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Lakshmi – Goddess of wealth

This weekend all of my family was busy preparing for Diwali – the festival of lights. We started with cleaning up the home, decorating it with lights and other artifacts. At the same time, we took out the Ganesh and Lakshmi idols for cleaning, so that we can perform the Diwali rituals. My daughter asked me the question – why do we worship Ganesh and Lakshmi? They aren't a couple and also didn't we perform Ganesh Chaturthi a few weeks ago? Why do we also have a third goddess – Saraswati in the images related to Diwali? Wonderful questions – I remarked, and got back to study harder. Let's see if I can do justice to her curiosity or arouse more?

Ganesh is worshipped by the virtue of the boon he received from Lord Shiva.

Lakshmi as we all know is the wife of Vishnu. She is the goddess of wealth and good fortune. We all strive to get her and probably lead our lives in quest for more of her. Remember the post where I talked of how Indra runs after Lakshmi and Lakshmi finds comfort in the feet of Vishnu. All through our lives we fight for her. Why? Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth, prosperity and money as some call it. Lakshmi is symbolically denoted by water, gold, vegetation, elephants, lotus, owl and virtues.

The puranas talk about Lakshmi to have come out of the ocean (Kshirsagar) as a result of the samudra-manthan or the churn. Hence she is known to be a daughter of the sea. It is said that Lakshmi walked out of the ocean dressed in white with pot of wealth in her hand and a divine peace in her face. She overlooked everyone, walked over to Vishnu and put a garland around his neck. A lesser known fact is about Alakshami or Jyeshtha. Alakshmi or Jyeshha is considered to be the elder sister of Lakshmi. She is said to come out of the ocean dressed in blood red. Alakshmi is said to have emerged after the poison came from the churning of the ocean. Some also say that she was the product of the sweat or saliva from the snake Vasuki who was used as the rope to churn the ocean.

Alakshmi is attributed to everything opposite of Lakshmi – poverty or daridrata, fights or kalaha. She is said to have been disowned by everyone. Later listening to her plight, Sri Vishnu owned her and gave her equal status like Lakshmi thereby creating two sides of the same coin! Alakshmi is often considered to be embodied as the owl – the Lakshmi carrier.

From the above story about the Lakshmi, what we realize is when Lakshmi comes, Alakshmi follows. Lakshmi and Alakshmi come always together. While Lakshmi gives us the wealth, health and prosperity, Alakshmi pollutes the mind, home and creates situations for devastation. While Lakshmi is always welcomed and worshipped, Alakshmi is neither welcomed nor worshipped. But she always accompanies Lakshmi. How do we separate the two or rather reduce the effect created by Alakshmi? The answer is provided by Saraswati – the goddess of knowledge. Remember, Sarawati rides a swan. A swan is the only creature who can differentiate and separate milk from water. When we worship the goddess of knowledge, we get the power to distinguish between Lakshmi and Aalakshm and hence find ways to reduce the impact of Alakshmi. This is the reason for worshipping Lakshmi and Saraswati together. Lakshmi is never worshipped alone for the fear of Alakshmi.

Now we ask the question, we all study hard to be engineers or doctors or whatever and yet we do not gain Laksmi? What went wrong in our worship for Saraswati? The answer is simple! You got what you asked for! One studies not for knowledge but to earn Lakshmi. And hence you are not really worshipping Saraswati but another form of Lakshmi – VidyaLakshmi. Unless you gain blessings from Saraswati, there is no savior from Alakshmi.

I wonder how many of us have figurines of elephants in our house. Do we know why?

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