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Sati’s body had burned to ash in the fire. Shiva, undone by grief, wandered without direction, and then, in some solitary place, he emptied himself of the whole play of the world and sank into deep meditation on the form of the Goddess. With his turn to renunciation, the good fortune of the three worlds seemed to wither along with him. The entire universe lost its strength, joy drained out of every heart, and living beings slipped loose from the bounds that had held them.
In that same age a great demon named Taraka rose up. From Brahma he had won a boon that only a son born of Shiva’s own body could ever destroy him, and Shiva had no wife. Fearless, he began to trample the three worlds under his feet. When the beaten gods reached Vaikuntha, Vishnu steadied them: the Bhuvaneshvari of Manidvipa keeps her watch forever and never sleeps. A mother, even while she scolds, is never cruel to her child, and the Mother of the World is just so; go therefore with an open and guileless heart, and take refuge in that supreme Mother.
All the gods gathered on the summit of the Himalaya and gave themselves to the disciplined rite of purashcharana: some in deep meditation, some in the repetition of the divine name, some in the recitation of the sacred hymns, and many worshipping the supreme Shakti through the Hllekha seed. Many years passed in this way. Then on the ninth day of the bright fortnight of Chaitra, on a Friday, a great light appeared without warning: radiant as ten million suns, neither high nor low, in the form neither of a woman nor of a man. When the gods steadied themselves and looked, it showed itself as an exquisitely beautiful maiden in the early bloom of youth: three-eyed, holding in her four arms the noose, the goad, the gesture that grants boons, and the gesture that dispels fear. Their throats choked with tears, the gods bowed to that embodiment of compassion and began to praise her.
The Word That Came Down to Himalaya’s House
The gods saluted the Goddess as Shiva, as Prakriti, as Durga, as Kalaratri, as Skandamata, and as Mahalakshmi; they called her the one whose forms are Virat, Sutratma, and the unmanifest Avyakruta, the very embodiment of the sacred syllable Om and of the seed-sound Hrim; and they bowed their heads with the words that the true import of both terms, “tat” and “tvam”, was none other than she, whose nature is undivided bliss. Pleased, the Goddess spoke: name your purpose, for I am the wish-granting tree that fulfills every desire of my devotees.
The gods laid their sorrow before her: Taraka torments us day and night, and without a son born of Shiva’s own body there is no end to him. The Goddess replied: a Shakti of mine, Gauri by name, will appear in the house of Himalaya; contrive it so that she is given to Shiva and brings your task to its end. Himalaya worships me with deep devotion, and so I have held it dear to take birth in his house. Hearing this, Himalaya spoke with tears standing in his eyes: what am I, an inert and unmoving mountain, beside you, whose very nature is being, consciousness, and bliss! Then he asked for that teaching which is the settled conclusion of all Vedanta, and for the knowledge, devotion, and yoga that the Veda sanctions. And so the Goddess began to unlock the secret hidden within the scriptures.
Maya, Forever Our Companion
The Goddess said: in the beginning there was only I, and nothing else. In that state my nature was called chit, samvit, and the supreme Brahman; it has no likeness against which it can be measured, and no change ever touches it. I hold one power, self-established, that is called maya. It is neither real nor unreal; as heat abides in fire, so this power abides with me always as my companion. In the great dissolution, all beings, time, and karma merge into it without any distinction, and at the hour of creation I take on, through my union with that power, the form of the seed of all things.
She unfolded the sequence of creation: from that unmanifest arose, one after another, space, air, fire, water, and earth; from these five subtle elements the subtle body was formed, and through the fivefold combination the five gross elements and this vast cosmic body were fashioned. Prakriti, in which pure sattva predominates, is maya; that in which impure sattva predominates is avidya, ignorance. The reflection of the Supreme cast in pure maya is the all-knowing Ishvara; the reflection that falls in ignorance is the jiva, the individual soul, which becomes the seat of its own sorrows through its own not-knowing. As the space held inside a pot seems separate from the boundless space because of the pot that encloses it, so the difference between the soul and Ishvara is fashioned by maya; in truth the two are one and the same reality.
The Cosmic Form That Made the Gods Tremble
The Goddess said: this whole moving and unmoving world has sprung from my power of maya, and it is woven through and through with me. I am Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra; I am the sun, the moon, and the stars; I am the beasts and the birds, the outcaste and the saint, the woman, the man, and the one who is neither. Whatever is seen or heard, within or without, I abide there, pervading all of it. Then Himalaya prayed: if you would grant me such grace, reveal that cosmic Virat form in which all things are gathered into one.
The Goddess revealed her supreme and transcendent Virat form: the heavens for its head, the moon and sun for its eyes, the four directions for its ears, the Vedas for its speech, the wind for its breath, and the earth for its thighs; ringed by countless tongues of flame, with a thousand heads and a thousand feet, that form blazed like ten million suns and was terrible beyond bearing. Seeing it, the gods cried out in dismay, their hearts shook, and they fell into a faint; even the memory that this was the Mother of the World slipped away from them. The Vedas, standing in the four directions, brought them back to their senses. Then, their voices breaking, they said: O Mother, forgive our offense, draw this unearthly form back into yourself, and show us again that most beautiful shape. The Goddess, an ocean of mercy, folded away the fearsome form and showed once more her tender, compassionate, enchanting shape, and the gods, their fear gone, grew calm at heart.
The Path of Knowledge: From Action to Renunciation
The Goddess said: what are you, gods of small fortune, beside this wondrous form! Without my grace it can be seen neither through the study of the Vedas nor through fire-rites and austerity. Now hear the knowledge of Brahman. It is the Supreme itself that, through the difference of its limiting adjuncts, is called the individual soul and turns through birth and death like the pots on a water-wheel; the root of this is ignorance. Ignorance is destroyed by knowledge alone, never by action, since action itself is born of ignorance. Even so, the Vedic rites are needed for the purifying of the mind; their usefulness lasts only until calm, self-control, endurance, and dispassion have appeared.
Then, the Goddess said, let the seeker take up renunciation, place himself under a guru learned in the Veda and established in Brahman, and with guileless devotion listen daily to Vedanta. Let him meditate on the great saying “tattvamasi”: the true import of the term “tat” is I, the true import of the term “tvam” is the individual soul, and the moment their oneness is grasped through the mode of interpretation that discards the contradictory portion and keeps the essence, the awareness of non-duality dawns. When the three bodies and the five sheaths within them are set aside, what remains is that which the scripture calls out to as “neti, neti”, not this, not this. This atman is never born and never dies; it is subtler than the atom and greater than the greatest. The body is the chariot, the intellect the charioteer, the mind the reins, and the senses the horses; the one who, through a discerning charioteer, holds the mind in check crosses the road of worldly existence and reaches my supreme abode.
The Method of Yoga and the Waking of the Kundalini
Himalaya wished to know yoga in all its limbs. The Goddess said: the union of the individual soul with the Supreme is yoga, and in it desire, anger, greed, delusion, pride, and envy set their obstacles. To pass beyond them, yoga has eight limbs: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. She named the restraints, yama, such as non-injury, truth, and non-stealing, and the observances, niyama, such as austerity (tapas), contentment, and faith; she counted five postures, the lotus, the svastika, the bhadra, the vajra, and the vira; and she opened the method of pranayama through the sequence of inhalation, retention, and exhalation.
Then she told the secret of the kundalini: in this body there are three and a half crore channels, and among them ida, pingala, and sushumna are the chief. Within the sushumna is the self-born linga, above it the maya-seed Hrim, and above that, shaped like a flame, the red kundalini, who is not other than me. Beginning at the muladhara and piercing the svadhishthana, the manipura, the anahata, the vishuddha, and the ajna, the seeker should carry the kundalini up to the sahasrara, there contemplate her union with Shiva, and with that stream of nectar satisfy the deities of each chakra before drawing her back once more to the muladhara. In the one who practices this daily arise all the qualities that are in me, the Mother of the World.
Bhakti, the Easiest Path and the Highest
Himalaya asked how the seeker of middling qualification, whose dispassion is not yet ripe, might also come to knowledge with ease. The Goddess said: there are three roads to moksha, the yoga of action, the yoga of knowledge, and the yoga of devotion; among these the yoga of devotion is the easiest, for it is accomplished by the mind alone and lays no torment on the body. By the difference of the gunas, devotion too is of three kinds: the devotion practiced out of arrogance in order to harm others is tamasic; the devotion practiced with a divided mind out of desire for one’s own welfare and renown is rajasic; and the devotion practiced to wash away sin and to please me, in the mood of the servant toward the one served, is sattvic, and it is this that leads on to the supreme devotion, para-bhakti.
Then she described para-bhakti: to listen always to my qualities and to sing my name; to keep the movement of the mind fixed on me, unbroken as a steady stream of oil; to hold no desire even for the liberations of nearness and union; in the mood of the servant toward the one served, to long not even for moksha itself; and, seeing my form in every living being, to bear ill will toward none. The one in whose heart such devotion is born dissolves that very moment into my form of pure consciousness; the highest reach of devotion is itself knowledge. In this same connection the Goddess named her beloved holy places, vows, and festivals: such places as Kolhapur, Vindhyavasini, and the Kamakhya yoni-mandala; such vows as Navaratri and the observance of Mondays; and the festivals of the swing, the chariot, and the Pavitra rite, in which married women, young girls, and young boys are fed in the understanding that they are my own form.
The Secret of Worship, and the Goddess Departs
At the last, Himalaya asked the method of worship. The Goddess said: my worship is of two kinds, outer and inner; and the outer is again of two kinds, Vedic and Tantric. From dharma is born devotion, and from devotion knowledge; the only valid authorities are the shruti and the smriti, and so the seeker of liberation should always lean on the Veda alone. Until he has the fitness for inner worship, let the seeker meditate on my form with qualities in an image, in a yantra, or in the lotus of the heart, and worship it with the customary offerings; and when the fitness comes, let him dissolve his mind into my form of pure knowledge, for knowledge free of every limiting adjunct is my supreme form. Let all worship be done with the Hllekha Hrim mantra, which is the sovereign among all mantras; and this secret and hidden knowledge should never be laid open before one who lacks devotion, nor before a cheat.
Having said this, the Goddess vanished on the spot, and the gods were fulfilled by having beheld her. In time that daughter of the mountain, the goddess Haimavati, appeared in Himalaya’s house as Gauri and was later given to Shankara; from her was born Kartikeya, who slew Tarakasura. This same Goddess had once before, in the days of the churning of the ocean, been pleased by the praise of the gods and had risen from the sea as Rama, whom the gods gave over to Vishnu. Vyasa said: O king, this episode of the Devi Gita, bound up with the origins of Gauri and Lakshmi, fulfills every desire, is holy in itself, and makes holy all who hear it.
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)