Mahalakshmi

Dear to thee are gardens of the lotus,
Where else shall I spread thy seat, O Mother?
On the lotus of my heart press the dawn-roses of thy feet and make it flower.
Things ungainly afflict thee, O Mother,
I will not cherish them anywhere in me even a little.
O Queen of Beauty, charmer of the worlds,
Keep abiding thy grace upon me.
Thou sufferest not an arid heart,
So of thyself hast thou come and put on bonds of affection-
O Mother, by the magic of thy sweetness, quicken and upheave me with Love.

(Selected from To the Heights - Tranlated from French (Vers les Hauteurs) by Sri Nolini Kanta Gupta, Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry)

For she throws the spell of the intoxicating sweetness of the Divine: to be close to her is a profound happiness and to feel her within the heart is to make the existence a rapture and a marvel; grace and charm and tenderness flow from her like the light from the sun and wherever she fixes her wonderful gaze or lets fall of the loveliness of her smile, the soul is seized and made captive and plunged into the depths of an unfathomable bliss.

Magnetic is the touch of her hands and their occult and delicate influence refines the mind and life and body and where she presses her feet course miraculous streams of an entrancing Ananda. And yet it is not easy to meet the demand of this enchanting Power or to keep her presence. Harmony and beauty of the mind and soul, harmony and beauty of the thoughts and feelings, harmony and beauty in every outward act and movement, harmony and beauty of the life and surroundings, this is the demand of Mahalakshmi.

(Extract from “The Mother” by Sri Aurobindo)
(Painting by Sanjiban da, courtesy: http://www.searchforlight.org/)