Would you
please explain in the context of cosmic functioning of the universal Shakti the
importance of the four aspects of the Divine Mother, the four leading powers
and personalities that have stood out in this universe?
You are asking a difficult question, in the tradition
of the Upanishads. The disciple approaches the Rishi and solicits him for the
Knowledge of the Eternal, Brahmavidya. I do not have any personal knowledge,
through spiritual experience, about these four aspects of the omnipotent
Goddess, her powers as Wisdom, Strength, Harmony, Perfection—Maheshwari,
Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati. I don’t think we can speak about them in
the manner of a Rishi. But we may try to understand something of these powers
from what Sri Aurobindo has written about them in his little magnum opus The Mother. This answer of mine has
therefore severe limitations; it is essentially paraphrasing The Mother in my own way which may not
be faithful to the original. But perhaps it might help us at least to mentally
understand something of the eternal Truth given to us by him.
If, en passant, we are to hazard a guess as to which
books of Sri Aurobindo will live for millennia to come, then we might say that
these are his supremely revelatory epic Savitri,
his grandest formulation of the vision of new humanity given in The Life Divine, and his neo-Tantrik
scripture of the Integral Yoga, The
Mother. It is in this Tantra Vidya that we meet the four great aspects of
the supreme executive Power of the Divine, not only as presences but also as
embodied persons.
The concept, if it can be called so, of the four
aspects of the Mother as given to us by Sri Aurobindo is not altogether new.
But it puts in focus the active powers that are presently operating in this
creation. In the Vedic tradition,—and also of the Gita,—it is the Purusha who
is represented in his several expressions for upholding the universe. But Sri
Aurobindo sees them as mights, powers, aspects of one transcendental Shakti. That
these are soul-forces operating in the cosmos is what is being revealed to us
in this formulation, the true basis of splendid and well-thought Chatrurvarņa
system, it conducting the harmonious functioning of the social order.
The hierarchy of these powers is something like this.
At first we have the absolutely Original Transcendental Shakti, call her if you
like the supreme Force, Parātparā, Aditi, omnipotent Goddess, Mahadevi, or
Consciousness-Force or Chidshakti or the Divine Mother who is closest to us,
they all being essentially the same with different names, though each having
its own shades and nuances. What we describe as Nature or Prakriti is only the
outward aspect of the highest executive force. Nearer to us, but above, she is
the supramental Mahashakti. She has the power of divine omniscience and divine
omnipotence, Knowledge and Will. On an intermediate plane, she is the presiding
Mahashakti of the triple world of Ignorance. It is here that the four powers of
this Mahashakti operate and govern the evolutionary world.
Maheshwari is the Power of Wisdom. She, with her
knowledge, opens us to the worlds of Sachchidananda. Hers is a personality
tranquil and wonderful, calm, one who knows everything, comprehends everything.
She is Mother to all, even to the hostile, to gods and to men and to demons. In
her wisdom she has always with her the divine interest.
Mahakali is Force and Strength. She rushes with divine
impetuosity and shatters all limits, destroys all obstacles. She is the Warrior
of the Worlds, her spirit tameless, and her action straight and frank and swift.
To knowledge she gives conquering might.
Mahalakshmi is the embodiment of eternal Beauty. She is
the divine power of love, sweetness, charm, harmony. In oneness with her is our
profound happiness; she is one who lavishes the riches of the spirit when we
open to her. God-wealth and God-abundance are her special gifts to us, she the
Prosperity herself, Śri.
Mahasaraswati is the Mother’s Power of Work. Flawless order
and perfection are what she brings to all that she does and supports. Attention
to every detail is her untiring concern, her mission. She is strong, she is
attentive and conscientious, she is skilful and efficient in all that she
undertakes to do. Her work is unblemished, and in its technicalities and
minutiae nothing is forgotten. She is patient kind, smiling, close, helpful and
is the most easily approachable.
We do not have any such description of the Powers of
the Supreme in the Veda. The Gita speaks only of Para Prakriti and Yoga Maya.
But the elements of these powers can be traced in them also. The Vedic Purusha
Sukta is a Hymn of Sacrifice of the Divine Being. When it talks of the four
parts of that Being, Virat Purusha, we then at once see that Mahaeshwari is his
head, Mahakali his arms, Mahalakshmi the heart, and Mahasaraswati the feet. In
the fourfold order of the society as propounded by the Gita we have a
correspondence of Maheshwari as the Brahmin, Mahakali the Kshatriya,
Mahalakshmi the Vaishya, and Mahasaraswati the Shudra. It is in this impeccable
Chatuvarņa established since ancient time, as the Gita also declares, we see the
full psychological justification for the fourfold soul-force operating in the
world. Indeed in the present mode of existence it is an aspect of cosmic
functioning itself; not only that, but, behind it, there is the eternality of
the transcendental Mahashakti herself.
Take any society and any time in the history of civilizations,
and we cannot fail to recognise that these four aspects have been always
present, through all the known ages. There have been Brahmins all over the
world and workers and business men and heroic people and warriors. Men of
learning, men of adventure and mighty noble action, men of alert commerce and
trade, men of professional skills,—where are, or in a dynamic culture, when
were they absent? Plato and Einstein were Brahmins; Julius Caesar and
Eisenhower were Kshatriyas, Henry Ford and Bill Gates must be considered as
Vaishyas, so too the unnamed engineers and builders of Hagia Sophia and the
The present degradation of Chaturvarņa in
But in the yogic vision and experience of Sri Aurobindo
there are also the higher powers of the omnipotent Goddess who have not yet
come down into the evolutionary play. These can come down only when the
Truth-dynamism of the Transcendent, the creative Supermind descends into it.
This has now happened and there shall be hence the multifold order, far beyond
the Chaturvarņa System, which shall organise life in the meaning and purpose of
the Spirit. Of course that possibility also assumes that the present four
cosmic Powers of the Divine Mother are fully operational in their working
harmony. The true sense of Chaturvaņa lies in it.
N.B: The author was interviewed by Mr Pradip Kumar Sen
for All India Radio Pondicherry and for JVR Cable TV for programmes broadcast
on the occasion of 29 February 2000. The present article combines both the
interviews, but giving just that part which pertains to the
fourfold Powers of the Mother.