sanjay pandita
Early Times Report
Jammu, Oct 19: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sarsanghchalak Dr Mohan Bhagwat on Monday offered prayers at the Durga pandal in Nagpur’s Dhantoli area, using the occasion to deliver a message on the primacy of Shakti, the divine feminine power, in Indian spiritual thought.
Amid the devotional atmosphere of the pandal, Dr Bhagwat said that every person must seek the blessings of the Mother, because it is her grace that sustains everything. “Where there is Shakti, everything is possible,” he said.
He said, even Shiva, the supreme principle, is incomplete and lifeless without Shakti. The remark underlined the traditional belief that the masculine and feminine principles of the divine cannot be separated.
Dr Bhagwat then turned to the meaning of devotion itself. Worshippers, he said, invoke the Goddess with the verse “Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu...”, then name the divine qualities one by one as they pray. The essence of this worship, he explained, is that the Mother resides in the hearts of crores of people along with her treasure of virtues, and that the task before everyone is to awaken those virtues within.
His message framed Durga worship not merely as a ritual but as a call for personal and collective renewal, with devotion serving as a means of drawing out the strengths that already exist in every individual.
The invocation “Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu...” is among the best known verses recited during Navratri and Durga Puja. It forms part of the hymn to the Goddess in the Devi Mahatmya, the scripture also known as the Durga Saptashati. Each repetition of the verse addresses the Goddess as present in all beings in a different form, such as power, intellect, compassion and peace. That tradition is the basis of Dr Bhagwat’s point that the virtues of the Mother are already present in people’s hearts and need only be awakened. |
