Diwa Lucky: Welcoming Lakshmi Maa Before a New Round

A prayer for an auspicious beginning and favourable opportunities, with Lakshmi Maa's lotus offering on Ishta Mel before the next game.

Before the first card is dealt, the round is still an open possibility. There is no pleasing turn to remember, no result to celebrate. There is only the game ahead and the hope you carry towards it.

For a devotee of Lakshmi Maa, this is a time of welcome: “Maa, please grace what is about to begin.” Her blessing is sought as auspicious fortune, abundance and the arrival of favourable opportunities. The wish comes before the event.

If you have come to Ishta Mel while looking up Diwa Lucky, you can bring that wish to Lakshmi Maa's seat. Pause there before thinking about what the first hand might contain.

First, welcome the giver of good fortune

“Jai Lakshmi Maa” addresses someone. That matters to the feeling of this prayer. The devotee is welcoming the goddess who bestows prosperity and auspiciousness, with trust that her grace may accompany the coming activity.

The Incredible India introduction to Diwali places Lakshmi worship within the festival's hope for prosperity and good fortune. On an ordinary day, a personal prayer before a game can draw on that familiar devotion without waiting for a festival.

Try beginning with her name before naming your desired result. “Lakshmi Maa, please accept my pranam.” It leaves a little room for reverence. Then tell her what brings you: a new round, the hope of a favourable opening, a wish that a useful opportunity might arrive when it is needed.

This is an invitation made before you know what will happen. Its warmth comes from turning towards Maa while the future is still unopened.

What might “a favourable opportunity” mean at the card table? Perhaps the opening cards leave a promising connection to build on. Perhaps a later draw supplies the card for a group you have been trying to complete. These are the kinds of possibilities a player can have in mind while asking for her favour.

You do not yet have one of those moments to place in the prayer as an accomplished fact. Instead, you place your hope before her: “Maa, may an opportunity suited to this game come my way.” The feeling is anticipation, and the goddess is the one to whom that anticipation is entrusted.

The wish can be wholehearted. A simple desire for the round to go well does not need a long speech. Name the game in your own words, acknowledge the Mother and ask her to look kindly upon what is about to begin.

Lotus, mithai and a welcome spoken aloud

Ishta Mel displays a lotus, coins, mithai, coconut and a deepak together in Lakshmi Maa's offering area. The lotus is an immediate point of recognition at her seat; the displayed sweets give the welcome an affectionate, familiar quality.

Take darshan and look at that complete offering group. The site's “Offer Naivedya” control is the place to make the online offering. Let the words accompanying it come from the round you are preparing to begin:

Lakshmi Maa, I welcome you with respect. Please accept this offering and bless the game ahead with your auspicious presence. May a favourable chance arrive, may I recognise the good that comes to me, and may your grace accompany this new beginning.

The mantra displayed here is:

ॐ श्रीं महालक्ष्म्यै नमः

Om Shreem Mahalakshmyai Namah.

After saying it, you can remain with her name for a moment. The game has not begun yet. The offering belongs to this quiet space before it does.

Carry the welcome into the first hand

There is a different feeling in looking at the opening cards after saying, “Maa, I place this beginning before you.” The devotee enters the round with a blessing sought and a welcome offered.

A good connection in the hand may bring a smile. An uncertain start may leave more to discover. Either way, the prayer was spoken while neither was known. It remains the personal act of inviting Lakshmi Maa's favour into the game ahead.

The first hand is about to open. Before it does, the lotus has been offered before Maa, along with the hope that a fitting opportunity may come through her grace.

Jai Lakshmi Maa. May this beginning find you under her benevolent gaze.