Ananda Lahari

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Born on the 8th September, 1887, in the illustrious family of Sage Appayya Dikshitar and several other renowned saints and savants, Sri Swami Sivananda had a natural flair for a life devoted to the study and practice of Vedanta. Added to this was an inborn eagerness to serve all and an innate feeling of unity with all mankind.

His passion for service drew him to the medical career; and soon he gravitated to where he thought that his service was most needed. Malaya claimed him. He had earlier been editing a health journal and wrote extensively on health problems. He discovered that people needed right knowledge most of all; dissemination of that knowledge he espoused as his own mission.

It was divine dispensation and the blessing of God upon mankind that the doctor of body and mind renounced his career and took to a life of renunciation to qualify for ministering to the soul of man. He settled down at Rishikesh in 1924, practiced intense austerities and shone as a great Yogi, saint, sage and Jivanmukta.

In 1932, Swami Sivananda started the Sivanandashram. In 1936 was born The Divine Life Society. In 1948 the Yoga-Vedanta Forest Academy was organised. Dissemination of spiritual knowledge and training of people in Yoga and Vedanta were their aim and object. In 1950, Swamiji undertook a lightning tour of India and Ceylon. In 1953, Swamiji convened a 'World Parliament of Religions'. Swamiji is the author of over 300 volumes and has disciples all over the world, belonging to all nationalities, religions and creeds. To read Swamiji's works is to drink at the Fountain of Wisdom Supreme. On 14th July, 1963 Swamiji entered Mahasamadhi.

Mother worship is the worship of God as the Divine Mother, Sri Mata Sakti is the power of the Lord or the cosmic energy. Sakti is the energy aspect of Ishwara or the Lord. Sakti is inherent in God. Just as you cannot separate heat from fire, so also you cannot separate Sakti from God, the Sakta, or the Possessor of Sakti. Sakti and Sakta are one. They are inseparable. Worship of Durga or Parvati or Kali is worship of Lord Siva. The Divine Mother, in Her aspect of Durga, is represented as having ten different weapons in her ten hands, and as sitting on a lion.

Electricity, magnetism, force, heat, light, the five elements and their combinations are all external manifestations of Sakti. Intelligence, discrimination, psychic power and will are all Her internal manifestations. She keeps up the Lila of the Lord through the three Gunas, Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. Vidya, Santi, lust, anger, greed, egoism and pride are all Her forms. Her manifestations are countless. Durga, Kali, Bhagavati, Bhavani, Ambal, Ambika, Jagadamba, Kameswari, Ganga, Uma, Chandi, Chamunmdi, Lalita, Gouri, Kundalini, Tara, Rajeswari, Tripurasundari, etc., are all Her forms. She is Para Sakti, Radha, Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati and Savitri are the five Prakritis. She is worshipped, during the nine days of the Dussera, as Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati.

She lies dormant in the Muladhara Chakra in the form of a serpentine power or coiled up energy known as the 'Kundalini Sakti'. She is at the centre of the life of the universe. She is the primal force of life that underlies all existence. She vitalises the body through the Sushumna Nadi and nerves. She nourishes the body with chyle and blood. She vitalises the universe through Her energy. She is the energy in the Sun, the fragrance in the flowers, the beauty in the landscape, the Gayatri or the Blessed Mother in the Vedas, colour in the rainbow, intelligence in the mind, potency in the homeopathic pills, power in Makaradhwaja and gold oxide, will and Vichara Sakti in sages, devotion in Bhaktas, Samyama and Samadhi in Yogins.

You are more free with your mother than with anybody else. You open your heart more freely to your mother than to your father. Na Matuh Paramadaivatam-there is no other God greater than the Mother. It is the mother who protects you, nourishes you, consoles you, cheers you and nurses you. She is your first Guru. The first syllable which almost every quadruped or human being utters is the beloved name of the Mother (Ma). She sacrifices her all for the sake of her children.

A child is more familiar with the mother than with the father, because the former is very kind, loving, tender, affectionate and looks after the wants of the child. Whenever the child wants anything, it runs with out-stretched hands to the mother, rather than to the father. If she hears the cry of the child, she leaves her domestic work and runs immediately to look after the child. In the spiritual field also, the aspirant or the devotee—the spiritual child—has intimate relationship with the Mother Durga than with the Father Siva. Lord Siva is quite indifferent to the external world. He is a Tyagi and a Virakta. He wears the garland of skulls of His devotees, rubs the whole body with Vibhuti or holy ash and remains in the crematorium in an intoxicated state. He is absorbed in contemplation of the Self. He remains in a state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi. He has handed over the power-of-attorney to His consort , Durga. It is Mother Durga only who looks after the affairs of the world. Lord Siva (Purusha) gazes at Prakriti (Durga) His Sakti. She engages Herself in creation, preservation and destruction.

It behoves, therefore, that the aspirant should approach the Mother first, so that she may introduce Her spiritual child to the Father for its illumination or Self-realisation. That is the reason why the devotees have placed Radha, Sita, Gouri, first in the jugal names viz: Radha Krishna, Sita Rama, Gauri Sankar, Uma Sankar, Bhawani Sankar, Lakshmi Narayana.