Today on Sārada Devī Jayanti, the auspicious emergence of Holy Mother, I'd like to offer this recitation of the four hymns of the Candi at your feet, you who are Mā embodied. Before each hymn is chanted in Sanskrit and translation, we make a few preliminary remarks about the hymn to contextualize it in the wider narrative of the Candi or Devi Māhātmyam.  These hymns are very powerful. They are charged with unimaginable mantric force! To even listen to them is to affect a profound transformation of our entire being. I pray you will feel the power and poetry of these mantras and be absorbed in the ecstasy of devotion to Mother who is in truth your very own essence. 

I can't help thinking that is the most wonderful way to start the year. There could not be a better subject to start the year of podcasting off with than this! Jai Mā

Mā Sārada is the total embodiment of the creative energy, śakti, inseperable from non-dual consciousness, śiva. The same snake when wriggling and moving about and hissing is called śakti and when it is still it is called śiva. It is one and the same snake, one and the same reality, and she is That!  

She is the Divine Mother of the Universe in every sense of that word. All that Sri Ramakrishna is able to do, she does through him for she is the inseparable power of Ramakrishna, as heat is the inseparable power of fire. I consider her worship the very highest worship! And the most exalted form of that worship is to worship her in the temples of every being, sentient and insentient in this world, as Swami Vivekananda taught. To worship Mā as she is embodied as other people…ah, there is no finer worship than that. But aside from the exalted and refined form of worshipping the Vishvarūpa of Mā in everyone as everyone, the can also do the equally exalted and refined form of worship of Mā in the image as per the injunctions of the Tantras.  

I pray to Mā Sarada Devī that She may, through her unconditional grace and limitless mercy, deepen our absorption in worship both inside and outside the temple. May her living presence imbue the image and may that same presence reveal itself in everyone, everywhere! May we feel her in every circumstance and situation in life!  

Mā, our play is done! We want to come home and play our heads upon thy lap! Take us in. Remove all our worldly cravings that keep us running about in Thy maya. In vain do we wander thy three worldly! O sorceress and confounder of the universe, by your magic alone is all this play going on! Thou art the one who holds the keys to both liberated and bondage! Therefore, be thou gracious and grant us pure love for thee! May I drink deeply from the cup of thy love’s wine that I may come to regard this entire universe and all that live in it as verily my own, as indeed it is. 

Jai Mā!

PS: Although I typically use the Swami Jagadishwaranandaji translations in our talks, in this one I use the Devadatta Kali translation from his excellent book, "In Praise of the Goddess." 
PSS: We chanted this after a formal worship of Holy Mother and Mā Kālī which you can watch on our Patreon here https://patreon.com/yogawithnish?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

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