FIFTH NIGHT

The Path Of Prosperity

s:àeÄsT:et:ev:n:aS:an:aö S:eVt:B:Üt:ð s:n:at:en: .g:ØN:aÂ:y:ð g:ØN:m:y:ð n:aray:eN: n:m::ðst:Ø t:ð ..
sçùñisthativinà÷ànàü ÷aktibhåte sanàtani guõà÷raye guõamaye nàràyaõi namo.astu te

SALUTATIONS to the blessed Divine Mother, the life of our lives, the sole support of our existence, the very essence of our being, the inmost core of our consciousness, the goal and ultimate destination of our life, the glorious fruition of our Yoga Sadhana, the Pure Existence-Knowledge and Bliss. We bow to Her again and again as Mother Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. May Her Grace be upon us all.

Mother in Her aspect as Lakshmi is the one great Power upon earth that makes life possible and bearable here. Were it not for blessed Mother Lakshmi, life upon earth would be a journey of sorrows and pain. It will be a vale of tears; for due to the transient nature of things and due to the all-pervasive aspect of Mother Durga, destruction is ever haunting the footsteps of the Jiva from the moment it sees the light of day upon earth until it reaches the grave. Verily, life on earth is a life of pain and death.

It is the shining, radiant and joy-giving aspect of Lakshmi Devi that makes life bearable by balancing the pain and destruction that pervades this earthly existence with the sweet elements of light, love, rejoicing, prosperity and happiness in all its various forms. Mother pervades all aspects of human life as auspiciousness. She is Kalyani. She is Mangalam. She is Saubhagyavati.

Both in the wider sphere of national life as well as in the intimate sphere of a being’s domestic circle, Mother manifests Herself in all Her radiance and good cheer so that life is sustained through Her light, through Her charm, and Her Grace. Thus, Mother Durga and Mother Lakshmi keep up the balance in this Samsaric life and make it possible for the Jiva to forget the harsh realities of this transitory passing existence and to partake of the good things of life with some extent of joy.

Signs of National Glory

It is a very interesting and very useful task to try to be aware of the Divine Mother as Lakshmi in both these spheres so that we shall be in a position consciously to work towards the maintenance of the presence of Mother Lakshmi in these spheres by doing which we shall be able to fill this terrestrial life with happiness and prosperity. In the wider sphere of man’s social and national life, Mother appears as those modes which counteract and counter-balance the terrible modes of the divine Shakti in its aspects as Durga Devi. We have seen how in order to sustain the very life upon earth Durga manifests Herself in aspects of very necessary destructivity and annihilation, how but for Her benign breaking down process life upon earth would end in absolute chaos and ruin, catastrophe and calamity. Thus in Her terrible aspects as war, epidemics, famine, natural catastrophes like flood, fire, earthquake, Mother Durga destroys in order to save, in order to see that life continues. Lakshmi Devi manifests in this life as modes which counterbalance and counteract this activity of Her own aspect as Durga, by appearing as peace instead of war,—when Lakshmi is propitious there is peace in the universe, peace amongst nations and mankind, and there is freedom from all civil strife—as plenty, fertility, abundant harvest and, as the counterpart of disease and epidemics, Lakshmi graces society in the form of health, well-being, welfare of the children and of the women, and of a good standard of the nation’s health. In Her aspects as the preservative forces like the medical profession, hospitals, the fire brigade, police, etc, the power of Vishnu-Shakti, Divine Mother Lakshmi, appears to counteract the calamities of nature and to protect the life and welfare of men and their properties. Therefore, to the politician, to the administrator, to the leaders of society, these aspects are the signs of Lakshmi being present in the social structure.

Where these things are neglected, we find that the happiness of the people is destroyed. Their progress is arrested; and prosperity leaves that nation and that society. Therefore, the ancient law-givers laid down that every true administrator must have in mind these aspects of the Mother and he should always diligently try to see that he does what all he can in order to increase these factors in society, through which Mother Lakshmi manifests Herself and in which this benign progressive aspect of Vishnu-Shakti dwells. Temples, schools, playgrounds, parks, flower-gardens, tanks—all these factors in human society are so many manifestations of the Vishnu-Shakti. They are all Mother Lakshmi being visible through these symbols. Therefore, we find that in this land of Dharma, Bharatavarsha, there will be no place without a temple. It may be the most insignificant village, a mere hamlet, with a handful of houses; yet without even the dignity of a pucca structure, at least under the shade of some tree there will be a village deity that is worshipped by that community. Where there is a village without place of worship, there no religious man will set foot. They will say: “This place has no Lakshmi therein.” They will avoid such a place. Where there is no good provision for water, for people and cattle to drink, there people will say that Lakshmi does not dwell; and holy men will turn away from such a place. All Dharmic people, people of wealth, ever tried to utilise their God-given wealth for setting up these visible expressions of Lakshmi throughout the land. To plant trees, to dig wells and tanks, to donate gardens and playgrounds, to build new temples where there are none and to renovate old temples which had fallen into disrepair, and to start choultries where travellers may come and rest themselves, to have feeding houses where weary pilgrims, holy men, men of God, mendicants and the religious students may get food—all these were considered and even now they are considered to be works of Dharma, of great merit, which will bless the giver with happiness here and hereafter. Education also was a visible expression of Lakshmi in Her aspect as Vidya-Lakshmi which is one of the eight aspects of Ashta-Lakshmi. Thus the expression of Mother Lakshmi in all these forms was regarded by our law-givers as something which every man, every citizen should try to increase in the country and in the society so that a state of prosperity may always prevail in the land.

The Foremost Duty of National Leaders

It will do well for all the leaders of men in whichever country or nation they may be and to all social leaders and administrators, to bear in mind that the increase and the preservation of these aspects of Lakshmi in society is not only one of the primary concerns and duties, but also to preserve and increase all these factors contained in it the seeds of enduring welfare and happiness of all people. Thus, as long as man was still conscious of the reality of this world, as long as he felt the reality of these external things, it was his duty to see that he did not neglect any of these factors. A false assimilation of the Hindu religion, and wrong conception of man’s duty or rather an indigestion of the Vedantic food from the Upanishads, had led to an unfortunate neglect of this factor of realism in the Hindu race in centuries gone by so that having half-assimilated notions of Vairagya, of God-realisation and of the unreality of the world, the Indians as a whole became apathetic towards the preservation of these aspects of Mahalakshmi, thinking that all these things were only in the realm of Maya and they were not worthwhile giving one’s attention to; and to turn away from them in a sort of so-called lofty otherworldliness was the acme of philosophic life of wisdom. The Hindu nation had to pay a terrible price for having this sort of apathy towards Mother in Her aspects of Lakshmi in this external world and the price was losing Her in some of Her most precious aspects, viz., freedom, prosperity and national self-respect. Thus, Lakshmi left the Hindu nation when their mistaken notions of philosophy made the majority of people neglect Her and discard Her worship in the form of a robust realism and in the form of a practical idealism in this external life. Therefore, education was neglected and all these social works were neglected as something belonging to the realm of ignorance which it was not worthwhile to pursue; and even while man was firmly bound up in body-consciousness upon the gross plane, he shut his eyes to the realities of this physical world and tried to dispense with all these things with the declaration that they were all only transitory and evanescent. Thus, a state of Tamas supervened which was opposed to Lakshmi and therefore two centuries of slavery was the result—slavery to those who were better worshippers of Lakshmi in the real sense of the term in the external world. They, the British people, were able to propitiate Her and thus all that was best in Bharatavarsha, all the prosperity-giving elements went over to the West where, though they were materialists yet they worshipped Lakshmi.

When saints and great thinkers of modern India realised that it was the neglect of Lakshmi through a succumbing to Tamas that was at the root of the Indian problem, they at once gave a dynamic social philosophy to the Hindu nation. The clarion call for the Hindu nation to wake up from its slumber of Tamo-Guna and to plunge into selfless service and to vigorously take life with a realistic attitude and point of view was sounded by these great modern saviours of India. Thus a revival came about and the half-assimilated and wrong notions of philosophy were driven out from the heads of the people and they were taught how one has to be a dynamic worshipper as long as his body is still a very real thing to him and as long as he has not risen to that state of consciousness, of spiritual evolution, when he would be able to actually feel within the heart of hearts that the world is but a passing dream and that the unmanifest alone is the actual reality. This is a mistake which it is very easy to fall into, to think that one has risen very high upon the spiritual plane and to neglect the things which ought not to be neglected in the beginning stages of one’s evolution. In the beginning these things which may later on have to be renounced and given up, themselves form the first stepping-stones upon which one has to rise higher and higher. Thus the apathy due to Tamas which was mistakenly considered to be a sort of philosophy and resignation was pointed out and ended and now we are experiencing an era of practical Rajo-Guna where the nation and the Hindu society is being shaken up into wakefulness, into a state of vigorous activity for the good of one and all. This is very happy sign and if this is understood and persisted in the right spirit without allowing the Avidya-Maya of Lakshmi to overshadow our perception and intelligence, it will certainly lead on to the ultimate spiritual evolution which is the real goal of the Hindu nation.

A Stern Warning

Similarly, in the individual’s spiritual life, however much it may be true in the ultimate reaches of realisation that he is not this physical body, he is Pure Atman which is beyond body and mind, yet we find that if the aspirant is foolish enough to start with this basis in his life of practical spiritual Sadhana he will come to grief very soon. For the law of this physical world is very exacting and a transgression in this law will at once claim its price. Thus, if one flies away into a Vedantic attitude and neglects his physical body and does not care to maintain its health and give it proper rest or nourishment and thinks he has already attained the consciousness of Atma, he will wake up too late to find out his mistake and he will find that the one superlative instrument of all Yoga Sadhana, viz., this physical body through which one has to do selfless service in order to attain the much-desired purity of heart and character, becomes damaged beyond repair and his progress in Yoga Sadhana becomes severely hampered. In such a case it is only the Grace of the Lord that will have to save him and somehow he will have to make amends for his mistake.

Just as in the individual a neglect of this aspect of the physical factor which may later on have to be transcended brings very undesirable results, even so, in the national life it was necessary to have realised this and to have avoided this degeneracy into Tamas. By the bitter way the Indian society has learnt the lesson and now the very welcome trend of this robust activism, activity based upon Dharma, upon selflessness, motiveless activity, as is now being exemplified by all great leaders, social leaders, political leaders, as well as spiritual leaders like our Gurudev, has now created a new constructive wave in the society and this nation, which augurs well for our ultimate rising up into the realm of Saraswati, where through this activity a state of peace, prosperity, national health and well-being, national literacy and higher education of all people will come into existence and through this a national spiritual regeneration will be made possible. For, without the widespread manifestation of Lakshmi in the society and the nation there can be no hope of the manifestation of the Goddess Saraswati in Her aspect of higher spiritual knowledge coming into existence, because as they have said, religion cannot be preached to hungry stomachs and bare backs.

Therefore, we have first of all to have a realistic approach to this problem of national and social life. We must give to the nation and to people those aspects of Lakshmi by which alone they will live a life of health, of well-being, and in such a state of all-round prosperity, literacy and health, higher aspirations will begin to sprout up, These aspirations are there; but they are all dormant and due to the absence of Lakshmi in the land and in the society the aspirations are given no chance to manifest themselves in the heart of man; for, poverty stultifies all higher aspirations and when hunger pinches man’s stomach there can be no thought of higher idealism.

Therefore, this very great and significant importance of the visible manifestation of Lakshmi or Vishnu-Shakti in the life of every race and nation has to be recognised upon its own merits, with discrimination and Vairagya, and through Lakshmi one must approach Saraswati which is the ultimate aim of the Bharatiya Samskriti.

y:a Â:iH sv:y:ö s:Økáet:n:aö B:v:n:ð\v:l:xm:i
p:ap:atm:n:aö kát:eD:y:aö Ædy:ð\:Ø b:Øe¹H
.Â:¹a s:t:aö kÙl:j:n:)B:v:sy: l:jj:a
t:aö tv:aö n:t:aH sm: p:erN:l:y: dðev: ev:Ã:m:Î ..

yà ÷rãþ svayaü sukçtinàü bhavaneùvalakùmã
pàpàtmanàü kçtadhiyàü hçdayeùu buddhiþ
÷raddhà satàü kulajanaprabhavasya lajjà
tàü tvàü natàþ sma pariõalaya devi vi÷vam


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