Invoking Lakshmi: The Goddess of Wealth in Song and Ceremony

CHAPTER 3: Living the Powerful Life: Lakṣmī of the Tantric Traditions

CHAPTER 3 Living the Powerful Life Lakƒm¥ of the Tantric Traditions We have reserved the most complex, multilayered, and in many ways most fascinating selections for our final section of songs invoking Lak∑m¥. Here, we see a culmination of the personality of the goddess and, at the same time, a culmination in the how the worshiper may access her presence. We shall see that the goddess expresses herself in powerful forms that the worshiper may access and draw into alignment with his or her own being. All of the concerns about prosperity expressed by the poets of the Vedic and Puråˆic songs are here taken a step further. Concerns for abundant food, wealth, and happiness continue to occupy the petitioners, but the source of generating and maintaining their successful acquisition through the blessings of the goddess may now be located in the body and consciousness of the worshiper himself. The arena for worship, we could say, has expanded. So too has the identity of the goddess. The Tantric personality of Lak∑m¥ continues to express itself as the lovely, sweetly smiling lady of the lotus, bestower of all auspiciousness , bounty, and prosperity in the world. However, this same Lak∑m¥ also dons the accoutrements of the fierce goddesses. She may bear a lotus, discus, and conch, and also a sword and a necklace of severed heads. She may be attended not only by smiling, sweetnatured , plump young elephants who shower her with life-giving rains, but also by poisonous cobras whose hoods sway menacingly as they stand poised by her side. So too we shall see that, from some perspectives, the goddess pervades one’s consciousness and indeed all that exists, even beyond the time-space continuum. In this regard, we shall see that the Tantric Lak∑m¥ expresses herself as Kuˆ∂alin¥ Íakti—the divine power that exists within our own bodies. 47 48 INVOKING LAKSHMI Every form of Lak∑m¥—whether Vedic, Puråˆic, or Tantric—is worshiped for abundance and prosperity in the world. We have already considered an epithet of Mahålak∑m¥ extolled in the Puråˆas: She is “bestower of worldly success and spiritual liberation” (bhuktimukti -pradåyin¥). In this, we recognize attention to the material world and the freedom to disengage from it. In the Puråˆic consciousness, spiritual liberation is a goal that may remain distinct from that of pleasure-wealth-virtue. The Tantric Lak∑m¥, however, instead of focusing directly on liberation, applies her awesome powers to destroy whatever stands in the way of a successful, fulfilling existence on earth, right here, right now. Instead of mukti (spiritual liberation), she grants siddhi (spiritual power). The Song for the Lakƒm¥ of Spiritual Power (Siddhalakƒm¥ Stotram) reiterates this in its closing verses: This song was composed by the gods For the benefit of all living beings. . . . For Lak∑m¥ is the destroyer of every affliction And the bestower of every success.1 The World According to Tantra The nature of worldly embodiment is such that the mind perceives a duality between the human and divine. Spiritual quests are undertaken to mend that rift. Many of the esoteric traditions of India maintain that the so-called duality of the world is a misconception, though a misconception that may work well enough until one seeks to awaken from it. Part of the mystery unveiled in these esoteric traditions is that the misconception (or illusion) has been created by the divine source itself—Mahålak∑m¥ in her form as Måyå (Illusion) or Mahåmåyå (Great Illusion). Some are drawn to move beyond the web that Måyå has spun, in search of the source from which all has arisen. In the monistic esoteric traditions, all is understood to come from one source—the joy, the horror, the illusion, the revelation, the human, the divine, in short, everything imaginable and everything beyond our imagination. This is why adherents of these traditions seek spiritual liberation by means of that which creates bondage. The world is only an obstacle to those who would not understand its divine origin and essence. Tantra is a means of uniting the disparate elements of a person’s entire being. Tantra means “weaving,” and the Tantrika, or Tantric practitioner, seeks to weave together what are usually experienced as 49 LIVING THE POWERFUL LIFE irreconcilable opposites: the “worldly” and the “spiritual.” The...