by Sri Subbu Venkatakrishnan
I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few insights into why we worship Goddess Saraswati. Goddess Saraswati as you all know is the Goddess of knowledge and wisdom. Now you may ask, why should there be any differentiation between knowledge and wisdom. Well, only when knowledge helps bring about personal transformation does it turn into wisdom. Otherwise it just remains as dry knowledge. And in order to enable this transformation, we need to invoke the grace of the Divine Mother. This is the purpose of worshiping Goddess Saraswati.
As part of the Navaratri tradition, Goddess Saraswati is worshiped during the last segment of the festival. During the first segment, we worship Goddess Durga to help us overcome the self-imposed darkness of ignorance. Goddess Durga whips us out of our sleepy/lazy state of existence and urges us into action. Left to ourselves, we would continue to wallow in the dark dirty muddy waters of laziness like the buffalo. Let me illustrate our current state of existence with an example. One man used to always show up late at work. His boss would get irritated by this behavior and would take great pains to explain what was expected of him. Once this man came in so late that the boss called him into his office and asked for an explanation, to which the man replied, “Sorry, boss. Today, I overslept”. Hearing this, the boss asked, “So, you sleep at home too?” This is similar to our state. The Samskrit word for buffalo is Mahisha. Those of you who chant the “Aigiri Nandini...” stotram know that it is called the “Mahishasura Mardini Stotram”. Another name for Goddess Durga is Mahishasuramardini - the slayer of the demon, Mahisha, and the Mahishasura Mardini Stotram is a hymn praising Goddess Durga. We need the blessings of Goddess Durga to help us shake off this Tamas or Laziness and engage in action. It is not surprising, therefore, that all Masters constantly remind us to get up and act.
Act, we must. But what actions should we choose? Broadly speaking, teachers like their disciples to perform their actions in Seva Bhava----i.e. with an attitude of Seva or service. So, anything we do should be done with this attitude. Any action undertaken to promote the welfare of all is seva. When we pray, “Lokah Samasthah Sukhino Bhavantu, May all be happy”, we are not simply throwing this prayer into cyberspace and expecting that through some miracle everyone will be happy. We are also striving to bring happiness to those around us. When we do this for a long time, we find that our own personal likes and dislikes are neutralized - or in other words, we find ourselves willing to accept all outcomes as God's prasad. This is the only way to erase or annihilate our ego, our sense of I and Mine. We need the blessings of Goddess Durga in this endeavor.
Even after minimizing our personal likes and dislikes through Seva or Karma yoga, we will find that our mind still continues to wander around and is not available for contemplation. Here is where we need the blessings of Goddess Lakshmi. So during the second segment of Navaratri, we invoke the grace of Goddess Lakshmi. We engage in activities such as pooja, or chanting, or meditation to help gain single pointedness of the mind. We specifically set time aside from our busy schedule and create a prayerful atmosphere in our home to undertake an activity such as pooja, chanting, singing bhajans, or meditation. We need to engage in these acts with a great amount of sincerity. The results are directly proportional to the degree of seriousness. Often, we are not sincere in our prayer. Let me use an illustration to explain this further. Once a person was going for a job interview and he was getting late since he could not find parking near the office. At this time, he started praying to God and said, “Lord, if you help me get a parking spot now, I promise that I will drop all my vices, and visit the temple every week, and ….” Just as he was saying this, a car pulled out and a spot became available. Seeing this, the man exclaimed, “Don't worry, Lord, I just found a parking spot”. The point is we need to pray sincerely. When this is continued for a long time, we gain a mind that is relatively free of distractions and available for absorbing the teachings of the Master.
The Master is ever offering words of wisdom, but these words do not sink into our hearts because our mind is not fully available to absorb these teachings. We need to earn the grace of Goddess Saraswati so that the knowledge we gain through the teachings, transforms into wisdom and is able to help us live a fulfilled life. Life as a human being is a gift. It becomes even more precious when we gain the company of a Master. And it becomes fulfilled when we are able to grasp the significance of the Master's teachings and live accordingly. In our hurry, we should be careful not to skip over the essential steps. Only after we have gained the grace of Goddess Durga, do we worship Goddess Lakshmi, and then worship Goddess Saraswati. In the same way, in order to gain knowledge and transform it into wisdom, we need to take the appropriate steps to erase our personal likes and dislikes, and gain single-pointedness of mind. Otherwise, knowledge will not transform into wisdom. The birth of wisdom in our hearts is the birth of the Divine Mother. Let us use this occasion as an occasion to bring about deep transformation within us.
Om Namah Shivaya
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