Basic Beliefs of the Mother's Lodge

Basic Beliefs of the Mother's Lodge

1. Unity of all religions.

2. Universal relation of all human beings as members of one family, the creation of one common parent.
Many would find this to be impracticable, but it is not so. Intensity of love may vary and has varied with the highest superman and even incarnations and religious Founders; but there can be no place for hatred for any one.

3. Politics, communalism, provincialism, nationalism or racialism are in spirit, contrary to the belief of the universal sisterhood and brotherhood and that of the common parenthood.

4. Mother is the same Almighty whom some call Father, some the Supreme Self, some the Nature, some the Divine Law, some the Absolute, some  the Truth and so on. She is God, but conceived as Mother.

5. If the universe is to be made a hatred-less happy home and if love, mercy and other similar qualities of heart (the bankruptcy of which has been so keenly felt in the present world) are to reappear, Motherhood of God is the most favorable aspect, as under the Fatherhood of God the world has been run practically as a rigid disciplined office.

6. Brotherhood is not annihilation or condemnation of outer differences but encouragement and appreciation of these differences and their restitution on right lines. Oneness has to be experienced in spirit (not in eating, drinking and inter-marrying), and in helping one another in progressing towards the
common goal of approaching Mother or of Salvation. Brotherhood has to be a moral and harmless brotherhood, approachable by even the poor, weak, low and illiterate.

7. Equality (though in its strictest sense it nowhere exists either in nature, mentality, facial expression, or human condition), as also fraternity and liberty (though these are mere catch-words, more fascinating than illuminative in practice) are extremely useful guides in the outer Court and should be honored as such in practice with sincere observance as far as possible.

8. When however these prove inefficient to guide in matter of forming a decision as to the right course of action or in action at critical junctures, decision should be made by recourse to (1) One's Master's (Guru's) decision, (2) Inner voice during moments of divine meditation, (3) Cardinal points of religiosity, (4) By holding love extended to the persons dealt with or concerned in general, as superior to the love for oneself and one's own and (5) By rhythm with the belief of one common parenthood of one and all.

9. One that does not believe in God as Mother but yet believes in the common tie of the humanity and practices Service and extends Love to all, is a devotee of Mother in Her aspect referred to heretofore as (15).

10. For Mother's Love, Grace and Devotion, the spirit and practice of universal sisterhood and brotherhood is an indispensable requirement. Any beliefs of high and low, prejudices or prepossessions, imaginary or accruing from ancestral or personal experience are acceptable, so long as they are being utilized to the profit of one's own spiritual uplift or for maintaining a high standard of morality or character. But no sooner do they become creative or accelerative of pride, envy, dislike, ill-will or hatred, they must be eliminated and uprooted.

11. Be we, first man and next a brother before aspiring to be a religious man, for the so called prematurely religious man is often a hanging protuberance ever in danger for himself and others. (So also of a woman).

12. Religious practice must first begin with ethical religion, i.e., the practice of cardinal points of morality, for none can quench one's thirst with a leaking bowl though containing ambrosia, nor can one enjoy the lucrative rent return of the first floor over the ground floor in the dilapidated condition.

The seven immortal Christian virtues are :- Faith, Hope, Charity, Justice, Prudence, Temperance and Fortitude.

The six internal enemies according to Hinduism are : Kāma, Krodha, Lobha, Mada, Moha and Matsar-Desire, wrath, greed, pride, lust and jealousy.

The six helpers to success are: Shama, Dama, Uparati, Titikshā, Shraddhā and Samādhān-Quiescence, control, relishlessness, endurance, faith and contentment.

The cardinal four virtues of Plato are: Justice, Wisdom, Temperance and Courage.

Wisdom includes constructivity and temperance includes keeping one-self within reasonable bounds along the golden mean. The golden mean and constructivity are very important virtues for practical workers and harmonious living.

Puranic four virtues are: Tapas, Dayā, Shauch and Dāna— mortification, compassion, purity and charity.
There is a large number of different groups of virtues recommended, but the most primary ones are suggested by the above lists.

In Bhāgawat with amusing instructivity a geneology is described, stating that Dharma or religiosity has thirteen wives, viz.,faith, friendliness, kindness, peace of mind, contentment, vitality, right action, prosperity, right intelligence, correct insight, patience. modesty and attractivity.

Manu advises ; Ahimsā, Satya Asteya, Brahmacharya and Indriya Nigraha-Harmlessness, truthfulness, non-stealing, celebacy and sense-control.

It is a happy thing to experience that the remarkable development of any one virtue, brings in that of all others, one after another.
There are expansions and contractions of these groups. Manu's ten commandments are : Dhriti, Kshamā, Dama, Asteya, Shaucha, Indriya Nigraha, Dhee, Vidyā, Satya and Akrodha,
i.e., Patience, forgiveness, mind-control, non-misappropriatio purity, sense-control, insight, religious knowledge, truthfulness and wrathlessness.

Following the above view we have still further reductions as well, by experienced Bhaktās--Devotees.

Says Tulshidass : "Consider another's wealth as dust and another's wife as Mother. If by these two vows in practice you do not attain God, Tulshidass is responsible.

Says Kabir similarly, to Kamal, his son “write down these two Salvation Remedies, pray to Saheb (God) and give to the hungry.”
Says Mother's Ideal : Love all, Serve all, with devotion and unconditional cheerful self-surrender.

It may be noted that it is not, that any one religious thinker sits down with the ancestral scriptural lore and relevant materials before him and tries out to specialize some different recipe, as some patent medicine discoverers do by a slight change in the constituents.

Each religious thinker takes life as a field of his independent search, with full respect to the past but without any domination thereby, and he forms his independent conclusions based on the study of the universe and his experience.

It only happens to be later, to the great joy of others interested in comparative study by different thinkers, that the conclusions are often found to be the very same as some already arrived at, in the past. From time to time the same truths in different garbs and languages with different intensities, orders and details are proclaimed with a new spiritual force, whenever lifelessness and putrefaction completely nullifies the previous proclamation.

13. Let us be minding our own business, let us judge our things ourselves, stamp nothing as absolute good or evil and hate none and nothing. Let us be extending love and charity to all.

14. Every one has a right to select one's own mode of progress and evolution. Each one has to work out one's own salvation. Efforts of all others, unless they are by way of guidance to the determined, go futile without one's own faith, conviction, desire, determination and exertion. As nothing practical can be achieved in absence of these, dabbling with others should be entirely discouraged, except by way of mental illumination by those that are, by right, responsible.

15. Liberty and freedom should be taken to be as dear to others as they are to ourselves, and should be granted.

16. Religion should not fail to set proper values to non-essentials and essentials.

17. Religion should not be a cause of disunion, domination or prejudice, nor should it fail to respect science, reason and experience, nor to distinguish, appreciate and respect the differences of different planes, nor to take into consideration the human psychology, and personal experience, nor the merits and demerits of each individual case and condition.

18. Let us not too much worry about God and Religion till we get thirsty and determined to have them. Let us not be idly whiling away our time about the Queen or King and the Penal Code till we have some acquaintance with the Queen's or King's attendants and first know living as true citizens.

19. Let us think little of our superiority over others of any kind, for that is mostly transitory, trivial, circumstantial and almost unearned. Most of the river crossing credit is Bridge-Builder's.

20. Destruction is for reconstruction, doubting for believing, evil for good, sinfulness for sinlessness, for all are waves of and in the ocean of the Infinite Love and Mercy of Mother.