6) Udyadbhānusahasrābhā
Effulgent as thousand suns rising together.
Was this the vision of the sages who wrote this Sahasranāma, the first vision of the Goddess, each of Her thousand names itself shining like a Sun?
Was this the vision of the Big Bang, the breaking of the cosmic egg to bring forth a universe? Be what it may, after the first explosive lightening like the experience of God in meditation, the subsequent experiences of Godhead mellow down to a cool, effulgent light rather like a rising sun in consciousness. When a most beautiful woman makes Her first appearance, eyes are not capable of taking in all the beauty at once but see it as a glow of light, hazy at first, clearing up the outlines as time goes on to expose the myriad beauties. The divine beauty and grace of Lalitā grown on the devotee at various levels of consciousness. Īśāvāsyopaniṣad relates the story of a man on his deathbed singing a hymn to the Sun in meditation, "A golden lid (the rays and disc of the sun), meaning the illusion covers the face of truth; O Pushan, remove that lid so that I may see the true beauty hidden within there". In Sanskrit, it reads thus:
“Hiraṇmayena pātreṇa satyasyāpihitaṁ mukham,
tat tvaṁ pūṣannapāvṛṇu satyadharmāya dṛṣṭaye.”
It is strange that the man on his death bed is not worrying about his insurance, nor his wife and children, nor what is going to happen to his near and dear, but wants to know the truth behind the sun meditation! The man that the Upaniṣad is talking about is no ordinary man, but one who has seen God in himself; so death holds no fear for him! The truth behind the solar effulgence of meditation is unfolded in the following names.
7) Caturbāhusamanvitā
Endowed with four arms.
Out of the strange glow, four hands stick out as the first discernible feature. There are not two hands as is to be expected for an ordinary female, but four, indicating a transcendental being to be interpreted with care. The number of hands seems to be a variable feature of Indian gods and goddesses. Four, six, eight, eighteen, all even numbers seem to be permitted. Here, four has a deep meaning, referring to the three dimensions of space and one of time in which the divine awareness chooses to express itself. Space is Viṣṇu; and Time is Kalā or Śiva. Space has three dimensions and time has one dimension which has the additional property of flow. The flow of space-time is seen as four rays, the four hands of Lalitā. How consciousness manifests in space-time as four weapons in the four hands follow.
8) Rāgasvarūpapāśāḍhyā
Holding the noose whose nature is desire.
In the first hand, upper left, She holds the noose, an instrument for binding. The nature of this transcendental noose is not thread, as is common, but attachment! Lalitā wishes to create an ego structure out of consciousness, so She binds a part of the consciousness by a very subtle thread called attachment, or desire. Desire is the immortal thread She uses to bind pure awareness which can in no other way be bound. The first structure, the deepest and closest to the divine, almost a hand of the divine, is desire. Out of desire ego is born, which then separates the cosmos from the ego itself. The egotistic view, the man-centered view is that ego and cosmos are co-creations. Also, they are coterminous. But the cosmic (ego) centered view is that the individual ego is a substructure that forms like drops on waves in an ocean in the cosmos. The hands are the space-time complex.
They are the powers of Viṣṇu and Śiva. In sandhyāvandanam, a canonically sacred text which all brahmins are supposed to recite is the fundamental statement of the exchangeability of Śiva and Viṣṇu. It is said: Śiva is the heart of Viṣṇu and Viṣṇu is the heart of Śiva. In their exchange lies this world. In the transformation of time into space and of space into time through velocity is this world created. This exchange is the basis of all interactions. The interactions are basically of two kinds, attractive and repulsive. The attractive interactions are the basis of desire, in a generalized form. This is the noose. The repulsive interactions?
9) Krodhākārāṅkuśojjvalā
Shining with the goad whose nature is anger.
Repulsive, separative, explosive, “anger” is the weapon She wields in the second hand, the upper right one. Desire leads to love which tends to merge things, anger, being frustrated desire, turns back to become a diversifying force. Light is associated with the repulsive interactions. Light, even invisible light beyond the spectral range of vision, is pure energy, being “unbottled matter”. It travels away from the origin, measures the space; this is why Lalitā is effulgent with anger. The word ujjvala means effulgence.
The divine has four hands; in two of these hands She wields attractive interactions to create matter and repulsive interactions to create light to see the matter. Light is the means for contact at a distance. The cosmic stage is set; the individual life, who can see this cosmos is the job for Her other two hands, an equally important task; for without the individual who is there to see, desire or hate?
The connection between anger and light is very deep indeed. It has been expressed in many ways in Indian religious thought. Ṛgveda says, “Aghnimīle purohitam.” I worship fire (synonym for anger and light) as the source of revelations. In Durgā Saptaśatī, it is all anger, anger, anger, which Devi exhibits against divisive, destructive demonic forces; there She is shining as a thousand suns, as a burning mountain. It is well recognized among those who have tried it that offering sacrifices into the fire with saptaśatī recitation does indeed have two effects:
The first is a cathartic influence on the psyche turning it away from violence towards universal love and harmony;
The second is the direct communications of revelatory experiences from Godhead as a torrent of the flow of visions, thoughts, etc.
Lastly, there are innumerable instances describing the arousal of the serpent power, the Great Kuṇḍalinī as a veritable mountain of an angry torrent trying to take yourself out of yourself.
Also; it is concentration on this weapon, the least attractive of all of Lalitā's weapons, that gives liberation, the highest purpose of life.
Sādhana
The mind is like a pendulum; it tries to move in a direction opposite to that in which it is pulled, this is called its Vikṣepaśakti. It is possible to use this fact to clear the mind of anger by simulating anger within oneself. Expression of anger outside hurts the very individual who is angry; suppression of anger when it is due recoils later on at unexpected and most likely unwanted times; the best way is to express the anger in meditation by directing it against one's own internal enemies. Recitation of Caṇḍī Saptaśatī is in fact such a process; there the Devi, with all powers of all good forces combined into a monumental fury, very easily disposes of the demons. As one reads the text one cannot help identifying oneself with Devi. And that is the purpose of the recitation.
10) Manorūpekṣukodaṇḍā
Holding the sugarcane bow whose nature is the mind.
In Her lower left hand, Lalitā holds a bow made of sugar cane, whose nature is that of the mind. The symbolism of God's images is like a precise geometrical pattern, every detail having a purpose and trying to convey a precise idea. A sugar cane stick to represent the mind! What an analogy, and what can be the meaning of this? Moreover, the string that is used to tie the bow is made by a row of honey bees! The honey bees scatter away, meaning the difficulty of aligning thoughts into a concerted action. This is easy enough. What about the sugar cane?
A sugarcane stick has several hard lumps along its length; it branches out at the end into about ten branches in number. It symbolizes the medulla oblongata branching out into the various areas of the brain connected with the sensory and motor organs.
The junction of the lower part of sugarcane with the branches represents the coupling of the mind in succession to the motor and sensory perceptors.
The sensory organs are the ear, skin, eyes, tongue, and nose.
The motor organs, the mouth, hands, feet, excretory and reproductive organs.
These are the ten branches of the mind which is a bundle of nerves going right down the spinal column. The hardened lumps along the length are the places from which nerve bundles branch out to the entire body.
Having defined what the sensory organs are, it remains to define what these are capable of contracting in the cosmos outside. The motor organs are directed from within by the mind itself. For example, no external contacts are necessary for the mind to tell the mouth to make noises, hands to grasp, feet to move from one place to another, excretory organs to eliminate wastes, and the reproductive organs to enjoy and create. But the sensory organs function through channels that are in the cosmos; outside the physical system which is the body but are within the conscious system which created the cosmos.
No comments:
Post a Comment