A Hymn to the Universal Divine Mother

Hail to You, Kypris, lovely haired, foam-born, holy Goddess,

Laughter-loving, full of ecstatic bliss, Ruler of the three Fates.

You delight in the creatures of the deep, as they dance round and round,

And in the sweet songs of the light-winged denizens of the air,

As they flutter from succulent flower to verdant tree to lofty bluff.

You conquer war, bringing stern Ares to rest in Your hallowed breast.

You triumph over death, bringing myrrh-born Adonis back from the house of Hades.

Beauty, Mother of Love, You are the trace of the One throughout the All,

Enticing into amorous embrace the splendid totality of creatures,

To unfold to the utmost the selfless giving of the One,

And impelling the pursuit of ever more perfect union,

To empty each of selfishness, allowing experience of the One, even in the All.

Parallel Prayers to the Universal Divine Mother

Gleb Botkin writes (In Search of Reality, p. 19):

Hear our prayer, our gentle Mother and Goddess, and help us to free our hearts of all hatred, anger and envy, of jealousy and greed, of all that remains of the destructive force of chaos. Hear our prayer, our gentle Mother and Goddess, and teach us to love Thee as Thou shouldst be loved. Teach us to laud Thee as Thou shouldst be lauded. Teach us to serve Thee as Thou shouldst be served; to thank Thee, to praise Thee, to bless Thee, as Thou shouldst be thanked, praised, and blessed. Hear our prayer, our gentle Mother and Goddess, and permit us to sense Thy holy, beneficent presence. Permit us to see if only a glimpse of Thy sweet, radiant smile; to hear if only a faint echo of Thy happy, life-giving laughter.

Mai Markand writes (Mai-ism, Note 777):

If Love is Mother and Mother is Love, I am Mother's and Mother is mine. Mother bless the readers. Bless Thy followers. Bless Thy surrender seeking. Be Thou pleased with anyone that repeats Thy Sacred Name. On Thyself being propitiated and pleased, let the little universe of every devotee of Thine be most pleased, satisfied, comfortable and happy.

Let it be Thy Grace that the rulers led the ruled into the righteous path. Let good befall to the lot of all. Let the Universe be happy with rains, crops, contentment and prosperity.

Make Thy devotees live in peace and bliss without fear. Make all beings to relish pleasure in attending to their duties and on attaining duties and on attaining their spiritual welfare.

Make the wicked virtuous, make the virtuous successful in attaining their peace of mind. Make tranquilised souls free from bondages. Inspire and help the freed to be taking up as their life mission, the work of helping, loving and serving others to free themselves through Thy Mercy and Guru's Grace.

May all be freed from dangers. May all understand and attain good. May all be living nobly. May all be rejoicing in the Universal spiritual good of all.

Mother! Make all happy, free from all worries and diseases and all calamities. Make each and all of us enabled to enjoy the Best, what is Divine, Sublime and Good.

Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai, Jay Markand Rupa Mai, Jay Markand Rupa Markand Mai

The Universal Divine Mother and The Golden Age

Gleb Botkin writes (In Search of Reality, p. 31):

To Greece, the religion of Aphrodite was brought by Orpheus. Horace refers to him as “the Sacred Messenger of the Gods, who had reclaimed the Greeks from a rude and savage life.” Significantly, it is also to Orpheus that the Greeks attributed their knowledge of agriculture and the diatonic scale of music. Orpheus himself called his teaching, “the religion of the Golden age,” and stated that people of that Age were so good and so happy for the very reason that they worshiped Aphrodite and Aphrodite Alone.

This statement connects with a quote from ancient Greek Philosopher Empedocles (Fragment 128):

"Nor had they any Ares for a god nor Kydimus, no nor King Zeus nor Kronos nor Poseidon, but Kypris the Queen.... Her did they propitiate with holy gifts, with painted figures and perfumes of cunning fragrancy, with offerings of pure myrrh and sweet-smelling frankincense, casting on the ground libations of brown honey. And the altar did not reek with pure bull's blood, but this was held in the greatest abomination among men, to eat the goodly limbs after tearing out the life."

During the Golden Age, Kypris (Aphrodite) alone was worshiped – meaning that she was not one god among many, not a consort of another god, not merely a power or projection, but was seen as God, the Universal Deity. Based on Empedocles, all were good and all were happy since there was no animal sacrifice and humans were vegetarians. The work of Gleb Botkin in establishing the Church of Aphrodite was intended to mark a return to the Golden Age.

The same is true with the work of Mai Markand in establishing Mai-ism.

Mai Markand writes (Mai-ism, Note 7):

Mai माई or Maijee माईजी is Universal and a Personification of Mother, God Himself as Mother and not God's Power. With Hindu-Matajee, the relationship of the devotee and the deity is that of the demander and donor of powers leading to general happiness, success, rulership, controllership, victoriousness, infatuatingness, etc. The relationship with Mai is that of a mother and child. Matajee माताजी is mostly a goddess of fear and power, whereas Maijee is the Goddess of parental love and permanent welfare. Except the common element of the feminine sex, the conception of Matajee and Maijee are entirely different and dis-similar, if not contradictory. To put it in the usual Hindu scriptural language, Matajee, as mostly believed by Hindus, is the Tamasik तामसीक aspect, whereas Maijee is the purest Sattvik सात्विक aspect. Mai-ism is working hard for the past over 18 years, (i.e. since 2-9-1932), to transform the Tamasik तामसीक belief about the Mataji to the Sattwik सात्विक, to change the idea of fear into that of love, to raise the notion of Maya माया, Power and Consortship, to that of Motherhood, to broaden the Hinduistic restricted notion and vision to the Universal one.

Mother is Essentially the Ocean of Infinite Love and Mercy

Mai Markand on Love (Mai-ism, Notes 751 and 752):

Few people understand why in Mai-ism, Love is so much valued and why the first requirement is "Love All". It becomes yet still more difficult for them that have no discrimination of "Love and Lust", "interested and disinterested".

All goodness, virtue, happiness and peace of mind results from Love. Love or the feeling of unity of all different selves in and with Mother and one's own self, is creative of order, organisation, consolidation, equilibrium and tranquility.

It is Love that develops a particular admirable type of emotion, character and behaviour.

Love helps, gives, prays, feels grateful, appreciates and returns, gives and shares.

Love results in trust, faith, cheerfulness, contentment, forbearance, magnanimity, mercy, forgiveness, confidence, honesty, dignity, charity, etc.

What is Love? It is liking, being attracted to, feeling pleasure in, being ready to sacrifice for, wishing to be nearer to, burning with the desire of embracing and being embraced by, absorbing and being absorbed in, pulling and being pulled in by intense living...

Love is the root of all virtues and the sacrificing struggle for realisation of unity. Love has its own limitlessness, mysteriousness and miraculousness. Love is strength and fearlessness and regenerativeness. Love is humility, patience, forbearance and endurance.

Love is the power of fulfilling and conquering.  Love is the power of expansion and transformation.

Gleb Botkin on Love (In Search of Reality, pp. 1-7):

Love is not – as most people seem to think – just an emotion. Love is an energy – indeed, the basic creative energy in the cosmos. Life itself is naught else, but the blossoming of love. Every living organism exists only because it contains love, and the degree of its vitality is determined by the amount of love it contains…

The foremost of love’s properties is its inseparable union with beauty and harmony. Indeed, the three words, “love,” “beauty” and “harmony,” refer but to different aspects or nuances of one single phenomenon. Hence, where beauty and harmony are present, so is love...

The basic desire which love instills in its subject is the blossoming and happiness of its object…If the object of love happens to be a person, the desire for its happiness impels the lover to deeds of kindness. While focused on the object of love, such deeds of kindness automatically extend to anybody and anything in any way connected with or resembling that object…Hence, love imbues its subject with a general attitude of benevolence, as well as a deep sense of joy...

The only independent and inexhaustible Generator of Love – its Prime Source and Ultimate Object – is the Supreme Deity and Creator. Indeed, the Supreme Deity is also the Creator precisely in virtue of being the Generator of the basic creative energy in the cosmos. Parenthetically, that fact is in itself a sufficient reason…for visualizing the Supreme Deity, not as a Father God, but the Mother Goddess. Indeed, the process of an energy’s emanation from its source is an organic one. Hence, the cosmos must be regarded as the fruit of the Divine Organism – not an arbitrarily created artifact; and needless to say, it is only a feminine organism which is capable of bearing fruit...

The fact that the Goddess is the Prime Source and Ultimate Object of all love means that love for any object represents a form of communion with the Goddess, while any creative activity impelled by love represents a form of worship of the Goddess.

Purpose of This Blog

​DURING THE 1930S, IN INDIA AND THE USA, THERE WERE PARALLEL ESTABLISHMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS DEVOTED TO THE IDEA OF GOD AS MOTHER. 

IN INDIA, MAI MARKAND ESTABLISHED MAI-ISM IN 1932, WHILE IN THE USA, GLEB BOTKIN, A RUSSIAN IMMIGRANT, FOUNDED THE CHURCH OF APHRODITE IN 1938 AFTER PREPARING GROUND FOR IT DURING THE EARLIER 1930S. 

THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO THE WORK OF BOTH MEN, WITH AN EMPHASIS ON THE SUPREME BEING AS FEMININE, AS MOTHER, AND WITH LOVE AS THE CENTRAL FOCUS.