Soundarya Lahari - Part 105

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It is at this point that the object and its reflected image analogy leads to the positive and negative. What we said earlier pertained to electricity. But now we shall take the positive-negative phenomenon of photography. In the positive, light is light and dark is dark. In the negative on the other hand, light is dark and dark is light.  That is the Ignorance which shows what exists as not existing and non-existence as existence. This is the handiwork of MAyA ! We are all submerged in this MAyA and since ambaal is responsible for this, we call Her, MAyA.  

But to top it all, we should not forget that, the very ambaal who does all this play of MAyA, is Herself the Most Compassionate One, and those of us who can surrender to Her as the Only Refuge, will be graced

by Her and made to cross the MAyA-curtain !

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Soundarya Lahari - Part 104

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I was saying: It is Shiva Himslf who gets reflected in the mirror of MAyA and becomes ambaal. If you ask the advaitin, ‘What is this MAyA’, he will reply: ‘It is not possible to say what it is. You know it is called MAyA, magical ! So it will not allow us to understand it’. The  ShAkta school will say: ‘Even MAyA is only a part of ambaal.’. 

I already told you that  MAyA occurs only at the stage where  ShivaM becomes the  jIva, according to  ShAktaM. That the  jIva does not know that it is itself ShivaM, is  MAyA. It is the work of  MAyAShakti that makes it incomprehensible for  jIva to know the Permanent Eternal One and mistake the ephemeral things as permanently existing. 

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Soundarya Lahari - Part 103

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Another observation about ‘left’ and ‘right’. What is ‘right’ in the original is shown as ‘left’ in the reflection. And what is ‘left’, becomes the ‘right’. The  non-dual  nirguNa-brahman-Consciousness when it gets reflected in the mirror of  MAyA, becomes the  saguNa brahman thatcreates and monitors the dualities of the universe. This is an accepted principle of the advaita school. In other words IT IS SHIVA THAT GETS REFLECTED IN MAYA AND BECOMES THE AMBAAL!

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Soundarya Lahari - Part 102

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When something is positive and the other is negative, it does not appear to be equivalent. So to arrive at equivalence there is another way of looking at it. Instead of saying that one is in the center and the other revolves around it, think of each as half and half. 

That is the  ardha-nArIshvara form. The right side is Shiva (positive), and the left side, ambaal (negative). This may be justified by the fact that the heart is on the left side and supplies the ‘life’ for the entire body. If it does not work properly,  the right side also cannot work: na khalu kushalaH spanditum api, as the shloka 1 says.

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Soundarya Lahari - Part 101

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There is a ‘still center’  for everything which is its peaceful center.

Even though it has no vibration it is not the emptiness nor it is of zero potential. The equilibrium which we aim at when we weigh a weight, is this still center. Every object has a center of gravity. Even in a dreadful storm, there is a ‘storm center’. 

Always the energy radiates from such a center and that is why movement and action are produced. It is that center which may be called ShivaM and the energy that radiates from it and revolves about it is ambaal.

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Soundarya Lahari - Part 100

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It is unfair on our part to find fault with science for what is beyond science. In the same way protagonists of science must realise that there is a limit to their scientific quest. They have no right to say that what transcends their science is wrong or false. That the two are complementary must be felt by both sides. It will be fascinating to discover that several scientific truths have been enunciated, though in a different way, by some of our scriptural findings.

Why not think of the proton with a positive charge in the centre of the nucleus, as Shiva and the electron with the negative charge that goes round, as ambaal?  

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Soundarya Lahari - Part 99

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But this fact has evaded science. Even if the scientists one day accept it in theory, they will have to say “its ‘proof’ is not within our jurisdiction; go to the  shAstra of Spirituality to know it”. Science can explain, through its laws,  only certain ‘movements’ of the grand cosmic dance of  parAShakti; whereas it is incapable of showing a path for becoming the Absolute by quelling the live Mind that vibrates in an integrated way together with all the vibrations of the universe. 

Nor is it the goal of Science. Only religious scriptures can show you the way. But even then, the final gates will be opened only by  ambaal. Who else, except the One who originally separated us from the Absolute, can reunite us with that Absolute?  

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