Paramahansa Yogananda's poem reveals God as the Divine Mother. It is not only a poem but also a prayer.
The poem/prayer consists of four verse paragraphs, written in free verse.
First Verse Paragraph: “O Thou Mother of all”
In the first verse paragraph, the speaker invokes the Divine Mother to listen to his prayer: “O Thou Mother of all, / Be Thou consciously receptive to my prayers.” He immediately grants that everything he has and is comes through the instrumentality of God, whom he is addressing here as the Divine Mother.
The speaker focuses particularly on his ability to know through the Mother: “All that I know, I know through Thee; / And Thou knowest all I know, / So Thou knowest my prayers. / Knowing Thee, feeling Thee constantly, I know Thou art I, I am Thou.” He acknowledges that he and the Divine are one. He exists only as a “little wavelet” of the whole ocean of Divinity.
Second Verse Paragraph: “Thou alone didst exist”
The speaker then dramatizes the creation as he reveals, “Thou alone didst exist / Before Thy maya waves appeared; / And Thou alone does exists now, and ever shall.” He asserts that nothing exists that is apart from the Divine. He further reveals that while the Divine is “formless” and “impersonal,” he also wants to experiences the Divine as “personal.” He describes other qualities that attach to the Divine Mother as “the Unseen” and “omnipresent.”
Third Verse Paragraph: “In the gaze of my devotion I behold Thee”
In the third verse paragraph, the speaker reveals that his strong devotion allows him to glimpse the Divine “Sometimes as Krishna, / Sometimes as Christ, / Personal, visible.” Yet he has acknowledged that the Divine is invisible, as the title of the poem/prayer indicates.
But then he divulges how such a contradiction is not a contradiction at all, for the Divine Mother, while being formless and invisible, is “imprisoned / In the little form / Hidden within the temple of my love.” His ability to see the Divine Mother, Krishna, and Christ has been won through deep, intense meditation, spurred by his deep, intense love of the Divine.
Fourth Verse Paragraph: “O Mother Invisible, as Thou didst freeze”
In the fourth and final verse paragraph, the speaker further dramatizes the unity of God with His creation: “O Mother Invisible, as Thou didst freeze / Thine unseen Infinitude / Into the sea of cosmic finitude / Do Thou appear to me / In visible, living form.” Because a spark of God is in everything in creative, God is both visible and invisible.
And the accomplished yogi who has readied his heart and mind for contact with that Infinitude can see and understand that unity that always exists between the Divine Mother and Her child, or God and His creation.
The speaker exposes what is secreted in the heart of every creature of God’s creation: “O Creator of all things, I want to worship Thee / As both personal and impersonal.” This speaker is capable of such worship, and his example allows others to follow and eventually achieve that same capability.
