An Encounter with Sarasvati

Inside the bleak darkness coming from the closing of my eyes, the lips and tongue moved by their own and started chanting “Om Aing Sarasvati Namaha”. The Sarasvati mantra was never an alien thing for me, for it kept being repeated in various occasions. The Devi had already become my own mother, the personal matron for me who chased after knowledge. Million of times had the mantra been chanted in my journey of preparing each every teaching session, spoken with the hope of acquiring the perfect blessing for me, “The Tongue of Sarasvati”.

Drenched in sweat bestowed by the burning heat of midday sun rays on the peak of Mount Lawu, my flesh merged slowly with Candi Cetho’s upmost level stone floor. Along with the coming of the complete silence –occasionally broken by the mantra chant or eagle’s shriek, my mind and soul began shifting into different realm; the realm where I saw a long scroll mapping the logical flow of my mind.

Inside the solace I started to be pensive on my desire to continue the study, on the opportunity for advance education and the thirst for knowledge. It was the point where everything was translated into contemporary concepts, that my thirst for knowledge means I am thirsty for the secret behind this material world. Did that mean my thirst is equal to the thirst of blood ruling over the ancient conquerors? Wasn’t I trying to collect the ammunition to start the invasion and expansion over world dominion? Wouldn’t that be similar to my intention to sit on the peak of the world?

In a present context, I am the alternate form of savage knight. Yet the difference lies in the sword we’re wielding. Instead of harnessing an iron Zweihander, I am wielding the sharp rapier of knowledge and words. Does that transform me into a knight of Sarasvati? The servant of earthly and ascetic knowledge? Then, how does that put me in the grander context of the earth we’re living on nowadays?

Beseeching the divine power from Ma Sarasvati, the chanting kept going on and on. People might think I’m going on a trance when suddenly the darkness before my eyes turned into bluish hue. I knew something would come, but no fear nor anxiety embraced me that very moment. And there I saw, a swan flew towards me out of the blue. Not just an ordinary swan, the white vahanna swan of Sarasvati Devi. Within the next seconds, I saw Her. The goddess herself appeared before me with all of her glorious attributes, the sitar, the flower, and the four arms protruding from the back.

She did not open her lips at all, yet I could hear her saying. The divine mother of arts and knowledge told me that I did not need the divine power from her or any other deities. Gods and goddesses are just mere human beings who had perfected one of their aspects. The chanted mantra was not essentially to summon the deities, but to call upon the gods and goddesses lied inside their own soul. Everybody is essentially divine beings, yet people just need to realize that potency. What she specially told me was that I did not need any divine intervention from the deities, for from within me the power had already overflowed.

Then in a glance the Divine Mother left me back in the solitude. I knew I was grounded back to the earth. And I opened my eyes slowly.