12) Splendors of the GODDESS

Sri Śankarācārya suggests in his beautiful poetic piece – ‘Saundaryalaharī’ that without Śakti, Śiva has no movement at all. The first poem itself establishes a crucial point of importance of female deity or energy or power or prakṛti or what ever you name it. As one my articles also describes, the male aspect of creation – Puruṣa is like clay, while the female aspect is like the different shapes, forms and utilities that form out of the clay. So, the dynamical aspect and expression of this creation put together form the beauty of that GODDESS (and I will address IT as HER). In this article, having inspired from within, I want to acknowledge the many beauties of this creation and attribute to HER, through my lens of devotion.

Everyday we wake and we go to sleep. Half of the life we are asleep, not knowing what we are doing consciously and hence we live half our life in the dark. But, do we exist during this time? For us to answer that, we have to be conscious of that state. Say, you are flying or eating, you can confidently say that “Hey, I am flying/eating”. Even if you need not say, you can acknowledge yourself that “Yes, I am flying/eating”. But, when we are asleep, the sense of ‘I am’ is not there. If it were there, we would not be in the state of sleep. But the sense of ‘I am’ defines the ‘we’ aspect. So, we are not there in sleep — we just exist as lump of flesh and few electric currents, but that which defines us as a personality is not existent. Then where are we? We lay on the lap of the Mother-KĀḶI. She rears, nourishes, protects and plays with us. May be it is for her to spend time with us, she created this state of sleep. It is her time to feed us with her love. No wonder, after sleep we are refreshed and energized!! No wonder, when we are tiered we naturally fall asleep — may be to go to her lap where she replenishes us. There is no discrimination in her desire to be with us, no matter who we are: rich or poor, sinner or virtuous — she gives her appointment by gracing us with the state of sleep. We do not even know when we fall asleep. From the moment we are on the bed (or the place where you sleep) to being in the state of sleep, there should be a moment when the sense of our ‘wake’ turns into senseless ‘sleep’. But no one has a control on it nor a fixture on it. They can not choose to suddenly fall asleep in the moment they like. They have to wait till the sleep hovers onto them. Only when they are pulled into sleep, will they fall asleep. This is by HER grace. Those who perfected this art of  willfully falling asleep and who trained themselves to sleep consciously — could retain their ‘I AM’ while being with HER (state of samādhi), and by doing so, they could cherish the sweet moments with the Divine Mother and could remember them. We call them the realized sages.

We wake every day with alarms. Sometimes they work, sometimes they do not. Some people wake without alarms too. What ever the surrounding situation is, our waking does not coherently depend on the situation — i.e. sometimes the sounds wake us and sometimes they do not, for example. This is because, our waking is not in our control just like our sleep. Again, by HER grace we awaken into the conscious world. Every day, when we wake, we should be thankful to have been woken up. If not, its good for us — because we are playing with THE MOTHER, but our loved ones would be sad thinking we are lost (i.e. we left our physical abode). So, as long as we are waking up, we should be very grateful for HER GRACE. The same way we wake up, even Earth wakes up (in our reference frame) from dark into the LIGHT. Whose light? It is the LIGHT of the SUN. This light, as we know from times immemorial, is the cause of LIFE on our Earth. May be photosynthesis may be something else, what ever the process is, this LIGHT is the primary cause for the life of at-least humans. This light, is the same MOTHER, whom we played with in the DARK, but now, she wore the robes of effulgent brilliance. In her new divine robes, she nourishes the world physically — while in her robes of the DARK, she nourished the world non-physically. But in fact, if you closely observe, the Earth has days and nights simultaneously and so do different beings’ sleep and wake states i.e. when one is awake, the other is asleep and so on. So, her robes are in fact woven with ‘BLACK’ and ‘WHITE’ threads. Those who realized this, encoded the beauty into the concepts of ‘Yin and Yang’ or ‘Varāha Avatār’, etc. 

After waking, we have to utilize the elements of our Earth. We actually live on our Earth, physically speaking. This Earth sustains all our actions. To sleep on our bed, we cut her trees — her hair. To walk, we kill her animals — her children. To eat, we dig and plough her lands — her body. To travel from our place to work, we pollute her air — her breath. To make the vehicles that we travel in, we spoil her rivers and lakes — her thirst quenching waters. For pleasure, we hunt and even kill the last of a species — her last loved one. To satisfy our egos, we destroy each other — her family falling apart. We are the cause of so many troubles, and yet she bears us with love. It is the same MOTHER taking the role of solid ground, for us to sustain. People who realized the atrocities and felt the pain of the Mother EARTH, followed and laid down the principles of harmonious existence where all her family member, including her, would be happy. That ‘way of life’ is what the ancients called DHARMA.

Even knowing the aforementioned atrocities, she is benevolent to provide us with all that we need. The white robed one causes the waters of the solid one to evaporate and circulate all over so that it can quench the thirst of every being. The principle of evaporation is very interesting. The salt water from oceans, though in abundance on Earth, can not be drunk by terrestrial beings (at the least, humans). So, one can say they are the impure waters. The sun light hits them, changes their state from gross to subtle — from liquid to vapor. Then they bunch to form clouds. The clouds are circulated by the air currents. Then they condense and shower at different places. They started some where in some state and ends up else where in a purified form of same state. This water drop quenches the thirst of a ant as well as of an elephant. Not only that, it forms the primary source of germinating ability of a seed which grows into a plant giving the first source of food to animal kingdom. So, a rain drop is one of the cause of life – along with the SUN light and Earth being the womb. In similar way a sperm impregnates an ovum and the waters cover the embryonic formation — nourishing it; the rain water nourishes the seed that is impregnated in the womb of Earth. So, water is the ‘rearing’ element for all the life forms. That is why, the same MOTHER in the form of fluid waters, nourishes all her children from time to time.

But this rain occurs due to periodicity that exists in Earth’s revolution and her distance to the SUN — i.e. seasonal beauty.  Seasonal effects put together nourishes the life forms. These seasons are rhythmic. Our MOTHER-GODDESS is an excellent dancer. The way she dances, is so marvelous that her dance produces,  sustains and culminates the life itself. Her rhythms cause the movements of celestial bodies — SUN, MOON, etc (in our reference frame on EARTH). Her dance stances introduce different colors, smells, sounds, etc. in the nature — pertaining to different seasonal effects. These effects in turn become her ornaments. The flowers form her hair decor while the curvy lakes form her hip-bands. Rising sun forms her brow-mark while the crescent moon forms her another brow mark. The sounds of different birds form the bells in on her ankles. Different loops of time cycles — years, months, days, hours, etc. from many  a bangle on her wrists. The roars of the lion and thunders are forming the drums-ḍamaruka in her hands. Different colors of sunrise and sunset are forming the blush in her cheeks. The moonlight is reflected on her white teeth which is visible as she smiles from the pleasant breezes of the air currents that are touching her like a baby finger. The dark nights are forming her hair and the bright days her glow. Her exhalations cause this worlds and her inhalations perish these worlds.

I am unable to describe her more with the letters, for the letters themselves have escaped from me, into different positions of her mouth. No sounds are able to eulogize her, as all the sounds are trapped in her vocal cords. There is no enough mud to sculpture her form, for, all the mud (physical matter) is gathered onto her feet as she dances. My eyes, being part of hers, are unable to see her, for an eye can not see itself, can it! The more I look inward, she is in every aspect of my body in one form or the other — the more I look outward, she is existing as omnipresent — in both the cases, I am unable to locate her. May, be to locate her, we need space-time coordinates which are but the fabric of her robes! OR, let me try to locate with my mind — but wait! my mind is part of her thought!No more ideas come to me, for my-self has immersed in the joy of her thought, having no second to it. May be this is one millionth part of the joy that ancients — who verily became HER — have described in as much as possible to them, but not many understands them, for, they had to be NOT HER when describing ‘HER’ as a separate entity!!

May HER grace shower upon all of us forever!

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