(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
Lakṣmī – Jñāna Śakti
Immediately after the birth process, protection and nourishment has to be given. Where does it come from? It comes from the Mother's breasts as her milk. There she is known as Lakṣmī. She is the ocean of milk that comes from the breasts of the female; there the child feeds. The first milk that comes out of the mother's breasts has immunization properties. Do you know how to make that milk? You ate food and it became milk. That power to give nourishment is what we call Lakṣmī. The nipples through which milk comes is the location of the second aspect of the Mother we worship.
Sarasvatī – Icchā Śakti
Then the child grows and after some time it leaves the mother's breast and looks for outside food. The child is not interested in receiving nourishment from the mother any more. Neither is that mother able to provide it. It receives nourishment from knowledge. Then the third mother comes into existence. That is Sarasvatī. She is in the tongue.
When you are talking, are you aware of where the tongue has to go in order to create a certain sequence or sounds? No, you are not aware. Still that is the function of Sarasvatī, to teach. This learning process starts at the age of about two and a quarter years. The first part is 9 months; the second part is 27 months and the third part 81 months (about 7 years of age) you are taken care of by Sarasvatī, the third mother.
In Devī Bhāgavatam, which describes:
Mahākālī in 1 chapter,
Mahālakṣmī in 3 chapters, and
Mahāsarasvatī in 9 chapters.
The times 1–3–9 are established. Since Mahākālī creates the child in womb in 9 months, the number of months each mother takes to do her work is given as:
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9 × 1 = 9 months (Mahākālī)
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9 × 3 = 27 months (Mahālakṣmī)
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9 × 9 = 81 months (Mahāsarasvatī)
In the Devī Mahātmyam, in the first part there is only one chapter, the second part has three chapters and the third part has nine chapters, where you have to dance your way through life with happiness and pleasure. For that you have too many obstructions to your progress. In this part you will find a great battle being waged against all the demons and how the Devīs overcome them one by one. The worst of these demons is Raktabīja. Raktabīja means the triggering of one thought from another.
Icchā, Jñāna, and Kriyā Śakti
The Icchā Śakti is located as Sarasvatī at the tip of your tongue. Worship of the face gives you will power and emotional intelligence called Icchā Śakti. Especially when you concentrate on the eyebrow center = ājñā cakra, it develops your power to control yourself and others.
Jñāna Śakti is worshipped in the heart center, and
Kriyā Śakti is worshipped in the yonī.
If you want to manifest or create a physical form, worship of the yonī brings this power into you. All your fears and sexuality are located in the first two cakras. Worship is paying attention to feeling of respect; it removes your negativities and paves the way to power and love. Worship of the heart center gives you the blessings of knowledge, protection, immunity, wealth and prosperity.
The Lalitā Sahasranāma talks in detail about these various aspects. There is a mantra appropriate to worshipping the Devī in the heart center, and that is Rāja-Śyāmala. There is a mantra which corresponds to the Ājñā center which is called Vārāhī. There is a mantra corresponding to the Brahmarandhra, the Sahasrāra cakra, and that is a single letter mantra called Sauḥ.
It is Para. It is the hissing sound of the kuṇḍalinī snake as it rises up the spinal cord. When it reaches the Sahasrāra it opens its hood up and implodes the cosmos into you. Viṣṇu is sleeping under the hood of the serpent Śeṣa. It means that the cosmos and cosmic consciousness (Viṣṇu) is under the protection of this Kuṇḍalinī force. It is both a creative and a destructive force. It creates order and destroys disorder.
The Symbolism of the Snake
The symbolism of the snake is a universal archetype over the ages in various cultures. Imagine a snake crawling over your body and that you are a small child and that you are not aware that it is a snake. Or you have not learned to name it as a snake. What do you find? You find a supreme pleasure in its touch. It coils around your limbs and a beautiful massage is being given to you by the snake. In this situation you are not naming it and not identifying it with a situation that is potentially dangerous. You play with it.
This is the nature of Śivā. The moment you associate that situation with the notion of fear that it can kill you, then the fear is related to the Mūlādhārā cakra. On the one hand there is pleasure and on the other hand there is fear. This combination of the pleasure–fear complex is what is symbolized by the snake.
If you look at the philosophical structure behind this, you find that the snake is something that moves in a wavy, curvy fashion, not straight. They say that when you are drunk you move in a wavy fashion, you are not clear in what direction you are moving. If this snake becomes drunk, what does it do? It moves straight.
The mind and its thought patterns are like the snakes, going hither and dither in wavy fashions. But when the mind becomes steady and one-pointed, when it flows relatively straight, then it is “drunken”. This is the drink that they refer to in the tantrā. The drink, the ambrosia which makes your mind one-pointed and straight.
The Kuṇḍalinī Śakti is flowing up the suśumṇā channel instead of going round the petals in whatever way it wants. This is the symbol of the snake.
Kuṇḍalinī, Pañcadaśī, and Union
You can worship the Pañcadaśī in a particular portion of your body. The usual portion associated with the Devī is the svādhiṣṭhāna cakra. That is where she resides. When the Kuṇḍalinī is sleeping, you are aware of the world and feel separate from the world. When the Kuṇḍalinī is awakening, your separateness is getting lost step by step.
What causes this separateness? You are interacting with the world through your five sensory modes of perception. They are all local magnifiers. So you are not knowing the world as it exists, but through the filters of your senses. When Kuṇḍalinī awakens, it enables you to transcend these sensory limitations. For example, you can smell distant odours, taste remote juices, see distant forms, touch distant objects, and hear music continents apart. One after the other these senses are being transcended.
So the ascent of the Kuṇḍalinī, this consciousness-provoking, dynamic power, is the loss of your separation from cosmos, your source. It can be called worship of the yonī from which you came.
Kuṇḍalinī is thus said to be sleeping in the Mūlādhārā cakra, coiling itself 3 and 1/2 times around. Going round the waist (maṇipūra), chest (anāhatā), and neck (viśuddhi) are the three coils of the snake. And then the head of the snake is going into the vagina through the vulva (svādhiṣṭhāna) to the cervix (mūlādhārā) and that is where the tip of the liṅgam is going to be. That is where the head of the snake is sleeping.
When the Kuṇḍalinī reverses its flow from the Mūlādhārā center of the Śakti, it enters the Mūlādhārā center of the male and flows in a reverse action and comes to the svādhiṣṭhāna, which is the base of the liṅgam, and then moves up the spinal cord behind and comes up to the Sahasrāra. This is the transfer of energy from the Śakti to the Śivā in the yogic posture of union.
The exchange of energy can take place between the Śivā and Śakti in union. You oscillate. This oscillation can build up to the navel center; from the navel center to the heart center; from the heart center to the throat center; from the throat center to the ājñā center and then the circle is closed. When the circuit gets closed, then the cosmic consciousness is supposed to happen; the Śivā and Śakti do not experience their separateness. They become one and thus the consummation between Śivā and Śakti.
This is the purpose of the marriage: to experience this cosmic oneness of one soul moving in two bodies, between husband and wife. That is called mokṣa.
Paśu and Paśupati
You have passed a lifelong term of imprisonment on yourself stating that you are going to live in this body, this mind, and live with these thoughts. When you are able to escape from these three sets of notions then you are Paśupati, you are Śivā. When you are confined by these notions, you are a paśu, a beast.
A beast is tied by strings. The strings that bind you are your fear, your seeking for sensations, your power addictions, and in a limiting fashion the love you have for others. These are all strings.
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