The story of Goddess Lakshmi
Hinduism is a religion that celebrates the pursuit of wealth. The story of how Goddess Lakshmi emerged during the churning of the ocean is an interesting one.
Once, sage Dhurvasa, had a garland of flowers that never wilted and he wanted to present that garland to God Indra. God Indra, in all His arrogance, gave the garland to His white elephant, Airavata, who threw the garland on the floor. Outraged at this act of disrespect, Dhurvasa cursed God Indra that all the Devas would lose their power and that Goddess Lakshmi would no longer stay in heaven. The result of this curse was that the world became a dull, lifeless place, with no energy and prosperity and with people’s greed overtaking their goodness. God Indra, realizing His mistake, went to God Brahma for help, who in turn guided Him to God Vishnu. God Vishnu, told the devas to use Manthara Parvata, the mountain, to churn Ksheersagar, the ocean of milk, to obtain the nectar of immortality, so that the devas would regain their lost strength. He told them to take the help of the Asuras, since the devas were so weak and told them to take Vasuki, the king of the serpent’s help, to use as a churning rope.
God Vishnu took the Kurma (tortoise) avatar to support the mountain while the ocean was being churned. The devas and the asuras churned the ocean for about 1000 years before the ocean’s treasures came to the surface. One of the treasures that came out of the ocean, was Goddess Lakshmi, standing on a lotus flower. She was immediately accepted by God Vishnu as His consort and thus, she returned to heaven.
The lesson that we can all take from this story is that Goddess Lakshmi will not be present at a place where there is arrogance; She encourages hard work and sincerity and She will only show Herself in the presence of these two virtues.
A huge list of Lakshmi temples, right here at http://www.ishtadevata.com/lakshmi.html
Reach us to be a part of our whatsapp spiritual reminder group
another thing one should notice is that she goes to a person who lives in aclean enviornment, clean thougths and who is always full of positivity.
Swathy: Thank you for your insight 🙂
On seeing this, I remember one story, where a king went outside for seeing how his people live. There he saw one angle like woman was about to go from his country. He stopped her and asked who are u and why u go out of country in this night. She told that she was goddess dhana lakshmi, her turn to this village was over and she has to leave. Next to her some other godess like dhaiya lakshmi and other went ouside his country. King siliently noticed all this. when Aadi lakshmi which give us Dharma i.e. good thought going to get out from his country. The king suddently felt in his feet and ask her to stay there. He told the goddess “I can manage without all the above. But I don’t want my people to bad.” When the Goddess went inside. All the other went outside again come into the city. Because every body know that without dharma no goodness will be given to any person. So Kindly ask for good thought and helping tendency to others rather than wealth
Priya: Thank you for sharing this story with us 🙂