Saraswathi: the expression of essence

Photo: Barbie Robinson

The one who is contained in the white lotus

Who is the music of the veena

Whose abode is that poet’s heart

whose poetry abounds with countless pleasures

Subramanya Bharathi, “Vellai Thamarai”

Saraswathi as Vac or form or expression, is the most essential of all expression. She is that movement or expression that is untouched in our usual ways of living. Expression in our usual domains denotes extroversion, an outward movement, a gesture that occupies space and time. It demands to be recognised and “seen” through the lenses of our usual ways of perceiving reality.

What is expression when we are able to abandon the drive to occupy time and space? How do we embody when we open ourselves to the experience of being at one with the waters of life? What is the movement that is contained in the dynamic stillness that is the source of awareness? The movement that is free of our usual ways of narrating and understanding and that which connects us to the source of all movement- this is the nature of Vac.

Saraswathi’s power is vital in being the doorway to the experience of Consciousness or Unity and Absolute Presence. As embodied life, we must express and move and act. Saraswathi offers us the expression of enlightenment as embodied beings living in this manifest reality of space and time. This is the most precious of all gifts because without the power of Vac or expression we cannot ‘know’ the experience of Consciousness.

Vac in Saraswathi’s practice is the movement that moves all other movements—the inspiration, the essence or the root. In the beautiful song of Bharathi which I have quoted, this is alluded to as that movement which makes the lotus luminous and which pulsates in the strings of the veena to make music. The poet (kavi) is a special being in contemplation because the kavi is a seer whose expression is Vac or at one with the Truth or Essence. Bharathi evokes Saraswathi as the emotion in the kavi’s heart that infuses his expression with countless pleasures.

Saraswathi is the essential practice of aesthetics as contemplation. She proposes that the heart is the source of Vac or that Truth that can express the inexpressible. The movement of feeling—the waters of our selves—is that which can link the rivers of the skies and the earth. When we connect with this movement, that expression is the overflowing poetry of the seer.