Only by practically touching the truth itself can liberation, bliss and the highest consciousness be won

[Guest guest]

>

> More than a decade later today, October 7, 2006 it is abvious that

> both Arwinder and Kash are talking about the " Beauty of the three-

> great-cities, penetrating without and within, (that) is

> resplendent, non-dual, self-subsisting. " Only the Great Primordial

> Mother Shri Lalita Devi has the power to manifest this

> unfathomable Truth as She continues to ascend and penetrate into

> human consciusness.

>

> i wrote this post after downloading and listening to the recitation

> of Shri Lalata Sahasranama. It is available free of charge at:

> http://www.vedamantram.com/ Enjoy this beautiful Tamil recitation

> of the splendour and glory of Her praises in Silence.

>

> " The supreme divinity, Lalita, is one's own blissful Self. " " She

> alone is Atman. Other than Her is untruth, non-self. " - Always

> remember these priceless Truths daily for the rest of your lives

> and you are assured of moksa and immortality! What else is Self-

> realization other than realizing that Lalita is one's own blissful

> Self? And once She is realized within to be one's own blissful Self

> everything else is indeed untruth, non-self.

>

> Jai Shri Ganapathi,

>

>

> jagbir

>

 

" The supreme divinity, Lalita, is one's own blissful Self. " -

Bhavana Upanishad 1.27

/message/6781

 

 

" The expression, Shaktism is derived from the word " Shakti. " The

word Shakti means " Power " both latent and manifest. When

personalised it means the Devi of Power; she is Devaa. The Devi

Shakti is the power aspect of the supreme spirit. The doctrines and

ritual of Shaktism are contained in a special branch of the holy

Scriptures of India, called Tantra Shastra, which acknowledges the

authority of the great Veda. " Veda " means the God inspired word

which has from the oldest times been the foundation of Indian

spiritual thought and culture; but it is not confined to what is

called the four Vedas. They are but parts of it and based on the one

Veda--for 'Vak' or 'Logos' is one.

 

Shaktism is an eminently practical religion. Practically the whole

content of its scriptures consists in rules and ritual by which the

higher realisation of the spiritual truth may be gained. This way of

personal spiritual attainment, or Yoga, which is known to all Indian

religions, is called in Shaktism, Sadhana. Very often the remark can

be found in the Tantrik texts that by merely pondering about the

husks of words nothing is done, i.e., mere book-knowledge is useless-

-but that only by practically touching the truth itself can

liberation, bliss and the highest consciousness be won.

 

This truth, to which Shaktism is devoted with all its energy, is

represented by the conception of the goddess Shakti. Such a

conception, that truth unveils itself spiritually in a female

aspect, can only be grasped with difficulty by the European mind.

The European mind is not accustomed to see differences between male

and female in the spiritual world, and finds them only as far as

physical sexual differences can still be discerned. But the idea of

a female quality of the spirit has always been known to the deeper

minds of humanity and stretches through the whole inner history of

culture. Leaving aside the cults of aboriginal tribes, animism,

etc., there may be mentioned, in addition to the Goddess Shakti of

Indian culture, the conception of Isis in the Egyptian religion, of

the figure Kwannon in China, the idea of Eve in Babylonian times and

many others leading up to that connected with the Madonna of the

Roman Catholic Church. Certainly there are very interesting and

important differences in all these great conception; but it would go

too far here to treat of this special subject. It is mentioned only

to show that female spirituality has always played an important role

in human thought.

 

The Goddess Shakti is the " power " which pervades the whole of the

universe, and from which the Universe has emanated. There is nothing

within the manifest world which is not Shakti in its essence. The

manifest world is mind and matter, that is to say, all that we call

our thought, will, imagination, etc. is mind, and all the realm of

nature is matter. She--in her highest aspect--is pure spirit or pure

consciousness -- as such she is called Chit-Shakti -- but her nature

and essence become apparent also in all that we are aware of through

our senses. So She is matter--substance too--and as such

 

She is called Maya-Shakti. Here is no antagonism between the

spiritual and the natural sides of the universe, since she is both

of them. "

 

Dr. Hans Koester

The Indian Religion of the Goddess Shakti

 

 

" In the primordial mysteries, the Feminine — whose nature we have

attempted to discern in the symbols and functions of its elementary

and transformative character — assumes a creative role and so

becomes the determining factor in early human culture. Whereas the

instinctual mysteries revolve around the central elements of the

life of woman — birth, menstruation, conception, pregnancy,

sexuality, climacteric, and death — the primordial mysteries project

a psychic symbolism upon the real world and so transform it.

 

The mysteries of the feminine may be divided into mysteries of

preservation, formation, nourishment, and transformation. . . At all

stages of the primordial mysteries it is the central symbol of their

realization. . . . The woman is the natural nourishing principle and

hence mistress of everything that implies nourishment. . . . Thus

the transformative character of the Feminine rises from the natural

to the spiritual plane. The culture-bringing primordial mysteries

cultimate in a spiritual reality that completes the mystery

character of the Feminine. "

 

Erich Neumann, The Great Mother

 

 

" Shakti is the hidden power that turns matter into life. She is the

divine spark, the flow of God's love.

 

Anyone who is connected with spirit has Shakti, which manifests in

five ways that the God Herself manifests. (For the sake of

simplicity I will use the word God and apply feminine pronouns

whenever I have the goddess Shakti in mind.) As described in the

ancient Shiva Sutras — " teaching about Shiva " — these are five

powers:

 

Chitta Shakti: the awareness of God

Ananda Shakti: the bliss of God

Icha Shakti: the desire or intention to unite with God

Gyana Shakti: knowledge of God

Kriya Shakti: action directed toward God

 

If the voice of God spoke to you, Her powers would be conveyed in

simple, universal phrases:

 

Chitta Shakti: " I am. "

Ananda Shakti: " I am blissful. "

Icha Shakti: " I will " or " I intend. "

Gyana Shakti: " I know. "

Kriya Shakti: " I act. "

 

If a child came to me and asked, " How did God make me? " these five

things would be my answer, because this is how God made Herself, or

at least made Herself known to us, and at each stage of giving birth

a new exclamation of discovery emerged. First She experienced

Herself as existence ( " I am! " ), then creative joy ( " I am

blissful! " ), pulsing desire ( " I will! " ), cosmic mind ( " I know! " ),

and finally the shaping force that molds all things ( " I act!).

Because none of these except " I am " had ever existed before, each

came as a revelation.

 

All of these qualities have universal application . . . These five

powers form a cascade, spilling like water from unmanifest spirit to

the material world. Tagore employed almost the same analogy when he

poetically asked, " Where is this fountain that throws out these

flowers in such a ceaseless outbreak of ecstasy? " In one beautiful

line he states the mystery precisely. What is the origin of the

infinite display of nature's abundance? The flowers are outside, but

the fountain is inside, in divine essence. To realize this you must

become that fountain; you must have the assurance that the flow of

life can gush through your being at full force. This state of

connection is supreme existence. When you join the cosmic dance, the

powers of God as creator-mother fully infuse you. "

 

Deepak Chopra, The Path of Love

 

 

" There are many indications now that women are beginning to get in

touch with their own fundamental nature in ways that have been

forbidden to them by patriarchal traditions, set up as the only

acceptable moral system several thousand years ago, which have kept

our civilization in thrall to a philosophy that derogates the

feminine and natural world. The remote, transcendent deity

postulated by Western culture has proved enormously violent in

all " his " incarnation from the warlike Old Testament Yahweh to the

familiar Christian deity of crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, and

battlefield invocations the world over. Now there is a fast-

spreading tendency among women to reject this deity. Studies of the

doleful history of Western religious sexism have made it clear that

the God created in man's image has promoted more male cruelty toward

women than any other single cause. "

 

Barbara G. Walker, Feminism and the Future

 

 

" The West is exiled of the Goddess — her features are unknown to us,

guessed at, hoped for, rejected as aberration, feared as monstrous

or deformed. We in the West are haunted by the loss of our Mother.

Our mother country is a place many have never visited, though it is

endlessly projected as a golden matriarchy, or paradise, but though

the house of the Goddess is in disrepair after so many centuries of

neglect, some have begun the work of restoration while others have

already moved back in and are renovating from within. . .

 

Sophia is the great lost Goddess who has remained intransigently

within orthodox spiritualities. She is veiled, blackened, denigrated

and ignored most of the time: or else she is exalted, hymned and

pedestalled as an allegorical abstraction of female divinity. She is

allowed to be a messenger, a mediator, a helper, a handmaid; she is

rarely allowed the privilege of being seen to be in charge, fully

self-possessed and creatively operative.

 

Sophia is the Goddess for our time. By discovering her, we will

discover ourselves and our real response to the idea of a Divine

Feminine principle. When that idea is triggered in common

consciousness, we will begin to see an upsurge of creative

spirituality which will sweep aside the outworn dogmas and unlivable

spiritual scenarios which many currently inhabit. When Sophia walks

among us again, the temple of each heart will be inspirited for she

will be able to make her home among us properly; up to now, she has

been sleeping rough in just about every spirituality you can

name. . . .

 

Yet the Goddess of Wisdom is not a newcomer to our phenomenal world,

so how is it we have failed to notice her? The Western world has

been so busy about its affairs that only a few unusual people have

had time to comment on her existence. When they have talked or

written about her, it has been in such overblown esoteric language

that few had taken notice. Wisdom trades under impossible titles:

Mother of the Philosophers, the Eternal Feminine, Queen of Good

Counsel and other such nominations do not inspire confidence. . . .

Frequently reduced to God’s secretary, who nevertheless still

supplies all the efficiency of the divine office, she is from all

time, the treasury of creation, the mistress of compassion.

 

When we speak of God, no one asks, ‘which God do you mean?’ as they

do when we speak of the Goddess. The West no longer speaks the

language of the Goddess, because the concept has been almost totally

erased from consciousness, although many are trying to remember it.

Our ancestors were very young when they were taken from the cradle

and it is now difficult for us, their descendants, to speak or think

of a feminine deity without the unease of someone in a foreign

country. We have been raised to think of Deity as masculine and

therefore a goddess is a shocking idea. But we do not speak here of

a goddess, rather of the Goddess, and we speak it boldly and with

growing confidence, because we find we like the taste of the idea.

 

When did we make up this idea? some ask. We didn’t invent this

Goddess. She was always there, from the beginning, we tell them.

Somehow, humanity left home and forgot its mother. Perhaps our

ancestors took her for granted so much that they lost touch? Well,

our generation wants to come back home now and be part of the family

in a more loving way, because the West has still got a lot of

growing up to do and the Goddess has a lot to teach us.

 

What or who is the Goddess then? Deity is like colourless light,

which can be endlessly refractured through different prisms to

create different colours. As the poet William Blake said: ‘All

deities reside in the human breast.’ The images and metaphors which

we use to describe deity often reflect the kind of society and

culture within which we have grown up. After two thousand years of

masculine images, the time of Goddess reclamation has arrived. The

Goddess is just as much Deity as Jesus, or Allah, or Jehovah. She

does not choose to appear under one monolithic shape, however. Each

person has a physical mother; similarly, the freedom of the Divine

Feminine to manifest in ways appropriate to each individual has

meant that she has many appearances.

 

The re-emergence of the Divine feminine — the Goddess — in the

twentieth century has begun to break down the conceptual barriers

erected by orthodox religion and social conservatism. For the first

time in two millennia, the idea of a Goddess as the central pivot of

creation is finding a welcome response. The reasons are not

difficult to seek: our technological world with its pollution and

imbalanced ecology has brought our planet face to face with its own

mortality; our insistence on the transcendence of Deity and the

desacralization of the body and the evidence of the senses threatens

to exile us from our planet.

 

The Goddess appears as a corrective to this world problems on many

levels. In past ages she has been venerated as the World-Soul or

spirit of the planet as well as Mother of the Earth. Her wisdom

offers a better quality of life, based on balanced nurturing of both

body and spirit, as well as satisfaction of the psyche. But we live

in a world in which the Goddess does not exist, for a vast majority

of people. They have no concept of a Deity as feminine. As Bede

Griffiths has recently written: ‘The feminine aspect of God as

immanent in creation, pervading and penetrating all things, though

found in the Book of Wisdom, has almost been forgotten . . . The

Asian religions with their clear recognition of the feminine aspect

of God and of the power of God, the divine shakti permeating the

universe, may help us to get a more balanced view of the created

process. Today we are beginning to discover that the earth is a

living being, a Mother who nourishes us and of whose body we are

members.’ . . .

 

Significantly, the major mystics of all faiths have perceived Sophia

as the bridge between everyday life and the world of the eternal,

often entering into deep accord with her purpose. But though such

mystics as the medieval Abbeses Hildegard of Bingen or the Sufi, Ibn

Arabi, are hardly considered to be ‘Goddess-worshippers’ in the

feminist sense, they nevertheless show that the channels of the

Divine Feminine have been kept open and mediated upon by many so-

called patriarchal faiths. "

 

Caitlín Matthews, Sophia: Goddess of Wisdom

(C. Matthews, Sophia: Goddess of Wisdom, The Aquarian Press, 1992, p. 5-9.)

 

 

 

 

" The supreme divinity, Lalita, is one's own blissful Self. "

 

~Bhavana Upanishad 1.27

 

 

" This primeval power is Tripura,

The supreme sovereign, Tripura;

Goddess great with ear-rings adorned

In sphere of fire abiding. "

 

~Tripura Tapini Upanishad 1.9

 

 

" She alone is Atman. Other than Her is untruth, non-self. Hence is

She Brahman-Consciousness, free from (even) a tinge of being and non-

being. She is the Science of Consciousness, non-dual Brahman

Consciousness, a wave of Being-Consciousness-Bliss. The Beauty of

the three-great-cities, penetrating without and within, is

resplendent, non-dual, self-subsisting. What is, is pure Being; what

shines is pure Consciousness; what is dear is Bliss. So here is the

Maha-Tripura-Sundari who assumes all forms. You and I and all the

world and all divinities and all besides are the Maha-Tripura-

Sundari. The sole Truth is the thing named `the Beautiful'. It is

the non-dual, integral, supreme Brahman. "

 

~Bahvricha Upanishad 1.5

 

 

------------------------------

 

Mahavakyas, or Great Sayings, of the Upanishads

Prepared by Jayaram Srinivasan

 

Prajnanam Brahma - Consciousness is Brahman

 

(Aitareya Upanishad 3.3, of Rg Veda)

 

 

Ayam Atma Brahma - This Self is Brahman

 

(Mandukya Upanishad 1.2, of Atharva Veda)

 

 

Tat Tvam Asi - Thou art that

 

(Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7, of Sama Veda, Kaivalya Upanishad)

 

 

Aham Brahmasmi - I am Brahman

 

(Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10, of Yajur Veda, Mahanarayana

Upanishad)

 

 

------------------------------

 

Prajnanam Brahma - Consciousness is Brahman

 

(Aitareya Upanishad 3.3, of Rg Veda)

 

Other Translations: Brahman is pure consciousness; Brahman is

knowing; Brahman is intelligence

 

In the sentence, `Prajnanam Brahma' or Consciousness is Brahman, a

definition of Reality is given. The best definition of Brahman

would be to give expression to its supra-essential essence, and not

to describe it with reference to accidental attributes, such as

creatorship etc. That which is ultimately responsible for all our

sensory activities, as seeing, hearing, etc., is Consciousness.

Though Consciousness does not directly see or hear, it is impossible

to have these sensory operations without it. Hence it should be

considered as the final meaning of our mental and physical

activities. Brahman is that which is Absolute, fills all space, is

complete in itself, to which there is no second, and which is

continuously present in everything, from the creator down to the

lowest of matter. It, being everywhere, is also in each and every

individual. This is the meaning of Prajnanam Brahma occurring in

the Aitareya Upanishad.**

 

 

------------------------------

 

Ayam Atma Brahma - This Self is Brahman

 

(Mandukya Upanishad 1.2, of Atharva Veda)

 

Other Translations: Brahman is this Self; This Self is Brahma

 

The Mahavakya, `Ayam Atma Brahma' or `This Self is Brahman,' occurs

in the Mandukya Upanishad. `Ayam' means `this,' and here `thisness'

refers to the self-luminous and non-mediate nature of the Self,

which is internal to everything, from the Ahamkara or ego down to

the physical body. This Self is Brahman, which is the substance out

of which all things are really made. That which is everywhere, is

also within us, and what is within us is everywhere. This is

called `Brahman,' because it is plenum, fills all space, expands

into all existence, and is vast beyond all measure of perception or

knowledge. On account of self-luminosity, non-relativity and

universality, Atman and Brahman are the same. This identification

of the Self with Absolute is not any act of bringing together two

differing natures, but is an affirmation that absoluteness or

universality includes everything, and there is nothing outside it.**

 

 

------------------------------

 

Tat Tvam Asi - Thou art that

 

(Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7, of Sama Veda, Kaivalya Upanishad)

 

Other Translations: That is how you are; That art thou

 

In the Chandogya Upanishad occurs the Mahavakya, `Tat Tvam Asi'

or `That thou art.' Sage Uddalaka mentions this nine times, while

instructing his disciple Svetaketu in the nature of Reality. That

which is one alone without a second, without name and form, and

which existed before creation, as well as after creation, as pure

Existence alone, is what is referred to as Tat or That, in this

sentence. The term Tvam stands for that which is in the innermost

recesses of the student or the aspirant, but which is transcendent

to the intellect, mind, senses, etc., and is the real 'I' of the

student addressed in the teaching. The union of Tat and Tvam is by

the term Asi or are. That Reality is remote is a misconception,

which is removed by the instruction that it is within one's own

self. The erroneous notion that the Self is limited is dispelled by

the instruction that it is the same as Reality.**

 

 

------------------------------

 

Aham Brahmasmi - I am Brahman.

 

(Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10, of Yajur Veda, Mahanarayana

Upanishad)

 

In the sentence, `Aham Brahmasmi,' or I am Brahman, the `I' is that

which is the One Witnessing Consciousness, standing apart form even

the intellect, different from the ego-principle, and shining through

every act of thinking, feeling, etc. This Witness-Consciousness,

being the same in all, is universal, and cannot be distinguished

from Brahman, which is the Absolute. Hence the essential `I' which

is full, super-rational and resplendent, should be the same as

Brahman. This is not the identification of the limited

individual `I' with Brahman, but it is the Universal Substratum of

individuality that is asserted to be what it is. The copula `am'

does not signify any empirical relation between two entities, but

affirms the non-duality of essence. This dictum is from the

Brhadaranyaka Upanishad.**

 

 

** Excerpted from: Swami Krishnananda, The Philosophy of the

Panchadasi, " Chapter V: Discrimination of the Mahavakyas, " The

Divine Life Society, Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India.

 

http://www.jayarams.com/dharma/mahavakyas.html

 

------------------------------

 

AHAM BRAHMA ASMI

 

Aham Brahma asmi or " I am the Brahman " is one of the corner piller

of the hindu Philosophy.

 

A crude transilation would be " I am the world " (or I am the creator

of the world " ), As there is no world (My world) with out me, I am

the one who creates my world, the good the bd, the relations in it,

the happiness in it the sorrow in it, so I am the god of my world.

 

Max Muller makes it more explicit when he says: If people conceive

God as a kind of Jupiter, or even as a Jehovah, then the idea can

only be considered blasphemous… But after the Deity had been freed

from its mythological character, the human mind, whether in India or

elsewhere, had once realised the fact, that God was all in all, that

there could be nothing besides God, that there could be one Infinite

only, not two, the conclusion that the human soul also belonged to

God was inevitable.

 

 

TAT TWAM ASI

 

Tat Tvam Asi, a sanskrit sentence, translating variously to " Thou

art that " , " That thou art " , or " You are that " , is one of the four

Mahâvâkyas (Grand Pronouncements) in Hinduism. It originally occurs

in the Chandogya Upanishad. It first occurs in Chandogya 6.8.7, in

the dialogue between Uddâlaka and his son Úvetaketu; it appears at

the end of a section, and is repeated at the end of the subsequent

sections as a refrain. It is generally taken to mean that your soul

or consciousness is wholly or partially the Ultimate Reality. That

is to say, even before the creation of the universe, a unitary,

divine consciousness existed, and that this consciousness is

identical to your deepest self.