Aum Maatangyai Namahe
It's worth keeping in mind that Dhumavati's dhyana includes not just a winnow (surpa), but specifically an *empty* winnow; and even more specifically an empty *broken* winnow. Everything is gone; spilled out. What does it mean?
An intact winnow generally refers to processes of mental impressions, memory, samskara. At the primary level it refers to the mental impressions that get into our mind in the first place: out of the trillions of potential sensory inputs we receive in a day (visual, auditory, smell, taste, touch), there must be a process of selectivity, or else our minds would be almost instantly overwhelmed. The input that is actually allowed into our minds is a mere fraction of what is swirling around us at any given moment.
At the level of memory, the symbol refers to the secondary “winnowing” that takes place once inside the mind. Of all of the experiences and impressions that *do* manage to get into our minds, only a few stay with us in the form of memory. For example, try to remember your life when you were eight years old, or 12. You probably have a set of “stock images” and impressions that you draw on from those days, but it would be impossible to entirely “recreate” a day in that stage of your life in any huge amount of detail. The vast majority of it is gone – again, fallen through Dhumavati’s winnow.
Then at the level of samskara, yet another winnowing process takes place – the small number of basic tendencies and impressions that are strongly enough ingrained to follow us from one life to the next. Each successive “sifting” of the stuff of our sensory existence in the material worlds again evokes the winnow.
So what happens when the winnow breaks? Well, at that point, everything drains out – “wheat and chaff” alike. No more mind, no more memory, no more samskara. Everything completely wiped away – and a fresh start for a new incarnation of Creation. Which, again, underscores Dhumavati’s role as Shakti without Shiva, standing alone in the interval between Cosmic Destruction and Cosmic Creation.
It's worth keeping in mind that Dhumavati's dhyana includes not just a winnow (surpa), but specifically an *empty* winnow; and even more specifically an empty *broken* winnow. Everything is gone; spilled out. What does it mean?
An intact winnow generally refers to processes of mental impressions, memory, samskara. At the primary level it refers to the mental impressions that get into our mind in the first place: out of the trillions of potential sensory inputs we receive in a day (visual, auditory, smell, taste, touch), there must be a process of selectivity, or else our minds would be almost instantly overwhelmed. The input that is actually allowed into our minds is a mere fraction of what is swirling around us at any given moment.
At the level of memory, the symbol refers to the secondary “winnowing” that takes place once inside the mind. Of all of the experiences and impressions that *do* manage to get into our minds, only a few stay with us in the form of memory. For example, try to remember your life when you were eight years old, or 12. You probably have a set of “stock images” and impressions that you draw on from those days, but it would be impossible to entirely “recreate” a day in that stage of your life in any huge amount of detail. The vast majority of it is gone – again, fallen through Dhumavati’s winnow.
Then at the level of samskara, yet another winnowing process takes place – the small number of basic tendencies and impressions that are strongly enough ingrained to follow us from one life to the next. Each successive “sifting” of the stuff of our sensory existence in the material worlds again evokes the winnow.
So what happens when the winnow breaks? Well, at that point, everything drains out – “wheat and chaff” alike. No more mind, no more memory, no more samskara. Everything completely wiped away – and a fresh start for a new incarnation of Creation. Which, again, underscores Dhumavati’s role as Shakti without Shiva, standing alone in the interval between Cosmic Destruction and Cosmic Creation.
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