Tag navaratri

Even the creator-god is Durga’s creation – Aravindan Neelakandan

VOI

Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Indra and other devas pray to Durga.

For the Hindu, evolution being the work of a blind watchmaker creates no problem. The creator-god is not the supreme power. He is not infallible. He is but a form of the Mother Goddess. – Aravindan Neelakandan

Unlike Christendom, Hindu intelligentsia did not have a problem with the idea of evolution. Evolution came to India within a few decades of 1859. In 1879, the Krishna Samhita of Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinoda was published. He was the grand guru of Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada Swami, the founder of ISKCON. Particularly interesting is the way Bhakitivinoda Swami treats the Dashavatara concept in his book:

Here the Samhita describes how each incarnation of God successively assumes a physical form to match the evolutionary development of the embodied soul (jivatma) from its most primitive invertebrate state to its highest vertebrate and intelligent state. Not only do these passages suggest the evolutionary theories of Darwin, they also reflect the view that the passage of time is synonymous with progress. – Shukavak N. Das, ‘Bhaktivinoda and Scriptural Literalis’ in the Hare Krishna Movement: The Postcharismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant, 2004.

Whether such a progressive evolution is consistent with Darwinian evolution is another question. But that the Hindu scholarship of that time could approach religion with what Vinoda Swami himself called Adunika Vada or modern approach is what is important.

Again, two important savants of Hindu dharma in modern context, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo had no problem with evolution. In fact, Sri Aurobindo could sing it in his Savitri.

Hindu puranas speak of the humbling of both Brahma the creator-god and Indra the celestial sky-god. In Skanda Purana, we see Skanda-Muruga humbling the creator-god because he did not know the meaning of Aum through which alone, he creates. In Bhagavata again, we see that Brahma is humbled by Sri Krishna—who emanates the entire population of cowherds, when Brahma hides them. Again, Indra is also humbled when he becomes jealous and seeks to get revenge for the cowherds worshipping the Govardhan mountain.

Knocking down of Brahma, humbling of Indra—the conceited creator-god and the jealous sky-god is known to every child of Hinduism. As Swami Vivekananda says, it is manifestation not creation—and a Hindu child knows this truth. So, when science speaks of the random mutation and natural selection ushering in the infinite variety of life, the Hindu child can say with Darwin, “there is grandeur in this view of life.…”

Sri Aurobindo in his commentary on the Kena Upanishad explains:

Uma is the supreme Nature from whom the whole cosmic action takes its birth; She is the pure summit and highest power of the One who here shines out in many forms. From this supreme Nature which is also the supreme consciousness the gods must learn their own truth; they must proceed by reflecting it in themselves instead of limiting themselves to their own lower movement.

The gods, devas, are hence just movements in the infinite consciousness that is She.

In fact, the names from 256 to 262 in the Sri Lalita Sahasranama speak of Her as doing the five functional archetypes of creation, sustenance, dissolution, veiling and liberation as the five gods themselves—Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Ishwara and Sadashiva (Names: 264 to 273).

So, for the Hindu, evolution being the work of a blind watchmaker creates no problem. The creator-god is not the supreme power. He is not infallible. He is but a form of Her.

In the nascent stages of Christianity, particularly during its Gnostic phase, the same insight into the Divine Feminine was present there too.

In Gnostic tradition, the creator of the material universe was not the ultimate god but a deity by name Yaltaboath who was actually a creation of the Wisdom Mother Goddess, Sophia. However, having forgotten Sophia, Yaltaboath, who thinks he had out of his own power created humanity in his image, declares that he is the jealous god and that there is no other god besides him. Through a heavenly voice, Sophia reminded him who he really was and called him Samuel—the blind god. Gnostic Christianity even tried to structure a mytho-theological universe with a break from the literalist textual traditions—the creator-god and a higher God whose wisdom was Sophia.

Unfortunately, Sophia went into exile as Christianity became more institutionalised. Had Christianity not been a separate religion but a mere sect of Judaism—incorporating the mythology of Sophia as its theological basis—one wonders how the Western common religious mind would have responded to the science of evolution.

The Goddess tradition in India is such that it makes us like a child look up to the Devi as the Mother Universe and then approach material science with the same awe and veneration. – Swarajya, 12 October 2021

› Aravindan Neelakandan is an author, psychology and economics major, and contributing editor at Swarajya.

Yahweh / Jehovah

Ma Durga is the innermost power of consciousness – David Frawley

VOI

Sri Durga Devi

Ma Durga is not a mere formation of human thought, an image or archetype of our minds or culture. She is Adi Shakti, the inmost power of consciousness, ever taking shape within and around us as the creative and transformative force that is the essence of the cosmic life. – Dr. David Frawley

Ma Durga is one of the oldest, most powerful and widely worshipped of the great Hindu mother goddesses, claiming the very name of Jagadamba, the “Mother of the Universe”.

Ma Durga arises from Agni, the Vedic deity of fire and light as a protective force, as is mentioned in the ancient Vedic Durga Sukta. All the devatas arise through Agni, the flame of immortal consciousness within us that brings our spiritual potentials into manifestation.

Durga literally refers to difficulty. She takes us across all difficulties like a ship across the sea, the great Vedic metaphor for going beyond all the sorrow of our samsaric or worldly existence. Durga Devi delivers us from darkness to light, from non-being to being, from death to immortality.

Durga as Agni, the Vedic deity of speech, is the power of the divine word, the mantric vibration of cosmic intelligence that is our inner guide and guru. Agni is invoked as the first of the divine powers that manifest the divine light within us. Unless we have awakened that divine flame, will and awareness, our spiritual practices may not take us beyond the illusions of our own minds.

Skanda Mata

Agni is the divine child, Kumara, who holds the potential of immortality. Durga is his cosmic mother. She gives birth to and nurtures the Agni within us by directing the movement of our lives. Agni becomes Skanda or Murugan, the son of Shiva and Parvati who has the nature of fire and destroys all negativity. Skanda is Durga’s son as Skanda Mata, one of the nine forms of Durga worshipped over Navratri.

Tara

This saving power of Ma Durga is also called Tara, who similarly takes us across all difficulties like a ship across the sea. In this regard, Durga represents divine compassion that we need to help us go beyond our karmic limitations and attachments.

Aditi

Ma Durga is Aditi, the great Vedic mother goddess from whom the solar godheads or Adityas arise, who is invoked as a ship to take us to well-being or swasti. Aditi is the unbounded, a-diti, or the infinite. She represents the cosmic space that is the womb and matrix of all existence, yet she is also Mother Earth, who upholds the ground of our own being.

Taking us beyond ignorance and death 

Yet the most important action of Ma Durga is to take us beyond death, the greatest of all calamities and its related factors of time and karma. It is not our mere physical death that she saves us from but the spiritual death that is the ignorance of our true nature.

To accomplish this extraordinary task Durga assumes her multi-armed martial form and wields her many weapons, extending to Lord Shiva’s trishula, to destroy all the powers of darkness from our minds and hearts like so many intractable demons.

Ma Durga removes the evil forces that plague us, the forces of duality, division, conflict, and egoism that our mortal world abounds in. Yet the saving grace of Durga will not shield our own ignorance or arrogance that she will purify with her fiery force and burn away from the core of our being. She also protects the earth and its creatures, for which humanity is becoming a great oppressor. We must honour her power and her rule over the entire universe. She does not function for our personal benefit or to fulfil our desires.

Ma Durga is not a mere formation of human thought, an image or archetype of our minds or culture. She is Adi Shakti, the inmost power of consciousness, ever taking shape within and around us as the creative and transformative force that is the essence of the cosmic life.

It is the greatness of India that Ma Durga represents its inner reality and guiding spiritual force. This same Durga becomes the Yoga Shakti that arises like a flame within the mind, expanding and uplifting our awareness to the universal Self.

May that supreme Durga Shakti arise within all! May we have the receptivity to allow it to both purify our faults and energise our highest aspirations! Jai Ma Durga! – Daily-O, 20 September 2017

› Dr. David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri) is the director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies and the author of more than 30 books on Yoga and Vedic traditions. 

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