In this episode of “5 Minutes”, Dr. Robert Svoboda explores Vak, the goddess of speech associated with Saraswati.

Vak or Vach is the Vedic goddess of speech. And she’s regarded as the mother of the Vedas. It is said of course, that the Om is the creative sound of the universe. So in a way, Om is being produced by, by this very Vak, this very Vaj. All speech, therefore, ultimately, is a manifestation of this particular Shakti, this particular incarnation of energy. And in the later period, after the Vedas, Vak became identified with a goddess who is more familiar to many people, and that is Saraswati.
Who is generally speaking and now and since the classical era. Regarded as the, the goddess of learning of all kinds. But it’s good to remember that ultimately she’s the goddess of speech because ultimately, especially nowadays, the majority of learning and knowledge that we have, yes, there is, there’s still some go out and, you know, learn how to dig a hole. This is something you’ve got to do with your shovel. But otherwise, lots and lots and lots of knowledge has been verbalized, has been codified in verbal form.

And, therefore, it is still this goddess Vāc, the goddess of speech, who is still in charge of transmitting knowledge from one person to another, one generation to another, one culture to another. It’s good to remember that, traditionally, in the tantras, they’re regarded as being four levels of speech. And those four levels are intention, sometimes that’s said to be located at the muladhara. And that’s called Parah, beyond. Pashanti, which means the visual speech, literally. And this is the kind of thing that you might use with a dog, or maybe with a horse.

You’re actually communicating eye to eye, vision to vision. There is Madhyama, which literally means in between that’s, how you explain things to yourself, said to be located at the heart, just as Pashanti is at the heart. Hara point just below the navel and there’s a vak shuddhi and that is the speech that comes out of your mouth That’s how you explain it to other people. So really speaking in any kind of communication, there will first be the intention of what you want to communicate and then there will be your vision of it.

How do you see that you are going to explain it even to yourself? And then you explain it to yourself, and then you figure out a way to explain to other people. And this applies to receiving messages also from people, from animals, from the environment, from, from ancient tomes, from whatever. You take it in very commonly. You take it in through verbal speech. You process it you translate it into how that can be explained to you as a personality.

And then you translate that into what kind of vision does that possess. And from the vision you translate it into what kind of intention was behind the person who produced the vision. Who came up with those words that they have communicated to you. And if you are at the very least aware of this and it is, you can always be fooled by people. I mean, especially, I’m talking as a 50 year resident of Bombay where people specialize in fooling other people.

You can always be fooled, but you’re going to be fooled a lot less if you understand the Or at least attempt to understand the intention behind whatever it is other people are saying, and the vision that they have, and it will also be easier for you to know how to respond to them. All of these forms of speech, these are all manifestations of that one goddess, Vaj, who we salute. I particularly salute her, because I, as you can tell, am using speech all the time.

And I would like to honor her, I’m not gonna sing it, but I would like to encourage you all to go listen to Andrea Bocelli sing Vivo Per Lei. I live for her, because he’s talking about, he’s talking about song, but he also, remember, is speaking about the goddess Vaj. And I can’t end without quoting our dear departed Swami Gyananand who said, “You pay karmically for every word you speak, but singing is free.”