“The Mahalakshmi Power,” Diwali Puja. Hampstead (London), 9 November 1980 …English, in the sense that we sat down together and translated Sanskrit puja into English and tried to make it more understandable by you people. It’s the day of Mahalakshmi puja they say, not only of Lakshmi Puja. There’s a difference between the two. Mahalakshmi is one of the powers of the three powers, main powers, of Adi Shakti. As you know: Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati, Mahakali. Now these powers have powers at a material level also, at a subtler level also. So Mahalakshmi power is achieved after Lakshmi power, as they say. So, the Lakshmi…there are eight powers of Lakshmi. This Lakshmi was born, who came out of the sea, the great sea, which was churned thousands and thousands of years back. And She came out of the sea because She is the daughter of the sea. That’s why She’s called as Neeraja. ‘Neera’ means ‘water’ and ‘ja’ means ‘born out of’. This has happened thousands and thousand [of] years back that She was born. So what is that? What is this Lakshmi symbolically, what is it expressing? It is expressing the awareness. Lakshmi expresses awareness, and She came out of the sea, you know that. The awareness first started growing in the sea. The life started existing in the sea, to begin with, and then it grew out. Without the life there is no awareness. First the life, because everything is jada (inanimate matter), everything is dead. And when it Read More …