Once some intimate devotees of Shri Ramakrishna did not approve of Holy Mother extending her love to undesirable types of people. She however, ignored their advice and remarked, “Everybody can be the mother of the good, but who will accept these dregs of society and console them? I am the mother of the wicked as well as the mother of the good.”
– Holy Mother, Sarada Ma
Holy Mother’s divine love was always conspicuous. Due to the fact that she was born and raised in a rural society, Holy Mother often encountered issues generated by caste consciousness.
When the collapse of their trade deprived Amzad and other Muslim weavers of their basic needs, they were forced to resort to theft and highway robbery. But this did not provide them with enough means to take care of their families. In their desperate condition, they went to Holy Mother for help.
Though she was fully aware of their unlawful behavior, Holy Mother’s heart was deeply touched by their pitiable condition. Despite the local prejudice against Muslims, Holy Mother treated them as her own children. Like the most affectionate mother, she provided them with some opportunities to work. Every one of these Muslim weavers regarded Holy Mother as their Guardian Angel.
In another example, Holy Mother’s niece Nalini harbored caste prejudices (a strong sense of the superior purity and social status of Brahmins accorded by the discriminatory caste system). On one occasion when Nalini found the Holy Mother removing the left-over scraps of a meal. This sight naturally horrified her and she cried out, “Ah me! She’s removing the leavings of a multitude of castes!”
But the universality of Holy Mother’s love which knows no division immediately revealed itself. She responded, “What if they are from various castes? They are all my children.” Removing leftovers was actually a part of Holy Mother’s daily routine. Although she was steeped in the Orthodox tradition of Hinduism, Holy Mother never allowed devotees or the Swamis to remove their leftovers themselves. By her own example, she relieved them of their stigma of division that was associated with their caste-consciousness.
When Swami Vishweshwarananda resisted and offered to remove his own plate after the meal, Holy Mother persuaded him to allow her to take it instead and said to him, “What indeed have I done for you? A child even soils its mother’s lap and does so many other things. You are rare jewels to be sought for by gods.”
With these sweet words she expressed the grace of her divine Motherhood. Some other women who had the good fortune to live near Holy Mother nevertheless criticized her for this. Her pure and natural response was, “Well, I am their mother. If a mother shouldn’t do it for her children’s sake, who else should?”
About the Holy Mother, Swami Vivekananda has said: “Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi was born as an incarnation of the Divine Mother. The Divine Mother is the first manifestation of power (of Brahman) and is considered a higher idea than Fatherhood of God. Just as the baby believes its mother to be all-powerful, able to do anything, similarly with the name of the Divine Mother comes the idea of Shakti, Divine Energy and Omnipotence.”
“The Divine Mother is the latent power sleeping in us; without worshiping Her we can never know ourselves. Every manifestation of power in the universe is Mother. She is life, She is intelligence, She is Love. A bit of Mother, a drop, was Krishna, another was Buddha, another was Christ. Worship Her if you want love and wisdom.”
The human mind, however, normally gravitates to the material plane and ordinary people nurtured in sensate cultures find it impossible to fathom the Divine Mother. Though we cannot understand the inscrutable grace of the Divine Mother, we can understand an infinitesimal part of her glory if She is worshiped with devotion.
The above post has been excerpted from the article The Loving Aspect of the Holy Mother Sarada Maa by Swami Tathagatananda of the Vedanta Society, New York. © Vedanta Society of New York; reprinted by permission.
