Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on August 7, 2011.

In this talk, Swami Bhaskarananda reflects on Sri Sarada Devi as a divine incarnation who at the same time lived a fully human life as the universal mother. Drawing on Vedantic scripture, he explains the six classical marks of divinity—supreme power, virtue, glory, dignity, non-attachment, and supreme knowledge—and shows how they were expressed in her life. As the spiritual consort of Sri Ramakrishna, she participated in a unique, wholly spiritual marriage, each seeing the other as the Divine Mother. She transmitted divine knowledge through mantra-initiation, quietly absorbing the sins of her disciples and accepting illness and hardship as the cost of their uplift. Swami Bhaskarananda recounts incidents that devotees understood as manifestations of her power, including visions, protection from danger, and inner transformation.

Alongside this divinity, he emphasizes her striking simplicity, practicality, and tenderness. Sri Sarada Devi extended her motherhood to all—good and wicked, human and subhuman—insisting that anyone who felt want was “poor” and deserving of help, regardless of social status. She refused to condemn even oppressors, saying they too were her children. Through sayings and anecdotes, the talk highlights her all-inclusive love, her refusal to see anyone as irredeemable, and her final blessing: that those who came to her, would come to her, and even those who would never come to her are all held in her grace. In this way, her divinity is revealed most clearly through her humanity.