Durga Puja: The Worship of the Devi By Swami Nirmalana

 

Obviously we need to awaken or dispel that “dream” which is really divine in essence. So we invoke the creative power, which is also the creation, as The Divine Mother with the prayerful intention that She no longer deceive us but reveal Her true Self as the Ultimate Reality that we mistakenly think is “behind” Her or “projecting” Her and separate from Her–just as we think we are separate from That Being as well. That is the purpose of our worship.

She brought us into relative existence and embodied us so we might evolve in consciousness until we realize the truth of our eternal and unchanging Self that is a part of Brahman Itself. And that evolution and awakening which is the ending of the dream of illusion and consequent delusion can only come about through her action within and upon us.

Mahamaya is the Divine Womb and we are the embryos within Her which in time will be born from Her into Infinity as we pass from the dream of separate existence into the truth of Divine Being that transcends the realm of constant birth, death and rebirth.

This is the message of the symbolism embodied in the Devi Mahatmyam, The Glorification of the Goddess. It is the depiction of the evolution and freeing of the individual spirit-soul or atman from the Cosmic Delusion by that very Cosmic Delusion Itself.