GOD AS MOTHER : Essence of Devi Mahatmyam-11. SRI SWAMI CHIDANANDA

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Thursday, August 12, 2021. 6:53.AM.
11. Not Destruction but Transcendence.
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Thus destruction upon the spiritual level ultimately comes to express itself as a positive transcendence where a series of progressive constructions are undertaken, by a series of destruction of each lower form so that it may give place to each succeeding form higher than itself. Thus, we see that this process of transcending is a desideratum and not something to be shirked; for as long as we are clinging to the lower, as long as we refuse to let the lower go, we will not be able to attain the higher. It is the intervention of the divine power in this aspect of destroying lower that makes it possible for the attainment of the higher. As today we are to specially consider this application of Mother in Her aspect of Durga or the all-compassionate Kali to the specific process of Yoga and Sadhana, we shall see how Mother is to manifest Herself in the individual personality of the seeker, in what way is the Sadhaka to invoke and to make manifest the Divine Mother within himself if She is to be a tangible and helpful force in the progress of his Yoga Sadhana. In trying to consider this, we will do well to first of all get an idea of what this process of Yoga Sadhana actually implies.


Yoga Sadhana is as we all know a process of the human being transcending the imperfections and limitations, defects, weaknesses and impurities of his limited, finite, human nature and ascending upward into and partaking of the infinite, eternal, divine consciousness. In setting about to do this through the path of Yoga and spiritual life, man is confronted with a peculiar situation, a problem. It is not as though he has merely to take a single step from his human nature to divine nature; because when he sets about this task, he finds that inherent in his human nature, there is a whole range of qualities that are essentially subhuman. This is explained in a special manner which is peculiar to the Hindu culture. The theory of reincarnation has laid down that the Jiva has arrived at the stage of man after having gone through a long series of transmigrations, through numerous lower births from the most elementary forms of the minerals and the plant and the primary forms of life like the amoeba. During this process of passing through various lower stages of life, his consciousness acquires the impression of the predominant traits of each one of these birth phases. Therefore, when he arrives at the human stage, in addition to this quality of human intelligence, the power of thought and discrimination, he has also a whole host of previously-acquired tendencies and characteristics which belong to the subhuman plane. 

Therefore, we find in him such qualities which are usually attributed to particular types of animal—the cunningness of the fox, the cruelty of the tiger, the venomousness of the scorpion and the lethargy of the lower species of creatures, the gluttony of the pig, and all the evil qualities which are not to be classed as human. These form part of the nature of man though he has risen above the bestial kingdom. Man is thus a brute endowed with a higher capacity of discrimination, knowledge, thinking, etc. Therefore, we find that the human being is a triune being. He is as it were midway between the beast-world and the God-world. There is the brutal nature on the one side of him. There is the divine nature upon the other side of him. In between he finds himself sometimes swayed by the bestial instincts on him—as lethargy, passion, cruelty, anger; and sometimes raised up, at rare moments, to sublime heights where he manifests divine qualities like compassion, justice, truth, purity and so on.

NEXT ; 12. Sacrifice the Beast in You.

To be continued ...


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