Saraswathi: expressing the inexpressible

Photo: Barbie Robinson

I am sovereign existence

The gatherer of treasure

The supreme object of ceremonial action (yagna)

I am the perceiver of Consciousness (Brahman/Truth/Wisdom)

The celestials have spread me in all directions

Infused in multiplicity of forms

-Vaak Suktham, Rig Veda

In our times, Saraswathi brings together many deities in the Rig Veda who moved between the domains of the manifest and the unmanifest. These deities allow us to experience the truth that the manifest-unmanifest continuum is not a polarity as we understand in our languages of polarity. The waters flow between the domains, dissolving the boundaries that fragment our perception and blind us to the colossal spaciousness of Maahi, the immeasurable domain of Truth.

Vaak, vac or Vaag is a profound gift of Saraswathi. In this Rig Vedci section, Vaak is a goddess herself and reveals to us her power and domain. Vaak is expression, word, sound, the movement of a state of being that is at one with Truth. Truth here is complete alignment with Reality, Brahman or Consciousness. It is a state of being that is completely independent of the division between perception and the object of perception (I and what I see). In Vaak, the perception is the perceiver, the experience is the experience. In this alignment, Vaak, vac or Vaag is the expression of that state of being.

Consciousness cannot be expressed in our languages because our languages arise from the duality of I and reality (that is, I experience reality). This is why Vaak is precious, because it only arises when we die to our individuation from Truth. It is sovereign because it is free of all conditions that weave our stories of reality, driven by our self-interested perception. Vaak gathers treasure for its speakers, the riches of freedom from the bondage to delusion.

So long as we are embodied, we must act and express. Therefore, Vaak is the prayer of those whose actions are offerings (yagna). To act as offering is to be free of self-interest. It is not martyrdom but the perception of one’s essential action in the moment. As embodied lives, the expression that is evoked by our action as yagna is Vaak.

Pervading in all directions, infused in all forms, Vaak glimmers at the core of everything. Finding her movement in us we find the expression of Truth. In the Saraswathi domain, this expression is dance, music, poetry—the languages that arise from the movement of Truth within us.