Devi – Part 1

Satsang by Swami Sivananda

Prayer to Mother
Salutations to the Divine Mother, who exists in all beings in the form of intelligence, mercy and beauty. Salutations, O Sweet Mother, the consort of Lord Shiva. O Mother Parvati! You are Lakshmi. You are Saraswati. You are Kali, Durga and Kundalini. You are the embodiment of all power. You are Para Shakti. You are in the form of all objects. You are the sole refuge of all. The whole universe is the play of Your three gunas. How can I praise you? Your glory and splendour are indescribable. Protect me. Guide me. O Loving Mother!

O Compassionate Mother! I bow to You. You are my saviour. You are my goal. You are my sole support. You are my guide and the remover of all afflictions, troubles and miseries. You are the embodiment of auspiciousness. You pervade the whole universe. The whole universe is filled with You. You are the storehouse of all qualities. Protect me. Again and again I salute You.

O Glorious Mother! Salutations to You. All women are Your parts. Mind, egoism, intellect, body, prana and senses are Your forms. You are Para Shakti and Apara Prakriti. You are electricity, magnetism, force, energy, power and will. All forms are Your forms only. Reveal to me the mystery of creation. Bestow on me the divine knowledge.

O Loving Mother! You are the primal energy. You have two aspects, the terrible and the peaceful. You are modesty, gentleness, shyness, generosity, courage, forbearance and patience. You are faith in the heart of devotees and generosity in noble people, chivalry in warriors and ferocity in tigers. Give me strength to control the mind and the senses. Make me worthy to dwell in You. Salutations unto You!

O Mother Supreme! When shall I have equal vision and a placid state of mind? When shall I be established in ahimsa, satya and bramacharya? When shall I have Your cosmic vision? When shall I attain deep abiding peace and perennial joy? When shall I enter into deep meditation and Samadhi?

O Radiant Mother! I have not done any spiritual sadhana or service, any charity, japa and meditation or worship. I have not studied religious scriptures. I have neither discrimination nor dispassion. I have neither purity nor a burning desire for liberation. You are my sole refuge. You are my only support. My silent adorations unto You. Remove the veil of ignorance.

O Gracious Mother! I bow to You. Where are You? Do not forsake me. I am Your child. Take me to the other shore of fearlessness and joy. When shall I behold Your lotus feet with my own eyes? You are the boundless ocean of mercy. When the philosopher’s stone turns iron into gold by contact, when the Ganga turns impure water into pure, can You not turn me, O Divinne Mother, into a pure soul? May my tongue repeat Your name always!

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Devi is the Supreme Shakti, or power of the Supreme Being. She is the creatrix of the universe. She is the Universal Mother. Durga, Kali, Bhagavati, Bhavani, Amba, Ambika, Jagadamba, Kameshvari, Ganga, Uma, Chandi, Chamunda, Lalita, Gauri, Kundalini, Tara, Rajeshvari, Tripura Sundari, etc. are all her forms. She is worshipped 
during Navaratri as Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati.

Devi or Shakti is the mother of all. The pious and the 
wicked, the rich and the poor, the saint and the sinner, are all her children. She is the mother of Nature. She is Nature itself. The whole world is her body. Mountains are her bones. Rivers are her veins. The ocean is her bladder. The sun and moon are her eyes. The wind is her breath. Agni is 
her mouth. She runs this world show.

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Shakti is symbolically female, but is, in reality, neither male nor female, being only a force which manifests itself in various forms. Mother is the creative aspect. She is symbolized as cosmic energy. Energy is the physical ultimate of all forms of matter and the sustaining force of the spirit. Energy and spirit are inseparable and essentially one. The five elements and their combinations are the external manifestations of the Mother. Intelligence, discrimination, psychic power and will are her internal manifestations. Humanity is her visible form.

She lies dormant in mooladhara chakra in the form of kundalini shakti. She is at the centre of the life of the universe. She is the primal force of life that underlies all existence. She vitalizes the body through sushumna nadi and the nerves. She nourishes the body with blood. She vitalizes the universe through her energy. She is the energy in the sun, the fragrance in flowers, the beauty in the landscape, the Gayatri or the Blessed Mother in the Vedas, colour in the rainbow, intelligence in the mind, potency in homeopathic pills, will and thinking power in sages, devotion in bhaktas, sanyam and samadhi in yogis. Wisdom, peace, lust, anger, greed, egoism and pride are all her forms. Her manifestations are countless.

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The Supreme Lord is represented as Shiva, and his power is represented as his wife - Shakti, Durga or Kali. Mother Durga is the energy aspect of Shiva. Without Durga, Shiva has no expression and without Shiva, Durga has no existence. Shiva is the soul of Durga. Durga is identical with Shiva. Shiva is only a silent witness. He is motionless,
impersonal, inactive. He is not affected by the cosmic play. Durga does everything. Shiva is omnipotent. He is pure consciousness. Shakti is dynamic. The power or active aspect of the immanent God is Shakti. Shakti is the embodiment of power. Shakti is the power that is latent in the pure consciousness.

Shakti is inherent in God. Just as you cannot separate 
heat from fire, so also you cannot separate Shakti from God. Shiva and Shakti are one. Shiva is always with Shakti. They are inseparable. Worship of Durga or Parvati or Kali is worship of Lord Shiva.

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From the dawn of civilization the symbol of eternal consciousness was conceived of as the Mother Divine. Worship of the Divine Mother was practised in the earliest times, when primitive man lived in a matriarchal society. Later, as civilization progressed, the matriarchal pattern gradually faded out and the father became the head of the family unit. He was treated as the one in authority to whom everyone looked for guidance and approval.

Consequently there was a change in the concept of the Divine; the supremacy of God, the Father, was established. But Mother worship persisted simultaneously, since this concept was more comprehensible, intimate, emotionally and domestically appealing than that of a vague, formless, ethereal ideal. Subsequently, a sympathetic harmony between the motherhood and fatherhood of God was developed; Sita and Rama, or Radha and Krishna, were worshipped together.

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O Adorable Mother! I bow to You. Without Your grace no one can have success in spiritual sadhana and salvation. O Compassionate Mother! You are an ocean of mercy.
Bless me. If I get a drop from that ocean will it dry up? O my sweet Mother! Guide me. Protect me. Save me. I am Your child.

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Devi does not belong to any religion, sect or cult. Devi is the conscious power of the Deva. Let this never be forgotten. The words Devi, Shakti etc. and the ideas of the different forms connected with these names are concessions given to the limitations of human knowledge and comprehension.

Sri Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, "This is only my lower nature Shakti; beyond this is my higher nature, the original Shakti, the life principle which sustains this entire universe." The Upanishad says, "The Para Shakti, the supreme power of God, is the nature of God manifesting as knowledge, strength and activity."

Truly speaking, all beings of the universe are Shakti worshippers, for there is no one who does not love and long for power in some form or other. Physicists and scientists have proved that everything is pure imperishable energy. This energy is only a form of the Divine Shakti which exists in every form of existence.