Drive five hours south from Thalheim on the A3 motorway, across the Rhineland and into Bavaria, and you’ll come to the ancient city of Augsburg, founded by the Romans in 15 B.C. and home to the Catholic church of St. Peter am Perlach, an elaborately spired cathedral located in the center of town. In the church’s dark interior, near the transverse arch, hangs an eighteenth-century canvas, Mary, Untier of Knots, painted by Johann G. M. Schmidtner. In the baroque painting, the Virgin Mother is pictured standing on a crescent moon surrounded by angels. Above her halo of stars floats the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. Mary is dressed in a scarlet robe with a purple stole, her eyes are downcast, and she’s crushing a serpent beneath one bare foot. In her hands, she holds a length of knotted pale ribbon held up at each end by cherubs, their tiny wings the color of fire.
Mary, Untier of Knots, is the archetype of a cult from the Catholic Church dating back to the early Middle Ages. As one facet of the Divine Mother, she combines patience with ferocity, the delicacy of her healing hands matched by the force of her snake-crushing foot. The parallels between Mary, Untier of Knots, and Mother Meera’s approach to darshan are fascinating and obvious. Night after night, year after year, Mother sits on her chair untangling the energetic knots she finds in people who come to see her, beginning with the white lines that run up our bodies in the front and back, and freeing the light to flow upward within us. In the Catholic tradition, Mary’s task is to loosen the bonds of ignorance and selfishness that bind us to the sins of our fall from grace. Mother Meera uses different terminology to describe a similar process of removing obstacles that stand between human beings and our awareness of the divine nature we share with God.
Of course, the worship of the Divine Mother dates back to traditions far older than Christianity. She has been revered as the feminine face of God, “the fertile womb which gave birth to everything, the great cave of being from which she brought forth the living and into which she took the dead for rebirth,” as Anne Baring, a renowned Jungian analyst, puts it. She is honored in songs that were sung by the first peoples of Alaska, Africa, North America, and Polynesia. The Divine Mother appears in Homer’s hymn to Gaia, in Sumerian poems to Inanna and Ishtar, in Apuleius’s vision of Isis as recorded in The Golden Ass, and in ancient Tibetan prayers to Tara, as Baring points out. She is the Hindu Shakti, the energetic driver of the universe, who brings to the world what Hildegard of Bingen termed viriditas, the verdant, electric force that animates the whole of creation.
To our great impoverishment, the Sacred Feminine has been excluded from our image of God in Western culture. For the past three thousand years, the Abrahamic traditions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—have offered no image of the Divine Mother as an equal counterpart to God the Father, no union of masculine and feminine principles into a wise and balanced whole. Among many of today’s spiritual leaders, there is strong belief that an integration of the divine feminine into our worldview is urgently needed if we are to heal our planet’s woes, eradicate fundamentalist terror, and restore a unifying, feminine vision to our worldly affairs. Until we reintroduce the wisdom of embodiment as symbolized by the Divine Mother into our global conversation—a wisdom deeply rooted in the earth, while God the father looks down from the sky—our future is thought to be perilous indeed. As Aurobindo himself put it, “The future, if it is to exist, will wear a crown of feminine design.” This would seem to be a foregone conclusion in our aggressive, polarized era.
No archetype is more powerful in the human imagination than that of the Divine Mother. Since everyone has a mother, we share the sacred memory of our primal connection to the universal feminine. This collective memory helps to explain the profound effect that representatives of the female divine, including Mother Meera, have on our sense of spiritual connection. A mother alone has the power to bring the light of a soul into the world. Her body contains the eternal mystery, the capacity to create life, and in denying her spiritual importance, we disregard a fundamental aspect of our existence; we sever ourselves from our primordial source, the matrix that nourishes the cosmos and mediates the harshness of God the father.
As a philosophical path, the way of the Mother is nonjudgmental, inclusive, and free of man-made opposites that appear to divide the world in two—sacred-profane, physical-spiritual, holy-unholy, and so on. Rather, it invites a holistic awareness that welcomes our faults as well as our strengths, promotes an attitude of surrender to life as it is, and marks the first step toward genuine wisdom. Surrender is a sign of strength in the Mother’s way, bowing to forces greater than we are. Vulnerability, in this view, is the doorway to freedom. “Like a child at peace in the womb of the Mother, the realized person knows,” Mother Meera says, “that he is sustained at every moment by the grace and light of the Divine Mother. Being peaceful and being happy are the foundation of spiritual life.”
How antithetical this is to the notion of human existence as an ongoing, painful effort to redeem ourselves in the eyes of God or battle our weary way back to salvation. Instead of original sin, the Mother’s way focuses on original blessing that is fostered by the act of surrender. Spiritual surrender means leaning into life instead of trying to conquer it, expanding our hearts to embrace contradiction, and remembering that paradox is everything. This approach does away with false separations as well as idealized concepts of God. Everyday activities—emptying the cat box, driving to work, reading to your kids at night—are understood to be just as holy as meditating, fasting, or chanting Aum, since everything, without exception, is recognized as a part of God. No enlightened master embodies this unified vision more radically than Mother Meera. Nowhere on the planet are you likely to encounter a person of her spiritual stature dragging Hefty bags to a dumpster or commandeering a power drill. “I am not interested in founding a movement for people who do not want to work, who want only to sit around and think about what they think is God,” Mother Meera reminds us. “When they are really dedicated to the Divine, there is no difference between action and prayer.”
Although Mother Meera offers darshan in silence and sets no rules for devotees, this doesn’t mean she provides no verbal guidelines on how to live an awakened life. In fact, two collections of her spoken responses have been published, Answers: Part I and Answers: Part II, covering a wide variety of topics of importance to spiritual seekers. Unfailingly practical and simple, these teachings are mostly lingo-free and accessible to anyone. With their emphasis on the bhakti path of devotion (not to Mother Meera herself but to any faith that appeals to the seeker), and on divine light as a catalyst for spiritual change, her recommendations share aspects of the Integral Yoga invented by Sri Aurobindo while being free of the scriptural references. In spite of the absence of regulations, the Mother’s way is actually quite rigorous in that it places responsibility for our choices squarely on our own shoulders. Each student of this open-door path is called upon, as the Buddha put it, to “be a light unto yourself,” practicing self-reliance in spiritual life.
Mother Meera’s essential teachings can be distilled into a handful of suggestions.
Japa is the repetition of a divine name that resonates with an individual. It is the root practice recommended by Mother Meera for spiritual awakeness and remembering God. Japa is more than just repeating words, she tells us, since each holy name is said to contain divine vibrations. Japa can be done anywhere and at any time. It is best not to focus on any particular goal when doing this practice. Simply repeat the divine name with sincerity and love. Nor does it matter what name you choose to repeat. Whatever comes easily and spontaneously, and brings a strong feeling in the heart, will be effective; nor is it necessary to stick with one divine name if another attracts us on a given day. Some devotees use “Mata Meera” or “Amma Meera” (Mata and Amma both mean “Mother”), but “Ma” is equally powerful. And others use the names of the God they worship in their respective religions.
Devotion is the royal path to enlightenment, according to Mother Meera. She tells us that “if you have devotion, you will get everything.” True devotion in spiritual life is extremely rare, however. As she has said, “[You] weep for lovers, money, worldly things, but rarely weep for the love of God. A tear is a door through which I can come.” Longing for the Divine is essential. Sincerity and devotion are far more important than excessive or showy demonstrations of love.
Surrender means offering everything to the Divine, without exception. Mother instructs us to remember that no matter how great we are, “there is always something greater—the Divine.” Surrender has nothing to do with resignation or weakness. In fact, surrender is a sign of spiritual strength. It is not what we offer but that we offer that is important and changes us. “The Mother doesn’t look at the gift itself; she is happy that the child thought of her. In the same way, what you offer the Divine is not important, only the love.”
As we learn to surrender, be humble, and connect with the Divine, the ego slowly dissolves. “The ego is strong in the world but weak before God,” Mother Meera tells us. In order to awaken as human beings, and realize our own divinity, we must be willing to die to the ego, knowing that only self-realization can bring lasting happiness. Discipline is key to ego death and spiritual progress. “You have to cut a tree sometimes to make it straight and help it grow,” she reminds us.
Like all authentic spiritual masters, Mother Meera warns against the temptation to become attached to otherworldly experiences. However great or small, these experiences should be offered to the Divine. If we allow imagination to construct fantasies around our experiences, we will only become more trapped in illusion. Experiences come and go, Mother reminds us. Only the real—the eternal—remains. What’s more, authentic spiritual experience always humbles rather than inflates the ego. As for mediums, psychics, and oracles, she recommends economy. It is not necessary to go to “all those people,” since each may offer a different solution to the same problem. “They confuse people,” Mother states simply. “It is more important to do japa and pray to God or the Divine.”
Mother Meera does not recommend meditation practice for everyone, especially not children under the age of twelve. When practicing meditation, she says, it is best to be simple and unambitious, since attachment to mastery and technique can increase spiritual pride rather than destroy it. In order to receive the Light, it is not necessary to meditate, though a silent mind is helpful. Sincere feeling is far more important than rigid practices.
Sincerity is a prerequisite to spiritual awakening. It is more beneficial to be sincerely doubtful than dishonestly faithful. It is better to be open, truthful, and simple about our own faults than to pretend to be better or more selfless than we are. Sincerity is connected to humility, of course. “The great man is always humble because he remembers his relationship to the Divine,” Mother Meera says. Only a fool imagines that pretense leads to a deeper connection to God. That goes for financial contributions as well. Once asked why she doesn’t accept money from people who come to see her, Mother answered, “When people give me money, they expect something. I don’t want that. They should come to me like a mother and they shouldn’t pay something because then they always expect, ‘When I pay a lot then I got a lot.’ Or, ‘I don’t have any money so maybe I only get a little bit.’ That’s not how things work.”
A measure of doubt is useful in spiritual life because it helps to keep us honest. As Mother Meera puts it, “It is better when someone says ‘I love God,’ knowing all the hatred and doubt that is still within them. Then it means something. Then the love can grow.” Dwelling on doubt is not helpful, however, because what we focus on tends to grow. Faith is a quality we cultivate through intention and sincerity. Only honesty can lay the foundation for authentic awakening and make room for the Divine to help us. “Whenever the mind has doubts, I give Light to the mind to see things clearly,” she explains.
There are many awakenings in spiritual life and no end to the process of self-realization. The good qualities of the mind can always be expanded further. It is within our power to become increasingly loving, balanced, and peaceful, and to continue to open throughout our lives. The soul, which Mother Meera describes as a more subtle body within the physical form, guides our development and is always with us, acting as a kind of protector to lead us toward our own realization. The soul has no wishes of its own; it is only a witness to accompany us on the path to our own true nature.
There is only one sin, according to Mother Meera, and that is “not to love enough.” Sin arises when we forget the Divine, whereas remembering God serves to remind us of the good in human beings. This requires a willingness to forgive. “If we do not forgive, we cannot be called human,” Mother says. Although there is evil in the world, she warns against being pulled into its orbit by fear. Even though evil forces are working against the Divine in the world, the Divine is in control. “Evil is dangerous,” Mother Meera says. “But also very stupid.”
According to Mother Meera, emotions are generally superficial and block entry into the deeper levels of our being. This attitude is unfashionable in the therapeutic age but typical in the East. Emotions disturb our ability to be peaceful, she counsels, and ought not to be mindlessly indulged. In the case of a challenging emotion such as anger, Mother Meera recommends that we offer it to the Divine in order not to become absorbed by it. This helps us to feel compassion for those who have harmed us and to make progress in the path of love. When hurt arises, the skillful response is to “pray for those who hurt us and send them love.” This helps to alchemize our pain into joy.
The mind is both a blessing and a curse on the path of self-realization. In Mother Meera’s words, “If the mind does not disturb or destroy others, then it can go on doing what it may.” As the saying goes, the mind is a good servant but a terrible master. The study of different paths can be useful because it gives us wider knowledge and respect for other traditions, as opposed to holding a limited, rigid view. “There is great joy for the mind in following the spirit,” Mother Meera teaches. But our terrible master will lead us astray if we let it blind us with shallow reasoning. As Aurobindo put it, “The habit of analytical thought is fatal to the intuitions of integral thinking. If you follow your mind, it will not recognize the Mother even when she is manifest before you.”
The notion that suffering is necessary for enlightenment was created by human beings, not God, Mother Meera teaches. The Divine asks us to be happy, harmonious, and peaceful, she asserts. The majority of our sufferings are the result of ignorance and insincerity. Pain is different from suffering, of course. Pain belongs to the body, so it must be accepted. But we humans exacerbate our own pain by concentrating on it, she reminds us. Offering our pain to the Divine prevents it from turning into suffering. Happiness and spiritual growth are connected in the Mother’s way. “Being peaceful and being happy form the most important foundation of spiritual practice.”
Mother Meera defines love as “doing for people what they need without expecting anything in return.” Love is different from attachment, which focuses more on getting than on giving. This is especially true of romantic relationships, which, while beneficial as opportunities for opening the heart, do not necessarily move us closer to God. If two people in a relationship are really focused on the Divine and are right for each other, however, their spiritual process may be faster than a single person’s. But such relationships are not necessary for spiritual life.
Family life, on the other hand, is an optimal place for spiritual practice, since it teaches one to be unselfish. “A calm and harmonious family is a great spiritual achievement,” Mother Meera teaches, since it enables us to know ourselves as part of the human family, and to view all people as related to ourselves. Mother Meera views the decline of family life in the West as a reflection of our greater ills. “If everyone in the family is happy, then the world will be happy and we will have less problems,” she maintains.
Work is the cornerstone of the Mother’s way. “I do not accept that people do not work,” Mother Meera tells us. “Everyone must work. I am working. This is not a time for people to withdraw from the world. It is the time to work with the power and love of the Divine in the world.” Also, one type of work is no better than another. The important thing is that we work to serve others, not “mechanically, but with love.” She advises that we begin our work with a prayer and offer the fruits of our labor to God.
Abstinence is not necessary in spiritual life. As Mother puts it, “Some paths say that cutting vegetables hurts them but we must eat in order to survive, so it’s a circle. If some people don’t eat meat, they suffer. So there is suffering in any case.” Though self-control is necessary, there’s no use in denying our natural desires. Regarding sex, the choice to be celibate should be “made in joy not from suffering.” According to Mother Meera, spiritual work is done fastest if a seeker can live without sex, but very few manage it and “for many it is dangerous to avoid sexuality before they’re ready.” Nor is sexuality spiritually important; according to Mother, “The pleasure generated by two persons has no spiritual meaning.” What is essential is not to renounce sex but to offer it to the Divine. This holds true for all forms of sexuality.
Mother Meera emphasizes that silence is the great awakener. By quieting the mind, we invite the Divine to take root within us. As she told me, “For the mind to flower, it has to go beyond what it knows,” and this is possible only when thinking subsides and allows a deeper knowing to occur. “There is only one real rhythm,” Mother Meera tells us. “In silence, you hear it. When you live to the rhythm of this silence, you become it, slowly. Everything you do, you do to it.” The importance of silence goes against the common belief that words are necessary for spiritual awareness. “People want lectures. I give them silence,” she explains, adding, “I do not speak, but my force changes people completely.”
It is best to pray to God directly or through a divine incarnation, Mother Meera advises. It is important to be aware of the limitations of all human gurus, who can point the way but “cannot take you to God.” One’s relationship to a guru depends on how much the guru can help a particular disciple at a particular stage of development; when feelings of peace or bliss arise in his or her presence, this indicates that the guru is authentic. At this time in history, however, when travel is increasingly available—and information about different teachers, too—it is not necessary for the majority of people to pledge allegiance to a single guru. Mother Meera is not a guru.
The increase of technological gadgets that threaten direct communication requires that we use mindfulness and discipline, to prevent the machines from taking over, she says. Advances in science and technology “should be directed from a higher consciousness to help the world save itself.” The temptation to put our belief in any power other than the Divine is dangerous, Mother teaches. In order for technology to help us, “Man must have a global idea of what he is inventing, and it must be constructive rather than destructive.” It is arrogant to imagine that scientific knowledge trumps spiritual awareness. Scientists are often the most humble among us, Mother Meera points out, since they’re used to what they cannot see and accustomed to encountering mystery.
When we practice these commonsense principles, aspiring to wisdom instead of perfection, we deepen our connection to the world around us, and to the far-reaching effects of the Mother’s way.