The Saundarya Lahari is a renown Sanskrit literary work considered to be the height of Mantra texts. Saundarya Lahari means waves of beauty. This text is divided into two sections. The section calls Ananda Lahari, translated as waves of bliss or joy, comprises the first forty-one stanzas or shlokas of this one hundred stanza text. Saundarya Lahari, the text name, is also the name of the second fifty-nine shlokas. A translation of this ancient text can be found at this link. http://sankaracharya.org/soundarya_lahari.php

Shari Friedrichsen teaches that the nadis of our body are filled with waves of three types of energy, Saundarya Lahari (waves of beauty), Ananda Lahari (waves of joy), and Kama Lahari (waves of desire). The waves of desire that are meant to course through our bodies are of the desire to unfurl fully realizing our innate potential.  It is to bloom into the beautiful and blissful beings we are created to be. 

It is my desire to live life with these waves of beauty, bliss, and desire coursing through me as I swim through the cosmic ocean from which they come. This quest that we are all on is one of magic where Brahma who is filled with rajas guna creates, Vishnu who is filled with sativa guna preserves, and Shiva who is filled with tamas guna destroys. As the Anandatandava, the cosmic dance of bliss, cycles around, let us dance in harmony with the eternal rhythm of the cosmos.

“The source of all movement,
Shiva’s dance,
Gives rhythm to the universe.
He dances in evil places,
In sacred,
He creates and preserves,
Destroys and releases.
We are part of this dance
This eternal rhythm,
And woe to us if, blinded
By illusions,
We detach ourselves
From the dancing cosmos,
This universal harmony…”
Ruth Peel

COPYRIGHT © 2018 by Barbara E. Verchot