45) Pada-dvaya-prabhā-jāla-parākṛta-saroruhā
The light emanating from Her two feet defeats the lotus.
The two feet of Rājarājeśvarī are called Prakāśa and Vimarśa. Prakāśa means light and Vimarśa means discrimination. The light is the foot of Śiva and discrimination is the foot of Śakti. Since Rājarājeśvarī has the Ardhanārīśvara form internally and female form externally, the Śiva and Śakti are eternally and inseparably united in Rājarājeśvarī and Her two feet have also the following meanings.
The light is the Guru, and discrimination is the disciple, his Śakti. Vimarśa is the aspiration of the disciple which is responded to by the grace of Lalitā, the light; Lalitā Herself is the Guru. Lalitā Herself is the disciple too, and She does the sādhana in the disciple through his or Her awareness.
The glow emanating from Lalitā's feet is the nectar flowing from the union of Śiva and Śakti in Her. It is appropriate to understand the nature of this nectar. To say that it is the coital fluid is being rather naive. There is obviously a deeper meaning than this.
When the disciple opens up his or her heart to Lalitā totally in body, mind and spirit, without any reservations, without demands of the personal ego, keeping the temple of the body clean and shining, inviting Her discrimination to manifest in the heart, She makes Her glorious presence known through the light of harmony, love and compassion, which are all motherly traits. This is why Lalitā is known as the Mother. She knows how hungry is the baby, without the baby having to tell Her, and feeds milk from Her very breasts, just the right amount so that the baby can digest it well, and grow strong and healthy. And the milk She feeds the child, Her devotee, who will be growing into Her own self when adult enough, is the nectar of harmony, love and compassion, all of which are to be expressed on a universal scale. She feeds Herself, and She is the eternal Mother and the eternal child. Again and again She is born to Herself, and again and again She couples with the father to become the mother. The daughter of Lalitā is known as Bālā Tripurasundarī, while the mother is known as Mahā Tripurasundarī. It is the sign of ignorance to consider then as distinct.
The question arises here as to how two objects seen to be separate can be one and the same. It will be worth considering a very simple example. Consider a three dimensional sphere and two dimensional sections of it which are circles of various sizes depending upon where the cut is taken. Next, consider a four dimensional sphere which we cannot visualise of course, but by analogy we can understand that various sections of it will be various spheres of various sizes, depending upon where the cut is taken. Just as the cuts of a single sphere resulted in an infinite number of circles of various sizes, so do the cuts of a four dimensional sphere result in spheres of various sizes each of which appears as a completely separate entity altogether. If we take a cut of a sphere outside of its physical extension, we get nothing at all. In the same way, if we take the cut of a four dimensional sphere outside of its physical extension, we get nothing at all.
The reality is four dimensional, with three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, of Viṣṇu – the Śakti of Śiva, having the three dimensions of space and Śiva having the one dimension of time as Kalā. The nectar which flows out of this union of space and time is the manifested world. Since manifestation is an unending process, and manifestation is the function of the mother, Lalitā is the Universal Mother, which is truly a four dimensional entity. This universal entity is like the four dimensional sphere of our example above which spawns various solid spheres of different sizes and ages, some of which appear young and some of which appear older. A series of snapshots taken at different times indicate the appearance of growth and decay just as when we move the plane which cuts the three dimensional sphere along a diameter, we first get a very small plane circle, which grows to a maximum size and diminishes again to become smaller and smaller and smaller and vanish into nothing. Thus time is seen to be like a cutting edge of a knife which is moving in one direction to create the illusion of manifestation. If time can be revisited, or reversed in flow, all our illusory notions of an evolving world will die a natural death. No more will it be true to say that this man is born, grows and dies than to say that this sheet is born at the top left hand corner and dies at the bottom left hand comer. Our inability to reverse the flow of time, or to revisit any particular instant of time in the past or in future is at root of many of our illusions.
The most important of such illusions is that of death and of course, birth. In reality there is no such thing as birth nor death, because the world that we are aware of is an invariant (fixed) object in four dimensions, three of space and one of time.
The second most important of such illusions is that of separateness of all that we see from ourselves. If we accept the scientifically appealing big bang theory of cosmos, there is no escaping the fact that all life is one, provided we can transcend the confinement of the present.
Elimination of the first illusion is called the fluid of immortality, because it eliminates the illusion of death. This fluid exhibits the property of flow when manifesting in time, and is a solid mass in four dimensional space time. This solid mass is called the disc of the moon in the lotus of Sahasrāra. When the power of awareness, Kuṇḍalinī, attains the discriminatory level and grasps the moon, the flow of immortality dawns on the individual. Thus the two feet of the Guru, none other than Lalitā Herself, are supposed to be at the crown of the head. One foot is the discrimination; the other foot is the light, the moon, the solid mass of immortal fluid.
The word Sahasrāra itself has very deep meanings:
First, it means, letter wise, Sa = Śakti, Ha = Śiva, Srar = flow. Thus it means the flow coming from the union of Śiva and Śakti. At the lower physical level it means of course the semen, which contributes to continuity of the race, and thus transcends the bounds of the physical body; but the mistake here is that of moving from one mortal form to another in the search for immortality.
At a deeper level, the womb is Śakti, Viṣṇu, or Space; and the Śiva is Time. Out of their union flows this manifested world, contained in the seed of immortality, spacetime. Thus, all tantras see the symbolism of the cosmic evolution in the sex act; to experience the bi-unity of Ardhanārīśvara, they use coital posture as the symbol par excellence. Since they in fact experience the essential oneness of all manifestations, they express themselves as members of a free love society called the kula.
The other meaning of the word Sahasrāra is; Saha = together, Srar - flow. This relates to the elimination of the illusion of separateness, and so insists, that the flow must be together. From this has come the concept of maṇḍala, or cakra, or yantra. A yantra, meaning an engine, is an object which expands in one's consciousness in meditation; it grows and grows to accommodate richer and richer visualisations, emotions, etc; it becomes the astral body of the meditator. In such a yantra, or a cakra, the prime example of which is Śrī Yantra, the union of 108 couples flowing away to glory in total bliss is visualised as so many sections of one’s own happiness. In the symbolism of "group coitus" of Kaulācara, Brahmānanda of Samādhi is experienced. As the Taittirīya Upaniṣad proclaims, Brahmānanda is the Ānanda of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 men (women) in perfect health, in essence, this represents the entire manifested life forms.
Thus the second meaning of Sahasrāra is the total mass of all happiness of the manifested world which flows in time. When all such flow is condensed into one solid mass, then that is called the Dhruva Kalā, or the Sādākhya Kalā, or the 16th digit of the moon.
- There is yet another meaning to the word Sahasrāra. Sahasra = 1,000, Ara = triangles. As everyone knows, a triangle with a downward apex is a symbol for vulva. 1,000 is often used to represent infinity. It derives this meaning from the fact that 1,000 is the combination of “1” – unmanifested God with “000” – the three zeroes of manifested worlds in the waking, dreaming and sleeping states of all life forms. In other words, all “vulvas” of the body, mind and intellect are implied in unity, and that is Lalitā, the Adi Śakti. Thus it is that the Guru, the disciple, the Goddess, and God merge into the Śrī Yantra, at the feet of Śrī Devi and at the disciple's head. The two feet of the Guru emanate such light that even the lotus is defeated in its glory. The lotus of course is the lotus of Sahasrāra. The importance of the feet of the Guru arises from such considerations.
Source: Śrī Amṛtānandanātha Saraswatī "Sudhā Syandinī Bhāṣyaṃ" Typed Manuscript
(an incomplete commentary on Lalitā Sahasranāma)
