PERSONAL DEITY KNOWN ALSO AS ISVARA. MAYA AND SAKTI

When the Supreme Being is thought of as action -less—neither creating, sustaining nor destroying- I call Him by the name of Brahman or Purusha. But when I think of Him as active—creating, sustaining and destroying —I call him by the name of Sakti or Maya or Prakriti.

While speaking of the Sankhya theory that the world has come out of Purusha and Prakriti, the Master said one day: " The Sankhya philosophy says that the Purusha is actionless and Prakriti is doing all works. The Purusha is only a witness of all these activities. Prakriti too cannot do any work of itself without the Purusha. Have you seen how things take place in a house during a marriage ? The Master of the house sits in one place, puffing away at his Hookah and giving commands. But the mistress of the house always moves about here and there in the house, dressed in a cloth marked with turmeric. She is busy supervising the arrangements and cordially receiving women and children. Now and then she goes to the master of the house, and reports about all happenings and seeks advice with the help of gestures and movement of lips. Understanding all that she wants to convey, the master only nods his head or expresses his assent. The case of Prakriti and Purusha is just like this.

The actionless Brahman and the active Sakti are in fact one and the same. He who is the Absolute Existence-Intelligence-Bliss, is also the All-knowing, the All-intelligent and All-blissful Mother of the universe. A precious stone and its luminosity are one and the same, for you cannot imagine a stone without it, and vice versa.

God the absolute and God the personal are one and the same. A belief in the one implies a belief in the other. Fire cannot be thought of apart from its burning power; nor can its burning power be thought of apart from it. Again the sun's rays cannot be thought of apart from the sun, nor the sun, apart from its rays. You cannot think of the whiteness of milk, apart from milk nor milk apart from its milky whiteness. Thus God the absolute cannot be thought of apart from the idea of God with attributes, i.e., Personal God, and vice Versa.

The distinction between Brahman and Sakti is really a distinction without a difference. Brahman and Sakti are one (Abheda), just as fire and its burning power are one. Brahman and Sakti are one, just as milk and the whiteness of milk are one. Brahman and Sakti are one, just as a gem. and its brightness are one. You cannot conceive of one without the other, or make a difference between them.

Wherever there is action—creation, preservation and destruction—there is Sakti. Water is water whether it is calm or disturbed. That one Absolute Existence-Intelligence-Bliss is the eternal intelligent Energy that creates, preserves and destroys the universe, just as Captain¹ is the same whether he remains inactive at times or whether he engages himself at other times in performing worship or visiting the Governor-General. He is the same Captain only these are his different Upadhis or states.

1 Visvanath Upadhyaya, the Agent of the Nepal Government in Calcutta. Sri Ramakrishna used to call him 'Captain '.

As sometimes I am in dress and at other times naked, so Brahman is sometimes with attributes, and at other times without. The Saguna Brahman (God with attributes) is Brahman in combination with Energy (Sakti) He is then called Isvara or Personal God.

Be it known that my Divine Mother is both one and many, and also beyond one and many.

My Divine Mother is the one Being manifested as many. Of infinite power Herself, She has differ -entiated Herself into Jiva and Jagat (living beings and the universe) of manifold powers,—physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual. And my Divine Mother is no other than the Brahman of the Vedanta. She is the Personal aspect of the Impersonal Brahman.