NAVARAATHRI SPECIAL SERIES #7 Saraswathi

To be blessed by Saraswathi is to be able to transform the world through words. Saraswathi will often show up as moments of sudden understanding. When words flow easily, when ideas come up out of nowhere, when you say something so powerful and profound that it surprises even you, you are experiencing Saraswathi. Above all Saraswathi is wisdom. This has been her function ever since the beginning, when Brahma, the creator god, asked for help in order to make a world.
From within Brahma, Saraswathi spoke. “Through knowledge,” she said. “And from knowledge will come creative action.”
A Saraswathi woman gets her deepest satisfaction from being in touch with that source of inspiration and creativity. She loves solving intellectual and artistic problems, discovering connections and new paradigms. She can pore over a text for hours, and what interests her in relationships is not so much communion as discovery. Saraswathi women are often unconventional, not so much because they are trying to break the rules as because they don’t notice that the rules are there. And though they can be beautiful and popular, their hearts will tend to be not so much in their relationships as in the intuitive realm where the connections are being downloaded.
In you and me, Saraswathi flows through that moment when we choose a creative path or make an intention. When an idea takes form, you can find her as the inner impulse that comes from somewhere deeper than your ordinary mind, ready to dance on your tongue.
However, in the more popular version of Saraswathi’s story, Brahma divorces her. Brahma becomes increasingly disaffected with Saraswathi’s refusal to carry out the traditional wifely role. She wants to spend all her time in study and meditation, tending her inspirations. She doesn’t cook; in fact, she won’t even come for meals, and when she does, she’s either totally aloof or chatting all the time about esoteric matters that don’t interest Brahma. Brahma – who is after all, the original patriarch – wants a more pliable wife. He gets more and more annoyed.
Matters come to a head when Brahma and Saraswati are supposed to preside together at a religious ritual. She promises to be there but gets so immersed in her study that she doesn’t show up until the ritual is almost finished. “That’s it”, Brahma says, “We’re finished.” He divorces her and takes another wife.
Ever since then, Saraswathi has been alone. Unlike Lakshmi, who’s the archetypical consort-wife and Kaali, who has a relationship (albeit a wildly unconventional one) with her Tantric husband Shiva, Saraswathi has no partner. As an archetype of the feminine, Saraswathi is the solitary woman, who gives up conventional life for something subtler, more pure. But of course, there’s another side to Saraswathi’s marital debacle. In traditional societies, and even in the contemporary ones, a woman who dedicates her life to interior pursuits will often have to give up partnership, either for her own reasons or because few men will put up with a partner who is so absorbed in her own creations.
In fact, many men with an abundance of Saraswathi energy have a hard time with partnership as well. When you’re a channel for Saraswathi’s flow of inspiration, and especially when you’ve committed yourself to the rigor that she often demands, you may not have the space for ordinary relationships.
Saraswathi is dispassionate, which is why Saraswathi people make good mediators. Saraswathi can help you stand outside your emotions and observe them. Saraswathi’s rigor has to do with keeping the mind and heart pure, one-pointed and careful. She’s a perfectionist.