The festival of Vasant Panchami is celebrated every year on the fifth day of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Magha (January – February).
This “Panchami” is also known as Saraswati Day, because it is believed that on this day the Goddess was born. As Diwali is to Shri Lakshmi and Navaratri is to Shri Durga, Vasant Panchami is to Shri Saraswati, the Goddess of art, creativity, knowledge and learning. She represents the free flow of wisdom and consciousness. She is the Mother of the Vedas, and chants to Her often begin and end Vedic lessons.
Saraswati literally means “the flowing one”. In the Rigveda it is said She represents a river and the deity presiding over it. In later mythology, Shri Saraswati was identified with Vach or Speech. The “flowing one” in an allegorical sense may mean speech also – perfect speech which denotes intelligence.
On this Vasant Panchami day, Lord Brahma is said to have created His consort Goddess Saraswati, infused speech into Her and bestowed the Veena in Her hands. She was thus named as Veena Vandini (veena player) and Vani Dayyani (recipient of speech). As the spouse of Brahma and the Goddess of wisdom and eloquence, She is known by various names such as Veenapani (holding the veena), Sharada (giver of essence), Vagisvari (mistress of speech), Brahmi (wife of Brahma) and Mahavidya (knowledge supreme).
The colour yellow is given special importance on Vasant Panchami. On this day, Shri Saraswati is dressed in yellow garments and worshipped. Books, articles, instruments of music and arts are placed before Her. In the evening after the Puja is over, the idol is immersed in the sea with serenity.
In all educational institutions of music, arts and science in India, Saraswati Puja is observed with great reverence. Saraswati Puja is also performed during the Navaratri or Dusshera. In India, Hindus prefer to wear yellow clothes on this holy day. Sweets of yellowish hues are distributed among relatives and friends.
Children are taught their first words on this day, for it is considered an auspicious day to begin to learn how to read and write.
Vasant means “spring”, and Vasant Panchami heralds springtime in India, a time of renewal and creativity of life in nature.
(Photograph: freewebs.com)
Today is the day where we celebrate the change of the axis of the sun, and that he moves towards the Tropic of Cancer. Tropic of Cancer is the one which represents the motherhood, the motherhood of the earth. This Tropic of Cancer has passed through quite a big area of land, while the Tropic of Capricorn has not. And the area through which it has passed it has created different beautiful manifestation of the mother qualities on this earth. We celebrate this change because the sun has now moved into the new dimension, so that all over the world there will be the warmth of the sun.
Warmth of the sun represents the warmth of God’s love. This is the reason why we celebrate this festival by giving you some sort of a sweet made out of sesame seeds. Sesame seeds are given because they are also heat-giving, and now as we are coming from the cold we come to the hot season, in a way hotter season, so to prepare you with that warmth of the sun.
This special things are made out of the seed of sesame to represent the oncoming warmth, and the warmth of the sun. Though in India the heat is too much, still people are waiting for this time to come in and they celebrate it with such a warm heart. At this time it is said that they give you this sesame seed and the sugar to eat, but now you must speak in a sweet manner ….
Speaking in the sweet manner is very important. Some people think it is smart to speak in a rude manner, or is very intelligent to shout on people but no one likes this kind of a personality. You may be intelligent. You may be very sharp or smart. Maybe on a television people may like to see you, but not as companions, as friends. To speak in a very sweet manner is a sign of good breeding, good culture and fear of God. Those who fear God will never speak rudely to another person, because in another person also the same spirit is shining; and why should we be sharp or angry with another person who is created by God Almighty as we are created?
So this loving, beautiful co-relationship that we have with each other after Sahaj Yoga specially, let us express in talking to each other sweetly. There are so many ways by which we could be sweet. There are little, little things if you do, you can create lot of sweetness, but you need not a sharp tongue, but a sharp memory. I try these things many a times.
Shri Mataji, 1987
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892), one of the greatest English poets, has written one of the clearest descriptions of the Self-realisation that results from the awakening of the kundalini. The passage is found in a very early poem of his called “Armageddon”, written when he was only fifteen years old. The passage starts with his encounter with a beautiful angel (seraph) who tells him that his senses are “clogg’d with dull mortality” and his “spirit [is] fetter’d with the bond of clay”. Following this, the seraph commands, “Open thine eyes and see!” and in that instant he achieves his Self-realisation. He could then feel the unimaginable glory that lies within all of us: “I felt my soul grow godlike”. As “each failing sense … grew thrillingly distinct and keen” the world around him was transformed into a thing of wonder and beauty. “All sense of Time and Being and Place [were] swallowed up and lost”. He had achieved yoga (union with God): “I was a part of the Unchangeable”.
Aaron Rosenthal
Here is this beautiful poem in full:
The rustling of white wings! The bright descent
Of a young seraph! and he stood beside me
In the wide foldings of his argent robes
There on the ridge, and look’d into my face
With his unutterable shining eyes,
So that with hasty motion I did veil
My vision with both hands, and saw before me
Such coloured spots as dance before the eyes
Of those that gaze upon the noonday sun.
“0 Son of Man, why stand you here alone
Upon the mountain, knowing not the things
Which will be, and the gathering of the nations
Unto the mighty battle of the Lord?
Thy sense is clogg’d with dull Mortality,
Thy spirit fetter’d with the bond of clay
Open thine eyes and see!”
I look’d, but not
Upon his face, for it was wonderful
With its exceeding brightness, and the light
Of the great Angel Mind that look’d from out
The starry glowing of his restless eyes.
I felt my soul grow godlike, and my spirit
With supernatural excitation bound
Within me, and my mental eye grew large
With such a vast circumference of thought,
That, in my vanity, I seem’d to stand
Upon the outward verge and bound alone
Of God’s omniscience. Each failing sense,
As with a momentary flash of light,
Grew thrillingly distinct and keen. I saw
The smallest grain that dappled the dark Earth,
The indistinctest atom in deep air,
The Moon’s white cities, and the opal width
Of her small, glowing lakes, her silver heights
Unvisited with dew of vagrant cloud,
And the unsounded, undescended depth
Of her black hollows. Nay the hum of men
Or other things talking in unknown tongues,
And notes of busy Life, in distant worlds,
Beat, like a far wave, on my anxious ear.
I wondered with deep wonder at myself:
My mind seem’d wing’d with knowledge and the strength
Of holy musings and immense Ideas,
Even to Infinitude. All sense of Time
And Being and Place was swallowed up and lost
Within a victory of boundless thought.
I was a part of the Unchangeable,
A scintillation of Eternal Mind,
Remix’d and burning with its parent fire.
Yea! in that hour I could have fallen down
Before my own strong soul and worshipp’d it ….
Alfred Lord Tennyson (excerpt from “Armageddon”)
(Photograph: theatre.msu.edu)
The Sahasrara Chakra, or crown chakra, is situated at the fontanelle area at the top of the head. Fontanelle means fountain, and there are many references to the cool breezes that blow and the fountains that flow in the Kingdom of Heaven, above, in all major religious texts and mystical traditions.
As man is the epitome of evolution, so the epitome of man is the joyful integration at Sahasrara Chakra. Each day allow the attention to rise into Sahasrara and dissolve within the cool breeze of your Kundalini.
The Sahaja Yoga affirmations for the Sahasrara Chakra are: “Mother, by your grace I am protected from all the challenges to my ascent”; and “Mother, verily You are the Victory over all the challenges to my ascent.”
The Sahasrara is the uppermost point of the manifest Creation. It is a privileged place for us to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven within. Here in silent majesty is the subtle source point for the three great powers that create, sustain and resolve the creation in all its myriad forms. At this point we go beyond the relativity of temporal existence, beyond time and drama, spontaneously in the Flow of the Divine
vibrations. This is the point of Oneness, the realisation of Heaven on Earth, achieved by the Sahaja Yogi. Here the complete perfection of the human potential begins to flower. The awakened cool breeze of Kundalini begins to cleanse and nourish the whole subtle body and the Grace of God falls within.
In the Silence of Sahasrara the whole instrument is integrated. Each chakra has its place. Here the Kundalini opens the lotus petals of the Sahasrara and enlightenment or realisation takes place.
After realisation, you may feel a pulsation and a flow of cool vibrations. This is the baptism by which you know you are truly born again. Your new vibrational awareness signals that you have moved into the subtlest level of communication, in collective consciousness.
We become vessels for Divine power and our presence begins to awaken others. We learn to appreciate the real depth and beauty of people, of Nature and all things by their vibrations. We no longer judge by opinion but by vibrations. Just ask a question and a positive answer comes as a flow of cool vibrations. Just sit in meditation and ask the vibrations. It is conversation at its most sublime.
The presiding deity of Sahasrara, Sri Kalki, is still to come. With His eleven destroying powers (Ekadesha Rudra) He is the final, most awesome incarnation of the evolving principle of Shri Vishnu. Meanwhile, we have the presence of Shri Mataji to awaken the seekers of the world to their rightful inheritance and their
fully enlightened powers. Shri Mataji, as the source of this MahaYoga, has Her place, too, at the Sahasrara.
As Shri Mataji has said, “Without opening the Sahasrara, God itself was a myth, religion itself was a myth, all talk about divinity was a myth. People believed in it but it was just a belief. Now if the will of God is so important, it has to be proved. Now through Sahaja Yoga, after the breaking of the Sahasrara, you have now, for the first time, felt the will of God, which is such an important thing. Now the will of God you are feeling on your finger tips. After realisation, you have discovered the absolute science which is the will of God.”
Pavan Keatley
(Illustration: sahajayogaspirituality.com)