I Am and Try To Be

If a mountain could shine like the sun,
if its brilliance could penetrate the world's dark quarters,
if all the worlds joined together into this brilliance
and if this brilliance became a woman:
That would be a goddess. Devi: The Goddess.

I am that goddess. I am the force of the universe
in the shape of a woman. Nothing exists
that is not me, and nothing but me exists.
All women are but manifestations of me.
And I am the manifestations of all women.

And all women praise me thus: Devi, eternal
embodiment of the universal feminine,
you who create the world and sustain it,
we wreath you with flowers and incense,
and we beg you to bring us virtue and richness.

--Devi Mahatmyam, Indian song to the goddess

In meditating upon her vastness, we encounter it within ourselves.

I am unique, and I am infinite.

Caught up in the rigors of living in the rat race, it is all too easy for us to forget and to under-value ourselves, or worse, to deny our own self worth altogether, and hand in hand with this state of being, is the denial of our own unique nature and personal power.

The affirmation above can help to remind us of those two things only if we are also able to engage in self belief. Another symptom of modern living is the errosion of self belief through the pressures and judgements placed on us and passed about us by others. It's all too easy to sit and say to someone, don't listen to x, y, z, you are a powerful individual, and you have a right to believe in yourself, when on the other hand, and in the next breath you take, someone is putting you down for something you have, or have not done, or for assumptions they have made about you... and by the same token it's all too easy to be the one to pass judgements on other people. It's not even always done with intent or vidictiveness. Many times it can be done simply to assuage our own insecurities, unconsciously... or because we ourselves are hurting through someone having done the same to us, lashing out in self defence, a wounded reaction.

As fragile as my own self confidence can be at times, the above affects me a great dea. It only takes a small criticism to commpletely dissolve my self belief, and I find myself right back at square one, so I'm constantly reminding myself of my uniqueness, and my connection with the infiinite. As such, I am also, or try to be also, conscious of my interactions with others to try and minimise instances where I might inadvertantly impact on anothers sense of self worth, and to in fact positively support the maintenance of others self confidence. In a sense that helps to bloster my own, so it's not all altruistic I suppose, but it is practical, and loving and that is the kind of individual that I try to be.