(AN ESSAY BY SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDA)
The Sri-Sukta of the Veda is recited with benefit
especially on Fridays, together with formal worship of the Goddess, for peace,
plenty and all-round prosperity. Lakshmi, who is usually identified as the
Spouse of Vishnu, or Narayana, represents the glory and magnificence of God.
Narayana and Lakshmi, actually, stand for Being and Becoming. The Creator in all
His glory manifests Himself in the variety of Creation.
Generally, spiritual seekers make the mistake of imagining
that God is outside the world and the world has to be rejected in spiritual
pursuits. This is an inadequate view because the world is the glory of God, as
light is the glory of the Sun and light cannot be disassociated from the Sun.
The values and glories and the abundances of this vast Creation cannot be
separated from God, the Almighty, even in our love for God.
Narayana represents God, Lakshmi the magnificence,
abundance, plentifulness and grandeur of Narayana. The tradition among the
Vaishnavas especially is that Narayana cannot be approached except through
Lakshmi, even as some devotees hold that Krishna cannot be approached except
through Radha, or Rukmini. This is to say that the Absolute can be reached only
through the relative. The Invisible can be contacted only through the visible.
The Universe of perception and experience includes the very meditator, the
seeker, the student or the devotee. Only an over-enthusiastic devotee can
imagine that he is outside the world and then erroneously reject the values of
life, forgetting thereby that in the act of such rejection he has rejected
himself also, he being a part of this Creation. A truly transcendent devotion to
God is impracticable, for God is not merely transcendent; He is also immanent.
The four Purusharthas, —Dharrna,
Artha, Karna and Moksha, mentioned in the scriptures, very wisely lay down
the principles of an integration of living, so that we have to be aligned
properly not only in our body, mind and spirit inwardly, but also outwardly in
respect of the manifold articles of Creation, animate, inanimate, organic or
inorganic. The prayer to Lakshmi in the Sri-Sukta is a supplication to God
through the visible form of His magnificence and glory which is this
indescribable Universe. Lakshmi is prosperity, and all the wealth of life is
nothing but prosperity. By wealth we are not to understand merely gold and
silver, and the like. All forms of happiness, satisfaction, abundance and status
come under Lakshmi, the Divine Glory. Any form of superior grandeur, greatness
and glory is Lakshmi. Who can say that these are undesirable, when they are
reflections of God Himself? Has not Bhagavan Sri Krishna told us in the Gita
that wherever there is glory, grandeur and excellence in a superb form of
manifestation, it is He that is manifest there?
Actually, there is nothing in the world which deserves our
rejection in the end. We have also to learn that meditation, or Yoga, is not a
rejection of realities but an inclusion of all existence, a harmony established
between ourselves and the vast atmosphere around us. So the glory of the earth
is not always an obstacle to God-realisation, but actually the great values of
life are indicators of the majesty and beauty of God. As the ray of the Sun
gives us a suggestion as to what the Sun is, the world points to us what God
could be Prakriti and Purusha
are not two different things. The world and God are inseparables.
Narayana and Lakshmi, says the Vishnu-Purana, are like fire
and heat, flower and smell, oil and greasiness, water and liquidity, sun and
light, etc. And by such comparisons it is made out that the two are in fact One
Being envisaged as a twofold aspect for meditation and worship. The Sri-Sukta is
the invocation of God Himself as the Great Glory of His Creation, His
lordliness, sovereignty and supreme suzerainty.
The emotions of man, when they are religiously roused, have a tendency to consider the world as an evil and God as an other-worldly goal of life. This is an over-estimation of the path that is to be trodden and an under-estimation of the world. Neither is it advisable to over-estimate the world nor under-estimate supersensible realities. The path of truth is a via media, or a golden mean. May we humbly surrender ourselves to this great mystery of God’s Glory as Lakshmi, revealed to us as prosperity all round, through which we reach the Eternal Abundance, Narayana.
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