With the grace of the Divine Mother, I hope to be able to give some meanings to the channels which are called the mantras. Really, mantras cannot be assigned any meanings, because they are channels of communication. What meaning can you give to channel number 4 of TV, or the frequency 101.7 MHz? Whatever information comes through them is the meaning, if you like to put it that way. What you can probably define is the nature of the information that comes through. For example, you know that if you switch on MTV, you are likely to get music and dance; on the Discovery Channel, you are likely to develop environmental concerns, and things like that. We can make broad categorizations, but not specifics.
There are two great mantras, one of which is called Om, and the other is also Om. Om is the combination of A-U-M.
If you reverse the sequence a little and put the A at the end, it becomes Umā. If you think of AUM as Śiva, Umā is Śakti. These are the two Oms. Are they different? Yes and no. It is just the way you look at it. The symbolism of Godhead is carried not only in the sound symbols but also in the visual symbols.
In the visual symbols, the triangle with its apex down is called a yoni, the Śakti from which the child comes. You take the same triangle and turn it upwards: it is Śiva.
You can think of it another way. Suppose you scan the triangle with a horizontal line from bottom to top. In a Śiva triangle (apex up), what you see is that the width of the intersected line is gradually diminishing and becoming zero. In a Śakti triangle, what you see is that it is starting at a point and growing into a line. So the growth of the awareness process is the Śakti, but both are the same: there is no real distinction between the two. Some are called Śiva-triangles and some Śakti-triangles.
We have already seen the channels called Hrīm and Śrīm.
Hrīm is the germinating power of the universe which creates the world and the differentiations in the world. It limits the totality in some ways so that you can extract a ray or a seed out of it. Hrīm you call māyā. It also means lajjā, or shyness. When you stare at a stranger, they will cover their body. It is trying to cover, protect, or limit. Limitation is called Hrīm.
Śrīm is the opposite of it: condensing it, collapsing the ray into the point. Unlimited expansion is called Śrīm. Hrīm is the power to create this cosmos. It contains three basic powers: Aim, Klīm, and Sauḥ.
Aim is the power that creates. So all that is related to the creativity and procreation process—whether it is proving an intellectual theorem, or the spontaneous notes in a rāga, or the lust that is the motive force behind the act of copulation—all these things are channeled through this frequency called Aim. Aim is called Sarasvatī. Sexual enjoyments, curiosity, the search for diversity, new ways of saying and doing and enjoying things are all blessings from Sarasvatī.
Klīm is the act of preservation: nourishment, sustenance, wealth, prosperity, happiness, enjoyment. These are the aiśvaryas, the wealth that is called Lakṣmī. Klīm is the nourishing aspect of the Mother which is in the heart-center. Milk coming from the two breasts of a female nourishes and protects the baby from disease. So Lakṣmī is worshipped in the breasts. The mother enjoys giving nourishment to her child when the child is sucking the breast.
Sauḥ is the sound of the hissing snake. That snake is supposed to be the Kuṇḍalinī-Śakti, the power of your enjoyment which, when transformed, eliminates your body awareness step by step and shoots you off into the cosmos. This is the kriyā-śakti. Its origin is in the Mūlādhāra chakra in males, and in the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra for females.
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