Hari Aum.
A very happy New Year to everyone. I hope your year has started well. Fingers crossed that this year is significantly better than the last few, both on an individual and on a global level.
One hopes that the pandemic does not revive itself in any significant way (we need to continue to be vigilant of course as this is unfortunately not yet over). One also hopes and prays that the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine is resolved peacefully. After the last few years, one feels wary of expecting a 'happy New Year' but we can at least keep our fingers crossed that there will be some improvement.
The difficulties that we all face, both individually and globally, serve as a reminder of the vital necessity to attune ourselves to the Divine, to remain connected with the Divine. It really feels that, now more than ever, Divine grace is needed for humanity and our planet to survive the various crises that seem to be unfolding one after the other.
On this note, let us pray for our own welfare (as we can only help others if we ourselves are healthy and well) and that of all others. Let us recite mantras and prayers of our liking every day for this purpose.
I am currently enjoying my 'mantra holiday' i.e. my spiritual 'downtime' in between purascharanas. I am doing a mere one mala a day of the ashtakashara of Narayana. My main focus at present is worship of the Divine Mother in Her form as Lakshmi (as a prayer for health and general wellbeing). I am doing three malas a day of Her mantra which is suiting me very well at present. I feel generally soothed and nourished by this worship.
Just to mention, I randomly saw some green parrots in my garden a couple of days ago. This was rather unusual as they are not native to this country (their home is thousands of miles away in Asia). They were presumably brought here as pets and either released or escaped into the wild.
Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to see three of them with their bright green feathers and vivid red beaks sitting on a leafless tree in my wintry garden. As I am engaged in Mother worship these days, the parrots reminded me of a particular form of the Mother who is depicted as holding a parrot in one of Her hands. This form is of the Goddess Meenakshi, who is worshipped in Madurai in South India. I had briefly visited Her temple in 2014 and still remember its majestic appearance with beautifully decorated altars and columns.
I recalled that Mother Meenakshi was a form of Goddess Parvati, the consort of Lord Shiva, but could not recall much else about this aspect of Hers. I therefore took the opportunity to read up a bit about Her online. It appears that Meenakshi is the Goddess who bestows domestic peace, bliss and harmony (along with the highest spiritual wisdom and bliss of course). Her worship is said to soothe ruffled feathers in the family home, calm minds and generally bring harmony where there is discord.
Unlike the Mother's fierce forms as Durga and Kali, Her form as Meenakshi is sweet, charming and delightful. She is depicted as being adorned in beautiful clothes and jewels, with a pleasant smile and holding a green parrot in Her right hand. The parrot is said to symbolise wisdom, love and domestic felicity.
I don't know about you, but most people I know face some level of discord on an almost daily basis in their lives (this may be at home, at work or both)! A bit of peace and harmony would therefore be most welcome for most of us. I therefore thought it would be a good plan to add a bit of Meenakshi worship to my current regimen of Lakshmi worship.
In the past few days, I have discovered a host of mantras, prayers and slokas to Her and am presently dabbling in some of these (as I am currently on a 'mantra holiday' prior to starting the next purascharana in the coming weeks, I am not taking up any intense worship at present. I am sticking only to light and easy worship for now).
Some of these prayers include the famous Meenakshi pancharatnam and the Meenakshi ashtotharam (please see below for links):
Meenakshi Pancharatnam in Sanskrit with English translation:
A musical rendition of this stothram:
(Note: In Sanskrit, 'pancha' means 'five' and 'ratna' means 'jewel', so pancha ratnam means 'five jewels' or five verses in praise of the Goddess. This beautiful hymn was composed by the great Adi Shankaracharya)
Meenakshi ashtotharam:
(108 names of Mother Meenakshi)
This is an excellent resource of various Meenakshi prayers in Sanskrit:
I hope and pray that Mother Meenakshi blesses this entire planet with some much-needed peace and harmony. With this in mind, I am planning to integrate some more regular Mother worship into my next purascharana of the Narayana mantra which I hope to start at some stage next month. (I am exploring doing some daily Lakshmi mantra japa along with the Narayana mantra; might also include some regular Meenakshi worship too).
Also, as in previous years, I would like to mention that the books I published a few years ago on Amazon (Kindle format) about the life of Lord Krishna described in the Bhagavatam will be available for free download for five days this month.
In case you or anyone you know is interested, the dates for the free download will be Jan 14-18 inclusive starting from midnight PDT (in celebration of the auspicious Makara Sankranti festival which occurs during this period). The four books are available for download from here:
Once again, I wish all of you a very happy, peaceful and spiritually fulfilling New Year.
Om Shri Meenakshi Devyai Namah.
Om Uma Maheshvarabhyam Namah.
Om Shri Lakshmi Narayanaya Namah.
Hari Aum Tat Sat.
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