Saraswati

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Words of Sri Aurobindo:

|| The three Riks of the third hymn of Madhuchchhandas in which Saraswati has been invoked, run as follows, in the Sanskrit:—

Pāvakā naḥ sarasvatī, vājebhir vājinīvatī;
    yajñaṁ vaṣṭu dhiyāvasuḥ.
Codayitrī sūnṛtānāṁ, cetantī sumatīnām;
    yajñaṁ dadhe sarasvatī.
Maho arṇaḥ sarasvatī, pra cetayati ketunā;
    dhiyo viśvā vi rājati.

The sense of the first two verses is clear enough when we know Saraswati to be that power of the Truth which we call inspiration. Inspiration from the Truth purifies by getting rid of all falsehood, for all sin according to the Indian idea is merely falsehood, wrongly inspired emotion, wrongly directed will and action. The central idea of life and ourselves from which we start is a falsehood and all else is falsified by it. Truth comes to us as a light, a voice, compelling a change of thought, imposing a new discernment of ourselves and all around us. Truth of thought creates truth of vision and truth of vision forms in us truth of being, and out of truth of being (satyam) flows naturally truth of emotion, will and action. This is indeed the central notion of the Veda.

Saraswati, the inspiration, is full other luminous plenitudes, rich in substance of thought. She upholds the Sacrifice, the offering of the mortal being's activities to the divine by awakening his consciousness so that it assumes right states of emotion and right movements of thought in accordance with the Truth from which she pours her illuminations and by impelling in it the rise of those truths which, according to the Vedic Rishis, liberate the life and being from falsehood, weakness and limitation and open to it the doors of the supreme felicity.

By this constant awakening and impulsion, summed up in the word, perception, ketu, often called the divine perception, daivya ketu, to distinguish it from the false mortal vision of things,—Saraswati brings into active consciousness in the human being the great flood or great movement, the Truth-Consciousness itself, and illumines with it all our thoughts. We must remember that this Truth-Consciousness of the Vedic Rishis is a supramental plane, a level of the hill of being (adreḥ sānu) which is beyond our ordinary reach and to which we have to climb with difficulty. It is not part of our waking being, it is hidden from us in the sleep of the superconscient. We can then understand what Madhuchchhandas means when he says that Saraswati by the constant action of the inspiration awakens the Truth to consciousness in our thoughts. ||

Sri Aurobindo - The Secret of the Veda

Sri Aurobindo - The Secret of the Veda

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