02/10/2026
✰ ☾ Devotion & Worship ✰ ☾
My Svadhyaya (self study) has this week taken me to the story of Vishnu receiving the Sudarshana Chakra from Shiva.
Yes, the gift he eventually received was beautiful but more beautiful was how Vishnu explored devotion & dedication before the gift.
Vishnu worshipped Shiva with such devotion through Prayer, mantra, offerings, honour and dedication. Shiva did not respond. Yet Vishnu didn’t become despondent. He didn’t stop because his prayers appeared to be going unanswered. He didn’t worship simply to receive something in return.
He continued and, more beautifully, he continued to take pleasure in the act of devotion itself. There is something in that which really speaks to me, like, the practice wasn’t transactional, It was more about relationship. A willingness to keep showing up with integrity, dedication and love, even when there was no obvious response or reward.
Eventually Shiva revealed himself and gifted Vishnu the Sudarshana Chakra, a divine weapon capable of overcoming even the greatest problems.
And for me there lies another gift within the story. Through devotion, ritual, prayer, chanting and offering, we create ways of seeing beyond the surface of things. Beyond the noise of the thinking mind. Perhaps even into those unconscious places within ourselves that we cannot always reach through thought alone.
We don’t worship because we are guaranteed an answer and not ritual because we are guaranteed a reward. But devotion because there is something sacred in the relationship itself. Meditation. Chanting. Prayer. Journaling. Offerings. Altars. Magick. Yoga.
And maybe, somewhere within that devotion, our own Sudarshana begins to turn, allowing us to see more clearly what was there all along. 🕉️
