Chapter 40Forms, Powers, Personalities and Appearances of the Mother · Mahasaraswati

— then she comes to herself and the struggle and destruction are over. That is the significance of the symbol.

9 February 1934 The lion is the attribute of the Goddess Durga, the conquering and protecting aspect of the Universal Mother.

12 July 1929

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15 April 1933

* The lion with Durga on it is the symbol of the Divine Consciousness acting through a divinised physical-vital and vital-material force.

November 1933

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What aspect of the Mother’s personality comes out on Prosperity day? Is it something like the goddess Annapurna, who satisfies one’s material needs?

I suppose it would be some aspect like that — an aspect of Durga.

2 March 1934

* Your attitude towards any divine manifestation in the Mother’s external consciousness is illuminating, “terrifying not only to the Asuras, but to the sadhaks”. And yet it was only a limited and particular force — the Durga power! Others did not go so far as that, but they found her high, far-away, aloof, severe — asked what was the cause of her displeasure against them. And that comes to the same — to be severe against the Asuras is also to be severe against the sadhaks. A few struck a different note, delight at the greatness of the Power they felt, or, even when feeling nothing of that, a sense of the sudden lifting of obstacles. But that is not the general tone. It follows that the Mother cannot manifest anything in her external material because she has to