Om Sri Durgayai Namah!
Om Namo Bhagavate Sivanandaya!
Om Namo Bhagavate Chidanandaya!
Om Namo Bhagavate Krishnanandaya!

Namaste!

Navaratri Message: Our Worship of the Threefold Justice of the Cosmos
by Sri Swami Krishnananda

Twice a year there is a religious custom in India to observe a unique festive worship for the great Mother of the universe, these two occasions of worship being called the Vasanta Navaratri and Sharada Navaratri festivals. The seasonal changes in spring and autumn are generally periods when our bodies cannot easily adjust and accommodate to the changes of nature, and so people often fall ill during this time. The great bestower of bounty and the benefactor of all, the protective power of creation, is invoked as a remedy and a panacea for the ills of life especially during these seasons. These two periods of the year also happen to be the occasion of harvesting throughout the country. In spring there is one kind of harvest, and in autumn there is another kind of harvest. It is a symbol of Dhanalakshmi, the divinity of prosperity, abundance, wealth and cattle, health and long life, and everything that we can consider as life’s magnificence. This is the natural and well-known reason behind the worship of the great divine power which is envisaged in religious devotion as something that is inseparably related to the protective forces that sustain all living beings.

It is very interesting to bestow some thought on the very careful analysis which the ancients have made in this regard when they prescribed this worship of the Mother of all things as the sustainer, the protector, the guardian and the caretaker of everyone. There is something very specific about divine protection as distinguished from the security that we expect in human society and are accustomed to in our day-to-day life. The type of security and protection that we expect in this world of human beings is based on the humanly conceived notion of what is good and necessary for the welfare of all people. But God cannot be equated with human notions of any kind, and the human notion of welfare and good need not necessarily be the same as God’s divine vision. Therefore, the insight of the ancient masters visualised the great power of divine protection as a threefold activity, designated in religious parlance as Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati.

It is very pertinent and appropriate when our worship is an inward attempt, from our deepest recesses, to be in communion with the ultimate truth of all things. Our vision of life, the human concept of well-being, need not necessarily be in harmony with the divine view of all things. Divine justice, though it be impeccable and utterly impartial, may not be appreciable to the whimsical notions of man in regard to his well-being and satisfaction. Our worship is, of course, a worship of that which is truly there as the ultimate fact of existence; therefore, the ultimate in us has to be roused into action, and not merely our sentiments and our social notions of welfare and security, because human beings have, very unfortunately, been shackled to the conditions of the human species, while the human species is only one species in the vast creation of God. We are told in our scriptures that there are perhaps eighty-four lakhs of species of living beings, out of which the human should be considered as one. But the human being regards himself as the only valuable species and the only worthwhile living creature on Earth, as if other living things do not exist at all and their welfare need not be taken into consideration. This is not the right vision of things.

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29th September to 7th October is the holy nine-day worship of the Divine Mother known as Navaratri.

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BOOK SYNOPSIS

God As Mother
by Sri Swami Chidananda

During the Navaratra Durga Puja at the Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, in 1953 (8th to 17th October), Revered Sri Swami Chidanandaji Maharaj delivered a series of most illuminating lectures on “God as Mother” which have been brought together in a book form.

These lectures contain in them an inspiring message to all sections and strata of mankind. That it has already gone through three editions before this, gives ample credence that it was well received by readers. Besides being out of print for quite some time, we felt it most fitting to bring out this fourth edition under the auspices of the Amrita Mahotsava of Pujya Sri Swami Chidanandaji Maharaj.

For more information, please see: God As Mother

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WITH A CANADIAN: A Canadian aspirant, Joe Gnilka, typified this attitude. He told the Master, in the course of a conversation on December 12, 1958, “This illusion is always a puzzle to me. I feel myself nowhere. If this, that and everything is an illusion, what guarantee is there that Brahman also might not be just an illusion? One thinks that Brahman is real, but it may be a mistake. It may be an illusion, too!”

The Master turned to him with a smile and said, “This means that there is some being who thinks that Brahman is an illusion. Who is this being? Who is this thinker, this doubter? You have to admit that this being exists. If you doubt, you exist, don’t you? You cannot deny your own existence. This existence, this consciousness is Being; this Itself is the eternal Reality, the ultimate Truth which the Upanishads call Atma or Brahman.”

“There is a guiding hand always; there is a leading angel sitting on our very shoulders. Every person is carrying within himself or herself a guiding power, a divinity. There is a divinity that is aware of what is happening. With millions of eyes it looks at us and sees us and notices what is happening to us.” – Swami Krishnananda

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