Unborn and Ever-Victorious

 A discussion of Nāma 663: Ajājaitrī, from the Lalitā Sahasranāma

The root jā refers to janma, or birth; a implies negation—so, a-jā means “unborn.” Ajā is also a name of Brahma, meaning “the one who is not born.” If something is born, then it can die; but if it was never born, it cannot die. So here the Goddess represents the unborn, incapable-of-dying kind of truth; eternal truth, if you will, where concepts of birth, growth and death do not apply. The word ajā implies that she represents the transcendental nature.

Now let’s look at the rest of her name—jaitrī. Jaitrī means “conqueror.” So the Goddess here represents the victory of the transcendental nature over the lower nature—that is, manifest nature, limited by space, time, energy and matter. She has conquered the lower nature.

But what does it mean to conquer the manifest world? Let me try to explain. If you are traversing the circumference of a circle, no matter how far you travel you remain on the circumference. And if you are moving on the surface of a sphere, no matter how far you go you remain on the surface of that sphere. You will never reach the center of the sphere that way, nor will you ever reach the center of the circle.

Similarly, this world that we’re experiencing is a curved surface in space-time. Which means that, as long as we’re moving in space and time, we will never reach its transcendental center—and therefore we cannot conquer space and time.

From the center of a circle, all points are equidistant. So if you want to find the starting point of a circle, it’s the center and not any particular point along the circumference. You put the point of a compass in the center and then draw the circle around that. Similarly, the starting point of this universe is its transcendental center, from which every point in space-time—x, y, z, t, and so forth—is equally distant. And that distance is zero.

In transcendental nature, every point in space-time is experienced simultaneously, without any interval, not even a second. How do you conquer, or get beyond, this space and time, in which your thoughts are constantly in flux? You have to give up and let go. You cannot hold onto your limitations and still conquer.

You must first conquer your individual nature, conquer your limitations—and you cannot do that and still hold onto your concept of the self as being limited to your particular body or mind, or your individual intellect.

You first have to get beyond and let go of these concepts. In the olden days, people used to perform a ritual called the viśvajīta yajña—the yajña that conquers the world. And what was the nature of this yajña? They gave away everything they had—everything, without keeping anything back for themselves. And that is how you conquer the world. When you’re seeking to get something from the world, you’re a beggar; when you are giving, you’re a king. By giving everything away, you gain everything—you conquer nature itself.

The problem is, you can’t let go without first getting rid of your attachments. There are thoughts constantly coming into your mind—you have to let them go. The world we perceive is created by our senses working in a distorted way. They all act as local magnifiers—creating attachment to the local and detachment from the non-local. You have to let that attachment to the local go away. Let it go.

You must allow your mind to function as it is. It’s a mirror. So just let it function as such, and not as something more than what it is. What do I mean by this? Well, a mirror does not say, “This particular image is good—so I will reflect this,” or “That image is bad—so I am not going to reflect that.” It doesn’t process the image in any way. It has no attraction for anything that’s there in the image—it doesn’t accept certain parts of the image and reject other parts. It just accepts the totality as it is. Its job is simply to reflect back whatever it sees.

But we try to process the information—to give it a name, a form. We try to cognize, recognize, identify and put labels on that information. Because if you’re not putting labels on the things you perceive, then you will be identical with the objects of your perception.

Consider this: a small boy is playing with a cobra, and all he’s experiencing is joy. He’s experiencing the movement of the cobra all over his body, feeling the tactile sensation, immersed in the bliss of the moment. The boy doesn’t call this experience “a sensation created by a snake crawling over my body”—he hasn’t even labeled it a snake. And he’s certainly not thinking, “It’s a poisonous snake. If it bites me, it is going to kill me and I will die!” As a result, he is also not experiencing the fears induced by this labeling or recognition process. He is one with the snake. The snake is simply a part of his body—for just as long as he hasn’t learned to label or recognize it as something different from himself.

You, on the other hand, have been placing labels on the world and on yourself—saying, “This is my body; I touch only through my skin. These are my eyes; I see only through my eyes. These are my ears; I hear only through my ears.” By saying, “They’re mine,” you’re placing labels. And that’s why we’re unable to enter into another and experience them as ourselves. From birth, we’ve been trained to develop an ego or concept of separation from the rest of the world—and the physical senses have helped us in this process.

So the name Jaitrī means conquering that conditioning; letting go of the attachments we develop when we perceive ourselves as individuals.

When you sit for meditation, so many thoughts come. Sometimes sleep comes. Try letting them go. A thing bothers you only so long as it’s near to you. If you let it go, if it goes far away—then it’s not going to bother you anymore. (Just as I’m not bothered by a storm in Florida when I’m in New York. I let it go.)

Every experience you have—if you don’t start processing it; if you don’t attach value to it; if you don’t engage in the circular process of going over it again and again; if you learn the art of letting go—then every experience you have gives you a new opportunity to become a conqueror. To become Jaitrī.

When you hold your fist tightly closed, you are concentrating; you are tensed up. When you let go, you relax. Likewise, when your mind winds itself around and around the objects in its purview, it becomes like a closed fist. But when the mind lets go of the thoughts as they come—without naming them or branding them; without attachment—then it becomes relaxed; and relaxation is a way to conquer the notion of the individual self.

You will conquer the notion of fear if you let go. You will conquer the notion of lust if you let go. You will conquer the notion of “the other”—which is, after all, the source of greed, lust, fear, anger, jealousy; all of these things are based on the notion of the other—if you let it go. And once you learn to overcome the notion of “the other,” you become the other.

And there’s no possessiveness in that; no jealousy, no possibility of greed, no lust, no anger—there’s no need for any of these things if only you can learn the simple art of not naming the things you see. “He is a Christian—my enemy; he is a Muslim—my enemy!” But remove the label “Muslim,” and he is just a human being. “He is a Russian! An American! A Communist! A capitalist!” These labels are the problems. Reality gets hidden behind them.

It’s as if you’re watching television, and there’s a picture coming through, but you are taking a spray gun full of various colors and spraying the screen with that thing. So what you see on the TV is a mixture of your own projections and what is actually there. This mixture is not representative of reality as it is—you have to get behind those names and forms in order to get at the reality. And the way that is done? By letting go.

The limited identification of yourself with the field of your knowledge is called ego. But if you are able to identify yourself with the totality, then there is no more ego. Detachment from the objects of the ego is attachment to totality; you’re no longer settling for being a mere part of totality.

Where does one city end and another begin? Where does one body end and another begin? You have to let go of those notions. That is the way.

And that is why she is known as Jaitrī, the conqueror.