I’d never heard of Mother Meera, but I kept staring at her image on the book’s cover. There’s something so deep about her eyes, so comforting—it’s easy to believe that she is a rare individual. Inside Mother of the Unseen World, author Mark Matousek helped me understand why I’d felt so mesmerized. Mother Meera is an Indian-born avatar, a term that in the Hindu faith refers to a human incarnation of the divine. Mother Meera has spent the past four decades giving silent darshan to seekers—a simple ritual where she holds their heads in her hands. She says she is untangling energetic knots. 

Why do millions of people seek enlightenment at the feet of Mother Meera? Matousek, who spent years following her, has written a book that is both an intimate portrait and a long-form meditation on the nature of the divine. What makes her feel especially timely, Matousek writes, is that for three thousand years, “The Sacred Feminine has been excluded from our image of God in Western culture. … No image of the Divine Mother as equal counterpart to God the Father, no union of masculine and feminine principles into a wise and balanced whole. Among many of today’s spiritual leaders, there is strong belief that an integration of the Divine feminine into our worldview is urgently needed if we are to heal our planet’s woes.” 

No matter what philosophical path you are on, studying representations of the Divine Feminine feels expansive and enlightening. Mother Meera may be an enigmatic person, and by Matousek’s account, she is exquisitely so, but one cannot help but want to learn more, and find out what, exactly, she is trying to teach us.