Mother Tao: Brahman and the Divine Feminine

The Unity of Tao and Brahman as the Primordial Mother of All Creation

Summary

This paper explores the profound philosophical and spiritual unity between the Taoist concept of Tao and the Hindu concept of Brahman, positing them as identical expressions of the primordial Divine Feminine — the Mother of All Creation. By synthesizing the teachings of Lao-Tse in the Tao Te Ching with the Upanishads, Devi Gita, and Vedic scriptures, this study demonstrates that both Tao and Brahman are recognized as transcendent and immanent — prior to time and space, yet fully manifest within it. Integrating the spiritual revelations of Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi regarding Lao-Tse and the Kundalini, alongside the scholarly and activist perspectives of Anne Baring and Andrew Harvey, the paper traces the historical suppression of the Goddess by patriarchal religious institutions. It concludes with a resounding call for women, and all of humanity, to unite against patriarchal indoctrination and reclaim the sacred feminine, restoring the transformative power of Mother Tao (Devi) to heal a fractured world.

1. Introduction: The Perennial Melody of the Mother

Throughout the tapestry of human spiritual history, a single, resonant melody has played beneath the varied arrangements of world religions: the recognition of a primordial, inexhaustible source from which all existence flows. In the Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tse names this source the Tao, referring to it as the "mysterious female," the "valley spirit," and the "mother of Heaven and Earth." [1] In the Vedic and Tantric traditions of India, this ultimate reality is known as Brahman, often personified as the supreme Goddess, Devi or Adi Parashakti. [2]

Despite the geographical and cultural distances separating ancient China and India, their esoteric traditions articulate an identical cosmology: a universe birthed and sustained by a Divine Mother. This is not coincidence. It is the signature of a universal truth, what Aldous Huxley and others have called the Philosophia Perennis — the perennial philosophy — a single, transcendent wisdom expressed in the particular idioms of different cultures and eras. [3] As Thomas Aquinas wrote, "All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, has its origin in the Spirit." [4]

However, as scholars like Anne Baring and Andrew Harvey have meticulously documented, this profound reverence for the Divine Feminine was systematically suppressed by the rise of patriarchal religious structures, which sought to dominate nature, subjugate women, and centralize power in male-dominated hierarchies. [5] The spiritual teacher Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga, went further still, identifying the Tao of Lao-Tse as nothing other than the Kundalini — the primordial maternal energy that resides within every human being, awaiting the moment of spiritual awakening. [6]

This paper seeks to resurrect this ancient wisdom, demonstrating the fundamental unity of Tao and Brahman, and calling for a global spiritual revolution centered on the return of the Mother. It is both a philosophical investigation and a declaration: that Brahman (Devi) and Tao (Mother of All Creation) are one and the same Divine Face of God, and that the time has come for women and all seekers to unite against the patriarchal indoctrination that has for too long obscured this truth.

2. Tao and Brahman: The Transcendent and Immanent Unity

The philosophical correlation between Tao and Brahman is one of the most striking convergences in the history of comparative religion. Both concepts describe an ultimate reality that defies the limitations of human language and conceptualization. As Lao-Tse famously declared, "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the true name." [7] Similarly, the Upanishads describe Brahman as neti neti ("not this, not this"), pointing to a reality beyond all attributes and categories. [8]

The scholar Laurence G. Bolt, in his Tao of Abundance, articulates this convergence with precision:

This dual nature — simultaneously transcendent and immanent — is the hallmark of both concepts. The Tao is transcendent in that it existed before Heaven and Earth, before the "ten thousand things," before any name or form. It is immanent in that it flows through every leaf, every river, every human breath. Brahman is similarly described in the Chandogya Upanishad as sarvam khalv idam brahma — "All this is indeed Brahman." [10]

Table 1: Philosophical Parallels between Tao and Brahman

Attribute	Tao (Taoism)	Brahman / Devi (Hinduism)
Source of Creation	The "Mother of All Things," the "Dark Womb" from which existence springs.	Adi Shakti, the primordial energy that manifests as the universe.
Transcendence	Empty, nameless, eternal, existing before Heaven and Earth.	Formless (Nirguna), beyond human comprehension and time.
Immanence	Flows through all things; the natural rhythm and driving power of nature.	Manifest (Saguna), permeating all entities as their eternal consciousness.
Nature of Action	Wu Wei (non-action/effortless action), yielding, nurturing.	Lila (divine play), sustaining creation with maternal compassion.
Relation to Language	"The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao."	Neti neti — "not this, not this" — beyond all description.
Feminine Nature	The "Mysterious Female," "Valley Spirit," "Mother of Heaven and Earth."	Devi, Shakti, the Supreme Goddess who is Brahman itself.

The Gnostic text, The Secret Book of John, offers a description of the ultimate reality that could be mistaken for Lao-Tse discoursing on the Tao:

This convergence across traditions is not accidental. It points to a single, universal experience of the ground of being — an experience that the mystics and sages of every culture have touched, and which they have described in the language and imagery available to them.

3. Mother Tao in the Tao Te Ching: The Mysterious Female

The Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao-Tse (born c. 604 BC), is one of the most profound spiritual texts ever composed. In its eighty-one chapters, Lao-Tse repeatedly employs feminine imagery to describe the Tao, making it the most explicitly feminine cosmology in any major world religion. [12]

This "mysterious female" is not a goddess in the anthropomorphic sense, but the very ground of being — the inexhaustible, nurturing source that underlies all existence. The word Tao means "the fathomless Source, the One, the Deep." Te is the way the Tao comes into being, growing organically like a plant from the deep ground of life, from within outwards. Ching is the slow, patient shaping of that growth through creative intelligence. [14]

In Chapter 25, Lao-Tse describes the Tao as the "Mother of All Things" — something that existed before the universe, silent and formless, yet containing everything. In Chapter 28, he teaches: "Know the male, hold to the female; become the world's stream." This is not merely metaphor. It is a cosmological declaration that the feminine principle is the root of all reality, and that wisdom lies in returning to it. [16]

The Way of Tao, as Anne Baring and Andrew Harvey explain, is "to reconnect with The Mother source or ground, to be in it, like a bird in the air or a fish in the sea, in touch with it, while living in the midst of what the Taoists called the 'sons' or 'children' — the myriad forms that the source takes in manifestation." [17]

4. Brahman as Devi: The Supreme Goddess of the Vedic and Tantric Traditions

In the Shakta tradition of Hinduism, the ultimate reality — Brahman — is not a male deity, but the supreme Goddess, Devi or Adi Parashakti. This is not a subordinate feminine principle, but the very ground of all existence. As the Bahvricha Upanishad declares:

The Devi Gita, one of the most important Shakta scriptures, presents the Goddess speaking in the first person as the supreme Brahman:

The Devi Sukta of the Rigveda (10.125.8) — one of the oldest hymns to the Goddess in human history — contains an equally stunning declaration:

This is precisely the Tao: the all-permeating, all-sustaining, all-creating Mother who is both beyond the world and within it. The Devi Upanishad teaches that Devi is both immanent and transcendent, both form and formless, both the worshipped and the worshipper. [21] The Devi Gita further states: "The great saying, 'You are That,' indicates the oneness of the soul and Brahman. When the identity is realized, one goes beyond fear and assumes my essential nature." [22]

5. Lao-Tse, Tao, and the Awakening of Kundalini: Teachings of Shri Mataji

The profound connection between the Taoist Mother and the Hindu Goddess is further illuminated by the teachings of Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, the founder of Sahaja Yoga. Shri Mataji identified Lao-Tse not merely as a philosopher, but as a highly realized spiritual master who understood the mechanics of inner transformation. She explicitly equated the Tao with the Kundalini — the primordial maternal energy coiled at the base of the human spine, the individual reflection of the cosmic Adi Shakti.

According to Shri Mataji, when Lao-Tse described the journey of the Tao — often using the metaphor of the Yangtze River flowing from turbulent mountain gorges to the calm sea — he was symbolically describing the ascent of the Kundalini energy through the subtle system of chakras to achieve Self-Realization, or spiritual rebirth. Shri Mataji herself traveled through the Yangtze River and recognized in its landscape the very journey Lao-Tse had described:

Shri Mataji also lamented that even the Chinese themselves had lost touch with the depth of Lao-Tse's wisdom:

Shri Mataji consistently emphasized that all the great teachers — Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Mahavira, and Lao-Tse — were speaking of the same inner transformation: the awakening of the spirit through the Kundalini, the individual Mother within:

The existence of this primordial power within human beings — the Kundalini residing in the triangular sacrum bone at the base of the spine — was known to ancient seers for thousands of years. The very name of the bone, "sacrum," means "sacred," pointing to an ancient, cross-cultural recognition of this power. [27] Shri Mataji identified the Kundalini as the individual's own mother — a unique, personal reflection of the cosmic Adi Shakti:

This identification of the Kundalini with the Holy Ghost — rendered here in Her feminine essence as the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth — is of immense theological significance. It bridges the Taoist, Hindu, and Christian traditions, revealing them as three different windows onto the same divine reality: the Mother who dwells within, waiting to give Her children their second birth.

6. The Divine Feminine in China: Anne Baring and Andrew Harvey

Anne Baring and Andrew Harvey, in their landmark anthology The Divine Feminine: Exploring the Feminine Face of God throughout the World (1996), provide a rich historical and spiritual account of the Divine Mother in Chinese civilization. They trace the roots of Taoism to the shamanic practices and oral traditions of the Bronze Age, and show how the ancient Chinese Mother Goddess — known by many names, including Hsi Wang Mu, the Royal Mother of the West — formed the spiritual substratum upon which Taoism developed. [29]

Baring and Harvey write with particular eloquence about the unique achievement of Taoism:

They describe the Tao as "the source and the creative process of life that flows from it, imagined as a Mother who is the root of heaven and earth, beyond all yet within all, giving birth to all, containing all, nurturing all." The Taoist concept of Wu Wei — non-action, effortless action — they identify as "essentially feminine, gentle, balanced, dynamic and wise." [31]

Anne Baring's broader vision of the Divine Feminine is one of urgent necessity. She writes that the image of the Divine Feminine "is returning to consciousness" after centuries of suppression, "reconnecting us to the dimension of the instinctual soul that has been shut away, like the Sleeping Beauty, behind a hedge of thorns." [32] She argues that the Divine Feminine is "the irresistible power that destroys old forms and brings new ones into being, the inspiration of the love-in-action that is so needed to transform a culture radically out of touch with its soul." [33]

Andrew Harvey, for his part, has devoted his life to what he calls "Sacred Activism" — the fusion of the mystic's passion for God with the activist's passion for justice. He argues that the Mother's return is not merely a spiritual event, but a social and political imperative:

Harvey envisions a "sacred marriage" between the feminine and masculine principles — not a return to matriarchy, but a transformation accomplished in the spirit of the sacred feminine: "in her spirit of unconditional love, in her spirit of tolerance, forgiveness, all-embracing and all-harmonizing balance." [35] He insists that "the Mother's knowledge of unity, her powers of sensitivity, humility, and balance, and her infinite respect for the miracle of all life have now to be invoked by each of us and practiced if the 'masculine' rational imbalance of our civilization is to be righted before it's too late." [36]

7. Kuan Yin: The Compassionate Face of Mother Tao

The most beloved expression of the Divine Feminine in Chinese civilization is the Goddess Kuan Yin — "She Who Hears the Cries of the World." Kuan Yin represents the living face of Mother Tao: compassionate, accessible, and infinitely merciful. Her story is one of remarkable spiritual synthesis, as Baring and Harvey describe:

By the sixteenth century, Kuan Yin had become the principal deity of China and Japan. She represents the convergence of Taoist, Buddhist, and even Christian streams of the Divine Feminine into a single, universally beloved image. The Lotus Sutra describes her as a cosmic being devoted to saving the world through wisdom and compassion:

Kuan Yin is, in essence, the personal, compassionate face of the impersonal Tao — just as Devi is the personal face of the impersonal Brahman. Both traditions recognize that the ultimate reality, while beyond all form, also manifests in a form of infinite compassion and love, accessible to all who call upon Her.

8. The Perennial Philosophy: One Melody, Many Arrangements

The convergence of Tao and Brahman is not an isolated philosophical coincidence. It is part of a vast pattern of agreement among the world's mystical traditions — what Aldous Huxley called the Philosophia Perennis, the perennial philosophy. Across cultures and historical eras, the esoteric core of every great religion has pointed to the same ultimate reality: a transcendent, immanent ground of being that is the source of all existence. [39]

Laurence Bolt captures this insight beautifully:

The Taoist concept of the Tao as the "mysterious female" and "mother of all things" finds its parallel in the Vedic Devi, the Hebrew Shekinah (the indwelling feminine presence of God), the Christian Holy Spirit (Ruha d'Qudsha in Jesus' original Aramaic — a distinctly feminine word), the Sufi Ruh, and the Sikh Eka Mai (the One Mother). [41]

Table 2: The Divine Feminine Across World Traditions

Tradition	Name of the Divine Feminine	Key Attribute
Taoism	Tao, Hsi Wang Mu, Kuan Yin	The Mysterious Female, Mother of Heaven and Earth
Hinduism	Devi, Adi Parashakti, Shakti	Supreme Brahman, the Cosmic Womb
Christianity	Holy Spirit, Sophia, Paraclete	The Spirit of Truth, the Comforter
Judaism	Shekinah, Chokhmah (Wisdom)	The Indwelling Presence of God
Islam (Sufism)	Ruh, the Feminine Face of Allah	The Divine Breath, the Sustaining Spirit
Sikhism	Eka Mai	The One Mother, Creative Force
Buddhism	Tara, Prajnaparamita, Kuan Yin	The Mother of All Buddhas, Compassion
Sahaja Yoga	Adi Shakti, Kundalini	The Primordial Mother, the Holy Ghost within

Shri Mataji confirmed this universal convergence when she stated: "But everything gets integrated in Sahaja Yoga. All the knowledge, all the scriptures, everything gets integrated. Absolutely integrated because out of light you see the truth in all of them. There is truth in everything, there is truth in every religion." [42]

9. The Patriarchal Stranglehold and the Suppression of the Sacred Feminine

If the Mother Tao is the source of all life, and if the Divine Feminine is the universal ground of being recognized by every mystical tradition, why has Her presence been so thoroughly marginalized in global religious discourse? The answer lies in the historical rise of patriarchal systems that systematically suppressed Goddess worship, replacing the immanent, nurturing Mother with transcendent, often punitive, male deities.

This suppression was not merely theological; it was deeply political. By erasing the Divine Feminine from religious consciousness, patriarchal institutions disenfranchised women, stripping them of their historical roles as spiritual guides, healers, and priestesses. The narrative of sin and subservience was weaponized to enforce a stranglehold over the religious masses, severing humanity's direct, intuitive connection to the Divine Ground. [43]

Anne Baring identifies this loss with devastating clarity:

Andrew Harvey is even more direct in his diagnosis. He has stated that "all the major mystical traditions are constricted by the limitation of patriarchy," [45] and that the Divine Feminine "was enslaved by religion and women were cast down." [46] He argues that a civilization that has cut itself off from the Mother is a civilization driving toward self-destruction:

Shri Mataji, too, observed the corruption of religion by power and money: "Religion now has become money-oriented, or also power-oriented, so it's gone off." [48] The patriarchal indoctrination has caused humanity to forget that the universe is the constantly reborn child of the Mother, and that the Holy Spirit is, in truth, a feminine, maternal presence — the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, who dwells within each soul as the Kundalini, the individual Mother waiting to grant Her child the second birth.

The suppression of the Goddess is not merely a historical injustice. It is an ongoing spiritual crisis. When the feminine face of God is denied, when the Mother is erased from theology, when women are told they cannot be priests or spiritual authorities, the entire community of faith is impoverished. The masculine alone, divorced from the feminine, produces a spirituality of domination rather than liberation, of law rather than love, of exclusion rather than embrace.

10. Conclusion: A Resounding Call to Reclaim the Mother of All Creation

The teachings of Lao-Tse, echoed and illuminated by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, remind us that this Mother is not an abstract concept, but a living, experiential reality within us — the Kundalini, waiting to grant us our spiritual rebirth. The scholarship of Anne Baring and the sacred activism of Andrew Harvey illuminate the urgent necessity of restoring this feminine wisdom to heal our fractured planet.

The Devi Gita declares: "Thereby the person is forever liberated; liberation arises from knowledge and from nothing else. One who attains knowledge here in this world, realizing the inner Self abiding in the heart, who is absorbed in my pure consciousness, loses not the vital breaths. Being Brahman, the person who knows Brahman attains Brahman." [49] This is the promise of Mother Tao as well: that by returning to the Source, by attuning oneself to the flow of the Tao, one attains the eternal.

The Taoist tradition, as Baring and Harvey show, is "essentially feminine, gentle, balanced, dynamic and wise." It preserved what patriarchal religions sought to destroy: the knowledge that life is sacred, that nature is divine, that the ground of being is a Mother who never abandons Her children. This knowledge is not the property of any one tradition. It is the birthright of all humanity.

Therefore, a resounding conclusion must be drawn. Women must unite. Against the patriarchal indoctrination that has held the religious masses in a stranglehold for centuries. Against the theological structures that have erased the Mother from the face of God. Against the institutional religions that have used the name of the Divine to subjugate, silence, and diminish the feminine. The return of the Mother is not a threat to genuine spirituality — it is its fulfillment.

Andrew Harvey's words ring with prophetic urgency: "The future of the world depends on the full restoration of the Sacred Feminine in all its tenderness, passion, divine ferocity, and surrendered persistence." [50] Anne Baring reminds us that "the Divine Mother is asking us to trust and protect life, to work with her in all we do, opening our understanding to the knowledge that we are not separate from herself but an expression of her being." [51]

By awakening to the Mother Tao within — the Kundalini, the Holy Ghost, the Adi Shakti — humanity can move beyond the destructive paradigms of dominance and division. By recognizing that Brahman (Devi) and Tao (Mother of All Creation) are one and the same Divine Face of God throughout the world, we open the door to a new era of spiritual wholeness, ecological reverence, and universal compassion.

The Tao never imposes but embraces. It never dominates but nurtures. It never forces but flows. It is the eternal Mother, the sanctuary where all things find refuge, the unseen force from which all things arise. She has been waiting, in the silence of the sacrum bone, in the stillness of the valley spirit, in the depths of the mysterious female, for the moment when Her children would recognize Her and come home.

That moment is now.

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THE DIVINE FEMININE IN CHINA
Mother of all Creation

Once, in China, as elsewhere, there was a Mother who was before heaven and earth came into being. Her image was woven into the age-old beliefs of the people and the shamanic tradition which later evolved into Taoism. In Chinese mythology The Mother goddess has many names and titles. One legend imagined her as an immense peach tree which grew in the Garden of Paradise in the Kun-Lun mountains of the West and was the support of the whole universe. The fruit of this marvellous and magical tree ripened only after three thousand years, bestowing immortality on whoever tasted it. The Garden of Paradise belonged to the Queen of the Immortals, the Royal Mother of the West, whose name was Hsi Wang Mu, goddess of eternal life. Other myths describe her as The Mother or Grandmother, the primordial Heavenly Being, the cosmic womb of all life, the gateway of heaven and earth. Taoism developed on this foundation.

More subtly and comprehensively than any other religious tradition, Taoism (Daoism) nurtured the quintessence of the Divine Feminine, keeping alive the feeling of relationship with the ground of being as Primordial Mother. Somehow the Taoist sages discovered how to develop the mind without losing touch with the soul and this is why an understanding of their philosophy - China's priceless legacy to humanity - is so important to us now.

The origins of Taoism come from the shamanic practices and oral traditions of the Bronze Age and beyond. Its earliest written expression is the Book of Changes or I Ching, a book of divination consisting of sixty four oracles which is thought to date to 3000- 1200 BC. The complementary images of yin and yang woven into the sixty four hexagrams of the I Ching are not to be understood as two separate expressions of the one indivisible life energy: earth and heaven, feminine and masculine, female and male, for each contains elements of the other and each cannot exist without the other. In their passionate embrace, there is relationship, dialogue and continual movement and change. The I Ching describes the flow of energies of the Tao in relation to a particular time, place or situation and helps the individual to balance the energies of yin and yang and to listen to the deeper resonance of the One that is both.

The elusive essence of Taoism is expressed in the Tao Te Ching, the only work of the great sage Lao Tzu (born c. 604 BC.), whom legend says was persuaded to write down the eighty-one sayings by one of his disciples when, reaching the end of his life, he had embarked on his last journey to the mountains of the West. The word Tao means the fathomless Source, the One, the Deep. Te is the way the Tao comes into being, growing organically like a plant from the deep ground or source of life, from within outwards. Ching is the slow, patient shaping of that growth through the activity of a creative intelligence that is expressed as the organic patterning of all instinctual life, like the DNA of the universe.”The Tao does nothing, yet nothing is left undone.”The tradition of Taoism was transmitted from master to pupil by a succession of shaman-sages, many of whom were sublime artists and poets. In the midst of the turmoil of the dynastic struggles that engulfed China for centuries they followed the Tao, bringing together the outer world of appearances with the inner one of Being.

From the source which is both everything and nothing, and whose image is the circle, came heaven and earth, yin and yang, the two principles whose dynamic relationship brings into being the world we see. The Tao is both the source and the creative process of life that flows from it, imagined as a Mother who is the root of heaven and earth, beyond all yet within all, giving birth to all, containing all, nurturing all. The Way of Tao is to reconnect with The Mother source or ground, to be in it, like a bird in the air or a fish in the sea, in touch with it, while living in the midst of what the Taoists called the 'sons' or 'children'- the myriad forms that the source takes in manifestation. It is to become aware of the presence of the Tao in everything, to discover its rhythm and its dance, to learn to trust it, no longer interfering with the flow of life by manipulating, directing, resisting, controlling. It is to develop the intuitive awareness of a mystery which only gradually unveils itself. Following the Way of Tao requires a turning towards the hidden withinness of things, a receptivity to instinctive feeling, enough time to reflect on what is inconceivable and indescribable, beyond the reach of mind or intellect, that can only be felt, intuited, experienced at ever deeper depth. Action taken from this position of balance and freedom will gradually become aligned to the harmony of the Tao and will therefore embody its mysterious power and wisdom.

The Taoists never separated nature from spirit, consciously preserving the instinctive knowledge that life is One. No people observed nature more passionately and minutely than the Chinese sages or reached so deeply into the hidden heart of life, describing the life and form of insects, animals, birds, flowers, trees, wind, water, planets and stars. They felt the continuous flow and flux of life as an underlying energy that was without beginning or end, that was, like water, never static, never still, never fixed in separate things or events, but always in a state of movement, a state of changing and becoming. They called the art of going with the flow of this energy Wu Wei, not-doing (Wu means not or non-, Wei means doing, making, striving after goals), understanding it as relinquishing control, not trying to force or manipulate life but attuning oneself to the underlying rhythm and ever-changing modes of its being. The stilling of the surface mind that is preoccupied with the ten thousand things brings into being a deeper, more complete mind and an integrated state of consciousness or creative power that they named Te which enabled them not to interfere with life but to"enter the forest without moving the grass; to enter the water without raising a ripple.”

They cherished the Tao with their brushstrokes, observing how it flowed into the patterns of cloud and mist between earth and mountain peak, or the rhythms of air currents and the eddying water of rivers and streams, the opening of plum blossom in spring, the graceful dance of bamboo and willow. They listened to the sounds that can only be heard in the silence. They expressed their experience of the Tao in their paintings, their poetry, the creation of their temples and gardens and in their way of living which was essentially one of withdrawal from the world to a place where they could live a simple, contemplative life, concentrating on perfecting their brushstokes in calligraphy and painting and their subtlety of expression in the art of poetry. Humility, reverence, patience, insight and wisdom were the qualities that they sought to cultivate.

The Taoist artist or poet intuitively reached into the secret essence of what he was observing, making himself one with it, then inviting it to speak through him, so releasing the dynamic harmony within it. He imposed nothing of himself on it but reflected the creative soul of what he was observing through the highly developed skills that he had cultivated over a lifetime of practice. Through the perfection of his art, he did not define or explain the Tao which, as Chuang-Tzu said, cannot be conveyed either by words or by silence, but called it into focus so that it could be experienced by the beholder. The Tao flows through the whole work as cosmic Presence, at once transcendent in its mystery and immanent in its form. The distillation of what the Taoist sages discovered is bequeathed to us in the beauty and wisdom of their painting and poetry, and in their profound understanding of the relationship between body, soul and nature, and the eternal ground that underlies and enfolds them all.

Standing before one of the great Taoist paintings of the T'ng or Sung dynasties or reading a poem by Wang Wei, we are immediately transformed by them, able to let go of the things that normally distract the mind and exhaust the body - the preoccupation with the ten thousand things that the Taoists called"dust.” They put us in touch with the center simply by relating us instantaneously to the ground which unites everything. To rest in the quietness of mind and humility of heart that the Taoist sage embodies, is to live in a state of instinctive spontaneity that the Taoists named Tzu Jan - a being-in-the-moment that can only exist, as in childhood, when the effort to adapt to collective values and the need to accumulate possessions, power or fame is of no importance. What exists is what is. There is no need to change it by imposing the will. Change will come about by changing the quality of one's own being. To feel what needs to be said without striving to say it; to speak from the heart in as few words as possible, to act when action is required, responding to the needs of the moment without attachment to the fruits of action, this was the essence of the Taoist vision. It was essentially feminine, gentle, balanced, dynamic and wise.

The image of the primordial Mother was embedded deep within the soul of the Chinese people who, as in Egypt, Sumer and India, turned to her for help and support in time of need. She was particularly close to women who prayed to her for the blessing of children, for a safe delivery in childbirth, for the protection of their families, for the healing of sickness. Their mother goddess was not a remote being but a compassionate, accessible presence in their homes, in the sacred mountains where they went on pilgrimages to her temples and shrines, and in the valleys and vast forests where she could be felt, and sometimes seen. Yet, like the goddesses in other early cultures, she also had cosmic dimensions. Guardian of the waters, helper of the souls of the dead in their passage to other realms, she was the Great Mother who responded to the cry of all people who called upon her in distress. She was the Spirit of Life itself, deeper than all knowing, caring for suffering humanity, her child. Above all, she was the embodiment of mercy, love, compassion and wisdom, the Protectress of Life. Although she had many names and images in earlier times, these eventually merged into one goddess who was called Kuan Yin - She who hears, She who listens.

By a fascinating process which saw the blending of different religious traditions, the ancient Chinese Mother Goddess absorbed elements of the Buddhist image of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, the Tibetan mother goddess Tara and the Virgin Mary of Christianity, whose statues were brought to China during the seventh century AD. The name Kuan Yin was a translation of the sanscrit word Avalokitesvara and means"The One Who Hears the Cries of the World.” At first, following the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, this compassionate being was imagined in male form, but from the fifth century AD., the female form of Kuan Yin begins to appear in China and by the tenth century it predominates.

It was in the far north-west, at the interface between Chinese, Tibetan and European civilizations, that the cult of Kuan Yin took strongest root and it was from here that it spread over the length and breadth of China and into Korea and Japan, grafted onto the far older image of The Mother Goddess. Every province had its local image and its own story about her. Taoist and Buddhist elements were fused, creating an image of the Divine Feminine that was deeply satisfying to the people. By the 16th century, Kuan Yin had become the principal deity of China and Japan and is so today. Robed in white, she is usually shown seated or standing on a lotus throne, sometimes with a child on her lap or near her for she brings the blessing of children to women.

Chinese Buddhist texts describe her as being within a vast circle of light that emanates from her body, her face gleaming golden, surrounded with a garland of 8000 rays. The palms of her hands radiate the colour of 500 lotus flowers. The tip of each finger has 84,000 images, each emitting 84,000 rays whose gentle radiance touches all things. All beings are drawn to her and compassionately embraced by her. Meditation on this image is said to free them from the endless cycle of birth and death.

Two Chinese descriptions of Kuan Yin bring her to life, the first from the Buddhist Lotus Sutra which imagines her as a cosmic being devoted to saving the world through her wisdom and compassion, the second from the 16th century:

Listen to the deeds of Kuan Yin
Responding compassionately on every side
With great vows, deep as the ocean,
Through inconceivable periods of time,
Serving innumerable Buddhas,
Giving great, clear, and pure vows...
To hear her name, to see her body,
To hold her in the heart, is not in vain,
For she can extinguish the suffering of existence...

Her knowledge fills out the four virtues,
Her wisdom suffuses her golden body.
Her necklace is hung with pearls and precious jade,
Her bracelet is composed of jewels.
Her hair is like dark clouds wondrously
arranged like curling dragons;
Her embroidered girdle sways like a phoenix's wing in flight.
Sea-green jade buttons,
A gown of pure silk,
Awash with Heavenly light;
Eyebrows as if crescent moons,
Eyes like stars.
A radiant jade face of divine joyfulness,
Scarlet lips, a splash of colour.
Her bottle of heavenly dew overflows,
Her willow twig rises from it in full flower.
She delivers from all the eight terrors,
Saves all living beings,
For boundless is her compassion.
She resides on T'i Shan,
She dwells in the Southern Ocean.
She saves all the suffering when their cries reach her,
She never fails to answer their prayers,
Eternally divine and wonderful.

from Kuan Yin by Martin Palmer, Jay Ramsay, and Man-Ho Kwok

The Divine Feminine: Mother Of All Creation
Anne Baring and Andrew Harvey