The Message of Chandi !!!

[Guest guest]

Dear Members,

 

Following is the Inner Meaning of Devi Mahatmya explained by Shri

Devadatta Kali. It really worth to go thro' the complete article.

very good one.

 

http://www.vedanta.org/reading/monthly/articles/2003/2.message_of_cha

ndi.html

 

Spiritually Yours,

 

Utpal

 

THE MESSAGE OF THE CHANDI

By Devadatta Kali

 

This month's reading is from a lecture given at the Vedanta temple

in Hollywood, on November 10th 2002. Devadatta Kali has been closely

associated with the Vedanta Society since 1966. A regular

contributor to Vedanta journals throughout the world, the author's

book Chandi, In Praise of the Goddess: The Devimahatmya and Its

Meaning, is due to be published by Nicholas-Hays in December, 2003.

 

 

 

In The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, M[ahendranath Gupta] records a

Sunday afternoon with some visitors to Dakshineswar in the winter of

1883. One of the visitors was well versed in the shastras [the

sacred Hindu scriptures], and the conversation caused M. to fall

into a pensive mood. Having some knowledge of Vedanta, he later

asked Sri Ramakrishna, " Is the world unreal? "

 

" Why should it be unreal? " Sri Ramakrishna responded. " What you are

asking is a matter for philosophical discussion. " Later that evening

Ramakrishna returned to M.'s question and asked him again, " Why

should the universe be unreal? " He continued, " The Divine Mother

revealed to me in the Kali temple that it was She who had become

everything. She showed me that everything was full of Consciousness.

The image …, the altar …, the water-vessels …, the door-sill …, the

marble floor …—all was Consciousness.

 

" I found everything inside the room soaked, as it were, in Bliss—the

Bliss of Satchidananda. I saw a wicked man in front of the Kali

temple, but in him I also saw the Power of the Divine Mother

vibrating. " That is why I fed a cat with the food that was to be

offered to the Divine Mother. I clearly perceived that the Divine

Mother Herself had become everything (M., 345-346). "

 

On many other occasions, M. recorded similar teachings, and on one

point Sri Ramakrishna was particularly emphatic. " … Brahman and

Shakti are identical. If you accept one, you must accept the other.

… You cannot conceive of the sun's rays without the sun, nor can you

conceive of the sun without its rays. … One cannot think of the

Absolute without the Relative, or of the Relative without the

Absolute (M., 134). "

 

Another time Sri Ramakrishna said: " That which is Brahman is also

Kali, the Mother, the Primal Energy. When inactive It is called

Brahman. Again, when creating, preserving and destroying, It is

called Shakti. Still water is an illustration of Brahman. The same

water, moving in waves, may be compared to Shakti, Kali (M., 634-

635). " " Water is water, whether it moves or is still (M., 835). "

 

These are consistent teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, spoken from his

own experience, but they are not the teachings of Sankara's Vedanta.

Without question, Ramakrishna was well versed in Vedantic teaching.

We know that toward the end of 1865, he took initiation from an

austere monk named Tota Puri, practiced the disciplines of Sankara's

Advaita Vedanta and in a short while attained nirvikalpa samadhi,

the realization of nondual consciousness. But four years earlier

Ramakrishna had undergone an intensive course of Tantric sadhana,

taught to him by an itinerant holy woman known as the Bhairavi. She

was a Shakta, a worshiper of the Divine Mother.

 

Nor was this Sri Ramakrishna's first exposure to Shakta teachings.

Earlier still, at the age of 19, when the young Ramakrishna agreed

to be employed as a priest at the Dakshineswar Kali temple, he was

trained by his older brother Ramkumar in the Mother's worship and in

the recitation of the Chandi, the great scripture on the Divine

Mother (Saradananda, 133-134).

 

The Chandi declares that the Mother is the supreme reality and that

she herself has become this universe. We do not know who composed

the Chandi, only that its author or authors created the most widely

known and most sacred of all Shakta texts about sixteen hundred

years ago. Some of the traditions preserved in the Chandi are

inconceivably older. We know from the evidence of archeology that

some of the Chandi's ideas on the Motherhood of God go back six

thousand years or more. Votive statues that survive from neolithic

India and Pakistan portray a goddess in two different aspects:

either as a nurturing mother with hand held to breast, or as a

hooded, deathlike figure.

 

This dual distinction of the Divine Mother in auspicious and

terrible forms is an enduring feature throughout the history of

Indian religion and survives to this very day. Throughout the ages

the tribal cultures and high civilizations that rose and fell on

Indian soil left their mark on the 13 chapters of the Chandi.

Prominent among the many and diverse influences is the Devisukta, a

hymn of eight verses found in the most ancient Hindu sacred text,

the Rig Veda.

 

The Devisukta (RV 10.125) declares that the Goddess is the power

expressed through all the gods, that they are united in her who

shines with consciousness, that her presence is all-pervading, that

she supports all of creation, that she is the source of

righteousness and the revealer of truth, that she is the source of

all worlds, yet that she shines transcendent beyond them. Among

Shaktas this Vedic hymn is held in high esteem and is considered to

be the source from which the entire Chandi sprang. Later, the Chandi

itself was elaborated upon in the Puranas and Tantras. Still later

its imagery inspired the Bengali mystics, Ramprasad and Kamalakanta,

whose devotional songs so often evoked ecstatic moods in Sri

Ramakrishna.

 

The Chandi goes by two other names. The most common and widely

recognized is Devimahatmya [The Glory of the Goddess]. The other is

Sri Durga Saptashati [seven Hundred Verses to Sri Durga]. In reality

the Chandi contains fewer than 700 verses, and the number 700 is

arrived at only through creative means, such as counting a half

verse as full or a full verse as three. There must be a good reason

for this, and indeed there is.

 

The author or authors of the Chandi were Shaktas, devotees of the

Mother, and they wanted their work to be recognized as comparable to

the Vaishnavas' great scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, which consists

of 700 verses. They wanted to show that their view of God as Mother

was as valid as the Vaishnava view of Krishna as the supreme God. Of

course, both texts represent ancient traditions, and even the oldest

Hindu scripture, the Rig Veda, proclaims: ekam sat vipra bahuda

vadanti— " Truth is One, the wise call it by various names. " Many

centuries later, Sri Ramakrishna taught the same when he

said: " Krishna is none other than Satchidananda, the Indivisible

Brahman. … That which is Brahman is also Kali. … He who is Krishna

is the same as Kali (M., 1012). "

 

In drawing comparison to the Bhagavad Gita, the authors of the

Chandi wanted specifically to emphasize the Divine Mother's role,

like Krishna's, in upholding the moral order of the universe and in

leading humankind to liberation through the highest knowledge of the

Self. The Chandi and the Gita have much else in common. Each is an

independent text embedded in a larger work. The Gita belongs to the

Mahabharata; the Chandi is an interpolation in the Markandeya

Purana. Each is a synthesis of spiritual and philosophical knowledge

drawn from diverse sources. Each begins with the story of one or

more human beings in crisis, who will learn from a teacher in human

form the way beyond all suffering. And each involves the battlefield

as a metaphor for the field of human consciousness.

 

The Bhagavad Gita begins on the battlefield, with Arjuna surveying

the armies of his kinsmen on both sides, arrayed for battle. Plunged

into despair at the thought of killing his friends and relatives, he

turns to his charioteer, Krishna, who is none other than God in

human form. Krishna then delivers one of the world's great spiritual

messages. The Chandi begins with King Suratha, likewise plunged into

an existential crisis after losing his kingdom in battle.

 

A wise and just ruler, Suratha discovers that even his trusted

ministers have turned against him, and on the pretext of going

hunting, he mounts his horse and flees for his life. After riding

for some time into a dense forest, he comes to the ashram of a holy

man named Medhas. This forest retreat is a place of great calm and

natural beauty, where even the ordinarily ferocious tiger abides

peacefully with the gentle deer. Yet Suratha knows no peace. His

mind churns in agony at the thought of everything he has lost: his

kingdom with its riches and privilege, the loyalty of his subjects,

the glory of power. These thoughts torment him ceaselessly.

 

One day another visitor arrives. His name is Samadhi, and he is

every bit as despondent as the king. Once a prosperous merchant, he

has been cast out by his wife and sons, who seized his wealth out of

greed. He is deeply hurt by their betrayal and cannot understand it,

being himself a man of good character. Most of all, he cannot

understand why he still feels love for those who caused his deep

humiliation and pain. And so, the king and the merchant approach

Medhas the seer and ask why they are so miserable. Surely, as men of

knowledge they ought to know better, but they are deeply perplexed.

 

" You say you are men of knowledge, " Medhas remarks. " Do you know

what knowledge is? " He explains that what the king means by

knowledge is only the experience of the objective world. Through the

senses, men, birds and beasts alike share such a knowledge, each

species according to its own capacity. Such knowledge is relative.

In every way, the knowledge gained through the senses is conditioned

by time and space, and we are constantly deceived. Medhas explains

further that animals act out of instinct; but humans have the added

capacity to reason and make choices, although such choices are most

often driven by self-interest and the expectation of results.

 

If even our simple sense perceptions are so misleading, how much

more confounded are we by the added factors of reason, will, memory,

emotion and expectation? The operative principle here is that

nothing in this world is as it seems to be. Not only are the king

and the merchant perplexed, Medhas explains, everyone is, because

even the wise are thrown into the whirlpool of delusion by the

blessed goddess Mahamaya. " Who is this Mahamaya? " the king

asks. " Whatever there is to know about her, all that I wish to

learn. "

 

And so we arrive at the heart of the Chandi. The story of the king,

the merchant and the seer acts as a frame that encloses three

additional stories which Medhas relates to instruct his two

disciples. Each story is a mythical account of the Divine Mother's

fierce, bloody battles with demons. Now, we must not dismiss a myth

as a piece of fiction merely because it does not describe a

historical event or the world as we know it. Instead, a myth takes

us beyond the realm of fact and into the realm of meaning. Through

symbols, it plumbs our deeper levels of understanding and brings to

light elusive truths that are difficult to convey by ordinary means.

 

The Platonic philosopher Synesius of Cyrene summed it up in a single

sentence: " Myths are things that never happened, but always are

(Greer, 45). " The Chandi is an allegory. Its battlegrounds represent

our own human consciousness, and its events symbolize our own

experiences. The demons represent all the evils in the world and all

that is wrong within our minds and hearts. The Divine Mother is our

own true being, and her clashes with the demons symbolize the

outward and inward struggles we face daily.

 

Because there are three myths, the Chandi naturally falls into three

parts, and they can be related to the three gunas, the basic

universal energies or qualities of sattva, rajas and tamas. The

first part tells about the Divine Mother in her dark, deluding

aspect that ensnares humankind in the bonds of ignorance and

attachment. It teaches us about the nature of reality and asks us to

question: what are divinity, the universe and humankind?

 

The second part presents the Mother as the fiery and active power

that vanquishes evil and upholds the moral order of the universe. It

teaches us how to live in this world, where we are torn between good

and evil, right and wrong, enjoyment and suffering.

 

The third part reveals the luminous, benevolent form through which

the Mother grants enlightenment and liberation. It shows us how to

transcend the world through the higher knowledge of the spirit. Side

by side with grisly narratives of bloodshed and slaughter, the

Chandi integrates four hymns that are rich in philosophical and

theological content. Of surpassing beauty, these hymns are sublime

outpourings of devotion. The variety of material in the Chandi is a

convenient reminder that overall this text can be approached in more

than one way. Its stories can be taken as allegories relating to our

own behavior and circumstances. Its hymns inspire us to devotion for

the personal forms of God as Mother; and its deeper, philosophical

and esoteric interpretation leads us to the realization of God as

the impersonal supreme reality.

 

Medhas's first myth is short and to the point. During a period of

cosmic dissolution, Vishnu lies sleeping on the thousand-headed

serpent Shesha, who drifts on the waters of the undifferentiated

ocean. Sitting on a lotus that grows from Vishnu's navel, Brahma,

the Lord of Creation, surveys the four directions. Suddenly two

demons, named Madhu and Kaitabha, spring forth from the wax in

Vishnu's ears and attempt to kill Brahma. Frantically he tries to

awaken Vishnu, but the god is held in the power of Mahamaya, who is

settled over his eyes as his blessed sleep.

 

And so Brahma praises Mahamaya with a hymn. She allows Vishnu to

awaken, and he battles with the demons for 5000 years, but without

victory. At this point Mahamaya intervenes again. She confounds

Madhu and Kaitabha with delusions of their own might and grandeur.

Look at us, the demons think. Not even Vishnu, the Supreme Lord, can

conquer us. Because he has fought so well, let us offer him a boon.

These big, lumbering demons are comical in their stupidity, and at

this point we can almost hear them gasp, " Oops! Did we make a

mistake? "

 

Of course they did, because Vishnu replies, " There is only one boon

to ask: that I destroy the two of you here and now. " In a last-ditch

effort to save themselves, Madhu and Kaitabha look around and see

only the endless cosmic ocean. " Very well, " they say, " but on one

condition: slay us where water does not cover the earth. " The

outcome of this story hinges on a pun, because the Sanskrit words

for " earth " and " thigh " are almost the same. And so, Vishnu lifts

the two demons to his thighs and cuts off their heads. It is said

that a pun is the lowest form of humor, and this is fitting, because

Madhu and Kaitabha represent the lowest form of human awareness,

densely shrouded in ignorance. Their unprovoked attack on Brahma

reminds us of the senseless violence in our own world, where members

of one religious or political or ethnic group attack people of other

groups only because they are different.

 

Madhu and Kaitabha, in their near-bestial state, recognize no higher

reality; they are violent, ugly creatures intent on gratifying their

base instincts, often expressed through the thrill of intimidation

or brute force. In their physical strength they grow exceedingly

vainglorious. But of course pride goes before a fall, and their own

arrogance becomes their undoing. Through the hymn that Brahma

addresses to Mahamaya, the universal deluder, we learn much about

the universe we inhabit. This hymn, the Brahmastuti, is composed in

highly symbolic language that is often difficult to interpret, but

it reveals profound insight into the nature of the cosmos. Although

the ideas are expressed in devotional terms, the concepts are

scientific even by today's standards.

 

The Brahmastuti tells us that creation is a process of manifestation

that flows from the One to the many. The Divine Mother is the

infinite, nondual consciousness as well as its dynamic creative

power; and she is ever present throughout all of creation. Before

manifestation, she is the bindu, the dimensionless, nonlocalized

point of concentrated shakti that contains within itself all

possibilities. This sounds very much like the Big Bang theory and

especially like a recent refinement of it, known as the Cosmic

Inflation theory. This proposes that the entire universe popped out

of a dimensionless, contentless point and immediately expanded to

cosmic size in a miraculous way, suggesting the agency of a higher

power.

 

Let us not forget that the Sanskrit word for " power " is shakti.

According to Brahma's hymn, the Divine Mother gives birth to the

universe, supports it and draws it back into herself in an ever-

repeating cycle, because creation is without an absolute beginning

or an absolute end. In this process, she who is nondual

consciousness veils her radiant boundlessness with the limitations

of time and space, name and form, cause and effect. Through these

limitations she projects the finite world of our experience—a world

that is both dark and dazzling, terrifying and enchanting.

 

The Divine Mother is the all-encompassing source of good and evil

alike, who expresses herself in every form. Yet beyond this apparent

multiplicity, everything—be it spirit, mind or matter—is ultimately

one. Philosophically, the Chandi agrees with Sri Ramakrishna's

answer to M.'s question, " Is the world unreal? " But when Ramakrishna

first replied that it was a matter for philosophical discussion, he

recognized that among themselves Hindus hold more than a single

opinion. A follower of Sankara's Advaita Vedanta would answer, " The

world seems real as long as we experience it, but once we attain

knowledge of Brahman, the phenomenal world vanishes. We think we see

a snake in the semi-darkness, but when the light reveals it to be a

rope, the perception of the snake vanishes. "

 

According to the Vedantin, the world is no more real than the

misperceived snake. This position is called vivartavada, the

doctrine of appearance, because the phenomenal world is thought to

be a mere appearance superimposed upon the transcendental unity of

Brahman. The Shakta philosophy takes a different position. When

thread is woven into cloth, it undergoes a change of form but not of

substance. In becoming cloth, thread takes on the additional

qualities of cloth, but in substance it is still thread. In the same

way, the Divine Mother, who is pure energy and consciousness,

assumes all the names and forms and characteristics of the creation,

even while remaining the pure energy and consciousness that is her

true nature. This view is called parinamavada, the doctrine of

transformation.

 

We find it in the Chandi, where Medhas says of the Divine

Mother: " She is eternal, having the world as her form (DM 1.64). "

And also in Sri Ramakrishna's reply to M.: " The Divine Mother

revealed to me in the Kali temple that it was She who had become

everything (M., 345). " There is one more point: whichever way we

choose to view the world, we still have to live in it. And that is

what the second part of the Chandi is all about.

 

Medhas's second story is intended especially for the king. Suratha,

like Arjuna in the Gita, belongs to the ruling and warrior caste,

whose duty is to uphold the moral order of the world. In the story

that Medhas relates, an ill-tempered buffalo demon, named

Mahishasura, wages war against heaven, casts out the gods, and

usurps Indra's throne. When the dispossessed gods seek Vishnu's and

Shiva's help, the Divine Mother herself comes to the rescue.

 

First from Vishnu's brow, then from the bodies of all the other

gods, a great radiance shines forth and coalesces into the beautiful

form of Durga. The gods bow to her, recognizing that their own

individual powers are only aspects of her supreme power. After Durga

has slain Mahishasura's forces, she stands on the blood-soaked

battleground facing the buffalo demon himself. Mahishasura,

bellowing in confrontation, represents willfulness and monumental

rage. Under his frenzied wheeling, the trampled earth breaks apart,

his blasting breath tosses mountains into the air, his lashing tail

causes the oceans to overflow, and overhead his mighty horns tear

the gently floating clouds to shreds.

 

Consider the symbolism: the power of human anger and greed threatens

to destroy everything it touches: the goodness of the nurturing

earth, the stability of the mountains, the expansive beauty of the

oceans, the innocence of the gentle clouds. Under Durga's attacks

Mahisha changes form—from buffalo to lion to man to elephant, every

time eluding her deathblows. But she resolves to slay him, and when

Mahisha returns to his mighty buffalo form, she pins him beneath her

foot and thrusts her spear into his side. Instantly Mahisha reveals

his true demon form, and Durga beheads him with her great sword.

 

Like Mahisha, we go through life dissatisfied, often agitated,

sometimes full of rage; and the causes of our misery change over

time. One day it's this, the next day it's something else, and so it

goes. Until we can pin down the root cause, our discontent cannot be

overcome, and like Mahishasura that cause is loath to reveal itself.

Mahisha represents more than monumental rage. His anger is one of

six passions that afflict our human awareness. The others are lust,

greed, pride, jealousy and delusion. Let's analyze them. Lust, or

desire in general, is a longing for gratification. We want

something. Why? Because we feel something is lacking. We feel

deficient, limited or separated in some way. When we fail to satisfy

a desire, a common response is anger. Or when a desire is satisfied,

a common response is greed: we want more. And so we're caught in an

ongoing cycle. To make matters worse, we can add pride and jealousy

to the mix.

 

Let's define pride as a false sense of superiority designed to

convince us we're not deficient after all, but in fact better than

anyone else. And so we think—until someone else comes along whom we

see as richer, more powerful, more attractive or happier than we

are. Then we fall prey to jealousy—an apprehensive resentment of

someone else's better condition in life. All this adds up to

delusion: we are caught up in a misreading of who and what we really

are. The Sanskrit word for delusion, moha, comes from a root

meaning " to lose consciousness, " and herein lies the key to

understanding.

 

The Divine Mother is infinite consciousness. When she projects

herself as the universe of name and form, that consciousness appears

divided among all beings. This apparent fragmentation creates the

sense of individuality. Each individual self experiences its

existence in terms of " I, me and mine, " as well as " not-I, not-me

and not-mine. " And so the trouble begins. The root cause of our

inner existential discontent and our outward conflicts is the

feeling deep down inside that we are limited, separated and

incomplete. We mistakenly identify with the limited ego, when in

fact we are the limitless atman. That atman, abiding in every

person, is the true Self—the one, undivided reality whose essence is

pure being-consciousness-bliss.

 

Just as Mahishasura is about to be beheaded by Durga's sword of

knowledge, his glance meets hers, and he gets a fleeting glimpse of

that truth—that his true identity lies dispassionate and blissful

beyond the raging whirlpool of his passions. After he is slain, the

gods celebrate Durga's triumph over Mahishasura in the longest and

most eloquent of the Chandi's four hymns. Known as the Shakradistuti

[Praise by Indra and the host of gods], it invites us to reflect on

the themes of good and evil, fate and free will, karma and divine

grace.

 

The hymn praises Durga as " good fortune in the dwellings of the

virtuous and misfortune in the abodes of the wicked (DM 4.5). " On

the surface, this verse implies reward and punishment by a personal

deity. The deeper, philosophical meaning points to an impersonal

balancing principle at work in the universe, the law of karma.

Either way the message is the same: our deeds have consequences. A

central theme of the hymn is the question of good and evil. A

working definition might go like this: good is that which takes us

toward the Divine—toward harmony, love and unity; evil is that which

distances us from the Divine and creates hatred, injury and disunity

in our lives.

 

Additionally, referring to the fierce battle that has just taken

place, the hymn asks how Mahisha, even though enraged, could be

moved to strike the Mother's gently smiling face. From this we can

add another dimension to our definition of evil: that it is

intentionally profaning. In the world around us we witness continual

assaults on all we hold sacred. War, terrorism, genocide, the

corruption of the innocent, the logging of irreplaceable forests,

and the remorseless pollution of the air, water and earth that

support our very existence—what evil moves humans to commit such

terrible acts?

 

Whether we are talking about destructive actions, hate-filled

speech, malevolent thoughts or even uncaring passivity, let these be

a sobering reminder that our collective and individual evil is the

human face of Mahishasura's rage. Yet the hymn proclaims that even

toward evildoers the Mother's intentions are most gracious. Her

nature is to subdue the misconduct of the wicked. Through her

inconceivable grace, even wrongdoers who have committed enough evil

to keep them long in torment are purified in battle by the touch of

her weapons and are brought to beatitude.

 

We are reminded once again of the Bhagavadgita. Sri Krishna declares

that whenever righteousness declines and evil spreads, he is born

into the world to protect the good, to destroy wickedness, and to re-

establish virtue (BG 4.6-8). On the theme of unconditional grace, he

says: " I am alike to all beings; to me none are hateful or dear. …

If even an evil-doer worships me with utter devotion, he should be

regarded as good, for he is rightly resolved. Quickly he becomes

righteous and attains eternal peace (BG 9.29-31). "

 

The story of Madhu and Kaitabha was concerned with the power of

tamas: how in our ordinary state of being, we all walk around dazed

and confused. In the story of Durga and Mahishasura, the power of

rajas predominates. Mahishasura's rajasic energy controls him and

impels him to destructive acts, but Durga controls her own fiery

splendor. Her rajas is protective of her devotees and intent on

destroying evil. Through this story Medhas teaches that through

active struggle, we can overcome enslavement to our passions and

live virtuously, in harmony with the world.

 

According to Hindu teaching, life has four legitimate aims. These

are dharma, artha, kama and moksha—virtuous conduct, material

comfort, enjoyment and liberation. The first three form a category

called bhukti, concerned with life in the world. Bhukti is the

king's immediate concern. Having fled to the forest after his

defeat, he has failed to fulfill his moral responsibility, and he

still feels attraction for the privileges of kingship. In other

words, he has unfinished business in the world.

 

How different is the merchant Samadhi. World-weary and ready to

renounce the pursuits of dharma, artha and kama, he is ready for

moksha, spiritual liberation. For his sake, Medhas tells his third

and final story, one that points toward realizing our inner

perfection beyond the world. The story has a familiar beginning. Two

demons, named Shumbha and Nishumbha, have dispossessed the gods,

stripped them of their powers and appropriated their wealth and

privilege. This time the cast of characters is much larger, and the

demons seem more like us than the ones we've met previously.

 

The complex scenario passes through three phases as we move

progressively inward. The Mother's successive victories over a

colorful cast of demons symbolize our own efforts at purifying our

consciousness of every imperfection and misconceived notion. First

the myth turns the mirror on our behavior and motivations. Next we

are drawn in deeper to observe the mind and its workings, and

finally we face the fundamental question of who or what we are.

 

We first meet Shumbha sitting in his palace amid his glittering

hoard of stolen treasure. The sickening excess of it all reminds us

of our own materialism run amok. Soon the two fawning servants,

Chanda and Munda, enter with news that they've seen a young woman of

captivating beauty dwelling in the Himalayas. Playing upon Shumbha's

vanity, they suggest that he who is all-wealthy and all-powerful

surely must also possess this jewel among women. Little do they know

that she is the Devi, the Divine Mother herself, in her sattvic

aspect. In the same way, we are drawn to the world's enchantments

but forget that they are expressions of the Divine. Shumbha, his

lust aroused, wants to claim her as his own, just as we want to

possess all that we find attractive and desirable. And just like us,

if one way fails, Shumbha will try another, and another, with

growing frustration.

 

When his smooth-talking messenger, Sugriva, delivers a marriage

proposal, we recognize in him our own lack of complete truthfulness.

At first the Devi plays along with delicious irony, but after she

refuses the marriage proposal, Sugriva's honeyed words turn

threatening. If cajoling and deceit don't work, how about force?

Next, Shumbha sends a dim- witted thug named Dhumralochana to fetch

the Devi, kicking and screaming if need be. In other words, when we

set our mind to something, how it affects others is not necessarily

our concern.

 

When Dhumralochana's brute force fails, Shumbha loses all reason and

sends Chanda and Munda with a huge army to bring back " that vile

woman " in any way or in any condition whatever. Notice how in

Shumbha's agitated mind " the jewel among women " is now " that vile

woman. " What was once so desirable is now the cause of his misery,

and his desire now is only for the triumph of his own will. Don't we

also overreact irrationally when circumstances frustrate our

intentions? The struggle escalates, and the gently smiling Devi

Durga calls forth the terrifying, emaciated form of Kali and eight

other fierce goddesses to combat the demon hordes. Each one of these

shaktis is an aspect of her own immense power. Each represents a

higher function of our own consciousness.

 

When Chanda and Munda lie dead, a demon named Raktabija strides onto

the battlefield. He possesses a unique power. Whenever a drop of his

blood falls to earth, another demon of identical size and strength

springs up. In the fighting, demons proliferate from his spilled

blood, and utter terror seizes the gods, until Durga merely smiles

and tells Kali to roam the battlefield and lap up the drops of blood

as they fall. The demons arising from it soon perish between her

gnashing teeth; and Raktabija, drained of blood, falls dead.

 

This scene bridges two levels of reality. On one level the

glistening red drops of Raktabija's blood represent the overwhelming

power of desire. Like a seed, every desire that falls on the fertile

soil of our mind grows to maturity and bursts with seeds for the

next planting. Every desire produces the seeds of many more, and we

find we are never satisfied. The ghastly image of Kali, in her red-

eyed, emaciated form known as Chamunda, avidly licking up the drops

of blood, tells us that desires are best conquered when nipped in

the bud.

 

Another interpretation of the Raktabija episode takes us deeper into

the mind. Patanjali, whose Yoga Sutra systematized the science of

meditation more than two thousand years ago, wrote, " Yoga is the

control of the thought-waves in the mind. " Anyone who has ever sat

to meditate knows how difficult this is. No matter how hard we try

to concentrate, the mind wanders from here to there. One thought

gives rise to another. Raktabija symbolizes this normal, unruly

state of human consciousness, where mental energy is scattered and

unfocused. Chamunda Kali is the power of concentrated awareness that

subdues the thought-waves and takes us to a calmer, purer state of

consciousness.

 

Finally, only two demons remain, the brothers Shumbha and Nishumbha.

They are almost inseparable, and the Chandi calls Nishumbha the

younger brother who is dearer to Shumbha than life itself. Shumbha

represents the ego, and Nishumbha is the sense of attachment, the

tag-along sibling that accompanies him everywhere. Earlier we spoke

about the ego as a sense of separate selfhood. What we call ego is a

limiting function of consciousness that in Sanskrit is called

ahamkara, literally the " I- maker. " It is both a process of

consciousness and the product of that process. Along with the sense

of its own individuality, this I-making principle has the power of

self- appropriation that claims things as its own.

 

Here is where Nishumbha comes in. The attachment he represents is

called mamatva, literally, " my-ness. " In a sense it is the glue that

holds our identity together. We consciously attach our sense of self

to things that are not the Self. We identify with our bodily

characteristics, such as sex, size, shape, color. We define

ourselves by our likes and dislikes, by the people in our lives and

our relationships to them, by our professions, leisure activities,

religious or political affiliations and countless other factors that

combine in ways to make each one of us unique. We use our life's

experiences—what we do and what happens to us—to shape and reshape

our identity. And so, our sense of self is constantly shifting.

 

Sri Ramakrishna noted how a fine new garment or a new pair of boots

can change an ordinary man into a swaggering fool, or how money can

make a humble man arrogant (M., 169). Is our sense of self so

fragile that a slight change of circumstance can cause us to

reformulate ourselves? Every factor we identify with is known in

Sanskrit as an upadhi, a defining attribute. But upadhi also means a

limiting adjunct. We go through life acquiring upadhis, thinking

they will make our identity bigger and better, but in reality we are

merely adding to our limitations. Attachments to fame, influence,

wealth and possessions only make our burden of personal identity

heavier. The more we are reined in by our defining attributes, the

more we lose sight of our larger sense of self.

 

When we allow our happiness and misery to be dictated by things

outside of and foreign to our true nature, we lose our autonomy.

Let's consider the third meaning of upadhi: a substitute, anything

that may be taken for something else, an appearance mistaken for

reality. Our defining upadhis are components of a false sense of our

own identity. In the end, they are no more than worthless tokens of

our separation from the infinite Self. But how we hold on to them!

When the Divine Mother finally slays Nishumbha, we get a graphic

image of the ferocity of the struggle. Just when she has the demon

cornered, he sprouts ten thousand arms with ten thousand grasping

hands. This picture of ugly desperation illustrates just how

desperate we are not to let go.

 

Even with Nishumbha out of the way, there remains the ego-sense

itself, denuded of all borrowed attributes. Now Shumbha, alone,

stands face to face with the Mother. He points to her companion

goddesses and chides her for relying on the strength of others in

the fight. She answers, " I am alone here in the world. … These are

but projections of my own power… (DM 10.5). " To prove her point,

the Shaktis vanish into her, and she then slays Shumbha. This final

victory represents the realization of the true Self.

 

There is no way to describe this immediate, unmediated knowledge of

the atman; but that has not stopped mystics of every religious

tradition throughout history from trying to express the

inexpressible experience of the Divine. In the Svetasvatara

Upanishad, a text certainly known to whoever composed the Chandi,

the enlightened seer proclaims, " I have known the unchanging,

primeval One, the indwelling Self of all, everywhere present and all-

pervading, whom the wise declare to be free from birth and eternal

(SU 3.21). "

 

Medhas then relates how the gods again praised the Divine Mother in

a fourth and final hymn. Three of its verses (DM 11.10-12) are well

known in Vedanta circles. They are sung every evening around the

world in temples of the Ramakrishna Order as the arati hymn " Om

Sarva Mangala Mangalye. " Then, Medhas sends his two disciples to the

bank of a river, where they meditate and worship the Mother

devotedly. After three years she appears to them and offers each a

boon. Suratha, who we remember has unfinished business, asks for the

return of his earthly kingdom, followed by an imperishable kingdom

in the next life. The merchant Samadhi, on the other hand, has grown

wise and dispassionate. He asks for the knowledge that will dissolve

the bondage of worldly existence.

 

Through the Mother's grace, each boon is granted, in keeping with

the Chandi's teaching that the Divine Mother is

bhuktimuktipradayini, " the bestower of worldly enjoyment and

liberation (DM11.7). " How conversant Sri Ramakrishna was with the

teachings of the Chandi is made clear in a conversation he had with

members of the Brahmo Samaj in the autumn of 1882. In a single

paragraph that summarizes the essential message of the Chandi,

Ramakrishna said, " Bondage and liberation are both of Her making. By

her maya worldly people become entangled in `woman and gold,' and

again, through her grace they attain liberation. She is called the

Savior, and the Remover of the bondage that binds one to the world

(M., 136). "

 

A short while later he added, " I tell you the truth: there is

nothing wrong in your being in the world. But you must direct your

mind toward God; otherwise you will not succeed. Do your duty with

one hand and with the other hold to God. After the duty is over, you

will hold to God with both hands (M., 137-138). " On another occasion

Sri Ramakrishna said, " Sometimes I find that the universe is

saturated with the Consciousness of God, as the earth is soaked with

water in the rainy season (M., 260). " This calls to mind the

Chandi's third hymn, known as the Aparajitastuti, [Hymn to the

Invincible Goddess].

 

Unlike the three other hymns, which are intimately connected to the

foregoing battle narratives, this one is an ecstatic celebration of

the Divine Mother's presence in the world. It reminds us simply to

see divinity everywhere around us, because the Mother abides in all

beings as intelligence, order, forgiveness, modesty, peace, beauty,

good fortune, compassion, contentment, and in countless other ways.

We need only to remember her presence; and as a sign of her grace,

it is she herself who abides in us even in the form of memory.

 

We conclude with two verses from this hymn: " To her who presides

over the elements and the senses and is ever present in all beings,

to the all-pervading Devi, salutations again and again. To her who

pervades this entire world and abides in the form of consciousness,

salutation to her, salutation to her, salutation to her, again and

again (DM 5.77-80). "