shree maa and Shree Maa

Jai Shree Maa.  More and more I realize that Maa is the spirit of love and giving.

She really is so much more than just her body.

I can try and deny her...try and put up a shield when I feel angry or hurt that I am not around her like I would like to be.

But ultimately, how can I deny my own soul? It is so sad to push her away! It is the giving up of love and the embracement of anger and hatred. That is not what the spiritual path should be about.

A

Maa is the most beautiful. Sometimes I think her the cause of my troubles (sorry to say), for She is Kali, the Energy of Transformation.  But when I move from the mind to the heart, she allows me to remember that She is the most soothing.

The most loving.

Completely loving.

Always giving love, even when I do not accept her love and then blame her for the resulting discomfort.

She is the Mother.

The mind is veeeery tricky. It creates our own suffering and then shields the truth of our responsibility in this matter so that we blame the outside. Thus we remain in the cycle of suffering.

If I can't be around Maa's body, so be it, but then I at least want to try to learn to live with the soul.

Jesus is part of the path back to her. The act of forgiveness. Of becoming soft, so that we can let the love and the light in.

May all minds be receptive to this love and to this grace.  Swami reminds again and again that kripa, the Sanskrit word for grace, means "what you do is what you get." Kri = do and pa = get.

I think this can be more subtle than practicing meditation and receiving enlightenment. Or offering money and getting good karma. Perhaps the do can be as subtle as the tiniest energeting shift to open up. And then from that, the grace comes flooding in, and opens up the pathway so that even more grace can come.

They do say, after all, that if we take one step towards Divine Mother, she takes a thousand steps toward us.

J A I    S H R E E   M A A

In our hearts, we love you Maa. Please help us not to forget. For your love is always there, but our love makes the difference of whether or not we feel it.

When we have love, we feel your love. It's the same love.

One love. One Maa. One Soul. Jai Maa.

Lalita Trishati #2...

My favorite name from the Lalitā Triśati -

Name 193. lāṃgalāyudhā

"Who has an unconquerable plow." 

(translation from Swami Satyananda's  Lalitā Triśati in Shree Maa: The Guru and the Goddess)

Lalita Trishati

Yesterday I read and chanted the Lalitā Triśatī Stotram, the Song of 300 Names of the Playful Mother Goddess.  I use Swamiji's transliteration and translation in the book Shree Maa: The Guru and the Goddess.
 
I really like the Lalitā Triśatī.  The first time I ever chanted it was with Swamiji, around the fire at the Devi Mandir during the first Navaratri that I attended.  

Chanting anything with Swamiji is an experience of a lifetime, especially when your heart is open, but there have been certain scriptures that we have chanted together that I feel especially drawn to.  Lalita Trishati is one of them, in large part because of the 16 letter Șoraṣī mantra that you chant before and after the stotram.  The first time I chanted that mantra with Swamiji it blew my mind.  It was unlike any other mantra I had ever heard or chanted. 
 
Not only is its sound and structure super cool, but it has a meaning to match.   In the introduction to the stotram, Swamiji explains that Șoraṣī is Śiva  and Śakti together in "undifferentiated communion." 
 
So I chanted the Lalitā Triśatī right after I chanted the Śrī Guru Gīta (they are next to eachother in Swami's book so its pretty fun to do them together).  Towards the end of my chanting, in the epilogue of the stotram that comes after the 300 names, I happened to eye the translation of a verse that was about worship without knowledge.  That inspired me to read the whole translation, which Swamiji encourages us to do.  I figured I might as well know what I'm chanting.
 
The reading was awesome.  It was really helpful and insightful.  The three hundred names come as part of a story in which the Ŗṣi Hayagrīva is given the the 300 names by the Divine Mother Herself so that he can teach them to his disciple, Agastya (He Who is Born from a Jar), and Agastya's wife, Lopāmudrā.
 
The three hundred names could have been written for Shree Maa.  I guess they were, seeing as Shree Maa is the Divine Mother....but its just amazing.  The names describe Her so perfectly.
 
Here are a few of the names that really grabbed me:

205. hrīṃkārakuṇḍāgni-śikhā - Who is the ultimate of the sacrificial fire burning on the altar of Hrīṃ (Māyā) 
208. hrīṃkārāmbhodacancalā - Who is the inconsistent  nature of the heavenly waters of Hrīṃ (Māyā) 
214. hrīṃkārāvālavallarī - Who is the fibers in the creepers of Hrīṃ (Māyā)
217. hrīṃkārakandarāsiṃhī - Who is the lioness in the cave of Hrīṃ (Māyā)
233. satyarūpā - Who is the form of truth

.....and one more....

297. hrīṃkārahimavadgaṅgā - Who is the Ganges that flows from the Himalayas of Hrīṃ (Māyā)

Jai Maa!

Shree Maa

She is the Sun.

Maa is The Way

At Mandir.

Can hardly believe it's February.  Time is going by so fast.

I have utterly no capacity to become a sadhu.  None.

Maa is the only way.  Dissolving.  Letting Her take over.  Letting Her make the journey inside of me.  Only Her.

That is the only way.  That is The Way.

Maa is The Way.

Durga (Maaaa!)

Oh Bliss-full Mother...