Tributes
Tributes
“She is Sarada, Saraswati; She has come to impart knowledge. She has descended by covering up her beauty this time …She is full of the rarest wisdom. Is she of the common run? ”
– Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
“You have not yet understood the wonderful significance of Mother’s life- none of you. But gradually you will know. Without Shakti (Power) there is no regeneration for the world. Why is it that our country is the weakest and the most backwardness of all countries? Because Shakti is held in dishonor there (i.e. in India. He wrote this from America). Mother has been born to revive that wonderful Shakti in India; and making her the nucleus, once more will Gargis and Maitreyis be born into the world.Dear brother, you understand little now, but by degrees you will come to know it all. Hence it is her Math that I want first…Without the grace of Shakti nothing is to be accomplished. What do I find in America and Europe?…the worship of Shakti, the worship of Power. Yet they worship Her ignorantly through sense gratification. Imagine, then, what a lot of good they will achieve who will worship Her with all purity, in a Sattvika spirit, looking Her as their Mother! I am coming to understand things clearer every day, my insight is opening out more and more. Hence we must build a Math for Mother. First Mother and Mother’s daughters, then Father and Father’s sons, can you understand this?…To me Mother’s grace is a hundred thousand times more valuable than Father’s. Mother’s grace and Mother’s blessing are all paramount to me…Please pardon me, I am a little bigoted here, as regards Mother. If but Mother orders, her demons can work anything.Brother, before proceeding to America I wrote to Mother to bless me. Her blessing came and at one bound I cleared the ocean. There, you see, in this terrible winter I am lecturing from place to place and fighting against odds, so that funds may be collected for Mother’s Math…‘Without Shakti, there is no regeneration for the world… Mother has been born to revive that wonderful Shakti in India, and making her the nucleus, once more will Gargis and Matreyis be born into this world.’ He further said, ‘Brother! I shall show you the worship of Goddess Durga incarnated in flesh and blood. When I think of the Holy Mother, I forget all about the Great Master. Indeed, herein lies my bigotry. … fie upon those who are not devoted to the Holy Mother!’”-Swami Vivekananda
“It is hard to understand Mother’s greatness unless she herself reveals it. Through the grace of Sri Ramakrishna one may recognize the Divine Mother in her.Who can understand our Mother? Even great yogis cannot understand her, what to speak of others. Is it the function of an ordinary being to have digested the worship of an incarnation like Sri Ramakrishna? From this one has to understand what a great container of power the Mother has been taking the sins and afflictions of many people on herself, and redeeming them. Could any one else but the Divine Mother Herself have this power?Our Mother is Mahamaya Herself. But such is her Maya that none can understand her. Inside, the ocean of realization; outside, absolute calm. How ordinary and easy she appears? Even the incarnation cannot keep under control such divine moods and devotion. One, however, can somewhat understand Sri Ramakrishna through some inklings. But it is extremely difficult to understand the Mother. How she has kept all deluded with her love!
Ah, boundless is her grace. What a yearning for the jivas? She has been herself calling unto people, cleaning them, giving with them peace and redeeming them!
If you want the grace of Sri Ramakrishna, first propitiate the Mother. The Mother is the supreme Primordial Power Herself (Parama Prakriti). She holds the key of the knowledge of Brahman in her hand. Liberation, bliss and all that are in Mother’s keeping. There is no difference between Sri Ramakrishna and the Mother. Through Mother’s grace attainment of liberation becomes easy. “-Swami Brahmananda
‘To me it has always appeared that she (Sri Sarada Devi) is Sri Ramakrishna’s final word as to the ideal of Indian womanhood.In her one sees realized that wisdom and sweetness to which the simplest of women may attain. And yet, to myself the stateliness of her courtesy and her great open mind are almost as wonderful as her sainthood.’
– Sister Nivedita
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