Twenty-Four
The Error in Ruling Mankind
Throughout the ages, in this land, saints, yogis, sages, ascetics, the contemplative, the wise, emperors, maharajas, and kings have governed with justice's rod in hand—preserving, protecting, and nurturing. Yet today, the fruit of that very rule returns like poison. Does this not reveal that mankind can never truly be governed or protected through systems of justice and judgment born from human reason alone?
The Way of Nature
Had humanity understood from the very beginning of creation that within nature itself—the source from which mankind emerged—lie all the means for directing the human path, the world's face would be different today. If we cease trying to make humans human, and instead place the inhuman upon the throne of humanity and demand they fulfill their duty, it will never succeed. Never.
Human Error and Limitation
Looking at the human condition today, does it not seem that mankind has made a terrible mistake in understanding, thinking about, and knowing itself? There is no time now for regret. Until man becomes truly human, the sense of duty inherent to humanity will not awaken within him.
The Absence of Self-Knowledge
Man has not yet realized his own glory. He does not yet feel how vast he is, how mighty—this recognition has not yet come to him. And yet man himself is creator, sustainer, and destroyer. But to fulfill this responsibility, he must stand established in his true humanity; and this difficult path, only the one who has suffered it can understand.
The Hope of an Age Immortal
Yet there is light in hope—after this play's end will come a novel age of immortality. Then mankind will witness: in the evening of an old age, an eighty-year-old man, but by morning he has become a youth of sixteen. The field that once bore no crop will overflow with boundless harvest. Disease, illness, old age, death—these will vanish forever from human life.
Humanity of the Future
Then man will always be engaged in one mind, one path, one work. Forgetting conflict, envy, and division, mankind will dwell united and mingled as one. Then the egoless human will have no difference from the entire world. Looking at a single human being, one will understand—within him dwell the whole of humanity, the world, and God in their fullness.
Twenty-Five
The Foundation of Human Life
The household picture of human life began in the infinite wealth of the World-Mother's lap. The center of this journey through life is—mother, father, and child. Around these three revolves the commencement of all creation, and when these three become complete in their natural state, then begins the path toward immortality.
Yet sorrow marks this truth: mother, father, and child—none has yet understood their true nature. Right sense of duty and ideals have not yet taken root. Where human life should be bound in love and filled with joy, the earth today is saturated with licentiousness, cruelty, and the ghastly consequences of action. Human society now lies shrouded in the deep darkness of doubt, suspicion, hatred, and despair.
The Advent of the Guru
At this threshold between life and death, the charioteer, guide, and teacher of human society—the Guru—has appeared in merciful form. To make mother, father, and child understand their ignorance and its consequences, and to make known the emptiness of their deeds, the Guru has assumed a merciful countenance and entered human society.
The Guru's Role
The Guru has come to make the child understand the profound bond between parents. He becomes a bridge between child and parents, introduces them to one another, and determines their mutual duties. For this, he takes on the ordinary form of flesh—five and a half feet of body—and serves all as a friend, as a companion, as a mother and father, and as a servant. In awakening true knowledge of life, in fostering a sense of duty, and in determining ideals, he ever remains a support.
The Guru's Responsibility
The Guru's chief responsibility is to make mother, father, and child understand their relationship, introduce them to one another, and determine their duties.
As long as these three have not reached their complete goal by discovering their natural character and distinctive consciousness, the guru’s duty remains unfinished.
**The Mark of the Supernatural Age**
Another responsibility of the guru is to introduce the ‘supernatural age’—an epoch accomplished not by nature, but by character itself.
**The Lack in Humanity**
It is remarkably rare to find within people the confidence necessary to regard as a true helmsman one who has emerged as the guide for humanity’s comprehensive welfare. Such trust is still exceedingly scarce.
**Twenty-six.**
**The Mother as Symbol of the World-Mother**
We find in our mother, who dwells in a body of three and a half cubits, the living emblem of the World-Mother. The mother possesses three secret forms, unknown to ordinary people—the Primordial Mother, Uma-Mother, and Shyama-Mother. The Primordial Mother is the embodiment of pure science, Uma-Mother of knowledge, and Shyama-Mother of action.
The countless maternal forms of the world are, in truth, vividly expressed within this mother. The mother has contracted her cosmic form and assumed a body like ours, and now plays with us in the dance of creation, sustenance, and dissolution. She is herself the father, herself the child, taking part in endless divine play to nourish infinity in its varied forms.
**The Mother’s Divine Play**
The mother who gave birth, held close to her breast, nourished with her milk—that same mother, in her youthful manifestation, draws forth and captivates her child’s vigour, stealing away his strength. The mother is at once the giver of life, the nurturer, the bestower of love, and the destroyer—playing all these roles with her child. She is also the World-Mother who severs all her child’s delusions and enchantments, drawing him into her own lap.
This is the truth: if the mother did not participate in such manifold play, she could never be recognized as infinitely powerful. To make herself known to her child, the mother awakens lack within herself, bringing forth at once the husband and the child, playing in the roles of beloved and bearer of life.
**The Child’s Ignorance**
But it is a misfortune that the child cannot awaken to this understanding. The eye cannot recognize the mother, reason cannot comprehend her, knowledge cannot know her. Neither devotion nor love can dissolve the child into unity with the mother. Strangely, this life-giving mother herself remains ignorant of her true nature. Yet within her lies the undivided triple form: the embodiment of pure science, pure knowledge, and pure action.
**The Mother’s Incomplete Duty**
Because the mother does not know her own nature, her sense of duty cannot be right. When there is no knowledge of the self within the body, how effective can the service rendered to husband, child, family, and society by that body truly be? Yet the mother remains today immersed in delusion and enchantment, centered upon her own ego. Without understanding the true relation with husband or child, she merely fulfills her duties in reliance upon scripture and custom.
**The Need: Understanding Relations and Awakening Duty**
Therefore, first comes the need for correct understanding of relationships, and then the awakening of true duty. If mothers, since the beginning of creation until now, were once to judge how consciously they have fulfilled their obligations, they would recognize their own errors. If mothers would but reflect upon how cautious they must be in every action before their children, they could avoid many mistakes.
**The Present Condition**
Today, many mothers blend the ideals of East and West; some follow the Western path entirely, others only the Eastern. Yet if they truly desired their children’s welfare, they would have been rigorous and conscious in their duty from the beginning. Mothers may look toward the progress of nation, age, and society, but many have remained indifferent to the question of true duty. And yet—in the matter of the child’s formation, nation, age, and circumstance are not paramount. What is essential is the mother’s correct sense of duty.
**Twenty-seven.**
**The Form of the Father**
Just as the mother possesses three forms, so too does the father—the undivided embodiment of pure science, the undivided embodiment of pure knowledge, and the undivided embodiment of pure action. Yet the father remains ignorant of his own essential nature, bound in delusion.
Where his duty is to attain self-knowledge and light the way for wife and child, if he himself remains ignorant, devoid of self-knowledge, lacking restraint and unstable—driven by ego to manage the household as “my household”—then one day that very household will become for him a terrible snare of illusion. True household dharma can never be fulfilled through ego-driven authority.
The Relation Between Wife, Husband, and Child
How can one who does not know the true relation between wife and husband, who does not know the relation between father and child, undertake the responsibility of the household? In truth, a child is born from the dual state of mother and father—the living form of their joined nature. Yet even after consciousness awakens, the child does not wish to understand this. He remains unconscious of his own duty. If the child cannot understand his obligation to his parents, then his birth is in vain.
The Child’s Self-Knowledge
A child is truly the unified form of mother and father. Therefore he must come to know his own essential nature. When he can recognize himself, he will see within him the very nature of his parents. Only then will he be capable of determining and fulfilling his duty. While in the mother’s womb, the child’s life and death depended upon the mother’s breath. After the umbilical cord is severed, his actions come into his own hands. Similarly, the union of mother and father is essential for the child’s formation.
The Cause of the Present Condition
After consciousness awakens, the child’s first thought should be—how will I understand the relation between my parents, and how will I determine my duty? But does any child think in this way? If they did, the demonic circumstances that plague the world today would never have arisen.
The Trinity of Mother, Father, and Child
Mother, father, and child—these three are three parts of one indivisible body. By nature, they are bound to one another in inseparable unity. Yet today, for lack of right understanding and proper education, they are drifting apart from one another. Without this natural oneness, the household has filled with conflict, jealousy, despair, narrowness, and mistrust. Thus human civilization has arrived at the very threshold of destruction.
Question: Then is there no way out of this condition?
Mother–Father–Child and the Guru
In today’s world, mothers and fathers, witnessing the fruits of their own actions, find themselves astonished, wondering—”What have we truly done all this time?” Confused about questions of duty, they are gradually turning to the shelter of the guru.
Drawn by country, time, society, circumstance, and their own self-interest, mothers, fathers, and children together have become entangled in selfish deeds. Today they reap the terrible consequences of those deeds, and their own peace and contentment have been lost. So now it seems to them—if only there were such a path, if only there were such a friend who, forgetting our transgressions, would show us compassion, perhaps then we might be freed from this self-condemnation.
Ignorant of the way, all people today—women and men alike—are seeking shelter with the guru, whether willingly or not. For this is certain: a person cannot move toward the Divine until he has reached the uttermost limit of all things. And it is the uttermost condition itself that truly points toward the Divine.