NIRVANA
Nirvana
A Study in
Synthetic
Consciousness
by
George Sidney
Arundale
First published 1926
Dr Arundale was International President of
the Theosophical
Society (Adyar) from 1933 to 1945
__________
CHAPTER XI
Mother-Light
No more glorious vision has Nirvana given me than that of the
apotheosis - or must I say again, an apotheosis - of womanhood. We are familiar
with the conception of God the Father, but little information is there
regarding God the Mother. Yet we come nearer an ultimate Reality when we begin
to be able to sense the Mother-Principle as coeternal with the
Father-Principle, co-existent with it, both emerging from one ineffable source.
So far as I am aware, in every great Faith the Mother-Principle finds noble and
wonderful expression, perhaps as Power-Sacrifice, impersonal, “awful” in the
true sense of the word, or perhaps as Purity-Sacrifice, an ideal woman, such,
for example, as we have in Christianity in Our Lady.
In terms of Nirvana I seem to perceive a Mother-Light and a
Father-Light, each a component part of the Lightning-standing-still. I wonder
whether I can differentiate between the two. The Mother-Light impresses me
first of all with a sense of Simple, Majestic Dignity, the Dignity of the
Unveiled Real, the Dignity of Holiness, in which are beautifully blended
Restraint, reserved Power, Refuge, Protection. I seem to see within the
glorious embodiments in the outer world of this great Mother-Light a radiant
sea of Light, and the image comes to me of a vast expanse of still and silent
ocean with a mother-of-pearl glittering
in the soft light of the full moon, the slight ripples causing a
ceaseless shimmering. Think what the ocean is. Remember its tremendous,
irresistible power. But this ocean of the Mother-Light is never lashed into
storm - it remains ever peaceful, ever calm, inscrutable, deep beyond the power
of words to express, yet shimmering, scintillating, with that Love-Light which
is a
mighty mountain peak of Wisdom-Compassion.
In this great
indeed a holy and consecrated channel through which it flows outwards
to generate and to fructify all life: Mater Generatrix.
As broods the Mother-Light over every act of renewal in every
What a mission! How splendid an office! Woman the Fire of
Creation.
At this point let me for a moment place in juxtaposition the Father-Light. What do I
perceive in differentiation? Action, a Flashing Forth, may I say a storm-ridden
sea, pulsating with mighty outpourings? The Positive complementary to the
Negative; the two mighty Poles of manifested Being. Entering the essence of
these two great Lights I see the One. And almost I begin to understand the One,
because as I watch (or is it as I change?) I perceive the Light-quality
dissolve into apparent nothingness - it is not really nothingness - and there
remains a More-than-Light, that to which even Light owes its being. I can say
no more. But I realize how both Father-Light and Mother-Light must together
express this More-than-Light as it assumes the shadow of manifestation.
I return to the contemplation of the Mother-Light. Instantly the
image of mighty Pallas Athene comes before my inner
sight. In some wonderful way She seems a most perfect form of Mother-Light,
infinitely majestic, awe-inspiring, a Sanctuary in which the afflicted take
refuge and issue forth strong and unafraid, a great Heartener,
Queen of Heaven’s Ministering Powers. The ancient statues of Her convey
something of Her Glory. As I gaze upon her, a miracle happens. I see myriads of
Her. For a moment I wonder what has happened, but almost immediately I perceive
that I see her reflected in all womanhood in all kingdoms of Nature. Every
woman a sparkling jewel of the Mother-Light, imprisoning its glories to release
and speed them on their way. The whole world should sparkle with these jewels,
yet many are dull, lifeless, dimmed by desecration.
Where are the women to restore to womanhood its splendid lustre? Where are the women to lead the women of every
Nation on a great crusade to recover and fulfil their
heritage? How long shall it be ere women remember that their bodies are shrines
of the Mother-Light at which they may worship with mighty Sacraments, among
them those of Marriage and Motherhood? How long shall it be ere children are
born in holy
I suppose this sounds utterly alien from modern ideas of
motherhood, womanhood, childhood. But I have been abiding awhile in the Real,
and I have been living in the intense yearning of the World-Mother that Her
children may draw nearer to Her, that She may press them to Her Heart. Where
there is sorrow, grief, despair, agony, there is the World-Mother, tending,
cherishing, comforting, as many a pain-stricken mother knows, as many a lonely
child knows too. Yet She could do so much more, would womanhood but turn to
Her. The Christ has returned to His world; many of us know this, and are
preparing a welcome for our Guest and Father. But do we know, too, that with
Him comes the World-Mother? Not, perhaps, in Her own most glorious Form, though
possibly in bodies consecrated specifically to Her use; nevertheless She comes,
and Her mission is to the women of the world, to remind them of the glory of
womanhood, to summon them to lead the world and to give to the world great men
1and women, and to exhort them to make womanhood worthy of reverence as She
will exhort men to reverence womanhood. We ask the world to welcome its Christ.
We ask the world to welcome its Mother as She returns with Her Son Who is Her
King.
How clearly I perceive the Nirvanic
Glory of womanhood, so distorted and misshapen down here. Womanhood in excelsis! And I see, in this return of the Christ, Heaven
that is Nirvana kissing earth and endowing earth once more with its glories,
and none greater than the Mother-Light. Downward shines the Mother-Light
through every World-Mother this earth has ever known. Once again do They come
near to the world which aforetime They have mothered.
Once more They stir in the heart of every woman, summoning her to
light again the sacrificial Fire in the temple of her being. Many They call to
the sacraments of Marriage and individual Motherhood. But They call all to that
wider Motherhood of which the world is being so disastrously deprived in these
modern days when men and women alike have forgotten woman’s true place in life.
In an article appearing in the August issue (1926) of The Liberal
Catholic of
in which I first began to know Her as far as I am capable of
understanding Her. I saw a Light. I have put that Light into feeble words:
“There is no more beautiful or mysterious truth in the world than
the truth conveyed in those infinitely touching words - ‘Our Lady.’ In every
Faith we find this truth. It is almost the heart of every Faith. Each Faith has
its Power, its Wisdom and its Love. Within all three lies enshrined Motherhood
- directing the Power, enlightening the Wisdom, beautifying the Love. Our Lady,
chatelaine of the castle of the world, is wonderful as the Mother of Jesus,
infinitely appealing to all that is noblest in us. Jesus, the Vehicle of our
Lord the Christ. Our Lady, the Way of the Christ to His World. In Her Holiness
She is far, far away from us. In Her Motherhood She is ‘nearer than hands and
feet.’
“But she is more even than the Mother of Jesus, more than the
Symbol of Her in any Faith, for we find Her on every plane of nature, in every
kingdom of nature.
I ascend the loftiest regions I am capable of reaching, and there
I find Her - Light Radiant, a Light exquisitely distinguishable from all other
Light. In that Light glows the Mother-Principle of Light and Life and Glory. I
am face to face with the shadow of the Motherhood of God. I see her as the
supreme embodiment of Motherhood everywhere, in all kingdoms, on all planes.
She is the Universal Mother - the apotheosis of all that makes motherhood the
purest reflection of the Nature of God. In every act of motherhood is marvellously reflected and ever renewed the supreme wonder
of the Sacrifice of God, so that motherhood becomes the most sacred thing in
the world.
“Wherever there is motherhood there is Our Lady, and as I write
these words there comes before me the
picture of ‘The Lady of the Lamp’ - Florence Nightingale, as she passes from
bedside to bedside among the wounded in her hospital at Scutari,
carrying comfort and courage to every
sufferer. I see this picture as a faint image of the Compassion of Our Lady, as
She moves from bedside to bedside among the women-expectant of the world. The
whole world is Her hospice, and myriad-formed She broods with infinite
tenderness over every mother-to-be as she consummates her divine Act of
Remembrance of the Sacrifice of God.14]
“I am told, too, the story of the poor Hindu girl in an Indian
village, who, about to become a mother, was anxiously expecting her own mother
to ‘mother’ her in her time of exquisite trial, through a crucifixion into a
resurrection. Her mother lived faraway, but was hastening to her daughter’s
side. She had not arrived when the agonies of birth began, but Another Mother
was there in her form, so that the girl rejoiced that her mother had come in
time. Tenderly Parvati - Our Lady of the Hindus, the
Mother-Principle - guided Her child through the sacrament of Motherhood,
enfolding her in joy and peace. At last the mother herself came, and Our Lady
vanished. But the young mother knew not what had happened, and one day thanked
her mother for her marvellous tenderness and care. Astonished, the older woman
answered that to her great grief and anxiety she had not been able to arrive in
time, but was so happy to see that someone else had bestowed upon her child a
mother’s care. ‘But …’ said the daughter, and then upon them smiled Parvati, and they understood and rejoiced in deepest
reverence and gratitude.
“At every Sacrament of Motherhood Our Lady ministers, and many
women there be who see Her, while all who are conscious of the Sacrament know
in full measure that Peace which is Her Presence. To all She comes, taking for
each the form she loves and worships. How wonderful is the Motherhood of God,
the Mother-Principle of life ... a glowing Glory, a glowing Triumph, a glowing
Tenderness, a glowing Sacrifice, a glowing Understanding, a glowing Power to
guard and cherish. The Light which is this Mother-Principle flashes forth
many-hued, encircling the world, radiating upon all things. In every
Of this Light Our Lady, this Universal Mother of us all, is the Epiphany,
the embodied Form. She is a Being, a Person, Who has trodden this glorious road
to Divinity, and has reached atonement in Motherhood. No picture, no words, can
describe Her, yet She is no abstraction, no pure Principle, but Mother-Light in
glorious, Form. By the side of every mother does She
stand as the mother bears splendid witness in her own physical body that she is
a
“Each mother-to-be is a
Can you perceive from this great sacrament of birth, how great
indeed, how solemn, is the sacrament that precedes it - the sacrament of
marriage? Over every marriage, truly, broods Our Lady’s Blessing. The married
couple become Her children, united for that beautiful sacrifice of birth-giving
which they prepare in shining love for offering by Our Lady. As in the Bread
and Wine of the Eucharistic Service is the Real Presence of our Lord, so in
every child-birth is the Real Presence of our Lady. How glorious the role of
woman - temple, priestess, altar, chalice, in one! Is not every child-birth a
marvellous
Eucharistic Service - sacred and joyous beyond the power of words
to paint?“Would that the old-time reverence for women
returned! Would that women the world over entered into their heritage of
priesthood!
All women may not be able to marry. Marriage may not be the
vocation for every woman. Yet the priesthood remains. Is there not the service
of the Benediction of the Most Holy Sacrament as well as the Eucharistic
Service itself? Is there not so much in the world that woman alone can do, even
though she be not called to be the priestess-mother? In these days when women
have to earn their living - in many ways one cannot but regret the necessity,
it savours of the world’s want of reverence for
womanhood - when women have to enter into so many of the sordid things of life,
still may they remember the priesthood of their sex, that wherever they are and
whatever they may be doing they remain the chosen priestesses and ministrants
of Our Lady, to defend Motherhood against all degradation, to stand for the
sacred rights of mother and of child, to represent the Mother-Principle in
Life.
“Is not every child a child of Our Lady, the Universal Mother,
and sacred for that if for no other reason? Is not every woman, because of this,
a mother to all children, only less near than the physical mother, ready to
replace her should need arise? The world needs more motherhood. Has not Our
Lady been too little remembered, though She has ever remembered?
Motherhood begins before birth, and nowhere can we see its
ending. Through life, through death, we need the mother. No more cherished word
than ‘mother’.
“No word so fraught with tenderest
memories. No word more potent to arouse the heart’s most poignant yearnings.
Let there be honour to Motherhood from women and men alike. Dishonour
is there to the Christ where there is dishonour to
Our Lady. Dishonour is there to the Christ where
there is dishonour to woman or to mother, for every
woman is a
“May every man bow in reverence before Her temples, may every
woman cause Her light to shine upon the world. So shall the Mother-Light heal
the wounds of the world, and make it new.”
__________
THEOSOPHY
NIRVANA
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