Mahalakshmi
Wisdom
and Force are not the only manifestations of the supreme
Mother; there is a subtler mystery of her nature and
without it Wisdom and Force would be incomplete things
and without it perfection would not be perfect. Above
them is the miracle of eternal beauty, an unseizable
secret of divine harmonies, the compelling magic of
an irresistible universal charm and attraction that
draws and holds things and forces and beings together
and obliges them to meet and unite that a hidden Ananda
may play from behind the veil and make of them its rhythms
and its figures. This is the power of MAHALAKSHMI and
there is no aspect of the the Divine Shakti more attractive
to the heart of embodied beings. Maheshwari can appear
too calm and great and distant for the littleness of
earthly nature to approach to contain her, Mahakali
too swift and formidable for its weakness to bear; but
all turn with joy and longing to Mahalakshmi. For she
throws the spell of the intoxicating sweetness of the
Divine: to be close to her is profound happiness and
to feel her within the heart is to make existence a
rapture and a marvel; grace and charm and tenderness
flow out from her like light from the sun and wherever
she fixes her wonderful gaze or lets fall the loveliness
of her smile, the soul is seized and made captive and
plunged into the depths of an unfathomable bliss. Magnetic
is the touch of her hands and their occult and delicate
influence refines mind and life and body and where she
presses her feet course miraculous streams of an entrancing
Ananda.
And
yet it is not easy to meet the demand of this enchanting
Power or to keep her presence. Harmony and beauty of
the mind and soul, harmony and beauty of the thoughts
and feelings, harmony and beauty in every outward act
and movement, harmony and beauty of the life and surroundings,
this is the demand of Mahalakshmi. Where there is affinity
to the rhythms of the secret world-bliss and response
to the call of the All-Beautiful and concord and unity
and the glad flow of many lives turned towards the Divine,
in that atmosphere she consents to abide. But all that
is ugly and mean and base, all that is poor and sordid
and squalid, all that is brutal and coarse repels her
advent. Where love and beauty are not or are reluctant
to be born, she does not come; where they are mixed
and disfigured with baser things, she turns soon to
depart or cares little to pour her riches. If she finds
herself in men's hearts surrounded with selfishness
and hatred and jealousy and malignance and envy and
strife, if treachery and greed and ingratitude are mixed
in the sacred chalice, if grossness of passion and unrefined
desire degrade devotion, in such hearts the gracious
and beautiful Goddess will not linger. A divine disgust
seizes upon her and she withdraws, for she is not one
who insists or strives; or, veiling her face, she waits
for this bitter and poisonous devil's stuff to be rejected
and disappear before she will found anew her happy influence.
Ascetic bareness and harshness are not pleasing to her
nor the suppression of the heart's deeper emotions and
the rigid repression of the soul's and the life's parts
of beauty. For it is through love and beauty that she
lays on men the yoke of the Divine. Life is turned in
her supreme creations into a rich work of celestial
art and all existence into a poem of sacred delight;
the world's riches are brought together and concerted
for a supreme order and even the simplest and commonest
things are made wonderful by her intuition of unity
and the breath of her spirit. Admitted to the heart
she lifts wisdom to pinnacles of wonder and reveals
to it the mystic secrets of the ecstasy that surpasses
all knowledge, meets devotion with the passionate attraction
of the Divine, teaches to strength and force the rhythm
that keeps the might of their acts harmonious and in
measure and casts on perfection the charm that makes
it endure for ever.
