Shri Annapurna Mantra
There is a saying in the Bible that “Prove me now herewith saith the Lord, and I shall pour you out a blessing that you cannot contain it.” So this wording was an inspiration to me when I was young and somehow I hoped that I could prove that God exists. That God is accessible to everybody, who truly desires to know and experience God, in their life.
In my travels as a Seeker of Truth it was fated that you would wish to go to India, and so when I went to India the first time, I also went to Kashmir and Nepal. In Pokhara in Nepal, we got to stay for days by the lake in the shadow of the Annapurna mountain range, which is beautiful and terrible, in that it has claimed the lives of many climbers and I think perhaps more than any other Himalayan mountain. This beautiful mountain Annapurna is also the name of the deity in the Hindu tradition who is an aspect of Shri Devi as Maha Laxshmi, responsible for the giving of blessings including the forms of nourishment and food.
Goddess Annapurna Story
Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati used to play the game of dice. Once they were playing and the game became very interesting. They started betting. Parvati bet Her jewels and Shiva bet His trident. Shiva lost the game and He lost His trident. So in the next game he bet His snake to get back the trident. He lost in this game too. He played more and bet more and kept on losing. Eventually he lost everything including his begging bowl.
Shiva felt very humiliated and went to Deodar forest to meet Lord Vishnu. Lord Vishnu approached Shiva who told Him everything about what had happened. Lord Vishnu then told Shiva to play the game again. He told Him that he will win back everything he had lost in the next game. Shiva took Lord Vishnu’s advice and went back to play the game again. Goddess Parvati became suspicious of Shiva’s sudden turn of fortunes that led him to win back everything. She called him a cheat. This led to an argument between the two of them. Finally, Lord Vishnu appeared as He could not take the fight anymore. He told them that the dice in the game had moved according to His wish and they were only under an illusion that they had been playing.
To this Shiva added that everything materialistic was just an illusion or Maya. Everything that we possessed was an illusion. Even the food we ate was Maya. This made Goddess Parvati angry. She did not agree that Her food was an illusion. She said that calling food an illusion was equivalent to calling Her an illusion.
So in order to show Lord Shiva and the world Her importance She disappeared saying that She wanted to see how the world would survive without food. Her disappearance meant that Nature came to a standstill. There were no changes in seasons. Everything became barren. The lands became infertile. Nothing grew anymore. This led to severe drought and a huge shortage of food.
The Gods, humans and demons all kept praying for food. Goddess Parvati heard the prayers and She could not see Her children perishing out of hunger. So She appeared in Kashi (Varanasi) and started distributing food. Shiva realized His mistake and the fact that He was incomplete without Shakti.
(“There is no Shiva without Shakti. And no Shakti without Shiva.”)
So He appeared before Goddess Parvati in Kashi with a begging bowl in His hands. He said that He had realized his mistake, that food could not be dismissed as an illusion, and it was required to nourish the body as well as the inner soul. Since then Goddess Parvati is worshipped as the Goddess of food – Annapurna Devi. It is believed that if the food is cooked with a spirit of holiness it becomes sacred as Annapurna blesses it.
See https://www.templepurohit.com/goddess-annapurna-the-hindu-god-of-food/
As a Sahaja Yogi, every day on average for over 40 years, I experience the magic and the moment of vibrational transformation, when I repeat the simple Sahaja mantra in the name of Shri Annapurna, by placing my hands over the intended food, and singing the following Sahaja Yoga mantra….
“AUM twameya sakshat Shri Annapurna, sakshat Shri Adi Shakti Mataji,
Sri Nirmala Devi, namoh namah.”
In so doing we vibrate that food and it becomes blessed and cooled, not in the foods temperature setting, but in the vibrational setting, where the Chaitanya proves the spiritual quality is improved and its vibrational auspiciousness is ensured. Cool vibrations indicate goodness, holiness, auspiciousness and blessings from the Divine, from God so, every day I experience in this most practical and beneficial of ways the Reality that God is, that God can be invoked, and can manifest blessings through the hands and the attention of a Sahaja Yogi, and so we change things in this World.
So surely therefore, we prove God herewith every day, and surely, every day we accumulate more Grace, more blessings, improved health, and more nourishment by the Divine, in our lives. So, I would venture to say that I do ‘herewith prove the presence of God, the reality of God and the blessings of God’ by manifesting these in the everyday experience of preparing, blessing and taking food that has been transformed by the Divine Chaitanya cool breeze. If this were the only blessing that we received, it would surely still be both true, and sufficient, to prove God’s empowerment, and bring about such blessings, that you truly cannot contain.
Amen