Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals : 10-14.
Chapter 10: The Esoteric Significance of the Devi Mahatmya -14.
( A talk given on the 13th of October, 1972, during the Navaratri worship.)
This significance is brought out in all our epics and Puranas. Whether in the Mahabharata or the Ramayana, whether in the Bhagavadgita or the Devi-Mahatmya, they tell us the same account in different terminologies and with different emphases. It is always a song of the soul. The Bhagavadgita is a song of the soul, the Over-soul speaking to the lower soul. Here again, we have a similar account of the actual Sadhana involved in the realisation of this ultimate harmony of the soul with the Over-soul.
The spiritual practice of a Sadhaka is, therefore, a confronting of the three forces of Tamas, Rajas and Sattva, gradually, stage by stage, in their cosmic significance, forgetting not for a moment that we are not 'islands'. No man is an island. You must have heard the poet's saying: "No man is an island unto himself." That means he is not surrounded simply by oceans and cut off from things. He is connected with everything. This is the significance we have to read in our practical lives. This is the meaning we have to see and visualise in our personal Sadhana.
Swami Krishnananda
To be continued ...
Comments