శక్తి ఆరాధన - స్వామి కృష్ణానంద

Shakti worship—Devi worship, Durga Puja—is not a female deity’s worship, as some people wrongly imagine. Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati are not females like women that we see in the world. We would describe this very Shakti as is portrayed to us in the Devi Mahatmya: Narasimhi, Rudrani, Kumari, and all sorts of names. She appeared as Skanda with spear in hand, as Narasimha with roaring lion’s mouth, as Vishnu with Sudarshana in hand, as Rudra with Pasupata in hand. Can we call that great being a woman? Man has always counterposed before him this difficulty of having something opposed to him, and so is the case with woman also. This idea has to be shed before we become true worshippers of this great divinity.


Swami Krishnananda