The Divine Mother — the Consciousness-Force of the Divine
Written by Santosh Krinsky
In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo writes: “In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature.” The Divine Shakti, the creative force of the universe, the power that manifests all, is the Divine Mother. There are both static and dynamic aspects of existence. The static aspect is Ete
al, Absolute and unmoving. It supports and contains all, but does not create. The dynamic aspect is the force of creation that acts in the universe. The Divine Mother is this dynamic power of creation.
Sri Aurobindo notes: “The Divine Mother is the Consciousness and Force of the Divine — which is the Mother of all things. ..– or, it may be said, she is the Divine in its consciousness-force. The Ishwara as Lord of the cosmos does come out of the Mother who takes her place beside him as the cosmic Shakti — the cosmic Ishwara is one aspect of the Divine. … The Supreme cannot create through the Transcendent because the Transcendent is the Supreme. It is through the Cosmic Shakti that the Divine creates.”
“it is the Divine who is the Master — the Self is inactive, it is always a silent witness supporting all things — that is the static aspect. There is also the dynamic aspect through which the Divine works — behind that is the Mother. You must not lose sight of that, that it is through the Mother that all things are attained.”
Sri Aurobindo, Integral Yoga: Sri Aurobindo’s Teaching and Method of Practice, Chapter 4 The Divine, The Gods and the Divine Force, The Divine Mother pp. 88-90
Article author
About the Author
Santosh has been studying Sri Aurobindo's writings since 1971 and has a daily blog at http://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com He is author of 16 books and is editor-in-chief at Lotus Press. He is president of Institute for Wholistic Education, a non-profit focused on integrating spirituality into daily life.
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