| |
|
This may help.
Srividya is, at its core, monistic. There is one Goddess - Lalita. She created the Universe, she is the Universe, and she is everything that makes up the Universe. She is simultaneously utterly transcendent and utterly immanent. She is present in everything, and so everything is, inherently, divine. There are three main routes for reconnecting with Lalita. The iconographic, the motive, and the spatial (these are my terms). The iconographic is the use of iconic images (statues, paintings, visualisation etc.). The motive is the speaking of Lalita's sixteen-syllable mantra - and the mantra is considered to be Lalita. The spatial is most readily understood as the Sri Yantra - Lalita as a network of interrelationships. Some (historical) practitioners have tended to view the mantric & yantric modalities as superior to the practice of approaching Lalita as an icon or anthropomorthic image. Hence the iconic is called sthula ("physical") the mantra-Lalita practice suksma ("subtle") and Yantra-Lalita practice is called para ("supreme"). Yet these modalities are not distinct, as Lalita is threefold - hence her title Tripurasundari - she who is beautiful in the three worlds - rather, they are interdependent. She is also the measurer, the measured, and the very act of measuring.
Yet, as much as She is singular, Lalita is multiform - as indeed the Universe is, because in order to enjoy herself, to play with herself, Lalita became everything. So for example, my longtime relationship to Kali is not lessened if I acknowledge Kali as an aspect of Lalita - or indeed, vice versa. In some versions of the Lalitopahkyana Kali (and Ganesa) are created as byproducts of Lalita's battle against the demon Bhandasura. In the Yantra-magic of Lalita, a Goddess arises out of each intersection between the lines. Each goddess can be approached as "seperate" to Lalita, and yet remains Lalita ultimately. Each Goddess may reveal Her own yantra, her own mystery - on and on in a potentially endless fractal-like recursiveness. The Yantra is simultaneously the Goddess, the Universe, and myself-in-the-world. Are Kali and Lalita seperate, are they aspects of each other - my answer is only that it is yes, and no, and somewhere inbetween.
The Uttaraballaka (a text by a contemporary srividya practitioner) holds that Lalita's mystery can be apprehended in moments when we are caught in a particular sentiment which is that of wonder-joy. It is in moments of joy, of wonder, of surprise, that we become one with Lalita (Lalita can be translated as "the playful one"). So Lalita's sadhana (methodology) can be that of opening up to opportunities that afford us experiences of joy, wonder, surprise, and to understand that they are gifts offered in order that we may share Her joy, Her wonder of Her eternal play.
"Let my idle chatter be the muttering of prayer, my every manual movement the execution of ritual gesture,
my walking a ceremonial circumambulation, my eating and other acts the rite of sacrifice,
my lying down prostration in worship, my every pleasure enjoyed with dedication of myself,
let whatever activity is mine be some form of worship of you."
(Saundaryalahari)
Knowing all this to be true, I strive to live according to this realisation - that everything is divine - that everything and anything may, if I allow it, afford me a glimpse of Lalita, a shared glance, a mutual recogniton - hence my adherence to the pratyabhijna (doctrine of recognition) as exemplified by Ahbinava and others. So, honestly, how can I make a boundary between one form of relationality and another?
If | choose, for example, to seek a relationship with Jvalamalini Nitya - "she who is garlanded with flames" (one of the 15 eternities) and in doing so, discover a nexus of shaktis of which she is the expression, must I then say that these, as yet hitherto unknown goddesses are somehow "lesser" than Jvalamalini because they have no historical basis, because they are not mentioned in a prior text? And if, watching Buffy one evening, I find welling up unbidden and effortless, a mystery, a becoming which I can only plumb the depths of by treating her as I would any other goddess, knowing that "she" is as much a part of Lalita's play, as I, must I then forget that moment of wonder, and say "but its only fiction?" I cannot. |
|
|
