AFVOA Newletters of Year 2004

Page 112 of 153 wonderful one!! You can get anything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want. ~ Zig Ziglar DURGA FESTIVAL - NAVARATRI 63. Explanations based on the teachings of Swami Shivananda, Rishikesh. 64. The Keno Upanishad, part three, known as Yaksha Prashna says: “The supreme power of God is manifested as KNOWLEDGE, ACTIVITY and STRENGTH”. 65. The Bhagavad Gita describes the same in different words: Ch14, Verse 5. “Purity, passion and inertia - these qualities, born of nature, bind fast in the body”. These three qualities are known as gunas – Sattwa - Rajas and Tamas. 66. Each of these three gunas is represented by a colour. Sattwa is white (colour of purity). Sattwa is represented by that aspect of mother Durga we worship as goddess Saraswati. Saraswati wears white. Sattwa binds by attachment to happiness and knowledge. Sattwa is luminous and healthy. (Gita Ch. 14-Verse 6.) 67. The colour of Rajas is red, represented by that aspect of mother Durga we worship as goddess Lakshmi. She wears red. Rajas is of the nature of activity, passion and ambition, the source of thirst for physical enjoyment. Rajas binds fast one by attachment to action. -(Gita Ch.14. Verse 7.) 68. The Rajasic person runs after power, position, name, fame and comforts, and involves himself in endless activities to acquire material wealth. 69. When we worship goddess Lakshmi for spiritual wealth, she bestows on her devotees the inexhaustible divine wealth or Daivi Sampat (which is described in the Gita, Ch.16, Verses 1,2 and 3. Divine wealth or the wealth of 26 divine qualities, brings with it material prosperity as well. 70. Tamas is black, represented by that aspect of mother Durga we worship as goddess Kali. She is sometimes depicted in dark blue. 71. Tamas is born of ignorance, deluding all embodied beings. Tamas binds fast in heedlessness, sleep, indolence, laziness (Gita Ch.14 Verse 8). Tamas is that binding force with a tendency to lethargy (lack of energy, vitality), sloth and foolish actions. It causes non- discrimination or delusion. It binds one who associates the Self with the body. A tamasic person acts under the compulsion of the body. He has no power of judgment. His actions are not guided by reasons. His senses are dull. 72. These are all baser animal qualities, the lower diabolical nature in man. We pray to mother Kali, as Durga the terrible, as supreme power and force, to destroy all our impurities,