कराग्रे वसते लक्ष्मी
करमध्ये सरस्वती
करमूलेचु गोविन्दम्
प्रभाते कर दर्शनम् |
This is a morning shloka that we were taught to say in the morning. We were never taught the real meaning of this prayer . The simple meaning is that
The Goddess Lakshmi is at the tip of fingers and Goddess Sarasvati is in the middle of hand and the Govinda - Lord Krishna is at the base of this and so look at the hand in the morning .
This is the word by word meaning and that really does not make lot of sense. So I thought of explaining the meaning of this Shloka. Again this is my explanation and I hope you will like it. The first part of this Shloka is THE GODDESS LAKSHI IS AT THE TIP OF THE GINGERS. The Goddess Lakshmi is the Goddess of money or wealth. We pray her for having more wealth . If you have seen the picture of Lakshmi she has gold coins dropping from her hands . So it is stated that she is at the tip of the finger . What does this exactly means ? We have fingers and they move like no other animal's fingers can move. We have thumb and that has a movement called Opposition - it can be moved in such a way that thumb can be touching any finger. This is not possible for Dog or Cat or any other animal except may be little bit in chimpanzee. If we could not do this movement of the thumb, then we could not hold a pen or a knife or a paint brush or any tools for surgery or any skillful work . So when we USE it - pen weapon- scalpel etc then we can do out duty or the job , which earns us money or livelihood. So the tip of fingers are the one that earn us the money. So that is Goddess Lakshmi and she is at the tip of fingers.
The next one is that the Goddess Sarasvati is in the middle of the hand . Again it does not make sense . But if we look at our hand we see cord or tendons, which actually control the movement of the fingers . So if we are doing a painting or a surgery the finer movements are controlled by theses tendons. So the how to and how far and how precisely move the fingers is due to the tendons and that Knowledge is nothing but due to Goddess Sarasvati who is in charge of knowledge. So the Sarasvati is in the middle of the hand .
Now the next line . The Lord Krishna or Govinda is at the root of this or is the base of this. I am sure now it is clear to you that the entire process is possible ONLY DUE TO THE GOD or Lord Krishna . The meaning of MOOL is the root and so we can see that we could not do anything if the physical body did not have God or reflection of the God Dead person can not do any movements of the fingers . So we need God or Brahman or Consciousness.
AND so we should look at it and contemplate on that Lord -God when we wake up in the morning - look at the hand .
