10/07/2023
This month I will be sharing more about the goddess Saraswati – The Goddess who flows as Language, Insight, and Sound.
In the beginning, surveying the formless chaos of inchoate matter and energy, Brahma felt confused and at sea. He had no idea how to fashion something out of that disorganized swirl. In desperation, he turned into himself and asked, “How can I create an ordered cosmos in the midst of this chaos?”
From within him, the Goddess spoke. “Through knowledge,” she said. “And from knowledge will come creative action.”
With that, she emerged from Brahma’s mouth as the power of the creative word. She rode a snow-white swan—the hamsa—and carried a veena, a kind of lute. Fair-skinned, glowing with moonlike radiance, throbbing with power, her being vibrated with the mantra “Om.” That sound, carried on Brahma’s breath, would eventually manifest as all the worlds.
Saraswati’s grace, her Shakti, kindled Brahma’s creative wisdom—as well as his passion to make universes. From Saraswati’s stringed instrument, sacred mantras took form in cosmic space. Saraswati showed Brahma how to shape these sounds into energies that could become space, fiery suns and planets, the earth with its landmasses and seas, and the heavenly and earthly creatures who dwell in all the spheres of the cosmos. Ecstatic, he called her Vagdevi, the goddess of speech and sound.
All the Indian goddesses are connected to creativity, because Shakti is inherently creative. But Saraswati is the one whose cosmic function it is to embody the creative flow through language, speech, and sound—both cosmically and personally. If you are a writer or musician, you might recognize how the energy of Saraswati functions in you as the unmistakable drive that moves you when your work is flowing. The impulse of the Saraswati energy is passionate, but in an impersonal way. It’s exciting, yet there’s a subtle clarity about it. When Saraswati is in charge, you’re operating from a deeper center than usual. The ego is out of the way, and even thought is harnessed to her agenda.
Find out more in 'Awakening Shakti' (https://www.sallykempton.com/books-and-audio/)
Illustration by Ekhabhumi Charles Ellik.
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