Posted on: 24 Jun 2021
[Śrī Anil asked: There is a sect called Protestants who do not accept divinity of Mother Mary and other Saints. They accept only Father of Heaven and Jesus. Is respecting and praying of Mother Mary and other Saints correct?]
Swāmi replied:- In any religion there are two types:- 1) Devotees praying God only or God and His devotees because they love God without aspiration for any fruit in return. 2) Devotees praying God only and His devotees because they love God for their personal welfare and welfare of their family members. I am asking you a question regarding the second type. The question is:- Is there any difference between devotees (praying God or God and His devotees) for their personal welfare and for the welfare of their family members. I don’t think that there is any difference between these two subtypes of devotees. Whether the devotee is praying for his welfare or for welfare of his family, it is immaterial because both bond with self and bond with family are worldly bonds only and not real bond with God or with God and His devotees. Similarly, there is no difference between devotees praying God only and devotees praying God along with His devotees.
The first devotee is loving really the worldly bonds only whether he is praying for his welfare or for the welfare of his family. The second devotee is loving God only whether he is praying God only or God along with His family. The love to family is based on love for self only because the family members are giving happiness to him. Here, we have to find such family member only, who loves him without any selfishness. The devotee shall love such family member only, who loves him without any selfish benefit. But, the ignorant devotee loves all his family members without such discrimination as said in the Veda (Ātmanaḥ kāmāya sarvaṃ priyam). But, in the case of omniscient God, such ignorance does not exist. God loves His devotees, who are not selfish and not praying Him for any selfish worldly desire.
Hence, we shall find out the real devotee of God, who loves God without any selfishness and if such devotee is found, we can love and worship such devotee so that we can also become such devotee. In this way, worship of the real devotees of God is useful to get self inspiration for selfless love to God. We are loving the real devotee of God because God loves such real devotee. We must have the likes of God as our likes and this is the mentality of Catholics. But, there is one risk in the line of Catholics, which is that we may not find out such real selfless devotee of God. This is the point of Protestants. The Protestant does not want to take this risk and concentrates only on God, who does not differentiate much God from His son Jesus. I say here that there is no trace of difference between God-Father and His son Jesus.
A Catholic is based on a special logic, which is that any mother has selfless love for her son and hence, mother of Jesus must be also worshiped. To bring exact difference between Catholic and Protestant, we must analyze that whether the love of a mother is really selfless always or becomes selfish also as in the case of a mother loving a particular issue only more than her other issues. The conclusion is that it is very difficult to find out selfless love in every mother and in this point, Protestant has no risk. But, Catholic also has no risk if he is sure of the real devotee of God. In any case, the concentration must be on God only whether you worship God or God with His real devotee because the real devotee also gets value due to God only.
My main point in this answer is that the difference between Catholic and Protestant is not much important because both are devoted to God only. The difference between the above mentioned two types (1 and 2) is very very important. Be the devotee a Catholic or a Protestant, the important point is that you shall find out whether such a devotee is devoted to God without aspiration for any worldly fruit (true love to God) or the devotee is devoted to God for the benefit of worldly bonds including himself. The Catholic and Protestant are unnecessarily quarrelling based on very very minor point and both have missed the actual major point. Two fellows were quarrelling for the sake of apples present in basket. A person going by that way stopped and stood before them saying “why are you quarrelling for the vacant basket? The fruits in the basket have already fallen in the drainage existing by your side due to your quarrel involving the pushing of basket by your hands!”.
Jesus demonstrated practically that God is greater than mother by neglecting His mother while preaching about God was going on. Therefore, the worldly bond as mother is not valid before God. If the mother happened to be the real devotee of Jesus, then only mother Mary has any spiritual value. The mother of Jesus had full belief in Jesus as God being the spectator of His miracles and receiver of His spiritual knowledge. In the last hours of His life, Jesus told one of His devotees to take care of His mother after Him. Such love of Jesus on His mother is a mixture of both worldly life as well as spiritual life. Mother is the number one among the worldly bonds in Pravṛtti. To preach Pravṛtti to the world, Jesus took care of His mother. His mother was also a devotee of Jesus and Jesus took care of her as devotee in this way, which is according to Nivṛtti.