Trayi, the three Goddesses
We just finished celebrating Navarathri, 2021.
I received many forwards about Navarathri - the significance, dress colour code, stories and more! The energy during Navarathri is generally high - it is a festival where women tend to dress in rich bright colours, the music slokas, pujas all add to a general lift in energies. Meeting friends, singing/chanting together, sharing prasadam, subtly we are all uplifted and in higher spirits, more smiles, more laughter, more singing, it is an uplift of energies.
When we feel good about ourselves and our spiritual energies are high, we can handle any setback with greater dignity and grace. We can handle successes also with a greater balance and grace, both ways. Either success or challenges, we handle them with a grace.
Vice versa, when our energies are low, even a tiny challenge can shake us more than it should. We do go through cycles.
When my 12 year old asked about the three Goddesses - Parvati, Lakshmi and Saraswati, and asked me if they are one and the same, I said Yes, they are one but represent three facets. He asked me if he would ever see the Goddesses. And where and how? And if I have seen them or experienced them.
The back cover of my sloka book - says the Divine Mother, Mother of all beings. And I told my son, you see me and love me so much, the Goddess is the same, think of her like me or my mother, his Ammamma, who is one of his favourites. Think of the Goddess like that, talk to her like that, slokas are praises of the Goddess, how beautiful She is, Her courage etc. Like you say Amma you are beautiful, say the same thing to the Goddess.
And then something struck me - I told him. We already do this, you know.
When we appreciate beauty - be it nature, flower, good food, clothes, jewellery or anything done well, when we pause for a minute and appreciate it, we are experiencing Goddess Lakshmi.
When we appreciate anything in expression - writing, music, lyrics, a good book, a saying, we are experiencing Goddess Saraswati.
When we exercise discipline and self-control, to say No despite peer pressure, pleasure etc, we are experiencing Goddess Parvati. When we stand up against bad, evil, we are experiencing Goddess Durga. We have all experiences when we held our tongue or exercised self-control or discipline in some way.
And that's why we feel so good. For a second or minute, we are connected to the Goddess Mother.
And when we feel genuine appreciation, this is usually a gut feeling than a conscious thought, whether expressed in words or not, there is a subtle change to more pleasant and for a second or minute, time stands still, it becomes quiet all around and there is just no "I", just an infinite continuum feeling.. this can of course easily morph in nanoseconds to jealousy or greed if ego enters but just for a few nanoseconds there can be a suspension of time, space. .. a great connection .. a true pause and rest ..a feeling of coming home..to Mother..