Do you know the one quality of highly successful and extremely wealthy people? They know how to harness the power of the spiritual laws of the Universe.
Why Top one percent of households globally own 43 percent of all personal wealth.
The reason is simple. The vast majority of people simply do not have the internal capability to create and hold on to wealth and the increased challenges that go with more wealth and success.
Manifestation of anything in the Universe is a play of Purusha and Prakriti or Shiva and Shakti or Pure Consciousness and Energy. Shakti or the universal life force is the primordial energy for creation. She is known as Maa Kundalini or Maa Durga who represents three major aspects of life. These three aspects as mentioned in the Devi Mahatm are:
- *Mahakali – representing the power and life force itself*
- *Mahalakshmi – represents wealth and abundance*
- *Mahasaraswati – represents Wisdom and knowledge.*
So what does this signify in our life. The symbolism of Devi Mahatm or the slaying of various asuras or powerful demons is symbolic of evolution of our consciousness as we fight our inner demons to evolve into a pure being.
It also means that you can’t just be wealthy i.e you cannot have blessings of Mahalaxmi alone. She has to be accompanied by the inner power and capability to hold the wealth as well as the wisdom to nurture it. Conversely, if you do not slay your inner demons, if you cannot develop inner power and wisdom, you cannot enjoy wealth i.e the blessings of mahalaxmi.
So what are the inner demons to be destroyed? The account of those is given in Devi Mahatm.
The Devi-Mahatmya also known as the Durgā Saptashatī is a part of the Markandeya Purana. It basically describes the Epic journey of the human soul to its destination, the realisation of this freedom.
The journey of the soul is bifurcated into three major stages. The three stages of transformations of our inner self is presided over by three deities Maha-Kali, Maha-Lakshmi and Maha-Sarasvati. These three presiding forces denote the inner powers of the spirit within.
The first stage is where Adi-Sakti awakes Maha-Vishnu who is asleep, so that He may destroy the demons Madhu and Kaitabha. Madhu and Kaitabha, two demons are supposed to have come out of the dirt of the ear of Vishnu. Now what is Madhu, it is sweet honey and when you relate it to the ears, it becomes the sweet words that we all want to hear about ourselves. How many of us always want to hear praises about ourselves? The opposite of Madhu is Kaitabh or words of criticism which none of us want to hear. Both Madhu and Kaitabh are the urges of our ego self. One pleases and the other displeases. These are the demons of Madhu Kaitabh in action which also ignite our lust, greed and anger.
Bhagwan Shri Krishna says in Bhagwad Gita
काम एष क्रोध एष रजोगुणसमुद्भव: ||
महाशनो महापाप्मा विद्ध्येनमिह वैरिणम् ||
When desire is satisfied, it gives birth to greed; when it is not satisfied, it gives rise to anger. One commits sins under the influence of all three—lust, greed, and anger. Greed is nothing but intensified desire. And anger is frustrated desire. Hence, Bhagwan Shree Krishna says that lust, or desire is the root of all evil.
He further says
त्रिविधं नरकस्येदं द्वारं नाशनमात्मन: |
काम: क्रोधस्तथा लोभस्तस्मादेतत्त्रयं त्यजेत् ||
The three demonic vices, lust, anger, and greed are the basic foundations from which other demoniac vices develop. Therefore Bhagwan Shree Krishna labels them as gateways to hell, नरकस्येदं and strongly advices to shun them त्यजेत् to avoid self-destruction नाशनमात्मन:
So when our pure inner divine power is able to destroy Kama, Krodha and Lobha, we become a real master of ourself.
But Kama, Krodha and Lobha are not the only enemies. There are subtler enemies which are stronger than these visible enemies.
When we somehow manage to overcome Madhu and Kaitabha, Kama and Krodha, we get into the clutches of demons like Mahishasura and Raktabija. The second chapter of Devi Mahatm is where Adi Sakti manifests Herself as Maha-Lakshmi and slays Mahishasura and Raktabija. Mahishasura and Raktabija represent the Vikshepa Sakti, the tossing of the mind.
The Vikshepa Sakti, of mind seems to be endless. The desires are endless. These desires come in the form of the demon Raktabija. When Devi severed the head of one Raktbija then his drops of blood would produce hundreds and thousands of demons like himself. Same is the case with our desires, you destroy one desire and thousands of desires spring up again. There is no end for it. Thus Mala and Vikshepa are the primary oppositions in our spiritual pursuit.
But even now, we are not fully safe. While Mala might have gone and Vikshepa is not there, we may have a third trouble, which is Avidya or Ajnana or Ignorance about the true nature of our self.
While Mala represents Tamo Guna, Vikshepa represents Rajas. But even Sattva is a subtle medium of obstruction. It acts in two ways:
- As complacency or satisfaction with what has been achieved, and
- Ignorance of our true nature.
These two aspects of Sattva are indicated by the two demons of Shumbha and Nisumbha. They have to be dispelled by the power of higher wisdom, which is Maha-Sarasvati.
Action, contemplation and knowledge are the three stages through which we have to pierce through the veil of Prakriti or three Gunas.
So, through the worship of Maha-Kali, Maha-Lakshmi, and Maha-Sarasvati, we worship Mula-Prakriti, Adi-Sakti in her cosmic dance-form of transformation, prosperity and Illumination.
In the beginning, there is a necessity of self-transformation. It is all hardship, rubbing and cleaning, washing, sweeping, etc. That is the first stage through the worship of Maha-Kali, who brings about a destruction of all inner dirt and barriers.
Then what happens? Then you overcome the inner game of mind and Ego self. You are now blessed by Mahalaxmi with tremendous prosperity. You become a progressive soul commanding all powers, getting everything that you want. This is the second stage.
But this also is not sufficient. Knowledge should dawn. You must seek the realisation of Truth. Maa Sarasvati will come for help and enlightenment. Thus we proceed from inner tamas or resistance to prosperity, then from prosperity to enlightenment, and then from enlightenment to Self-realisation.
The tendency towards externality of objects, is the dirt or Mala. The distractions of mind is the Vikshepa. And the reason why such an impulse has arisen at all is the Avarana or the veil or ignorance. These three defects have to be removed gradually. Now how to overcome them? You must have heard, the techniques of yoga practice known as Karma, Bhakti and Jnana; or Karma, Upasana and Jnana.
- Mala (such as Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, Mada, Matsarya) is removed by doing selfless Karma.
- Vikshepa is removed by Upasana, Trataka, Pranayama and Raja Yoga.
- Avarana or ignorance is removed by Jnana, or knowledge about our true nature.
Mala is the voice of our Ego mind. And the question of Ego mind is always “What’s in it for me?”. The opposite to Ego is service to others. Our internal question then changes to “How can I serve”?
Upasna is worship and if you can perform selfless service as a Upasna or worship, you are able to tackle both Mala and Vikshepa.
We are all busy doing work in this world. But work becomes Yoga only when it is free from the impulse of selfishness behind the performance of work.
When you serve people, you must always keep in mind the reason why this service is done.
Now how do we remove the Avarna of ignorance. It is removed when you realize that you the spark of the same consciousness that is within everyone else. When you realize that your essential being is also the essential being of everybody else, then your work becomes purely a spiritual form of worship. You are serving your own self when you serve humanity.
The whole theme of the Bhagavadgita is how we can conduct our karma and transmute it into spiritual worship. Actually we are not doing service to anybody else – that term ‘else’ must be removed from the sentence; it is service done to a larger area of one’s own self. We must plant this idea in our mind while doing service of any kind, whether it is service of Guru, service of mankind, or working even in an office.
So have a big goal in life. Make it big so as to be able to serve a larger area of one’s own self. Do it with a reverence of worship and with the knowledge that you are serving not others but a larger part of your own self. And then you will be blessed by the trinity of the undaunted courage and ferocity of Mahakali, the wealth and abundance showered by Mahalakshmi and the wisdom and knowledge to hold this abundance from Maa Saraswati.
That is the secret of everlasting abundance of life.
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