Friendship and alliance in a plural world

Photo: Sunsets manifest Nature's plural palette and the trees make the inner dance visible!

When wise expression (speech) emerges through winnowing (distillation/purification) then friendship is known

Here friends recognise friendship and Lakshmi is infused in their expression (speech/words)

-Rig Veda (translation and interpretation)

Plurality is a radical invitation at any time, and never more radical than in the times we live in today. We inhabit an ever-splintering vision of Reality where, overwhelmed by duality, we sink deeper into the swamp with atomisation. I sense that there is a Yearning for plurality that is screaming out as we have moved towards the regimentation of categorisation and definition. There is a cry to dissolve labels or to subvert definitions and defining narratives. However, all this is still held within the consciousness of duality and its suffocating energies of “them” and “us”, and this results in atomisation that disconnects, rather than connects, with the abundance of plurality.

The birth of the archetypal deity Lakshmi happens at such moments in time when there is a churning of energies of resistance and liberation. This is the archetypal Churning of the Ocean, or the depths of our collective consciousness or our primordial nature. The churning brings together hitherto polarised energies and movements and forms an unlikely alliance between them.

The verse from the Rig Veda above alludes to this movement of churn and change as the winnowing of expression. Winnowing, like Churning, is the movement of distillation, of removing what cannot be consumed to leave behind what nourishes and sustains us. Winnowing or Churning is not to reinforce the dualities of good and bad, rather it is to reveal to us the clarity of Reality beyond duality. Here we experience a source consciousness, a space where all experiences merge. However, the merging does not remove plurality, rather it allows us to experience plurality as the unifying sensation.

As you can sense from the section above, Lakshmi is abundant with paradox. Plurality itself is the manifestation of this paradoxical abundance. To experience plurality is not the same as diversity where we define difference. Nor is it to be amongst “like-minded” people” where friendship is conditional upon shared ideologies. Plurality is the intelligence of Reality as a manifold consciousness that cannot be nailed down with defining narratives.

In ancient invocations, a hundred Lakshmis are birthed along with Body. When we manifest in Body, many Lakshmis manifest at the same time. These Lakshmis are not remote to us, rather they are the divinity of Home—the home of Body, of our domestic world and of the Earth. In the Lakshmi cosmos these three domains are the same.

Our Body is the first site of plurality. Body is a constellation of divergent intelligences and expressions. In traditional medicine systems across the world, Body is seen as an alliance of intelligences, where each organ functionally and in terms of its expression, has a discrete and divine intelligence. Indeed, in traditional Indian astrology, Body is mapped across the constellations in the sky and each organ or part of the Body has a specific divinity associated with it. Body is approached as a plural expression where each part must form alliances with all others to be in harmony with the consciousness of the constellation. Just as each star in a constellation is both itself as well as part of the constellation in the same moment.

The alliance is not based on a flattening of differences or a mechanistic narrative of common ground. In the Body it is the difference between each organ and the specific function they undertake that sustains the Body as a whole. To try and make every organ like each other is to destroy Body. When we extend Body to Earth, we can see the same intelligence in terms of the importance of the plurality of biodiversity in ways that are still unrecognised by us.

As a child, I had the honour of growing up in circumstances where plurality was the norm. I was born a Malayali, lived in Hyderabad which is a rich confluence of religions, studied a dance form which came from Telugu culture and moved to Madras (now Chennai) which is a place of Tamil culture. I speak about five Indian languages (which is not unusual in India). This multiplicity of culture, language, and dance infused in me the joy and vastness of plurality.

Sometimes we use words like tolerance in encounters with plurality. We speak of tolerating or accepting difference. In terms of the Earth, we speak in terms of saving or managing plurality. Abundance, as I sensed in my own encounters with plurality early in my life, is an allowing. We simply must attend and allow the intelligence of plurality to emerge in us. Because we are, each one of us, a plural being.

And that is the abundance I experienced in living amid a plurality that was allowed. I experienced my own plurality. It led me to resist easy labels all my life. I still struggle with defining myself in terms of nationality, culture, marital status, and other labels. Labelling is a powerful impetus of duality. It is not easy to evade labels because unlabelled existence can be invisible in a labelled and categorised Reality.

Lakshmi’s cosmos of the domesticity of body and home alludes to the humble abode of plurality. Plurality is not in the noisiness of the many in the external world. Where we have simplified Lakshmi as the Goddess of wealth, we express our inclination to see abundance as acquisitive possessing of things outside of us. Lakshmi is the intimacy of a plurality that is, in essence, an allowing and enjoyment of the manifold possibilities and the infinite intimations of our own Body, consciousness, and sensations, which are mirrored in the manifold plenitude of Nature and life around us. There are thousands of archetypes because we hold infinite possibilities of expression in this world.

The abundance is the liberation of our plural consciousness to express in the world as plural beings. It is the dance of the constellations that is emergent in the Body as ancient ritual dances. In this dance is the movement of plurality, the expression of the manifold intelligence of Body, sensation, and consciousness. Abundance and infinity begin with the infinity within the finite—the plurality in our Body.

Lakshmi is the Sakthi of Vishnu, or the energy that is immanent in matter. This energy is vast and abundant, and it begins with an inner friendship and alliance within the plural cosmos that we are.