Durga Puja – Durga Devi’s Role in the cosmic master plan

Hare Krishna On the occasion of Durga Puja let us contemplate on how Durga Devi plays a vital role in the rescue and the redemption of all the conditioned souls in the world the great devatas are parts of the universal administration and they have two roles one is as the administrators and the second is as the devotees so as administrators they have powers and one of the powers also includes the power to receive worship so they are worshipped in their own right for the powers that they have and that is their official duty but the role that they relish more is the role of devotees because that is what they know they are eternally even their posts are temporary posts so the Bhagavatam gives us a vision in which it describes Durga Devi as Vaishnavi Janamohini so normally we think of Vaishnava as one who removes illusion, who gives mercy who fulfills our spiritual desires so this Vaishnavi Janamohini how do we understand that how can a Vaishnava or a Vaishnavi cause illusion among others actually that is her service, it's a difficult and thankless service but it is through this service that she helps the Lord in ultimately getting all the souls back to Him so Prabhupada gives the example that a father loves the child and then this father doesn't want the child to be punished in any way but at the same time the child has to learn so the father may engage a strict tutor who is very firm and strong and that tutor ensures that the child gets educated, so like that Durga Devi is like the tutor, Krishna is like the father and the tutor's goal is not to punish the student, it's ultimately to promote the student to help the student to become better in studies, so Durga Devi through her three trishula, her three pronged weapon trident, what does the trident signify it signifies the threefold miseries, Adhyatmic, Adhibhautic and Adhidaivic and through these sufferings which come upon everyone often when people see Durga Devi piercing her sword against in the heart of some demons, they think oh that demon is so bad and it is good that she is being killed yes, that Maishasura was a demon whom Durga Devi killed and that is glorious but along with that the demon also represents the demoniac mentality in all of us and that demoniac mentality is there because all of us have a desire to enjoy separate from Krishna so the trishula which she is piercing the demon with the threefold miseries Adhyatmic, Adhibhautic, Adhidaivic they represent her instruction to us, go back to Krishna go back to Krishna so to the extent we go away from Krishna and into material consciousness to that extent the three prongs of Durga Devi Adhyatmic, Adhibhautic, Adhidaivic pierces and to the extent we take shelter of Krishna these do not pierce us so generally speaking when we see the attractive pleasures of this world at that time we need to remember that these are temptations and the purpose of the temptations is not to trap us but to educate us, to elevate us we should learn to see through those temptations so as devotees we can pray to Durga Devi to give us, to let us move on towards Krishna to not tempt us and when the sufferings come, rather than blaming Krishna why is he letting us suffer, we can meditate on the sufferings and take the underlying message go back to Krishna, go back to Krishna that rather than wallowing in the suffering or letting it disturb our faith we take the suffering as an impetus to take greater and deeper shelter of Krishna and in that way we will be able to fulfil the ultimate purpose of Durga Pooja many people do Durga Pooja and nowadays to get greater fulfilment of their material desires they have prayers which Dhanam Dehi, Bharyam Dehi, Dehi Dehi give me all these, give me this, this, this but asking for all those things is basically asking the threefold prongs of the Trident to pierce us more but instead if we ask for devotion and just as the Gopis prayed to Katyayani for the attainment of Krishna so similarly as devotees we don't have to go out of our way to pray to Durga Devi because she will give her blessings anyway if we worship Krishna and if we serve Krishna and his devotees but if we happen to go during some Durga Pooja festival or if we have had a tradition in our family of worshipping Durga then we can spiritualise that form of that worship by asking her for blessings so that we can see through the illusions of this world and see through the sufferings also to understand that ultimately they are meant to help us experience Krishna's love and with this understanding you can move forward towards relishing Krishna's love. Thank you.