The Founder has expressed his views about what a true religion should be :
The task for a religious reformer is hard in a hundred ways. He has to make the world realize that it can not be happy without religion. He has to strengthen the belief both ways. Not only showing how religion has come to the aid of mankind, but how the highest civilizations not based on religion have been swept away, under the degenerating and decaying influence of time. For the modern age , a mere statement of his about truth is enough. He has to introduce the Universal outlook in every individual religion. He has to consolidate the wisdom of the past, extracting its essence to the irreducible minimum size. He has to establish proper values for essentials and non essentials of every religion. He has to minimize abuse and exploitation. He has to strengthen the cultural moral background. He has to lay down the best life routine. He has to interweave considerations of the world below and the world above. He has to open the World's eye to the same One life , animating one and all.
The religious ideal which can suit the modern world is one that can take the whole humanity in its embrace, which can respect and give a free play to Conscience, Reason, Experience and Science, which would allow every man to live well and teach letting others live well, which will ensure a perfect freedom for every soul to work out its own salvation in its own way, which will teach maintaining sense of proportion and proper evaluation of essentials and non-essentials of a religion, which would develop the faculty of judging all actions and actors, not by their positional values, but by the tests of the fundamental they satisfy, which would guide without intimidation and mental enslavement, which would make one free from the poison of the over-consciousness of superiority and inferiority of man to man, and lastly, which would develop the spirit of practical sisterhood and brotherhood in the daily routine of life.
A popular religion to suit the modern world should have the following characteristics :
(1 ) Religion must have a definite form and should not be an idealistic, incomprehensible, chaos-creating, airy and hazy something. Religion must provide for pruning from age to age.
(2) Religion should not be a source of superstition.
The task for a religious reformer is hard in a hundred ways. He has to make the world realize that it can not be happy without religion. He has to strengthen the belief both ways. Not only showing how religion has come to the aid of mankind, but how the highest civilizations not based on religion have been swept away, under the degenerating and decaying influence of time. For the modern age , a mere statement of his about truth is enough. He has to introduce the Universal outlook in every individual religion. He has to consolidate the wisdom of the past, extracting its essence to the irreducible minimum size. He has to establish proper values for essentials and non essentials of every religion. He has to minimize abuse and exploitation. He has to strengthen the cultural moral background. He has to lay down the best life routine. He has to interweave considerations of the world below and the world above. He has to open the World's eye to the same One life , animating one and all.
The religious ideal which can suit the modern world is one that can take the whole humanity in its embrace, which can respect and give a free play to Conscience, Reason, Experience and Science, which would allow every man to live well and teach letting others live well, which will ensure a perfect freedom for every soul to work out its own salvation in its own way, which will teach maintaining sense of proportion and proper evaluation of essentials and non-essentials of a religion, which would develop the faculty of judging all actions and actors, not by their positional values, but by the tests of the fundamental they satisfy, which would guide without intimidation and mental enslavement, which would make one free from the poison of the over-consciousness of superiority and inferiority of man to man, and lastly, which would develop the spirit of practical sisterhood and brotherhood in the daily routine of life.
A popular religion to suit the modern world should have the following characteristics :
(1 ) Religion must have a definite form and should not be an idealistic, incomprehensible, chaos-creating, airy and hazy something. Religion must provide for pruning from age to age.
(2) Religion should not be a source of superstition.
(3) Relation of man to man must be hundred times much better. Be we first a man, then a brother and there after alone, a religious man.
(4) Religion should be recognized to mean the essence and the experience of life lived.
(5) Every one should be, and should be considered under the direct protection and guidance of God.
(6) Preachers are to be Witness and not lawyers or professors.
(7) As few limitations as possible, should be set on the conception of God and on the innocent harmless and free latitude and living of men.
(8) All adornments and adjuncts should be gradually slackened and even removed, as soon as, at the stage when they are found to be obstructive , is reached.
(9) Religion should be accommodative, constructive and progressive. Religion must provide for pruning from age to age.
Mai-ism is the psychological religion for one and all of any religion or no religion without caste, creed or color. With full reverence to and while following one's own religion, one can be a Mai-ist. Mai-ism is one's own personal religion to be adopted after the age of discretion and not merely one's ancestral religion of one's birth.
Mai ( Mother ) is not Maya or the illusion creator, nor Shakti or Power requiring a separate Controller, not Father's Wife, nor the Fifth Hindu Deity, not Mother Kali, not Mother Mary, not God's handmaid, not Demon's slayer, not Mother that is pleased with animal or human sacrifices, not Mother of thieves and dacoits, not Mother of rebels revolutionaries, not Mother of Black-Magicians, Ughra-Sadhaks , Ghat-Kanchuki Dev-dasis or Vamachars.
Mother is essentially the Ocean of Infinite Love and Mercy, Mother is human mother vested with Omnipresence, Omniscience and Omnipotence and raised to infinity and Godhood . Mai is to the Mai-ists what a human mother is to her child.
(A) Mai-ism is the psychological religion for one and all of any religion or no religion without caste, creed or color. With full reverence to and while following one's own religion, one can be a Mai-ist. Mai-ism is one's own personal religion to be adopted after the age of discretion and not merely one's ancestral religion of one's birth.
( B ) Under Mai-ism, there is no place, by its very postulates, for the condemnation of Harijans as ' Untouchables, Woman's subjugation by Man or condemnation by routine religion as " Narakasya Dwaram "( Hell's Gate ) has no room, as every Mai-ist is expected to look upon every woman ( except his own wife ) as representative form of Mother and as under Mai-ism the co-operation of man and woman in the Mother worship is the highest spiritualizing force. The spirit underlying the words " Heathen ", " Kafir ", " Mlechcha " " Durvan ", etc., has no existence under Mai-ism.
(C) One who does not believe in God, but who does believe in the common tie of humanity and practises service and extends Love to all, is a " Mai-ist ", because he is the follower of Mai in one of Her aspects as One Universal Soul, One Universal Consciousness or One Universal Cosmos, like unto the continuous string through rosary beads subjecting every one of the Universe to the slightest influence anywhere in the whole.
If the Universe is to be made hatredless happy home and if love, mercy and other qualities of heart, ( the bankruptcy of which has been so keenly felt in the present world ) are to reappear, Motherhood conception of God is the most favorable aspect and conception.
A universal evil need a universal remedy, and the Grace of Universally acknowledged common Parent of one and all. The Merciful-Mother-Parent. The Universal Mother.
A universal prayer offered to a universally-conceived, universally-acknowledged universal Almighty, has its own undreamt-of miraculous efficiency, which followers of individual delimited vision can never imagine.
A universal call alone can have a universal response.
The six tenets of Mai-ism are :-
1) God is more merciful when approached as Mother;
2) Mother is mother of all, without caste, creed or color;
3) Mother smiles, on one's trying to love All, to one's best;
4) Mother saves, on one's trying to serve All, with one's best;
5) Mother shows (Her Grace) on one's devotion to Her
6) Mother serves, on one's living the life of universal Love and Service, with Devotion to Her and Unconditional, Cheerful, Self-Surrender to Mother's Divine Will.
Mai-ist's devotional ideal :
' Practice feeling that you are a child - a child whom Mother could not but accept, however wicked. You automatically get confidence, you regain your innocence, purity and sincerity and you raise yourself above world-wormness, sexuality and selfishness. You are off your cares, time is eternity for you and life is lightened. Be Mother's child and Her lap shall be thrilling and throbbing to have you on itself.'
BASIC BELIEFS OF A MAI-IST ARE : -
(1) Unity of all religions.
(2) Universal relation of all human beings as members of one family.
(3) No communalism. No provincialism. No nationalism and no racialism.
(4) For Mother's Love, Grace, Devotion and Mercy, the daily practice of universal sisterhood and brotherhood, an indispensable requirement.
(5) Every one to have the right of selecting one's own line of evolution.
(6) Precise evolution of essentials and non-essentials of one's religiosity, with test-stones of fundamental and eternal truths.
(7) Religion not to be permitted being made a cause for disunion, domination, prejudice, exploitation or superstition, and not to fail respecting science, reason, conscience, experience, human psychology and individual merits and demerits.
(8) One's own superiority to be least thought of, being trivial, transitory, circumstantial and not single-handedly earned.
(9) Not making most of little differences of high and low, which are often prejudicial and sometimes even imaginary.
(10) One's cheerfulness never to be lost as nothing is irreparable or unachievable under Mother's Grace.
(11) Be ever optimistic. The highest difference between man and a man is nothing compared to what Mother's Grace can make him in a moment.A sinner can be saint at the second moment and a saint may turn to be a devil after a day.
(12) Destruction is for re-construction, doubting for believing, evil for good, sinfulness for sinlessness.
(13) Rise above all superstitions.There is no 'choo-mantar'(magic) for a true Mai-ist except repetition of ' Jai Mai ' , Guru's Grace, Mother's Mercy, one's own highest exertion and world's sympathy.
(14) Mai-ist's highest initial grounding - Motherhood of God, Universality.
(15) Mai-ist's highest life-maxims - Love, Service, Devotion, unconditional and cheerful self- surrender to Mother's Divine Will.
(16) Mai-ist's highest sin - Loveless-ness and Harmfulness to another, by thought, word or deed.
(17) Mai-ist highest merit - Serving another onwards towards the spiritual goal or through temporal difficulties, in every moral, legal, legitimate and harmless manner.
Some of the practical measures for practical Mai-ists are : -
(1) Holding common prayers, Bhajans or Kirtans of God in any name or form and of any saints or devotees, holding classes, delivering lectures and undertaking tours for the general spiritual uplift.
(2) Introducing common prayers in Schools,Colleges and in masses.
(3) Holding Mother worship, personal or impersonal in any form, as may be agreed upon by one and all.
(4) Convening social of sisters or brothers or combined or of families, without caste, creed or color.
(5) Promulgation of common religious and allied literature and encouragement of studies of all religions by individuals of different religions. Publication of extracts from sacred books of all religions.
(6) Helping poor or bereaved families, deserving students, orphanages, opening celibate Mai-ist Schools , starting widow-homes, offering medical aid to he needy, guiding wedded pairs to-wards spiritual matrimonial living, praying for the peace of the departing or departed souls etc.
(7) Promotion of immensely practical universal sisterhood and brotherhood in daily life.
(8) Abolition of racial , national, provincial, social and religious prejudices and intercession for bringing about honorable peace and equitable compromise.
(9) Constructing, opening or encouraging to open Mother's Lodges, temples, Homes and Colonies under any denomination religious, national or communal, of any people, in any place.
The process of evolution of Mother's followers on attainment of Guru's Grace and Mother's Mercy is as under : -
(1) Acquisition of merit ( Punya ) by doing religious acts , japa, worship, charity, services etc. which will lead in the first instance to the fulfillment of legitimate and moral desires, next to patience and proofness, and then to the appreciation of the virtuous, religious and saintly people and their ways of living.
(2) The actions and qualities of Love, Service, Devotion and Self surrender having fairly matured by practice, Mother will so bring about circumstances and opportunities that the follower will be lifted up from his routine and worldly life and will be ushered into the company of virtuous, religious, devotional and saintly people.
(3) Constant contact of religious people, and their Service, their Imitation and their Grace will create a good understanding of good and evil, truth and untruth, righteousness and unrighteousness etc. , and these will introduce one to godliness after sufficient practice and disciplinary training in goodness, virtue etc.
(4) This introduction to godliness will ultimately result in the great liking for godliness, virtuous, devotional, unselfish and higher living and finally in the germination of Love towards God.
(5) Devotion to and Love of God will perfect the true understanding about soul-knowledge and will bring the Supreme Self of God and the individual self of the follower much nearer, through faith and conviction strengthened by Mother, often through miraculous Grace.
(6) Love of God will result in the Love of God's creation.
(7) Feeling the finger and hand of God in all arrangements, getting the sight of God occasionally, feeling oneness with God on self-surrender and inward satisfaction of ' having been accepted '.
(8) Establishing a perpetual relation with God and helping God in all grand work with Power and Love which God is pleased to confer.
(9) Merging in Mother.
The Founder's greatest sorrowful observation is, there is no systematisation, although the richest substance of true religiosity is here in India. Right understanding in its absolute essence, sense and practice is hopelessly missing. Discretion and discrimination about the indispensable elements or significant and insignificant factors is conspicuous by its absence.
~ Extract from the Book : MAI-ISM
Author : MAI SWARUP MA MARKAND
Publisher : Mai Niwas, Saraswati Road End, Santa Cruz West Mumbai 400054 India.
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