Mahasaraswati
MAHASARASWATI
is the Mother's Power of Work and her spirit of perfection
and order. The youngest of the Four, she is the most
skilful in executive faculty and the nearest to the
physical Nature. Maheshwari lays down the large lines
of the world-forces, Mahakali drives their energy and
impetus, Mahalakshmi discovers their rhythms and measures,
but Mahasaraswati presides over their detail of organisation
and execution, relation of parts and effective combination
of forces and unfailing exactitude of result and fulfilment.
The science and craft and technique of things are Mahasaraswati's
province. Always she holds in her nature and can give
to those whom she has chosen the intimate and precise
knowledge, the subtlety and patience, the accuracy of
intuitive mind and conscious hand and discerning eye
of the perfect worker. This Power is the strong, the
tireless, the careful and efficient builder, organiser,
administrator, technician, artisan and classifier of
the worlds. When she takes up the transformation and
new-building of the nature, her action is laborious
and minute and often seems to our impatience slow and
interminable, but it is persistent, integral and flawless.
For the will in her works is scrupulous, unsleeping,
indefatigable; leaning over us she notes and touches
every little detail, finds out every minute defect,
gap, twist or incompleteness, considers and weighs accurately
all that has been done and all that remains still to
be done hereafter. Nothing is too small or apparently
trivial for her attention; nothing however impalpable
or disguised or latent can escape her. Moulding and
remoulding she labours each part till it has attained
its true form, is put in its exact place in the whole
and fulfils its precise purpose. In her constant and
diligent arrangement and rearrangement of things her
eye is on all needs at once and the way to meet them
and her intuition knows what is to be chosen and what
rejected and successfully determines the right instrument,
the right time, the right conditions and the right process.
Carelessness and negligence and indolence she abhors;
all scamped and hasty and shuffling work, all clumsiness
and à peu près and misfire, all
false adaptation and misuse of instruments and faculties
and leaving of things undone or half done is offensive
and foreign to her temper. When her work is finished,
nothing has been forgotten, no part has been misplaced
or omitted or left in a faulty condition; all is solid,
accurate, complete, admirable. Nothing short of a perfect
perfection satisfies her and she is ready to face an
eternity of toil if that is needed for the fullness
of her creation. Therefore of all the Mother's powers
she is the most long-suffering with man and his thousand
imperfections. Kind, smiling, close and helpful, not
easily turned away or discouraged, insistent even after
repeated failure, her hand sustains our every step on
condition that we are single in our will and straightforward
and sincere; for a double mind she will not tolerate
and her revealing irony is merciless to drama and histrionics
and self-deceit and pretence. A mother to our wants,
a friend in our difficulties, a persistent and tranquil
counsellor and mentor, chasing away with her radiant
smile the clouds of gloom and fretfulness and depression,
reminding always of the ever-present help, pointing
to the eternal sunshine, she is firm, quiet and persevering
in the deep and continuous urge that drives us towards
the integrality of the higher nature. All the work of
the other Powers leans on her for its completeness;
for she assures the material foundation, elaborates
the stuff of detail and erects and rivets the armour
of the structure.
-
Sri Aurobindo
