male and female aspect of yourself, that you go over the top and you become one with your Source, one with your Father God.

Master always said, “The mother is closer than the father!” I can hear him today: “The mother is closer than the father.” And he used to worship God in the form of the mother. And he felt so deeply about his own divine mother, as he called her, because his love for her was so great that when he was a little boy and the message came that she was very ill, he had a premonition that she was going to pass on. And he was with his uncle at the time, and he was about to throw himself under the tracks and destroy himself because he felt that his mother was gone, and he couldn’t live without her. But yet his uncle persuaded him that still she lives. But this wasn’t true because his own premonition had been true and she had passed on. And for years he was inconsolable, and he grieved for her and he mourned for her. But he kept on with his work for God and his meditations and his desire for oneness with God until finally he said that he saw her two black eyes everywhere, in every form. And if any of you—and I’m sure most of you—have read the Autobiography of a Yogi, you have seen her picture, and she was indeed very, very beautiful. He looked a great deal like her when I first met him. He too was very, very beautiful.

But when you can come to the supreme state of motherhood where you can see everyone in this universe as your child, a part of yourself, then there’s no sense of giving, of doing, of anything else because you are but taking care of yourself. And this is the way Mother Krishnabai worked. She took care of everyone. She would wash any dirty body, she would take of wounds, she would feed the poor, she would give them new clothes. She started the school, she started the hospital. Her work was really unbelievable, the way she did it, and yet because she had reached that oneness with God, somehow, even though many times she was ill and she was weak, still she would work from early morning until one and two o’clock the next morning. I was there. I observed this.

And I would many times see her come in when we were sitting in Papa’s room in the afternoon, where we went every afternoon from 1:30 until 3:00, and he would read to us. He would talk to us about God. And when he would read, it would take on a new meaning. It was as though the Spirit of God and the Power of God came forth and our whole beings opened up to receive the Truth in whatever he read to us. But every now and then, she would just appear at the door to see that he was alright. And then, smiling at each other, she would go away, satisfied that everything was right for him.

But she took over his life totally. She was his mother and he was her child. And it came to be that she just had everybody come to him so that he could talk to them about the Truth, and she took on all the rest of the responsibility. But one night he had a sore throat, and it was in what they called the winter months. Here we would call it summer because it was 90 degrees. And we were still sweltering, but he had a vest on, a woolen vest, and a woolen scarf around his throat. And he and I were alone in the bhajan hall and he was pacing up and down and up and down, muttering to himself, and finally he turned to me and he said, “Once in a while, he has to what he wants to do.” And out he marched under the tree. [Mother laughs] She had forbidden him to go out and speak with the people that night. So he marched out. And this was his—once in a while, he had to what he had to do too. He just wasn’t going to be under her thumb.

But there was another story that they told about one time when he was on tour. And wherever he went, thousands of people came to the train to meet him because that’s the way people are in India about the saints. They are such a spiritual people, and it is so amazing that we always think that we have to go over as missionaries to give them God‑realization, only we call it “salvation,” and to enforce something which they already know to a much greater degree than we do! Because don’t forget that they know that Krishna came from Vishnu, the Preserver. Now Vishnu, in that sense, is like the Holy Ghost, and Master has said that the Holy Ghost is the Mother of the universe. So Krishna came from Vishnu and Christ was born of the Holy Ghost, and they know all of these things and have known it for it for thousands of years.

But anyway, he went on this tour and he became ill. And he was very ill, and he couldn’t carry on his duties. And so finally he said, “I want my mother. I want my mother.” And so they got him back home as fast as they could get him. And when she saw him, she just took him in her arms and she hugged him, just like a mother would her child. And it was a beautiful thing to see, they say.

And so in all of these things the mother aspect turns to a thing of glory if we would only consider it. Each woman, you see, when she bears a child, bears a double burden in one sense, because she has the physical birth. And woman has great stamina. She has. It’s been proven that woman has much greater stamina than man when it comes to enduring things over a long period of time, because do you not realize that she goes actually into the jaws of death to bring forth a man‑child, made in the image and likeness of God? So she experiences this death and this beginning of life all at one time within herself, and yet she approaches it unafraid because of the wonder, the beauty, the great thrilling bliss of the experience of holding that little bundle of humanity in her arms.

We don’t realize all that we owe our mothers, in many cases until many times it is too late. And it is a shame that we do not do so, that we do not see them more often, pay more attention to them, recognize the love and the attention that they have given us. I know that that was true in my own case with my mother. I adored here. I loved her. I thought she was the most wonderful person in the world; but yet, looking back at it afterwards, I saw where I could have done so many things that I didn’t do, that I could have saved her worry, which I didn’t save her, because I was like every other teenager that ever came into existence. I gave my mother a bad time too, upon occasion, and a few gray hairs I’m sure developed as a result of it.

I wasn’t always as I hope I am today. [Mother laughs.] But I look back at those times and I think of all that she went through for me, and I think of motherhood the world over and what a tremendous, tremendous privilege it is to be a mother. You see, you bear the child physically and yet you have union with God the Father because He puts that spark of His own spirit in the womb of the child, which as I said is called the soul. And then He comes forth, that part of Himself, clothed in this garment of flesh—a man that can move a world if he wishes to, because he is an infinite part of God, an eternal part of God. The flesh may fall away, the clothing that we wear; but nevertheless, that Spirit within us will never die. Never!

Master told one time, I remember, of the experience that he had when he was just a little fella, and he used to go to the great Master Mahasaya, who was a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. And his picture used to appear in the early autobiographies. I don’t know if it still does or not. But he was a very sweet-looking person and he was constantly carrying on a conversation with God. And so Master’s desire to become one with the Divine Mother was so great that finally he went to this Master and he asked him if he would not intercede with Her for this boon for him. And so he said that he would do so.

So Master immediately went home and he went up into the attic where he always meditated, and he prayed and he prayed and he prayed. And finally—it was about 10 o’clock at night—this beautiful, wonderful vision of the Divine Mother came before him. And she said, “My child, I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you.” And he was in a state of ecstasy, of the wonder and the beauty of the Presence of the Divine Mother until dawn.

But he was a mischievous young lad, and so he went to the Master the next day and he said to him, “When you spoke to the Divine Mother, what did she say?”

And the Master looked at him and smiled, and he says, “Mischievous little sir.”

And he said, “What did she say? You promised to tell me.”

He said, “Do I need to add anything to what you experienced at 10 o’clock last evening?”

You know, many times we ask ourselves a question: “Can God talk to us?” Indeed, He can talk to us. We can hear His voice just as you hear mine right now, and I myself have experienced this.

I remember a story that Dr. Lewis told one time. When he was a young lad, he had a couple of sisters younger than he was, and he gave them a pretty bad time, as many times brothers do to sisters, and he was teasing them and teasing them and teasing them. His name was Minot, but they called him “Minie.” So all of a sudden—He had gone upstairs and he was still carrying on in this fashion—and he heard a voice say to him, “Minie, stop teasing your sisters.” And it just stopped him short! It wasn’t the voice of his mother because she was downstairs, and it certainly wasn’t his sisters’, although they wanted him to stop. But the amazing thing about it was that many years later when Master visited his home and when he looked at this one spot, he saw a great flash of light—all of these years afterwards.

You know, the presence of a spiritual experience, the presence of where a saint lived or where they do live, is really something in the places where you go. I have experienced this myself. I sat under the bodhi tree in Bodhgaya—and this is where the Buddha attained his illumination—and I went so high that I didn’t think I would come down for days if somebody hadn’t hauled me out. But this spirit was still there. It was the same as I’ve told you about Lahiri Mahasaya. Even though it has been many, many years since this great saint lived in his home, his presence was there so greatly that the minute you stepped in that door you could feel it. The house was vacant of furniture. There was nothing there except this one altar and the life‑sized picture of the Master on this altar, and as I knelt before him, this tremendous experience of bliss came over me.

Do you not realize the power of God in you? That if you would only put into your subconscious minds all of the positive things of what you want to accomplish, and not give it up for one moment—to re-train your mind to think positively, to catch yourself when you are talking adversely about somebody else—that you could change your whole life? You can even change your appearance, your form, because such is this creative power.

I attended a lecture recently where a man said that we as human beings use only five percent of the intelligence and the power within us of which we are capable—five percent. Geniuses have 15 percent. Now, imagine that—only five percent of what we’re capable of doing. Every single moment of our lives we could assume the role of “motherhood” because we could create new thoughts, new words, new actions, in our minds and in our lives, and send them forth into the world because, you see, God being Spirit and the Divine Mother being nature, you must realize that when you work under nature, that you must work in harmony with her laws or she will punish you. And nature herself is punished through these acts of man.

This is how powerful man is. Because he sends forth his vibration, all of a sudden all of these vibratory forces coming from every mind, from every thought, every word, every action, from all of the people in the world, mount up to such a degree that we have an earthquake, we have a tremendous explosion, we have airplane crashes in one place, we have a ship sink in the ocean, we have great tidal waves. These things just don’t happen by chance; they happen because something is out of harmony, and we must learn to work in harmony with God’s laws if we are ever to reach our goal. And to work in harmony with God’s laws is to harmonize our whole beings.

Wouldn’t you rather, when you stop to think about it, live in peace, in bliss, in ecstasy of God, seeing only the beauty and the wonder of His Presence in every form that you meet, than to be as you are now, back and forth between these opposites? A veritable slave? It seems to me that we should have no choice; but still, blindly we go on. It’s like in the beginning you see as through a glass darkly, and then face-to-face. But you must get rid of this glass partition between yourself, in the human sense, and God who is your Real Sense. If you can do this, each single person is a mother, is a creator, because you can bring forth just the most wonderful things, wonderful gifts. And as you give of yourself and everything you have, this returns to you, because this is the law: For every action, there is an opposite and an equal reaction. So as you give constantly of whatever money you have, whatever possessions you have, and most of all of yourself, in love and devotion, in service to God in every form that you meet, that will return to you. I have proven this beyond any question of a doubt in my life.

One of the questions that was asked in this particular lecture—we were given a piece of paper—is, “Who is the happiest person you know?” And immediately, I put down “myself.” And then I thought to myself, after I looked at it, “Now, that sounds like an ego trip. I better erase that.” But it was really the truth because I am completely happy.

I love my work. I love every moment of my life in God. I love God in everybody. And no matter what I get sometimes. still I go back, I forgive, I love and I give some more, hoping that one day they will open their eyes to the truth of what they are missing, and get busy with it.

Why should we destroy ourselves when we have all of life to live before us? Each man has an obligation—each woman—to fulfill their destiny in God. And there is but one destiny that is set out before every man, and that is to go within yourself and find God and the kingdom of heaven, because that is where the Christ said it was to be found. It is only when you go within this inner sanctuary of your soul and commune with Him, and get your help, your comfort—

Don’t you realize that you don’t need to be running off at the mouth all the time?—This little tongue is really a deadly weapon.—that if you have problems, if you are hurt by somebody else, if you think bad thoughts about somebody else, you don’t have to go out and tell the whole world about it; you can commune with God, your Father who is right inside of you, and He is both Father and Mother. It depends on which aspect appeals to you.

I remember at one time I was going to have a very serious operation and I wired Master for help, as I would wait until the very last second when I couldn’t hardly keep going anymore, and then alone would I wire him. And somebody asked me one time, “Well, why didn’t you telephone?”

You know, it never occurred to me. It really never occurred to me because to me he was so great and I knew that he had so many demands on his time that I felt that I should tell telegraph him instead and not take up his time. And so I did. And he sent back a telegram and he said to me, “Remember you are rocked in the cradle of God’s Presence.” And immediately, when I read that telegram, I was lifted up into a state of bliss that I can’t begin to tell you. I shall never forget that experience for as long as I live.

Remember always that you are rocked in the cradle of God’s Infinite Presence. How tremendous that is, and yet it’s true; we have that Christ child within ourselves. We have within ourselves that gift of spiritual motherhood. And if we will only control our senses, if we will only control our thoughts, our words, our actions, and focus our full attention on Him, that we can actually have union with God and bring forth a Christ child, born in the manger, the manger of our own being.

It is true that when God creates a child, that He sends forth from Himself that one, that part of Himself which could influence a whole, whole world. All of this you have within yourself. This applies to men as well as it does to women.

A woman should look to her husband and see the God in him. If they come together in physical union, then it should be with the consciousness upon God—of giving themselves, of sharing something beautiful in God. And if you will learn to come together in this way and then to speak of God afterwards, you will find that it will change your whole desire nature. And you will find that you do not have the trouble with passion that you had before; that you will be lifted up and the need will grow less and less, and you haven’t lost anything, because in its place will come this immortal bliss. And after you have once experienced this bliss of God, this tremendous bliss that emanates from the spine and goes through every part of your being, and then you descend again to the human level and have a relationship in the physical sense, you actually feel like crying, and sometimes do, because you have lost something so precious. And for what?

That is the Judas within you, the life force that betrays the savior, because it’s an outgoing force. And instead of outgoing, it should be turned upwards. That is why it is said that Judas hung himself on a tree. Now, upside down, it said. So this means that when man finally comes to the realization that the thing that he must do is to control his senses—through concentration, through meditation, through worship and love and service of God—that when he does this, that he himself is turned upside down, and instead of that life‑force being expended out from himself, then it goes up and it is turned into creative power.

And the Bible itself speaks of this body—your body, my body, everybody’s body—as the house, as the tree, as the cross, as the robe, as the temple of the living God. There are many references to it. But one is the tree, because it is the tree of life. And so this Judas force which betrays, hangs itself upside down, and is no more. And then that force is contained within yourself and used to put forth the great power and the wonder of the special gifts that God has given you, and above all, to help you to seek Him who is your very, very Self.

How beautiful, how wonderful is God in His aspect of the Divine Mother. If we could all just reach out to Her, visualize ourselves climbing on her lap, feeling Her arms around us; visualize Her as a person, if you wish—radiant, beautiful, glorious, with the light shining to the farthest corner of the universe.

This is the way the Divine Mother is. Make yourself one with Her. Feel Her Presence, and you will be lifted up and you will become God‑men and God‑women, and you will become mothers and fathers to the whole universe.

Now let us pray to Him… [Mother leads the congregation in the Closing Prayer.]