[Advaita-l] Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS-35)

[V. Krishnamurthy]

Namaste.
Recall the Note about the organization of the ‘Digest’, 
from DPDS – 26 or the earlier ones.
V. Krishnamurthy
A Digest of Paramacharya’s Discourses on Soundaryalahari - 
35
(Digest of pp.935-942  of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume, 4th
imprn.)

I was saying that the same human energy that is wasted by
lust becomes the powerful nectar by yoga. Whereas the
former is understood by every one easily, the latter fact
is always questioned and debated. The difficulty in the
belief comes from the observation that even  great yogis
that we hear about, ultimately, maybe after a few hundreds
of years, die. What is missed in the  understanding  here
is the fact that the nectar-flow that yoga talks about and
the nectar-drink that the divines are said to have partaken
are both different, totally different. That divine drink of
‘amRit’ has nothing to do with any spiritual uplift or the
progress of the soul. 

The divine drink of nectar that emanated from the churning
of the milk ocean is just like one more medicine. It has no
power to take care of the resident of the body, the Atman.
It only takes care of the body and protects it from
becoming old and from decaying. Have you ever heard that
the devas like Indra and others who drank that amRit have 
become Realised Souls? Their only goal has been endless
sensual enjoyment. At least for the human species, sensual
enjoyment tires one out after some time since the body
ages; so a human being has every chance of turning to
something more permanent, something spiritual. The devas on
the other hand have no way of learning by experience that
sensual enjoyment is not the end of it all. 

If the nectar-flow at the apex of the Kundalini yoga could
only cause the non-decay of the body and nothing more, I am
sure  real yogis would not have gone the path of the
kundalini yoga. After all they were after an eternal bliss,
not an eternal body. The flow of amRit from the thousand
petalled lotus seat in the sahasrAra-chakra is just a step
prior to the Realisation of advaita.  In addition  to that
it certainly can give to the body, so long as it lasts, an
enviable health. But it is mainly intended to shower the
divine unlimited bliss. A yogi devoted to the ShAkta
tradition may not discard the body and the universe as
mAyA, in the same way as a jnAni would do. He would only
look at everything as the leelA of ambaal. Therefore so
long as he wants it, he is given the power to watch this
leelA of ambaal. But in due course of time, maybe several
hundreds of years, it will strike him to want to merge with
that Ultimate. And at that time his body will also fall. 

I told you  of two kinds of serpent: the good one and the
bad one.  The former is what gives the nectar. The latter
gives only poison. It is this latter one that is destroyed
by the peacock of Lord Subrahmanya and the Garuda-vehicle
of Lord Vishnu. When the former (the good one, the
nectar-showering serpent) is the form of Subrahmanya, we
say He is nAga-rAja, the King of snakes. It is the same one
that Lord Vishnu is having as his bed-rest. It is the same
one that Lord Nataraja is having around his raised foot.
And it is the same one who came as Patanjali and taught the
yoga-shAstra, where, even if the kundalini yoga is not
particularly mentioned, the kundalini that arises out of
that yoga is of the serpent form. 

Besides the peacock and Garuda, there is one more enemy of
snakes. That is the ‘nakulam’ or mongoose. One of the names
of ambaal is ‘nakuleshvari’. It is actually the name of
‘MantriNI’ the chief Minister in the universal kingdom of
Queen Lalita-ambaal. The latter keeps only the portfolio of
gracing the devotees and delineates the other duties of
administration of the entire universe to MantrinI. The
sahasranama name ‘mantriNI-nyasta-rAjya-dhUH’ meaning, ‘She
who has delineated the responsibility of the burden of
administration to MantriNi’ arises from this fact.
‘ShyAmaLA’  and ‘Raja-mAtangI’  are other names of this
MantriNI.  Meenakshi of Madurai is also the same. She is
the ‘nakuleshvarI’, who shakes up  the sleeping
serpent-power in the mUlAdhAra Chakra and opens up the
treasury of the Atman to us. The ‘mUlAdhAra’ has another 
name ‘kulam’.  The kundalini sleeps in the ‘kula-kunDa’.
What wakes it up is the ‘nakuli’. This word arises from
‘nakulam’  which should be broken up as ‘na kulam’ to mean,
‘not kulam’, and therefore the opposite of ‘kulam’.

Of the three enemies of the serpent, Garuda is important;
because he is also the one who brought the amRit to the
serpents after fighting even the King of the divines,
Indra. That the serpents could not partake of the amRit, is
a different story. The fact that Garuda is the opposite of
the serpent and of its poison  and has connections with the
story of the divine nectar is what is made capital of in
#20 of Soundaryalahari.      

He who meditates on ambaal in Her moonstone form which
radiates rays of amRit, can conquer the poison of the
serpent like Garuda, the King of birds. Not only that; by
his very look, such a person eradicates, in anybody else,
the poison of an extreme fever. By meditating on the
Goddess as the One who pours amRit, his own body system
gets the amRta-nADI, perhaps from the sahasrAra-chakra and
so his glance, his sight, itself is enough of a cure for
the poison of the fever. 

The eight vAg-devatAs are themselves of the moonstone
colour. Their seat is in the eight triangular portions of
the eight-sided AvaraNa in the ShrI-chakra. This AvaraNa is
itself called ‘sarva-roga-hara-chakram’, that is, the
chakra that eradicates all diseases. All of this is due to
the effect of mantras.
 
Though the crystal colour of the moonstone is what is
praised above as the colour of ambAL to be meditated upon,
the colour of the devatA of ShrI-vidyA mantra is red or
crimson. This colour of the Goddess has been praised, two
slokas earlier (#18)  but since it talks of ‘vashIkaram’
(captivation into submissiveness) I did not want to mention
it. But still I want to tell you how the redness is
important. 
To be Continued.
Thus spake the Paramacharya
PraNAms to all advaitins and devotees of Mother Goddess
profvk







=====
Prof. V. Krishnamurthy
My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/
You can  access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and Practice,  and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.