SSB — Part 43: Tantra as Total Method and the Union of Mind and No-Mind (Nāmas 206–207)

 

206. Sarvatantrarūpā

Devi has all the tantras in Her.

Mantra, Yantra and Tantra are the three basic elements.

Mantra is the basic concept of unit, the entity to be worshipped.

Yantra is the vehicle used for such worship.

The word Tantra means the technique used for such purpose.

The word Tantra is derived from the combination “tanyate vistāryate jñānam anena iti tantram”. By this is explained, expanded, the procedure.

There are different procedures for different yantras, displayed by them by different mantras. The sum total of all such techniques is “Sarva tantra”.

Any goal-oriented procedure or a technique is a tantra. The goals may be oriented to materialistic or spiritual ends.

Śrī Vidyā is the Mantra of Devi.

Śrī Cakra is the Yantra of Devi, and

Svantantra is the Tantra of Devi.

The technique called Svantantra meaning (1) independent and (2) one's own tantra has been enunciated by Śaṅkarācārya in Soundarya Lahari as the best form of synthesis of all the existing tantras. This technique is followed in all the Śaṅkara Pīṭhams of India. The procedure involves:

the Samayamārga of meditation,

the Dakṣiṇamārga of worship of the yantra, and

the Kaulamārga, the worship of the female form, as Suvāsinī and Kumārī pūjās.

It is said that where women are worshipped, there the Gods will stay. A woman is not to be looked at only as a symbol of one's flesh. She has a higher function of meditation, of eliminating the human miseries.

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207. Manonmanī
Mana means mind. Unmana means beyond the mind. Thus the combination Manonmanī is the union of opposites of mind and beyond it. This name is a classic example in Lalitā Sahasranāma. Very rarely do we find a contrary view being expressed in the same name. How can something be mind and no mind also. Answer: “It will be if it is a union of mind and no mind.”

Manonmanī is a Goddess standing with Her feet at the Ājñā center and head in the Sahasrāra. At the Ājñā center, the seer, the seen and the act of seeing are all separate. At the Brahmarandra, they are the same. This explains the position of Manonmanī. She is considered to be a Goddess having a very beautiful form.

SSB — Part 42: Mantra as Conscious Form, Yantra as Living Vehicle, and the Identity of Guru, Disciple, and Devi (Nāmas 204–205)

204. Sarvamantrasvarūpiṇī

The sounds have forms as forms have forms. The forms of sounds, especially standing wave patterns, can be photographed fairly very easily; with the help of high-speed cameras, the forms of sound wave fronts such as sonic boom can be photographed. The word mantra is derived from “mananāt trāyatē iti mantraḥ”. By constant repetition, it protects.

A rhythmic repetition creates a standing sound wave pattern in the brain of the devotee. This sound pattern evokes certain ranges of experiences in the individual. Then each mantra becomes a channel of communication between the devotee and some information that is described as the form of the mantra.

The meaning of the mantra is the sum total of all experiences evoked by the mantra. A mantra has consciousness. It has a field. It is an alter ego of the devotee. One can talk to a mantra and get replies from it.

When a Guru, the teacher, imparts a mantra to the devotee at the time of initiation, he passes on the sound form of the mantra to the devotee along with his own visual image of it. The image is transcended silently in the following process:

At the time of initiation, the Guru visualises one by one all the seven lotuses from Mūlādhāra to Sahasrāra in the devotee's body. Here the Guru sounds mentally the seed letter of each of the petals of these lotuses, thus resolving one by one the grosser elements composing the student's body, mind and intellect into the Universal consciousness. Having done that, he imparts life to the mantra by visualising the sound form of the mantra, which is called the yantra, and placing the bījākṣaras of the mantra at the appropriate places in the yantra. This yantra then is the conscious force through which the devotee later on gains knowledge and powers. After creating life forms of the mantra through what is called the prāṇapratiṣṭhā, the Guru retraces the steps backwards till he hits the Mūlādhāra of the student. While he is retracing the steps, he removes the ignorant upādhi of the disciple with his own knowledgeable upādhi in the body of the disciple. In effect, initiation is equivalent to killing the disciple and re-imparting the Guru's life into the disciple. The Guru transmits himself to the disciple, and like a light from which another light is lit, the disciple continues with the improved consciousness.

Thus it is that the Guru, the Mantra, the Deity represented by the mantra, and the Disciple all become one and the same. Rare indeed are the Gurus who can successfully do such an initiation. They are the Gurus who are living Gods and Goddesses transmitting Devi’s grace in abundance. They become vehicles for the expression of God.

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205. Sarvayantrātmikā
Devi represents all the yantras corresponding to all the sound forms of the mantras.

Yantra means an engine, a vehicle, a seat or a place for an upādhi, where a conscious force can be centered. Śrī Yantra is an upādhi for Śrī Devi to manifest. Durgā yantra is a vehicle for Goddess Durgā and so on. Devi represents all such yantras.

From the definition of a Yantra, it is clear that it is an upādhi. An upādhi is a vehicle of consciousness. Our bodies and minds are vehicles of consciousness. Hence, they are also upādhi, yantras. Devi has for Her body all bodies. She resides in all of us.

In the phalaśruti of Lalitā Triśati, it is written that “śrī cakram śivayo babhuḥ”. The Śrī Cakra is the vehicle, the upādhi formed by the Śiva and Śakti in union, i.e. that such a state of union is the worship of Śrī Lalitā. The Śrī Yantra is formed by four upward triangles and five downward triangles interpenetrating each other. The four upward triangles are the Śivas and the five downward triangles are the Śakti.

The four Śiva Tattvas are Sarveśvara, Sadāśiva, Sarvavyāpaka and Sarvajña meaning controlling all, always present, present at all places and knowing all.

The five Śakti tattvas are grace, projection, creation, maintenance and destruction.

Śrī Cakra represents the union of these five dynamic forces with the four static observers.

Recognition that the body of a devotee is itself an excellent Śrī Cakra has led to the worship of the body in the form of Suvāsinī pūjā and Kumārī pūjā.

Suvāsinī pūjā means worshipping a married woman as a representation, a yantra of the deity.

Worship of the virgin girls is known as Kumārī pūjā.

Both these forms of worship are external modes of worship called Bahya pūjā. Even the worship of a mental Śrī Yantra, an abstract symbol of the union of Śiva and Śakti, comes under the category of Bahya pūjā.

The Dakṣiṇācāra follows the worship of the Yantra as the mental Cakra.

The Kaulācāra follows the method of worshipping the female form as the yantra.

SSB — Part 41: All-Auspicious Fire, Right Movement Toward Truth, Universal Sovereignty, and All-Pervasion (Nāmas 200–203)

200. Sarvamaṅgalā
Devi is all auspiciousness.

Like all engulfing fires She consumes all evil. Sarvamaṅgalā is one of the incarnations of Durgā along with Jvālāmālinī. This is considered to be a virgin force.

The presiding Devi of Tuesday called Maṅgalavāra is the war God Mars whose nature is fire. In the last name, She is defined as Sarvaśakti. In this name, the process obtaining total knowledge is indicated as through fire.

There are three basic modes of learning:

The path of the Sun, which represents a terrible heat which is too hot even to burn. Ordinary burning is a chemical combustion which involves rearrangements in the electron structure of the atoms. In the Sun the electrons are all slipped off by the extreme heat making a thermonuclear fusion possible under great compressive forces. Such a state is too hot to burn. Worship of the Sun leads to the extreme heat generating light, but also a terrible passion for life.

The path of the Moon, which represents extreme cold, cold of the space. It is practically like a dead body. Worship of the Moon leads to a death-like pallor, an extreme cold, a sense of total detachment from the world.

The path of the Fire, which represents the median path between these two extremes. It is a normal heat. Worship through the path of Fire leads to neither the extreme passion nor the ascetic self-denial of utter vairagya.

The Sun, Fire and Moon constitute the basic triad of upāsana. The nerve currents are supposed to be flowing along the path of the Sun, called piṅgalā, when there is extreme heat in the body. The currents are flowing along the path of the Moon, called iḍā, when there is an extreme cold in the body. When the body has the normal heat, the Śakti, the power of consciousness, runs through the path suṣumnā; that is the path of Fire.

In the body, the location of these three lights are as follows.

Agni maṇḍala, the region of Fire, is in the Mūlādhāra and Svādhiṣṭhāna.

The Solar region is the navel region and heart centre and the Maṇipūra and Anāhata cakras.

The Lunar region is located between the Viśuddhi and Ājñā centers.

Piṅgalā is the nerve current going up clockwise, helically touching each bījākṣara in each petal of these lotuses from Mūlādhāra to Ājñā. This current takes the heat of the Mūlādhāra and Svādhiṣṭhāna upwards.

The nerve current starting from the Ājñā and going downwards to Mūlādhāra goes down helically in the anti-clockwise direction carrying with it the dispassion.

Thus the hot stream moving up is piṅgalā and cold stream coming down is iḍā. When the devotee goes through this exercise a few times — namely the exercise of generating the heat in Mūlādhāra and Svādhiṣṭhāna, converting it to light in the heart and the divine visions in the Ājñā and coming down as a dispassion back to the Mūlādhāra a few times — the awareness will start moving along the warm path of suṣumnā upwards. It may be stabilized at the Ājñā center or the heart center of the Sahasrāra.

In all cases the starting point is the heat.

Śaṅkara, in his famous Soundarya Lahari, mentions that the Fire is located in the Svādhiṣṭhāna center. This occurs in the stanza containing: “Mahīṁ mūlādhāre kamapi maṇipūre hutavahaṁ sthitaṁ svādhiṣṭhāne,” etc. The sequence described by Śaṅkara is in the solid state in the Mūlādhāra, the fiery state in the Svādhiṣṭhāna, the watery state in the navel center in the Maṇipūra. This sequence, although it is contrary to the popular conception of heat in the navel center and water in the Svādhiṣṭhāna, seems to be more appropriate. The agni or the fire that is being referred to is undoubtedly the kāmāgni, the fire of lust which is generated by the awareness being located in the liṅga. The movement of the Kuṇḍalinī in the suṣumnā is made possible through a dispassionate observation of the kāmāgni, the raging fire below and the cool head above. A recognition that nature is bipolar, with one pole in the center and the other pole in the knowledge center, is important to understand the nature of transformation of the libido, called sublimation. The word sublimation refers to making the reproductive drive sublime, i.e., remove the gross and the base elements from it and transform it to the aesthetic, harmonious and joyous and peaceful values of life.

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201. Sadgatipradā
Sat means “truth”, gati means “movement to”, prada means “giver of”. Devi propels the devotee towards a realisation of the truth.

Experience of the phenomenal world is to be had at the lower end. At the higher end, experience of the transcendental takes place. The movement from the phenomenal to the transcendental is called Sadgati. Basically this consists of detaching the mind from instincts for self-survival and survival of the race, at the sexual end of the phenomenal world, to the higher experiences of music, art, culture and religious experiences at the sublimated end.

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202. Sarveśvarī
She controls everyone by being the thoughts, the emotions, the feelings and experiences of everyone.

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203. Sarvamayī
She is everyone.

SSB — Part 40: Omniscience, Compassion That Lifts, Equal Vision, and the Power That Dreams Worlds (Nāmas 196–199)

 

196. Sarvajñā

Both Śiva and Devi have this common name of sarvajña meaning knower of everything.

Devi is the witnessed consciousness, Śiva is the witnessing consciousness in everyone, at all possible times, and at all possible places. Hence, they know everything that is happening in the world, whether it is in the waking, dreaming or sleeping states.

Limited knowledge can be obtained through an interface of consciousness, called an instrument of observation and action, or as Upādhi. Unlimited knowledge can be had by removing all possible instruments of observation and action. This is called the Nirupādhika Caitanya. Only in such an unlimited consciousness resides the sum totality of all possible knowledge.

Let me try to visualize a transcendental view of an elephant walking across one's field of vision. Imagine that the mind stores a series of snapshots of the elephant in the field of view of the observer at regular intervals. If we superimpose all of them to be together, then we have several elephants, each one displaced from the other by a small vision all at once. In meditation, such a transcendental view does happen sometimes. The elephant at a distance appears to be small, and the same thing appears big when it is nearby, in reality. So the transcendental view may consist of small and big images of the same objects together. Not only that, if one can spread one's consciousness in different upādhi at the same time and observe a phenomenon transcendentally, there will be rows upon rows, armies of elephants, battalions of them all over the place. All of which, in fact, represent one single elephant.

The transcendental view does not eliminate objects, but it multiplies them into infinite fold. What it eliminates is action from the scene. A transcendental view is an invariant object in a higher dimensional vision. A section of it in space or in time exhibits the characteristics of action in flow.

Many people, not being able to imagine or experience the transcendental vision, come to the conclusion that it must be null. Hardly so. A better way of describing the reality is that it is full. Hence, the śruti says: “Pūrṇamadaḥ pūrṇamidaṁ”. Full is that and full is this. That refers to the observed Universe and this refers to the observer. Both are full. The observer is full when he expands his consciousness. The Universe is full when it is observed through the eyes of the special Universal consciousness. Both are invariant objects. In fact, they are one and the same.

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197. Sāndrakaruṇā
Devi is full of a deep and abiding compassion towards Her devotees and showers grace abundantly on them.

It is not by our efforts, but through Her grace that we are uplifted. There are two ways of going up.

The first is by a push from below, and
The second is a pull from above.

Between the two, the second alternative is by far the most powerful. This is true even in ordinary human affairs. An interested person at the top management cadre can pull up a candidate, overruling so many others even with superior categories.

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198. Samānādhikavarjitā
She treats all equally.

The above paragraph might have given an understanding that the Devi is partial to Her devotees. This name dispels all such wrong notions, by making it clear that She is equally compassionate towards all, that She sees no difference between a king and a pauper in distributing Her favours.

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199. Sarvaśaktimayī
She is omnipotent.

Śakti can be interpreted as energy or force or potency. Potency implies a latent energy. She is the power of the consciousness which can create, move and annihilate the world by a mere thought.

The world is a thought in the Supreme Mind of the Mother. Just as we dream dreams, the Supreme Mother dreams up these worlds. Her dreams are awakening states. When we wake up from our waking states, we get into the awakened state of Mahaśakti. This is called Sarvaśakti.

SSB — Part 39: Protection, Misery Destroyed, Pleasure Bestowed, Evil Pacified, and Surgical Destruction of Harm (Nāmas 190–195)

 

190. Durgā

Durgā, the famous Goddess protecting human prosperity and intelligence, is the virgin form of Devi. Mary of Christianity, or Mariyamma of the Hindus, is the same virgin aspect. The word Mari means the Killer. Misery is the object of destruction.

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191. Duḥkhahantrī
Devi kills the misery. Misery comes out of attachment to worldly possessions, or to bodily comforts, or to mental imagery, or to individual life. By removing the ignorance concerning these imagined forms, Devi eliminates the misery of the human condition.

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192. Sukhapradā
Sukha means pleasure which is distinct from bliss. Intense pleasure may be likened to bliss. These words differ in degree of intensity of experience. Devi not only eliminates misery, but also gives pleasure of this life.

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193. Duṣṭadūrā
She keeps the evil force at a distance. The force or the evil trend, such as sadistic or masochistic tendencies in man. Sadism involves deriving pleasure by hurting others. The connection between injury and pleasure is common to both these forces of evil. Devi keeps both these forms at a distance.

This reflects on the part that the devotees have to take in their sādhana. Some devotees make a show of their devotion. They are prepared to injure others in the name of religious faith. One of the mild forms of such injury consists, for example, in insisting on one's particular eating habits when you go to another person's house on a friendly visit. The more turbulent forms of such show occur in the fanatic ‘holy wars’ raged by humans against humans, claims and counter claims like — “My reason and my faith is better than yours and so you must either accept my faith or I will kill you.”

In the civilized world the same thing goes on in a different way. The wording goes, “you are infidels, you are non-believers, either you believe or you will go to hell. We will give you comforts, we will give you recognition if you accept our faith.” So bribery becomes the instrument for conversion in the civilized world. Replacement of fear of death by bribery is changing the mask of religious nepotism. It does not change its internal character.

The other side of the story in the ascetic self-denial, hurting oneself, inflicting pain and injury on oneself constantly, does not lead to the expected end result, glory of God.

Aurobindo was asked by one of his visitors as to why he is spending such lavish amounts in decorating the hall used for worship of the Divine Mother. Aurobindo replied with a question, “Is it your conception of God then that he is poor and lacks riches?”

The devotee in search of divinity must avoid both the extremes injuring others as well as injuring one's self. The path lies in the golden mean between these two experiences.

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194. Durāchāraśamanī
She cools down the effect of evil procedures.

There are different procedures both for achieving good and bad ends. Devi protects Her devotees from the evil and effect of evil procedures done by others against the devotees.

There are certain mantras aimed at destruction and certain others which are aimed at getting rid of a person from the locality. These mantras are intended to be used against one's internal enemies which are lurking in every one of us as kāma, krodha, etc. The forces working in us, against us, have to be dispelled. These forces take the form of doubt, whether the desired ends will be achieved or not. These may constitute more direct obstacles such as disease, imbalance of mind, etc., which prevent a proper accomplishment of the meditative process that will be curing them. It is the classic case of the vicious circle formed by a patient who badly needs the medicine which cures him, but does not take the medicine. The case of the drug addicts, smoking addicts, etc., is similar. These addictions arise in the first instance to satisfy the suicidal instinct in man and are prime examples of masochism. Meditation with the Astra Vidyās will surely cure these ills and bring about a state of mind that will be conductive to the higher world of life.

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195. Doṣavarjitā
She is free from any blemish.

In the defensive role of protecting the devotees, She will no doubt attack the evil forces and may appear to be cruel. But this is the cruelty of a surgeon who makes an incision, a wound in the patient's body to relieve him of the evil effects which are disturbing his peace. Hence, destructive forces used against evil cannot be considered to be wrong. On the contrary, the policing is a necessary evil so long as evil is present.

In the Rudram we find Śiva being described as Taskarāṇāmpati¹ meaning that he is head of thieves and bandits. Brahmā, the creator of the Vedas, was asked by the Ṛṣis: “Why did you call Śiva by such a name?” Brahmā said: “You have to set a master thief to catch the lesser thieves.” Śiva is the master thief who serves the useful purposes of bringing to book the lesser forces of evil. Śiva wields his paśupatāstra to turn around or to destroy the evil forces working in a man. Devi is not different from Śiva. She serves the same purpose.

¹ Śrī Rudram Anuvāka 3, verse 3: namo niṣaṅgiṇa iṣudhimate taskarāṇāṁ pataye namo — “salutations to the holder of the quiver, to the owner of the quiver, to the lord of robbers, salutation!”

SSB — Part 38: Fearlessness, Transcendence Beyond Time, Rarity of Attainment, and the Difficult Path (Nāmas 186, 188–189)

 

186. Nirapāyā

She [is of] no danger Herself. She does not create dangers or dangerous situations to Her devotees. The Caṇḍi Saptaśatī says about Devi: “Those whose are dependent on Devi for succour know no danger. In fact, they become sources of spreading fearlessness among those that come in contact with them.”

She cannot be transcended. Being transcendental Herself, She cannot be transcended; there is nothing beyond Her. Transcendence involves going into a higher dimension, where the view or the perspective is different. Sometimes it means negation of the object transcended. This is so because going beyond the limits of the objects is to go into the regions where the object is no longer there, or that the object is negated. The object itself may or may not be included in the definition of transcendence.

Earlier we have discussed how a four-dimensional view of the world as an invariant object does not change the time. This is so because time is transcended there. Since time terminates everything, every living form, and time itself is transcended in the four-dimensional view, such a view is action-less and it cannot be transcended any further.

How many dimensions are required to explain in an irreducible way the Universe that we observe? There are different views on this. Some say four dimensions are enough. Some contend that five are required. Some others believe that seven are the dimensions. If we are to correlate the cakras with the dimensions, then seven is probably the answer.

It is believed that the spaces we live in have measure, i.e., they are measurable and all points in the space are interconnected. That means it is possible to move one point to another from anywhere to anywhere on a continuum.

It is not possible to move so that we say that such a space is immeasurable. Topological interconnectedness is one of the properties that we believe in as being a characteristic of the space.

The nature of transcendence is not easy to explain nor is it easy to experience. It is the stepping into a totally unknown territory without any support, without any possibility of return to the normal mode of existence. In a sense, death separates the transcendent from the imminent. For the philosopher, death and transcendence are important functions. There seems to be a sudden departure of the soul into some unknown region.

In the Kaṭhopaniṣad, Nāciketa asks the God of Death about the nature of transcendence. The God of Death, Yama, tries every trick at his disposal to wean and lure Nāciketa away from the solution to this sensitive and prickly question. He offers him a million years of life, wealth untold, as many girls for wives as there are grains in the sand near the oceans for his enjoyment. Nāciketa rejects all these with a question, “Are they permanent?” He says: “If they are not permanent, I do not want them.” Finally, the God of Death gives him a taste of transcendental life experience which is beyond all possible worlds to be explained, or for all possible minds to grasp.

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188. Durlabhā
She is difficult to obtain.

It is not easy to transcend the human mode of thinking for a human, or ant mode of thinking for an ant.

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189. Durgamā
The path to transcendence is littered with difficulties.

The first difficulty concerns the identification of the soul with the physical body of Devi, Sadhaṭa.
The second difficulty consists in removing the connection with individual thinking.
The third difficulty concerns the difficulty in removing connection with an individual life. The last is the most difficult to transcend.

It is said that one of the Nāyanār, great devotees of Śiva, had the practice of offering a coconut to Śiva every day. One day, no matter how long or how hard he searched, he could not find the coconut. The time appointed by himself for the offering was getting to be over. In desperation he went and broke his head as a coconut offering to Śiva. At that moment the devotee transcended the difficulty concerning his individual life form, and Śiva was pleased with this offering and gave him the transcendence. Thus the Nāyanār became a Ṛṣi.

Rare indeed are the individuals who experience transcendence and then come back to the miserable human conditions. Having tasted the beauty and eternal glory of God, this little morsel of delight mixed with a turn of sorrow no longer appeals to them. Such should merge willingly into the transcendental form which is called either Devi or Śiva interchangeably.

SSB — Part 37: Indestructibility, Death Churned into Consciousness, Actionless Action, Sacrifice as the Center, and the Blackness of the Unknown (Nāmas 180–185)

 

180. Nirnāśā
She has no possibility of being destroyed; indestructible.

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181. Mṛtyumathanī
Mṛtyu means death. Mathani has two meanings. The first meaning is vitiation. The second meaning is derived from the word Mithuna; this means “unites with”. As Kālī, She kills. Even while killing, She wears the memories of Her devotees on Her neck as a garland of skulls. Life is a memory. It is an experience when it is brought to the surface and is made conscious. When it is a memory inactively stored or tucked away in some neat pigeon hole, then it is an Āvaykta, an unconscious life.

Memory can be compared to a dead being. It is a storehouse of images and processes. A currently active process may retrieve a certain memory record or set up records which become active. Consciousness is an active process. The function of consciousness is to retrieve and act upon the storehouse of information and fresh process. Process after process may come to exist, to live for a time to do its functions, and may either be returned back into the memory or be deleted by itself or by another process.

Sleep is like an interrupted process. After the routine corresponding to the interrupted process is executed, the original process continues from where it left off. The sense of continuity of the process or that of a particular life form is not disturbed by the sleep.

Time, space, and matter are all notions, thoughts, processes invented by a particular process in memory. They do not exist by themselves. They exist because they are interpreted as such by a process.

During sleep the flow of time is not experienced. Time is steady both for a sleeping person and a dead person. Time ceases to be for a sleeping process or a deleted process.

The organization called life bears remarkable similarities to the organizations of software in modern computers. Many of the mysteries of the human mind and minds beyond may be unraveled by programs which are built in such a way as to learn from interaction with an environment and to modify its process itself. For example, a program that can read and understand English may, if set upon a gobbling up of all the English literature available, start behaving like a poet or an artist of words. An image processing program, learning to interact with images may, for example, become an architect, an engineer, etc. Such programs will be known to the author of these programs at the time they are written.

Subsequently, after they start modifying themselves in their interaction in the environment, they may surpass the creative abilities of the inventor. Thus, it is no longer true to say that we know exactly what the computer is doing, because we have written the program. The program that the human beings follow to create a new life form similar to his own is very simple indeed. It is a simple clock which interprets itself and emits a program. When that program survives, it becomes another life form. The creator of the life form knows very little about either the program which has been emitted or about what the program is going to be a few decades later. The notion of death is very important for any limited form of existence. It is important to recognize that there may be far higher evolutions than the human consciousness.

The Ṛṣis speculated that there exists a great life form in the sun which they worshipped as the Goddess Sāvitrī in the meter Gāyatrī. When they looked at the early morning Sun for a few minutes and then went into meditation of the great life form in the Sun, they were blessed with a great variety of images from other life forms. There is indeed a great flow of information coming from the Sun towards us, other than what is contained in the light.

It may be worthwhile to tap this source of information. The Sun survives for a much longer period than a human being or a comparable life form. In a sense the life form of the Sun has learned to transcend time and gain immortality.

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182. Niṣkriyā
While performing all actions She is really actionless in the transcendental form. Action is defined as: force into distance moved by an object along this force. Force involves a second derivative of time with respect to the distance. In a transcendental view both the distance and time are relative to null. Thus there can be no action.

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183. Niṣparigrahā
While giving everything to the world, She does not take anything away.
Her nature is sacrifice called yajña. The sage Andhatamasu wondered, ‘Where is the centre of the Universe? Is there anyone who can tell me?’ He longed. After a long search and research, he arrives at the following conclusion that sacrifice is the centre of the Universe.

The father sacrifices his seed for the sake of the progeny. The mother sacrifices Her life in the service of the family. The good man sacrifices all he has in the service of the society around him. In the sacrifice are good things. Life itself is born out of the sacrifice. Thus sacrifice is the center of the Universe.

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184. Nistulā
Devi has no equal. She is incomparable to anything else. She cannot be compared to anything else because there is nothing, only Her.

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185. Nīlacikurā
Having black dresses. Black is the colour of the unknown. Surrounding Her moon-like white face is the colour of blackness. The unknown surrounds the known and the knowable.

SSB — Part 36: Greed Dissolved, Doubt Cleared, Saṃsāra Broken, and the Erasure of Difference (Nāmas 170–179)

170. Nirlobhā

She knows no greed, because She has everything. There is nothing in this world which is not Hers. So why should She feel greed. Everything came out of Her and everything goes back to Her.

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171. Lobhanāśinī
She destroys intense desire for anything, i.e. the greed for anything. Greed involves not allowing others to share what you have. Love is the remedy for greed. If you are greedy, you cannot be loving. In love you have to give, in greed you want to hold back. Devi is the personification of love. So She gives everything to the devotee without holding back anything whatsoever. Her body, which is this Universe. Her mind, which is the Space. Her soul, which is the light breathing in this Universe. All these three She has given unasked for each and everyone. There are no inhibitions in Devi, She comes to you in whatever form you call.

If you want Her to be the light, She will be knowledge in your brain.
If you want Her to be the darkness, She will give you a good night's sleep.
If you call Her mother, She will feed you and nourish you with milk from Her breasts.
If you call Her your daughter, She will say sweet things to you and come and sleep on your lap.
If you call Her your mistress, She will open up Her deepest mysteries to you.
If you call Her your friend, She will advise you what to do.

She is a constant source of inspiration, a walking stick in old age to the devotee. Unfailing in Her devotion to the devotee, She is constantly finding ways and means and creating situations for the development of every individual soul into Godhood. Her infinite love for God expresses love for all life forms.

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172. Niḥsaṃśayā
She has no doubt in Her mind. She is all clear thinking, no confusion.

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173. Saṃśayaghnī
She manifests as Guru to Her devotee and clears his doubts.

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174. Nirbhavā
She is devoid of this world or the wheel of Samsara.

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175. Bhavanāśinī
She destroys the wheel of Samsara for Her devotee.

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176. Nirvikalpā
Devi does not see the difference between Herself and Her devotee. The difference between Herself and Her devotee is nill.

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177. Nirābādhā
She cannot be delimited by anything. She has no differences and treats all life on the same footing.

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179. Bhedanāśinī
She eliminates any concealed difference between Herself and the Devotee. This She does even by switching the conscious veils between inside and outside if necessary. Sometimes during the pūjā one may get the feeling that one is a statue out there, and that Devi Herself is doing a pūjā to oneself out there. This kind of inside out transformation is one of the first modes, the earliest modes, of Her teaching that you and I are not different: I am you and you are I. Since it is I who think your thoughts, I know you as myself.

SSB — Part 35: Desire Burnt in Consciousness, Ego and Delusion Destroyed, Sin Dissolved, and Anger Pacified (Nāmas 160–169)

 160. Niścintā

She has no worries of any kind.

People think that by doing karmas oriented for the welfare of everyone, such as distributing wealth or doing good deeds, one gets liberated. This is not so. The śruti says:

“Na karmaṇā na prajayā dhanena tyāgenaike amṛtatvamānaśuḥ.”
This means, not by good actions, not by people, not by wealth, is the liberation achieved. Only by sacrifice is liberation achieved.

The word ‘tyāga’ means sacrifice. The nature of this ‘tyāga’, of this sacrifice, is described in the following words of Ātmayajña starting with “tatsaiyam viduṣo yagasa…”1. One has to sacrifice one's own desires in the fire of his own consciousness. That is the way, that is the way. There is no other way.

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161. Nirahaṅkārā
She has no ego. She does not do anything because of Her ego.

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162. Nirmohā
She is not deluded.

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163. Mohanāśinī
She eliminates the delusion in the devotee.

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164. Nirmamā
She has no such things as “mine”.

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165. Mamatāhantrī
She destroys the notions of “mine”.

Why is it necessary not to have the sense of something belonging to me? Why is it necessary to destroy the feeling of mine? Suppose we own an object. We can own it thinking that it is ours. We can also own it thinking that it is not ours. Examples of the first category are house, children, furniture, etc. Examples of the second category are the public gardens, air, mountains, lakes, seas, etc.

We suffer agony on being deprived of an object about whom we have the sense of mine. This object is mine. This property is mine. This child is mine. This house is mine. This money is mine. For the objects that are not perceived as mine neither acquisition nor removal brings satisfaction nor constitute a loss. Happiness and misery are consequences of the idea of ownership. Remove that and there will be no misery on their being lost.

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166. Niṣpāpā
She has no sin.

Sin and virtue are concepts in the human mind, brought about to establish a certain peace and order in the society or a culture for a temporary period. The tiger kills to eat its food. If murder is a sin, the tiger is a sinner. The tiger is free from sin.

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167. Pāpanāśinī
She eliminates sin.

In the fires of knowledge all sins are burnt. By once saying the name of God all sins past, present and future are burnt forever.

What is sin? It is a feeling of guilt associated with an action or a thought. If an action is performed without any thought of it later on, that action cannot be considered to be the sin. Action by itself is neither sin nor virtue. It is made the sin or a virtue by a subsequent process associated with it.

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168. Niṣkrodhā
The Devi has no anger. She kills, but does not kill in anger. An action-oriented desire frustrated from achieving its purpose becomes anger. There are two ways of overcoming anger:

The first way is to eliminate the action-oriented desire and to give it a mental orientation so that the possibility of frustration is eliminated. Since there is no frustration, there can be no anger flowing from it.
The second solution is to eliminate desire itself. This is burning the root of the problem of anger. Sages achieved this after long and hard practice. It is easy for some people to do this but it is extremely difficult for some others to do this.

As long as one sees, hears, or interacts with the world through any sensory channel, so long do desire after desire keep on coming one after the other, unendingly like waves of the sea. It is only natural that the desires belong to the nature. Let Her satisfy them then.

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169. Krodhaśamanī
Petty desires vanish when one truly knows the greatness of Devi. Then there is only one great desire and that is to become Devi. In this oceanic feeling of oneness with Devi all anger is destroyed.

SSB — Part 34: Faultlessness, Causelessness, Non-Attachment, and the Crushing of Ego (Nāmas 150–159)

 

150. Niravadyā

No one can point out his finger at Devi and say [that there’s] the fault in Her.

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151. Nirantarā
Antara means level. There are no different levels as the high and the low in Her. To Her, the highest and the lowest are the same.

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152. Niṣkāraṇā
There is no cause for Devi. If there was a cause, that cause would have preceded Devi. Devi preceded everything and She is going to outlast everything. Therefore, there can be no cause for Devi. She is the cause of everything.

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153. Niṣkalaṅkā
She has no blemishes of any sort.

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154. Nirupādhi
There is no upādhi in Devi. The words Upādhi and Samādhi have some common features.

Upādhi means upa + adhi.
Samādhi means sama + adhi.

The word upa means small, the word sama means equal. Thus, the words Upādhi and Samādhi refer to a lesser and equal vehicle, a means of observation.

It is strange to think that Devi can be the Upādhi and the Samādhi at the same time. If we subtract a zero from a zero, we get a zero. The new zero that we have got is as capable, as potent, as the first zero to produce as many fresh zeros as one wants. The creator and the creatrix are on an equal footing. One is not bigger nor the container of the other. They are both one and the same.

Śaṅkara speaks thus of Brahmajñāna:
“jīvo brahmaiva nāparaḥ”, jīva is the same as Brahman.

The distinction between the Upādhi and Samādhi exists only as long as God is controlled by His Māyā willingly. When He wills Himself not to be so controlled, the Upādhi merges into Samādhi.

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155. Nirīśvarā
There is no one controlling Devi. Devi controls everything. Hidden in this name is an approach to many a siddhi. The interested reader may do a bit of research quietly on his own. In this name as a mahāmantra, Devi will teach him the secrets.

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156. Nīrāgā
She is not attached to anything.

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157. Rāgamathanī
If the devotee has attachments, Devi hits him hard to remove those attachments.

One can be kind without attachments. One can be loving without attachments. None of the good qualities that the devotee can possess will be diminished in the least extent by getting rid of attachments. Supreme and Universal love can be truly had only on the basis of non-attachments. True love gives because givingness is Her nature. She does not ask for anything in return.

These two names above and some pairs of the names to follow are indicators to an ardent devotee of the path that must be followed in the initial stages at least, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the divine nature.

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158. Nirmadā
She is devoid of pride.

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159. Madanāśinī
She destroys the bloating ego of the ardent devotee.

SSB — Part 33: Rayless Fullness, Desireless Desire, Catastrophe Dissolved, Ever-Free Awareness, and the Ground of Samādhi (Nāmas 140–149)

 

140. Niṣkalā

She has no rays coming out of Her.

Her Māyā Śakti is of the same stuff as Herself and it feels Herself everywhere. Therefore there can be no projection. Projection implies a distance. Since there is no distance between the observer and the observed, because the distance itself is part of the observer, there is no projection.

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141. Śāntā
She is peace personified.

The nature of bliss in its ultimate closest explanation appears to be utter tranquility and peace.

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142. Niṣkāmā
She is desire itself.

Desire itself will not have a desire. Hence Devi has no desire.

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143. Nirupaplavā
Uplava means a catastrophe. There are no catastrophes in Devi. Entire worlds may be born and destroyed in the mind of Devi. It is all a child's play. There is no pain, there is no catastrophe, there is no violence of any sort.

This is exactly what Kṛṣṇa teaches Arjuna in the battlefield, when Arjuna renounces his weapons saying that — “I cannot and will not kill my friend, my brothers, my teachers, my fathers” and so on. Kṛṣṇa tells him thus:

“Whom are you killing? If it is the soul that you are trying to kill, that cannot be killed by anything. Because it is unpierceable, unbreakable, unbeatable, and indestructible. If we say that you are killing the bodies, then the bodies never had a life of their own, to be killed. They are already dead indeed. You may send your arrows. They may beat you to death. They may fall down and die. In reality you are neither the killer nor are they the killed. Even before they were born, I have killed them all. See if you will.”

So saying, he opens his Virāṭsvarūpa to Arjuna and gives the Viśvarūpā Darśan.

In the Devi Gītā also, we find the Devi giving a Viśvarūpā Sandarśanam to the various Gods assembled. She shows Her terrible form eating up the brahmins, the kṣatriyas and all people. Time indeed is the terrible being. Like fire, it consumes everything. When time itself is consumed, there can be no catastrophe.

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144. Nityamuktā
She is ever free to think, will, and act in any manner She pleases, totally unrestrained. Just as in an individual there is a total liberty to think, so is there a total liberty in Devi to think.

Some of Her deeper thoughts we tend to call actions. Some of Her lighter thoughts we tend to call thoughts. But all are thoughts. Hence Her range of freedom expresses itself as all possible potentialities.

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145. Nirvikārā
Not subject to change. The dynamic and the static are one and the same.

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146. Niṣprapañcā
There is no world.

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147. Nirāśrayā
There is no support for this world.

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148. Nityaśuddhā
She is forever pure. She cannot be contaminated by anything.

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149. Nityabuddhā
She is fully awakened at all times.

Consciousness does not subside during the waking, dreaming or sleeping states. If the consciousness was not awakened during the sleeping states, there would be no sense of continuity of the sameness of an individual. We are aware that the same one who went to sleep yesterday is awake today. This continuity will be absent if consciousness does not continue through sleep. If consciousness does not continue through waking states, again, there will be a total disruption in the continuity of an existence.

Thus, the conscious feeling is continuous and overlaps all the three stages. It intersects and is also the said union of all the three stages. This is the fourth stage referred to as samādhi.

Samādhi is an inherent property of God. It is not a word, nor is it necessary to be sought and acquired. If it is something that is sought and acquired, it is not permanent and it cannot partake of the nature of God. It would be a worthless acquisition.

SSB — Part 32: Permanence Beyond Time, Formless Form, Vibrationless Reality, and the Dissolution of Guṇas (Nāmas 136–139)

136. Nityā

Devi is permanent.

Although we do speak of the appearance and disappearance of forms of Devi as we have explained earlier, all the transitory phenomena are also permanent to a transcendental view. Only to a time-bound view does the motion of transience or permanence have any meaning.

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137. Nirākārā
Devi has no form.

Quite often the devotee is confused by the occurrence of words of completely opposite meanings at different places in the Lalitā Sahasranāma. How can opposites describe one and the same entity, the devotee wonders. At the synthesis of the opposites arises the reality. The opposites appear to be opposites so long as one is limited in some particular dimension which separates a single property into pairs of opposites. In every such instance the devotee has to discover that particular dimension which is missing in his view. Once he discovers that particular dimension, what he achieves is a synthesis of the pairs of opposites which defines the reality.

Earlier we have seen the opposites ‘Sat’ and ‘Asat’ both describing reality; the missing dimension there was consciousness, the Devi.

Let us examine here the question of Devi having forms and no forms. Both these have to be proved simultaneously; we already have an answer to this question. Just as there were no colours inherent in the frequencies, so also the forms have no existence apart from the subject. The subject is the objectless subject and is also the object which appears to have different forms. In the recognition that subject and object are undifferentiable lies the synthesis of Devi having forms and no forms. The act of seeing is the act of knowing. Knowledge is the characteristic property of consciousness. The missing dimension here again is the nature of consciousness and that is Devi.

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138. Nirākulā
Devi is unperturbed, vibrationless.

How can the Universe which is so full of vibrations of all sorts be called vibrationless? In order to transcend the dualities induced by vibrations, one has to transcend in the dimension of Time. Then all the vibrations can exist as they are and also they will be vibrationless. A wave motion is no more a motion when one can see it at all times simultaneously. Time partakes of the character of space in a transcendental view; hence all objects in space are vibrations in Time and become invariant.

The nature of Time is that it seems to flow steadily from the past to the present to the future. It seems that a second gone is gone forever.

Modern thinking has taken away the foundation of a continuously flowing time. Time as well as Space are relative to the observer. They are not independent of the frame of reference containing the observer. Thus, two events A and B may appear in one sequence to observer ‘X’, while they may appear to come in a different sequence to another observer ‘Y’. For example, X may perceive that A has occurred earlier than B, while Y may observe that B has occurred earlier than A. Both the statements may be a true record of facts as observed by X and Y. The concept of well orderliness in time is being taken away.

This theory of relative time is one of the prime characteristics of Einstein's thinking, which has been substantiated time and again in modern scientific apparatus. Moreover, we are aware of particles travelling backwards in time. Such particles are called entire particles. To every particle known in physics, there seem to correspond an entire particle whose nature is transcendental.

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139. Nirguṇā
While Devi appears to have the three dimensions of desire, knowledge and action, in reality She is the world of all these characteristics.

The world is ephemeral as long as desires exist; so will there be fulfillment through knowledge or through action; so will the Universe be maintained in the consciousness. Once the desires are no more, this ephemeral world subsides into the primordial aspect of Asat; as such, there are no guṇas to characterize anything, since Devi is both Sat and Asat. She has and does not have guṇas at the same time.

SSB — Part 31: The Womb of the Universe, Supportlessness, Colorless Consciousness, and Actionless Purity (Nāmas 130–135)

130. Śātodarī

Devi has a narrow waist.

A narrow waist and broad hips are the hallmark of a beautiful woman. Narrow waist indicates a supple body. According to the śastras, a waist that can be cupped in the hands is a sign of beauty. Even this small waist is pierced by a deep navel.

The waist is the place where the just born child grows to the full size. The waist expands to accommodate the growing child. The child in this case is the Universe. The deep navel represents a single attitude, a point and origin of the Universe. It also represents a space curving into itself to finally become a point. The mother Goddess gives life to and sustains the Universe growing from the seed of God in Her womb.

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131. Śāntimatī
This word has two meanings,

that She has peace within Her and

that She has a peaceful mind.

Śānti means peace and mati means mind, more aptly discrimination. Quiet, discrimination, balance, and harmony are some of the most important characteristics of the Mother.

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132. Nirādhārā
She has no support. She supports everything else in the world.

For the devotee who is trying to realise himself, all paths can lead only up to a certain point and no further. From then on there is no mantra, there is no tantra, there is no yantra, there is no Guru and there is no support of any kind. The devotee has to perform a spacewalk without support. While lacking support for himself, he supports all matter in his space like a womb through the flow of time.

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133. Nirañjanā
Devi inherently has no coloration, no bias of any sort. What makes of this colourful universe around us? Where are these colours? The atom which emits a like quantum has no colour. What exists is a frequency. These various frequencies are interpreted as various colours by the perceiver, the human intellect. Dogs can hear the ultrasonic frequencies. Humans cannot hear it. Even if we assume that the dog perceives the sound in the same way as we do, the dog still hears new sounds and tones that we have never heard and that we are never capable of hearing. Very low frequency sounds are felt as vibrations in the body. When a drummer beats a drum the sound is heard within one's own heart as a thump. It is more a feeling than a sound. As the frequency increases from the very low frequencies to the very high frequencies, the human sensory apparatus presents this data in various formats to be perceived respectively as feelings, thoughts, heat, sound, sight and so on. So the colour is a property associated with the sensory apparatus and a phenomenon of resonance. It is not inherent in the vibration itself. Truly, the colours that we see exist in the mind of the individual rather than outside, i.e., the colours are subjective.

[For] the question — “Is there or can there be a reality outside a perceiving consciousness?” — the answer is both yes and no at the same time. If there exists such an objective reality, there would be no consciousness to perceive it and therefore there can be no relevance to such an existence. Such an existence might as well be called non-existence.

It must be realised that there can be no perception of such a nonexistence which may still exist. That could be the Mother, the source of a consciousness, which can then perceive the existence so long as it lasts. The dividing line between existence (Sat) in the oriental literature and existence cum non-existence (Asat) in the oriental literature is the consciousness which brings in and is the meaning of existence. The famous poet Kālidāsa describes the relationship between the Father and the Mother of the universe in the following stanza. The Mother is the word. The meaning of the word is the Father.

The śruti says: “Oṁ devīm vācamajanayanta devāstām viśvarūpāḥ paśavo vadanti”. This means vāk, or the sound, is the primordial combination existence/non-existence described above. Out of this, the Devi consciousness has brought meaning to existence. The people who differentiate themselves from the Devi, called paśu, describe this perceived Universe. This invocation is used as an auspicious statement at the beginning of any prayer, saying let this be an auspicious moment when Devi, a new consciousness is born into us.

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134. Nirlepā
The word lepana means anointing, like anointing a perfume on one's body. Devi does not get coupled to anything. She does not anoint anything. She does not contact anything. She produces the world out of Her womb, feeds and supports this world, and destroys it and reabsorbs it into Herself. Appearing to be involved in all these actions, all this dynamism, in reality She is actionless. All actions are born as thoughts are born and all actions die as thoughts die. There is a distinction between the physical and the mental for the simple reason that there is no such thing as physical. If a physical exists, then there would be a distinction between the physical and mental. There can be no possibility of the existence of the physical entity outside a cognising consciousness. All the distinctions of the physical and the non-physical occur in the field of a triad created by the consciousness which separates itself from itself and sees the separated thought as another entity.

This triad of the seer, the seen, and the act of seeing constitutes what is called the Māyā or covering of God which makes Him into a man.

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135. Nirmalā
Devi is free from all impurities.

The possibility of an impurity arises only when a pure entity is getting mixed up with another impurity, which is not pure by definition.

What is happening in the case of Devi? Pure consciousness is all the time getting mixed or separated from pure consciousness. There is no second entity. Even the so-called existence is a property of consciousness, as consciousness is the property of existence. Even though the words consciousness and existence seem to be different words, each is the meaning of the other. This is how the śastras describe the union of Śiva and Śakti as being inseparable from each other, and out of their union flows the eternal bliss called the Ānanda. Thus Sat (existence), Cit (consciousness), and Ānanda (bliss) are considered to be of the nature which defines God in the abstract form, devoid of all names and perceived forms.

SSB — Part 30: Devotion That Binds the Cosmos and the End of Fear (Nāmas 120–129)

120. Bhaktivaśyā
Devi comes to the aid of the devotee if there is real devotion. The ‘vaśya’ means 'controlled'. Even the Supreme Empress can be controlled through devotion and diligence. Since Devi manifests Herself as the entire cosmos, this implies the control of the yogi over the cosmic forces. These are called the siddhis. One of the siddhis, which keeps manifestation in the early stages of sādhana, is a vākśuddhi, sometimes called vāksiddhi. This means that what one says becomes true. This being so, the devotees are cautioned to refrain thinking evil thoughts. Through love and affection anyone can be controlled. Sometimes control can be exercised through fear. But such control creates more than it solves.

When a devotee starts using the siddhis for selfish or egoistic purposes, namely such purposes which are for the benefit of oneself and not truly meant for the benefit of the person whom he is trying to control, then the siddhis start disappearing, consuming the tapas done by the devoted sādhaka. On the contrary, siddhis used for the real benefit of the person being controlled, enhance the siddhis. It is obvious that it is not always true that the use of the powers given to the devotee results in a loss of tapas. The purpose is important. There are enough evil people or evil thoughts in the world. It is not necessary, nor even advisable to shun the acquisition of siddhis when they naturally come, provided the person acquiring the siddhis acts for the good of everyone. Sometimes what may appear to be doing good for one person or a set of people may not be so. It is necessary that the good forces must be made stronger in this world to achieve peace and stability and to contain the evil forces to a tolerable level.

121. Bhayāpahā
Devi eliminates fear from the mind of the devotees.

The condition is that Devi is worshipped as oneself. This oneself exists in both the inside and outside. As long as the entire cosmos is not realised to be one's own self there is an element of fear. By expanding the consciousness of the devotee, Devi eliminates fear in them.

122. Śāmbhavī
Śambavi is the name of a mudrā. It means the fixation of the focus of the eye between the object seen and the seer, namely on the space halfway between them. This eliminates the object from the vision. The subject alone remains.

123. Śāradārādhyā
She is worshipped by Sarasvatī, sometimes called Śāradā.

There is a book in mantra śastra called Śāradātilakam. This described the worship of the deity and its various modes. All the important religious centers of Hinduism are called the Śāradā Pīṭhams. Adi Śaṅkarācārya established the various Śaṅkara Mutts all over India. She is worshipped four times a day, on all the days in all these Pīṭhams.

Devi is worshipped as Durgā during the nine day festival of Dasārā, and She is worshipped as Sarasvatī on Vijayadaśamī as conqueror of evil forces. Vijayadaśamī is also the same day formerly when the Kings, having finished their pūjā of Durgā, used to sort out vanquishing their armies. For the Kṣatriyas, i.e. the warrior class, Vijayadaśamī is a day of worship of weapons. This pūjā continues until today as pūjā of the machinery by the workers in the factories all over India, and of the books by children, etc. The ninth day of the Śāradā Navarātris, called the Mahānavamī, is the most important day of the year. That is the day when Devi chooses to visit the devotees as Mahākuṇḍalinī to remove ignorance from the devotee. Normally the total initiation from the Guru is usually given on the Mahānavamī. Since Devi is worshipped during the Śāradā Navarātris as Śāradā, She is called Śāradārājaḥ.

The word ārādhanā means worship according to the 16 upācaras or the 64 tantras. According to numerology it is interesting to note that the irreducible of 16 i.e. 1+6=7 and 64 i.e. 6+4=10 which reduces to one. The number 7 is sacred to the Indians because it represents the 7th lotus, the Sahasrāra. The number 1 is also important because in spite of all the apparent diversity, very confusing sometimes to people, God is only one.

124. Śarvāṇī
Śarva means Śiva and Śarvāṇī is the wife of Śiva. Also Śam means auspiciousness and piety. Arvāṇī means the enjoyer. Thus the name means the enjoyer of auspicious and pious things and thoughts.

125. Śarmadāyinī
Śarma means happiness. She is the giver of happiness to Her devotees.

126. Śāṅkarī
The word Śāṅkara is derived from the noun ‘Śam’ and ‘Karoṭi’. Thus, Śāṅkara means, the maker of bliss. The wife of Śāṅkara is called Śāṅkarī.

127. Śrīkarī
The word Śrī means grace. Śrīkarī means that She showers abundant grace on Her devotees.

128. Sādhvī
Sādhu means a sage. Sādhvī is a sagely woman.

If we consider the letter meanings, according to the Śiva Sūtras:

the letter Sa stands for sattvaguṇa,

the letter dha of yoni and

the letter va is amṛta or nectar.

Thus this combination implies the derivation of nectar from the source of the universe, the womb of the universe, mentally, through a contemplation on the last sound ‘ī’.

129. Śaradcandranibhānanā
Her face emits the cool glow of the full moon in the month of Āśvayuja. The rainy season will then just be getting to a close and the skies are clear of dust, the moon shines coolly and brightly as the sun.

Coolness manifests in the head when thoughts are clear, sharply defined and bereft of vexing emotions. The emotions are swept away by the raining grace of the Devi. The moon is the symbol of the mind. The mind rests in the head. Thus, a cool and a bright moon a symbol for a dispassionate and clear-thinking mind. Such a mind is capable of receiving bliss by itself and also conferring this bliss on those who come in contact with it.

SSB — Part 29: Bhaktipriyā (Nāma 118)

Bhaktipriyā

She is fond of devotion.

The words Bhakti and Śraddhā have similar meanings.

They can best be understood in the meaning of the careful attention to the details of what one was doing. It is not blind faith that is called bhakti or śraddhā. It is a faith which means a commitment born out of a deep and sincere understanding. In the Yogavāsiṣṭha, we find that Rāma as the disciple is questioning, criticizing without any inhibitions the statements made by his gurus, namely Vāsiṣṭha and Viśvāmitra. He asks many sharp inquisitive questions aimed at learning but not at deprecating the Gurus. He listens with utmost sincerity and attentiveness. Every word spoken by the Gurus carried with it the mental images associated with the pronouncements of those words by the Gurus. Rāma, in a state of absolute attention, received not only the words but also their meanings and projected mental images associated with them. This is what is called bhakti.

Bhaktis are of different kinds. Nārada, a great devotee of Viṣṇu, has written a volume on bhakti. He has written Bhakti Sūtras or “Principals of Bhakti”. He classifies bhakti essentially into two categories, gauṇa and mukhya.

Gauṇa bhakti is the devotion aimed at the divine, expecting some kind of a return for the devotion. This is mingled with such feelings as anticipation of pleasure, or fear and such.

Mukhya bhakti is the important aspect of bhakti which again is of two types called Ekānta bhakti and Ananya bhakti.

The word Ekānta means when no one else is present or interfering. It also means at the end, eka, i.e. when two listeners and the listened to only are present. This the Ekānta bhakti is characteristic of the dual state with an uninterrupted flow of communication from the God to the Devotee.

Next, the most important aspect of bhakti is Ananya bhakti, which means that devotion where there is no distinction between the transmitter and the receiver because they have become one.

When the transmission is faultless and the reception is faultless, faithfulness of transmission is complete.

When we leave the abstract levels and come down to the levels of the application of bhakti, there are many final subdivisions of the nature of bhakti, depending upon the nature of the devotion that appeals most to the devotee. It should be remembered that there can be no set rules of worship. One does what one likes to do most and what pleases one the most.

To some devotees, God in the form of father appeals most. This is especially so among all religions which propagate devotion of the male aspect of God or those cults which project the Guru as a God. Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Śaivism, Vaishanvism all follow these rules.

To some, the notion of love towards God appears as the most natural. Since love towards children and love towards husband or wife are all parts of love, including the tough love of punishing one's children if need be, for the benefit of the child, love can be used as an element of worship towards God.

Treating God as mother or as one's own dear wife or some of the ways that the śastra mode of worship follows.

The feeling of friendship and even the feeling of enmity are all forms appropriate to the worship of God.

The last one is called the Vaira bhakti. In the Puraṇas it is said that when the sages Sanaka, Sanadana, Sanatkumāra and Sanatsujāta were prevented admission to the divine presence of Śrīman Nārāyaṇa, on the pretext that he was in union with Lakṣmī and therefore could not be seen by the devotees, the sages gave a sapa to the two Dwarapālakas called Jaya and Vijaya. Jaya and Vijaya approached Mahāviṣṇu and asked him for relief from the anger of the sages. Then Viṣṇu told them to have a choice between hundreds of lives as devotees on the earth before they could come back to serve him again in Vaikuṇṭha or to have three lives as his enemies before they can serve him in Vaikuṇṭha. Jaya and Vijaya chose the form of worship of the God as his enemies. They were born in the Kingdom of devils as Hiraṇyākṣa, Hiraṇyakaśipu.

Since God is everyone, all forms of relationships are appropriate to God. Among these the highest form is that of Ananya bhakti. As Yājñavalkya says:

“One acquires property, children, wife, etc. for the sake of oneself. Because all these things are being acquired for oneself, then one's own self is the thing that is most dear for anyone. That self being the same as God, it is God's love, or the love of God that is reflected and showing itself as the love of material enjoyments.”

It is obvious that the Ananya bhakti, the love of God as one's own self recognizes the truth of these Upaniṣadic statements.

Some people, especially those belonging to the Kaulācara modes of worship, read this name as 'Bhākta Priyā'. Bhākta Priyā means two things:

that She is loved by Her devotees

that She loves Her devotees.

One must realise that the ultimate expression of love is merger into an identity with other. It makes no difference which name is chosen.