Most of us experience life as a matter of course based on principle, well established concepts such as ‘fight or flight’ and Newtonian physics (cause and effect)। If gods and goddesses are given any notice it is as something other, someone beyond our ordinary surroundings. But what if that was not true? What if a god or a goddess was sitting next to you on the train; breathing the same air, reading the same paper, walking on the same earth - would we recognize them? - I wonder.
Sarasvati; (Vajravina); Goddess of Audible arts - (The Flowing-One, the Divinity of Knowledge).
Sarasvati began her life on Earth as a beautiful and great river which flowed from the Himalayas, in northern India, to the Indian ocean. Her waters and banks were lush, abundant with life and considered divine. This was no ordinary river: it was said to originate in heaven and flow to earth. The Sarasvati River represented the direct flow of celestial grace and blessing. For the spiritual pilgrim physical contact was an opportunity to touch transcendent dimensions and reality itself. Rituals were performed within her flow to purify and heal. Along her banks great institutions of learning were built, Vedic poets recited verse, songs were sang, teachings given, instruments played, healings and cleansing performed.
Nature grew with abundance along her edges and within her waters; and so great populations of humans naturally settled. Her inherent ‘Shakti’ energy permeated, bestowed bounty, blessings, defining reality. She gave birth to literature, poetry, eloquence, wisdom, learning, science, all audible arts and culture. Within her womb is the garden of Eden; the cradle of humanity - but alas just as Adam and Eve were cast out, as a result of their own doing, so has the Sarasvati river disappeared. Due to ignorance, greed and short sighted-ness; Eden was deforested, the ecosystem destroyed. Now, where once life flourished, only the expansive, barren Indian desert exists.
Sarasvati, the goddess, however lives on within that person sitting beside you on the bus, within a stranger’s smile, within yourself. Her great beauty and power continues, unabated, within the heart/mind of each human as knowledge itself. We experience her her union of power and intelligence, from which organized creation arises, within each breath. As an image she is calm and peaceful, most often depicted possessing four arms. She sits in an action pose holding a lute with two hands and in her other two hands she holds a book and prayer beads, (sometimes she holds a vase which contains the nectar of life - the underlying sap of vitality ‘Soma’).
We experience her within each coherent sound, within each thought, memory, teaching, expression of art, healing and inspiration. She is primordial, absolute nature which resides within each of us undistorted and transcendent.
In India she is recognized as the feminine aspect of creation. In Japan she is named Benten; Goddess of luck, love, eloquence, wisdom and the fine arts. In Tibet she is reflected in what is known as the ‘Diamond Self’ and in the western world the ‘Divine Mother’.
- Richard Rudis
