The Nine Nights’ Festival of Navratri has begun!
Worshipping our dear Goddess Amba Mata is the major highlight of this festival. We worship Her by playing garba on the tunes of the devotional songs sung in her praise, by doing Her Aarti and making prasad for Her with great love and warmth and for those who can observe a strict fast during these nine days out of sheer faith and devotion towards Her!
“The fruits that you reap (by worshipping this Goddess) are directly proportional to your faith (shraddha)”, says Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan.
So, How should our Faith be?
Maintaining selfish motives to gain worldly benefits while worshipping this great Goddess, is not correct. And these are all temporary gains, so ultimately, they prove to be of no use anyways. Our motive instead must be to seek Her grace to help us progress on the path of ultimate liberation. This pure motive will not allow to adulterate our faith!
Goddess Amba Mata is the Adhya Shakti, meaning the original energy force!
It is said that Amba Mata symbolizes natural prakruti (personality)!
Param Pujya Dadashri explains the real meaning of it. He says, “Goddess Amba Mata is in the form of energy. She is an embodiment of energy. When unity of your mind, speech and the body energy happens (ekagrata), you can attain that energy. That energy is verily within you. But why do we have to keep these symbolic idols? This is because people are not aware that the energy is within them, that is the reason why it has to be placed outside as symbols.”
So, why not begin this practice by worshipping Goddess Amba Mata with unity of our mind, speech and body? When we worship Her so, with great reverence and with exuberance, our own prakruti is energized. It will become natural and powerful and we shall gain good peace of mind too.
Goddess Amba Mata is the reigning and the protecting (Shaasan Devi) Goddess of the Tirthankar Goddess Amba Mata is the Shaasan Devi of the Tirthankar Lord whose mere sight helps us attain liberation. From the one who protects the liberation seekers, can we seek fulfilment of our trivial worldly desires then? No, never!
Rather, we shall seek Amba Mata’s special grace and blessings to help us progress on path of salvation. Goddess Amba Mata has the divine power to destroy our worldly obstacles and grant energy to our prakruti, thus enabling it to become strong, natural and spontaneous. When the prakruti becomes natural, Purush that is the Self (Aatma) too becomes natural. This helps us in a big way to progress well on the path of liberation.
So come, on this auspicious festival of Navratri, let’s pray to this great Goddess with utmost unity of our mind, speech and body, and attain Her grace, “Dear Amba Mata, please help destroy the obstacles that obstruct our progress on the path of liberation!”
