Devi is avidya because she binds, and vidya because she liberates


Hinduism:   A Short Introduction
by Klaus Klostermaier

"The Goddess is the great Sakti. She is Maya, for of her the maya which produces the samsara is. As Lord of Maya she is Mahamaya. Devi is avidya because she binds, and vidya because she liberates and destroys the samsara. She is praktri and as existing before creation is the Adya Sakti. Devi is the Vacaka Sakti, the manifestation of Cit in Praktri, and the Vicya Sakti or Cit itself. The Atma should be contemplated as Devi. Sakti or Devi is thus the Brahman revealed in The Mother aspect (Srimata) as creatrix and nourisher of the worlds. Kali say of herself in Yogini Tantra: "I am the bodily form of Saccidananda and I am the brahman that has emanated from brahman.” "

1) Sri Mata
— Sacred Mother (feminine); the Seer, the Seen and the Seeing.
— The Knower; the Measurer (masculine)
—"For Whom all creatures are born.”Taittiriya Upanishad 3. 2

Sri Lalita Sahasranama, C. S. Murthy,
Ass. Advertisers and Printers, 1989.



"The Saktas worship the Universal Energy as Mother; it is the sweetest name they know. The Mother is the highest ideal of womanhood in India. [...]

Mother is the first manifestation of power and is considered a higher idea than father. The name of mother brings the idea of Shakti, Divine energy and omnipotence. The baby believes its mother to be all-powerful, able to do anything. The Divine Mother is the Kundalini sleeping in us; without worshipping Her, we can never know ourselves. All merciful, all-powerful, omnipresent - these are attributes of the Divine Mother. She is the sum total of the energy in the Universe.

Every manifestation of power in the universe is Mother. She is Life, She is Intelligence, She is Love. She is in the universe, yet separate from it. She is a person, and can be seen and known - as Sri Ramakrishna saw and knew Her. Established in the idea of Mother, we can do anything. She quickly answers prayers.

She can show Herself to us in any form at any moment. The Divine Mother can have form (rupa) and name (nama), or name without form; and as we worship Her in these various aspects, we can rise to Pure Being, having neither form nor name.

The sum-total of all the cells in an organism is one person. Each soul is like one cell, and the sum of them is God. And beyond that is the Absolute. The sea calm is the Absolute; the same sea in waves is the Divine Mother. She is time, space and causation. Mother is the same as Brahman and has two natures; the conditioned and the unconditioned. As the former, She is God, nature and soul. As the latter, she is unknown and unknowable. Out of the Unconditioned came the trinity, God, nature and soul - the triangle of existence.

A bit of Mother, a drop, was Krishna; another was Buddha. The worship of even one spark of Mother in our earthly mother leads to greatness. Worship Her if you want love and wisdom.”

Swami Vivekananda, "Inspired Talks, My Master and Other Writings",
Wed. July 2,1895, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, NY, pp. 48-49.




THE PRIMEVAL ENERGY

One of the unique features of Hinduism is the fact that it conceives Divinity also as Mother Goddess. When Divinity has no name or form — which is the most important declaration of the Upanishads, the next logical step is to recognize that the Supreme has no specifity in terms of gender. The Upanishads transcend the gender-specific connotation and invent the unique Sanskrit word tat, meaning 'that' for that Supreme Reality. And therefore they argue, whatever reason or rhyme we have in referring to God by a masculine pronoun, the same right there is for us to call God by a feminine pronoun. The energy of every Cosmic Divinity is taken to be feminine and thus arises the interesting concept of primordial power or the [[Parashakti]], which means 'Power Supreme'.

BRAHMAN TO BE KNOWN, SHAKTI TO BE WORSHIPPED

The primordial Parashakti is therefore the ultimate dynamic energy of the transcendental Brahman, than which there is no other existence. In fact it is technically wrong to say that She (Parashakti) is the Energy of Brahman, because the nature of Brahman does not allow any attributes or predicates.The moment we attribute anything to Brahman we have already delimited and circumscribed it. When we talk of the Energy of the Ultimate Reality we have already descended one step from the supreme pedestal of the Unmanifested Attributeless Ultimate.

But the beauty of the concept of Parashakti is that She is transcendent beyond anything that is finite and immanent in everything there is. So while we predicate it and relate it to other things, it is still the Ultimate Supreme that can be talked about. While Brahman has only to be cognized, Parashakti can be worshipped with a name and form. She is the Divine Will personified. She is the Conscious Power beyond everything. She is the Presence, invisible and constant, that sustains the world, linking form and name, holding them in interdependence. There is nothing impossible for Her. She is the Universal Goddess. She is all knowledge, all strength, all triumph and all victory. She is the Goddess Supreme (Maheshvari) who brings to us the total state of illumination.

Devi Mahatmyam
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia






Disclaimer: Our material may be copied, printed and distributed by referring to this site. This site also contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the education and research provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance freedom of inquiry for a better understanding of religious, spiritual and inter-faith issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.






search



Home
Introduction
New Age Children
Miracle Photo
Meeting His Messengers
Prophecies
Age Of Aquarius
Nostradamus
Mayan End Age 12-21-2012
Our Conscious Earth
Adi Shakti's Descent
Witnessing Holy Spirit's Miracles
Jesus' Resurrection
Book Of Revelation
Gospel of Thomas
His Human Adversary
Kitab Al Munir
Al-Qiyamah (The Resurrection)
His Light Within
His Universe Within
His Beings Within
Subtle System
Lectures To Earth
Shri Mataji
Self-Realization
Drumbeat Of Death
Table Of Contents
HALF THE SKY Forum
Contact Us
Declaration of the Paraclete
The Paraclete opens the Kingdom of God
Cool Breeze of the Resurrection - BBC 1985
The Supreme Source Of Love 1985
The Great Mother
The Vision Part One
The Vision Part Two
The Vision Part Three
The Vision Part Four