Sri-Laksmi’s birth is said to be the result of the austerities of Prajapati, the great progenitor. Sri is invoked to bring fame and prosperity. She is said to bountiful and to give abundance, and to bestow on her worshiper gold, cattle, horses, and food. She is asked to banish her sister, Alaksmi, “misfortune,” who appears in such inauspicious forms as need, poverty, hunger and thirst. She is delighted by the sounds of elephants. In outward appearance she is glorious and richly ornamented. She is radiant as gold, illustrious like the moon. She is often said to shine like the sun and to be lustrous like fire. She is associated with the lotus which is a symbol of fertility and life. This fertility is rooted in and takes its strength from the primordial waters. The lotus symbolizes vegetative growth that has distilled the life-giving power of the waters into embodied life. It is this lotus-power that is revealed in Sri-Laksmi.

Derived from the writings of David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses

This yantra brings forth the energy of Kali, one of the most awe-inspiring deities of the Hindu pantheon, and the only consort of Siva remaining autonomous and powerful unto herself. She is the energetic source of what we conceive of as our universe, and manifests the energetic original unity of the transcendental in her feminine form. Kali is also the annihilating and illuminating power of time. The energies of creation and dissolution are condensed in her yantra. Kali herself appears in the central drop or bindu as the conscious source or womb of the world. Kali is Supreme Mother. It is suggested that the symbols of the Kali yantra are to be drawn into the body of the viewer, for Kali is both a cosmic reality and psychic fact.

Born in the heat of a passionate dialectic and an ensuing intense struggle for dominance between his parents, the goddess Parvati and god Siva. Parvati demanded inviolate time to herself and Siva demanded access to her whenever he desired. In response to this conflict Parvati fashioned the boy Ganesha from unguents and dirt scraped from her body and breathed life into him to be her son and protector to guard her door. Subsequently, Siva decapitated Ganesha in a fight to gain entrance to Parvati. Parvati as the diva of worldly existence then moved to withdraw her phenomenal energy from the universe, threatening the collapse of all creation. Siva repented and vowed to send one of his retinue bring back the head of the first being he met in order to bring Ganesha back to life. The head was that of an elephant. Ganesha, connected to his new head, was revived and Siva claimed him has his son as well. Ganesha is envisioned as having a fat childish body on top of which is his large elephant’s head. He is said to embody an earth-bound awareness that protects the divine secret from unripe minds.

So, if we want to know the secrets of this world as a manifestation of the divine we must first receive the blessings of Ganesha. Ganesha’s mount is the rat. With his elephant-like nature he can boldly forge a new path through the world. And with the aid of his rat mount, he can travel deeply into a situation, getting beneath the foundation of things, and permeate the obscure. So as he obstructs, so he also offers insight and a way past obstructions and defeat. This is why Ganesha is invoked before the beginning of any enterprise among Hindus.

Creation Myth

Prajapati, the first god, from whom all gods and beings evolved, and some say, who, through austerities eventually became Brahma, brought forth many children one of whom was his daughter, Usas, the Dawn. Usas was a goddess of sublime beauty. Usas ushered in each day with her gentle glorious luminescence. Because of ushering in the mighty sun god, Surya, she was invoked as the Eye of the Gods. She was ever the young woman and the immortal divine one who bestowed material wealth upon her people.

Prajapati developed a mighty lust for his daughter. As the phenomenal lustful tension build in their household, Usas fled and frantically turned herself into a doe to escape. Prajapati then turned himself into a buck, caught up and mated with her. Some say that from this union came the four-legged beings.

Thereafter, every time Prajapati chased after her she took another form, and her father the same form as well, and from this countless mating came all animal life on Earth. But the gods were angry with Prajapati for his wonton behavior and wanted to punish him but could not do so by themselves. So they combined their most dread powers producing The Unnamed God (Rudra Siva) and asked him to punish Prajapati. And Siva agreed on condition that he become lord of cattle. He shot an arrow at the offending Prajapati and struck him. Prajapati instantly rose to the sky and became the constellation Mriga, occupying approximately the position of Orion.

The power of Surya, the sun god, is conceived of as dispelling darkness both spiritual and earthly: curing disease, heating and illuminating the world. Surya is father of Manu (progenitor of the human race), Yama (lord of death), the Asvins (twin celestial horsemen), Karna (great warrior of the Mahabharata), and Sugriva (king of the monkeys).

The sacred geometry for this watercolor was derived from a copper plate c.1700 from Rajasthan.

This yantra brings forth the living energy of the Siva/Sakti relationship. Siva is the great ascetic god (not unlike the Greek god Cronus. or Saturn) who wounds in order to heal more deeply. His consort, Sakti, manifests the kinetic power that is the foundation of all life. Siva manifests consciousness and is the paradigm of meditative quiet and unshakable stillness. And paradoxically, his acts are frequently disconcerting and unpredictable. Nevertheless, he is beautiful, ultimately beneficial, and healing and thus an object of intense devotion. In this work, Siva appears as the white bindu and Sakti as the red within the primal triangle symbolizing their essential unity. The essence of Tantrism is the record of the stream of dialogues between Siva and Sakti.

The temenos of this watercolor was styled after a combination of 18th and 19th century Rajsathani gouache and ink manuscripts.

During several hours of watching tiger videos I sketched frames to try to capture how these great cats move. I also stalked our wonderful large gray house cat, Toby, as she ambled around her world.

“That which removes your ignorance is called Durga. That Sakti, that energy inside, through which you know Buddha, Krishna, or Durga, IS Durga.” —Sri H.W.L. Poonja

“You must have seen in the temples and shrines that Durga rides a tiger and has a whip of a snake in her hands. This energy or power is called Durga. Without Durga you cannot understand anything, and so first you have to please your own energy. Then you will understand what you are doing. If you don’t please your energy you will go a wrong way. Most people do not even know which way they have to tread upon, and you will only know if your energy and your aspirations are pure without fault. So first pray to the Goddess Durga within you so that she leads you on a good path. The tiger she rides on symbolizes mind. When you think “I am not Durga,” then the tiger rides on you. If you know “mind is my tiger,” then you are Durga. Most of the people become something that the tiger will ride, but YOU ride the tiger! This is called Durga.” words of Sri H.W.L. Poonja, The Truth Is