Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS-35)

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Namaste.

Recall the Note about the organization of the ‘Digest’,

from DPDS – 26 or the earlier ones.

V. Krishnamurthy

A Digest of Paramacharya’s Discourses on Soundaryalahari -

35

(Digest of pp.935-942 of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume, 4th

imprn.)

 

I was saying that the same human energy that is wasted by

lust becomes the powerful nectar by yoga. Whereas the

former is understood by every one easily, the latter fact

is always questioned and debated. The difficulty in the

belief comes from the observation that even great yogis

that we hear about, ultimately, maybe after a few hundreds

of years, die. What is missed in the understanding here

is the fact that the nectar-flow that yoga talks about and

the nectar-drink that the divines are said to have partaken

are both different, totally different. That divine drink of

‘amRit’ has nothing to do with any spiritual uplift or the

progress of the soul.

 

The divine drink of nectar that emanated from the churning

of the milk ocean is just like one more medicine. It has no

power to take care of the resident of the body, the Atman.

It only takes care of the body and protects it from

becoming old and from decaying. Have you ever heard that

the devas like Indra and others who drank that amRit have

become Realised Souls? Their only goal has been endless

sensual enjoyment. At least for the human species, sensual

enjoyment tires one out after some time since the body

ages; so a human being has every chance of turning to

something more permanent, something spiritual. The devas on

the other hand have no way of learning by experience that

sensual enjoyment is not the end of it all.

 

If the nectar-flow at the apex of the Kundalini yoga could

only cause the non-decay of the body and nothing more, I am

sure real yogis would not have gone the path of the

kundalini yoga. After all they were after an eternal bliss,

not an eternal body. The flow of amRit from the thousand

petalled lotus seat in the sahasrAra-chakra is just a step

prior to the Realisation of advaita. In addition to that

it certainly can give to the body, so long as it lasts, an

enviable health. But it is mainly intended to shower the

divine unlimited bliss. A yogi devoted to the ShAkta

tradition may not discard the body and the universe as

mAyA, in the same way as a jnAni would do. He would only

look at everything as the leelA of ambaal. Therefore so

long as he wants it, he is given the power to watch this

leelA of ambaal. But in due course of time, maybe several

hundreds of years, it will strike him to want to merge with

that Ultimate. And at that time his body will also fall.

 

I told you of two kinds of serpent: the good one and the

bad one. The former is what gives the nectar. The latter

gives only poison. It is this latter one that is destroyed

by the peacock of Lord Subrahmanya and the Garuda-vehicle

of Lord Vishnu. When the former (the good one, the

nectar-showering serpent) is the form of Subrahmanya, we

say He is nAga-rAja, the King of snakes. It is the same one

that Lord Vishnu is having as his bed-rest. It is the same

one that Lord Nataraja is having around his raised foot.

And it is the same one who came as Patanjali and taught the

yoga-shAstra, where, even if the kundalini yoga is not

particularly mentioned, the kundalini that arises out of

that yoga is of the serpent form.

 

Besides the peacock and Garuda, there is one more enemy of

snakes. That is the ‘nakulam’ or mongoose. One of the names

of ambaal is ‘nakuleshvari’. It is actually the name of

‘MantriNI’ the chief Minister in the universal kingdom of

Queen Lalita-ambaal. The latter keeps only the portfolio of

gracing the devotees and delineates the other duties of

administration of the entire universe to MantrinI. The

sahasranama name ‘mantriNI-nyasta-rAjya-dhUH’ meaning, ‘She

who has delineated the responsibility of the burden of

administration to MantriNi’ arises from this fact.

‘ShyAmaLA’ and ‘Raja-mAtangI’ are other names of this

MantriNI. Meenakshi of Madurai is also the same. She is

the ‘nakuleshvarI’, who shakes up the sleeping

serpent-power in the mUlAdhAra Chakra and opens up the

treasury of the Atman to us. The ‘mUlAdhAra’ has another

name ‘kulam’. The kundalini sleeps in the ‘kula-kunDa’.

What wakes it up is the ‘nakuli’. This word arises from

‘nakulam’ which should be broken up as ‘na kulam’ to mean,

‘not kulam’, and therefore the opposite of ‘kulam’.

 

Of the three enemies of the serpent, Garuda is important;

because he is also the one who brought the amRit to the

serpents after fighting even the King of the divines,

Indra. That the serpents could not partake of the amRit, is

a different story. The fact that Garuda is the opposite of

the serpent and of its poison and has connections with the

story of the divine nectar is what is made capital of in

#20 of Soundaryalahari.

 

He who meditates on ambaal in Her moonstone form which

radiates rays of amRit, can conquer the poison of the

serpent like Garuda, the King of birds. Not only that; by

his very look, such a person eradicates, in anybody else,

the poison of an extreme fever. By meditating on the

Goddess as the One who pours amRit, his own body system

gets the amRta-nADI, perhaps from the sahasrAra-chakra and

so his glance, his sight, itself is enough of a cure for

the poison of the fever.

 

The eight vAg-devatAs are themselves of the moonstone

colour. Their seat is in the eight triangular portions of

the eight-sided AvaraNa in the ShrI-chakra. This AvaraNa is

itself called ‘sarva-roga-hara-chakram’, that is, the

chakra that eradicates all diseases. All of this is due to

the effect of mantras.

 

Though the crystal colour of the moonstone is what is

praised above as the colour of ambAL to be meditated upon,

the colour of the devatA of ShrI-vidyA mantra is red or

crimson. This colour of the Goddess has been praised, two

slokas earlier (#18) but since it talks of ‘vashIkaram’

(captivation into submissiveness) I did not want to mention

it. But still I want to tell you how the redness is

important.

To be Continued.

Thus spake the Paramacharya

PraNAms to all advaitins and devotees of Mother Goddess

profvk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.