Who is Goddess Lakshmi?
Do you know the origin story of Goddess Lakshmi?
Lakshmi was born from the stirring of the primordial milky ocean by the gods and demons.
The name Lakshmi is derived from the Sanskrit word Laksya, which means aim or destination.
Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth and prosperity of all forms, material and spiritual.
Like most Hindu mythology, Lakshmi’s origin story has many different versions and is always embellished with many surreal, magical or even unbelievable elements. Lakshmi’s story begins with a meeting between Sage Durvasa and Lord Indra.
Sage Durvasa, with a lot of respect, offers Indra a garland of flowers. Lord Indra takes the flowers and rather than humbly placing them around his own neck, he puts the garland on the forehead of his elephant Airvata. The elephant takes the garland and throws it down on the earth- after all, he is an elephant. He didn’t know better!
Durvasa gets angry at this disrespectful treatment of his gift and he says to Indra, “you have an inflated ego and in your arrogance, you have disrespected me!” Durvasa curses Lord Indra, stating that his kingdom will be ruined just as he ruined the garland by throwing it onto the ground in his excessive pride.
Durvasa walks away and Indra returns to his home. The changes in Indra’s city start to take place following Durvasa’s curse. The gods & people lose their vigour and energy, all the vegetable products and plants start dying, men stop doing charity, minds become corrupted, and everyone’s desires become uncontrollable.
With the Gods getting weak in Indra’s home town, the demons invade the realm of the Gods and defeat them. Everything became chaotic.
This is the reason that both Gods (light) and Demons (darkness) reside in us and are representative of the good and evil within us.
After being defeated, the Gods went to Lord Vishnu (the preserver of the universe) who suggested they churn the ocean to restore the power back to the Gods. The work of churning this primordial ocean will bring back the elixir of immortal life to the gods.
The churning is symbolized by a literal tug of war between the Gods and Demons in the story. Being a vast body, it would take all of the gods and all of the demons to churn the ocean. So the gods took a snake and wrapped it around Mount Madura. They then sunk the whole mountain into the milky sea. With the gods at the tail end and the demons at head, they both pulled, uncoiling the snake, causing the mountain to spin and the primeval sea to swirl.
From this churning many things rise up out of the ocean, including Lakshmi AND the elixir of immortal life. Goddess Lakshmi rises out of the waves, fully grown, gorgeous and on a lotus flower. Eventually through some tricky slight-of-hand the elixir of immortal life also is returned to the gods and order in the universe is restored.
One of the lessons in this story is that when we get arrogant or angry, it leads to an inability to perform good work. We will lack mental peace, willpower and have a meaningless life. It also shows us that we sometimes have to work with our adversaries, finding compromise and collaboration in order to restore order for a greater good.
Online yoga teacher trainings:
Recently, we had a fun pool party where our yogis channeled their inner lakshmi and celebrated feelings of abundance and prosperity in the midst of yoga teacher training.
Mantras for proSperity
Using mantra
You can use Lakshmi mantras or even English affirmations to help cultivate abundance and prosperity in your life. Reminding yourself that the universe has everything you need to succeed and thrive helps cultivate feelings of abundance. Chanting to Lakshmi, saying her name in song and even using English affirmation can help you be affirmed that you deserve wealth and prosperity in all forms.
In our lives we deserve to feel wealthy with friends, love, prosperous in our professional and personal lives and that there is financial abundance available to us at al times.
Below are some of our favourite mantras to help you cultivate abundance and prosperity, drawing on the image of Lakshmi and the lessons of her story.
OM NAMO LAKSHMAYE NAMAHA
ABUNDANCE IS MY BIRTHRIGHT
I DESERVE PROSPERITY
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