The Search for the Divine Mother

The Search for the Divine Mother
(Gwenaël Verez)

This book looks at our religion and spirituality from a historical viewpoint.

Many traditions attach great importance to the feminine dimension of the Divine. It is She who is said to give liberation, spiritual rebirth, that is to say Union with the Self. The most significant example is the knowledge of the Kundalini in India.

We may wonder why the Western religions have attributed an exclusively masculine, patriarchal character to the Divine. Several thousand years ago, was not the only form of Divinity, the object of veneration, feminine and maternal?

What is responsible for this neglect, this confiscation? Has the original message of these religions been distorted to the point that we are today unaware of the Mother-Goddess?

And could the Age of Aquarius, which is said to mark a change of consciousness on a spiritual level, perhaps be the moment where humanity is able to re-discover this awareness of the Universal Mother?

This book offers answers to these topical questions.

To collectively order the book, please contact the author at: gwendoris@aol.com


Sample chapter:

Introduction

The search for the Divine is an eternal quest. Man is constantly seeking. Today, perhaps more than ever before, millions search tirelessly in bookshops and libraries, and travel the pilgrim routes hoping to find the "Way".

This growth in the number of seekers of Truth coincides with a growing doubt about the fate of humankind.

At the dawn of the third millennium, this planet of ours is at its lowest ebb. Economies are in irreversible decline, leaving millions of people, both in the developed countries and in those described as "developing", without work or means of subsistence. The ecosystem is our kilter, with global warming and pollution increasing at an incredible rate. Most countries have reached a political stalemate. The ageing and corrupt democracies are no longer viewed as models, their citizens being no happier than people elsewhere. The use of illicit substances, anti-anxiety drugs, antidepressants and hypnotics bear witness to a deep and widespread distress in the "advanced" societies. The general disintegration of moral values is such that younger generations have little awareness of any such thing as morality. New diseases have appeared.

The West is mainly responsible for these evils, since it is the unbridled desires of the West that have led to the unrestrained plundering of the planet's resources, resulting in terrible imbalances. Materialism, and rationalism based entirely on money, have justified world-wide disasters of every ilk.

Throughout history there have been, of course, high points and low points. Civilizations have declined into decadence, others have risen. But today the situation has changed, for now problems are suffered on a planetary scale: cultures have become world-wide. The chances of escape are slender, for there is no strong international authority. Selfishness and pressure groups of every complexion prevent collective solutions to problems. No worthwhile ideology has emerged to transform society. Democracies are incapable of producing men with the moral status of a Lincoln, a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi, men who could become models. The ideological and social changes taking place whenever elected political parties replace one another compound difficulties rather than solve them.

We are caught up in a maelstrom of events, which is carrying us out of our depth.

But seekers of Truth see a different future. They mirror the heavenly light, which restores balance, and establishes, at last, a Golden Age. Would the Divine allow Creation to founder?

The only thing that matters is to change mankind, to bring about our inner transformation, so that we no longer fall back into our habitual failings. Everything suggests that we are on the threshold of a profound upheaval. The Age of Aquarius is at hand. It has been said that the 21st century will be spiritual or will not be, at all. It is obvious that only a spiritual power can bring about the transformation of those who seek progress.

This spiritual power is not as it is generally imagined to be. It comes from no pope, no mullah, or rabbi, or Brahmin. For centuries such figures have failed to improve human nature. If this power does exist, it must be available to everyone equally. I t must be universal.

Spiritual traditions, particularly those of the East, seek to demonstrate that this spiritual power is motherly by nature, and that is exists as energy, present within each of us. In India it is known as the "Inner Goddess".

The word "Goddess" tends to take us back to the schoolroom, to evoke the ancient Graeco-Roman Goddesses: Venus, Minerva, Athena - those Divine figures who seem all too human. God is transcendent, the prophets tell us; He has no human form. And yet we are also told that God created man in His own image!

The manifold representations of the Virgin Mary in churches around the world reflect a longing for the eternal feminine. The Mother of Jesus, on whom the devotion of millions is focused, was never, of course, officially considered to be a Goddess. The canons of the faith are categorical about this. And yet, She ascended into heaven, like Her Son, who was Divine. Where then was the distinction between them? Especially since the praises addressed to Her were to the Queen of Salvation, Regina Salutis, She who sets us free.

This idea of redemption, of spiritual liberation, is shared with the most ancient traditions of the East. In India, it is She, the Goddess, who grants this liberation. The Guru, or spiritual master, is only the intermediary, the person who passes on this spiritual experience. In China, it is the Goddess of compassion, Kuan Yin, who grants salvation.

Why, then, have people in our part of the planet attributed exclusively patriarchal characteristics to the Divine for the past three thousand years? Ten thousand years ago the sole form of Divinity, the sole object of veneration, here as elsewhere, was feminine and maternal.

What has caused us to forget? Why was the original message of Christianity distorted, leaving us ignorant of the Divine Mother? Can we not detect in the Juadeo-Christian sacred texts - and in the countless works of art they inspire - the veiled and covert presence of the Universal Mother, hidden in symbols, but readily decoded? Did not the Gnostics and the early Christians, about whom so much has come to light through the recent discovery of the "apocryphal" texts, venerate the Goddess, and did they not also identify Her with an inner power able to grant liberation?

Those who seek the Truth are rediscovering this hidden reality. Through it the West is once more "returning" to the way of the Goddess and, through Her, gaining access to the wonders of the New Age. Could this age of ours, following the Age of the Father (Yahweh) and the Age of the Son (Christ), be the Age of the Mother?

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