Mothers & Mothering
“We All Are Ramakrishnas”
This is Romain Rolland’s praise, in admiration, of Ramakrishna:
The Seraphic Master had spent his whole life at the feet of the Divine Beloved, the Mother – the Living God. He had been dedicated to Her from infancy; before he had attained self-consciousness he had the consciousness that he loved Her.
Read More » “You Are As My Mother”
You are as my mother
aspired to be:
when I look in your eyes
– it’s her love I see.
This is reprised (“haiku’d”) as
You are as my mother
– it’s her love I see.
Which can be further abbreviated to
You are
– I see.
And the “you” is anyone, everyone, anything, everything.
Read More » “Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904)”
At the end of his tragically short life (1850-1904), Lafcadio Hearn, “Japan’s Greatest Interpreter,” wrote this in his Reverie.* Especially poignant as he had been separated from his mother since he was two:
“It has been said that men fear death much as the child cries at entering the world, being unable to know what loving hands are waiting to receive it … [A]s a happy fancy it is beautiful … It is beautiful, I think, because it suggests, in so intimate a way, the hope that to larger knowledge the Absolute will reveal itself as the mother – love made infinite … Some all-transfiguring hope created by the memory of Woman as Mother, and the more that races evolve towards higher things, the more Feminine becomes their idea of a God.”
Read More » “To Know Our Mother’s Soul”
It is imperative, I believe, for us to see, to Know, our mother’s Soul, her Godliness, her Buddha-Nature. Only then can we Know our own – and so, at last, be relieved of our anguish.
This does not mean that our mothers need to change but only our inner image of her.
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