Devi Mahalakshmi Mata Mahima
The worship of Devi Bhagavati has a lot of significance in our life. Salutations and prostrations to the Devi Mother – She is the source, significance and ultimate goal of the entire creation.She is the foundation of knowledge in all respects.She is also the culmination and conclusion of all knowledge. She is the precursor to everything in the creative process. May Her grace be all upon us.Clad in the pure red and adorned with the divine weapons, she is the sacred feature and the fairiest of the fariest beings. Her complexion islinked to the colour of gold, resplendent in wonderful attire. She is the eternal cosmic virgin represented by gods and goddesses and all the demigods of Paramatma’s creation. This is to bring out the spiritual phenomenon that she is the mass of absolute ‘Suddha Tatwa’ as she is the cosmic emanation from ‘Mahakali’, ‘Mahalaxmi’ and ‘Mahasaraswati’, the trident Sakti forms ofthe absolute and the unmanifest of the Transdent Divine. If we delve in to this reality, we are ultimately transported to a state of pure transcendance. This is what the Devi Mahatmya describes to us. Devi is synonimous with Sakti, the Divine Power that manifests, sustains and transforms the universe as one unifying force of existence. By this, we may also mean all forms of power, the power of knowledge and the power of omnicience. Devi worship is thus the worship of God’s glory. It is the worship of God’s greatness and supremacy. If ‘Sakti’ is power, then all beings of the universe are the worshippers of ‘Sakti’. Who doesn’t want power in life ? Power, in the actual sense, is every thing in everybody’s life. What is ‘Sakti’ then, if it is so important in life ? Sakti is the divine energy that subsists as the primary element in the hub of every life in this universe. It is formless; yet it is present everywhere in the universe like the omnipresent Lord. As we feel God’s presence everywhere, we also feel in a similar way the presence of Sakti in every nook and corner of the Nature. So ‘Sakti’ is no different from the Absolute Divine. Since Sakti cannot be worshipped in its essential nature, it is symbolically worshipped as the power of creation, preservation and destruction in the forms ofMahasaraswati, Mahalaxmi and Mahakali during the nine days of Navaratri Puja in the month of Aswina. In short, these three divine forces constitute the unified Divinity of the universe as adored in three different ways. Saraswati is the cosmic intelligence. She is the cosmic consciousness and cosmic knowledge. We worship Saraswati for purity of intellect. We also worship Her for the power of enquiry and self illumination. Similarly Mahalaxmi is the symbol of prosperity. She is the divine emblem of glory and magnificence. She is the exaltation of munificence in myriad forms. In the words of Appaya Dikhitar, worship of Laxmi means the worship of the Divinity, the power that dissolves multiplicity in unity. Mahakali is the divine power of destruction. She is the dissolution incarnate. She does ‘Pralaya’ with a divine purpose of the cosmic creation. She is the annihilator of the evil and the bestower of the divine grace on the earth. Paramatma being the symbol of Sat, Chit and Anand, these three godesses in their different cosmic plays have a tenacious persistence to elevate the Jiva from the quagmire ofAvidya to the state of the divine bliss. Mahakali may appear to be cruel, hard-hearted, hurtful and harsh in her divine appearance. But she is not so in her divine dispensation. Her appearance is always for the divine good of the mankind.