DiwaWin: Has Your Friend's Good Fortune Taken Something Away from Yours?

A card can be limited to one hand, but a devotee need not measure Lakshmi Maa's grace as a stock of cards. Make room for two sincere wishes at her seat.

Your friend gets the card they wanted. You smile, then a less generous thought follows: “All the luck has gone to them.”

At a card table, another person's opportunity can affect your position. It is worth seeing exactly how. But when the thought reaches Lakshmi Maa—“There must be less of her favour left for me”—it has made a much larger claim.

For a DiwaWin reader who prays to the goddess of prosperity, this is a place to distinguish a card held in one hand from the abundance through which Maa is revered.

Be precise about the thing that is limited

Consider a teaching round using one standard pack. Your friend holds 6♥. That particular physical card cannot also be in your hand at the same time. If you were hoping to use it beside 4♥ and 5♥, their holding it is relevant to that particular hope.

The game gives you a concrete fact about a card. It has not given you a quantity called “Lakshmi Maa's remaining grace.” Moving from one to the other happens in your interpretation, not in the pack.

You can acknowledge the competitive situation without turning it into a measure of the goddess. “That card is currently in my friend's hand” is a clear account of the game. “Maa has nothing left for me” goes far beyond what the hand tells you.

There can be room for two wishes before Maa

Lakshmi is worshipped through the ideas of abundance, prosperity and auspicious fortune. The Diwali account from Incredible India places her worship in that generous devotional setting.

At her seat, your own hope can be spoken in full: “Maa, please look kindly upon the game before me.” You may also wish your friend well: “May they receive your kindness in their life.” These prayers do not require you to divide an imagined store of grace between the two of you.

You remain a player with a position to consider. The wider wish for another person's good can remain beside it. The card table has its particular possibilities; your devotion to the goddess of abundance need not be reduced to those possibilities alone.

At Lakshmi Maa's Ishta Mel offering area, a lotus, coins, mithai, coconut and a deepak are displayed as one group. Take darshan with the uneasy thought acknowledged. Offer the naivedya and let your wish make room for the person across the table as well as yourself.

ॐ श्रीं महालक्ष्म्यै नमः

Om Shreem Mahalakshmyai Namah.

Lakshmi Maa, please accept my offering. May your auspicious favour accompany me. Let another person's good moment not close my heart to your abundance. May I meet my own opportunities with gratitude and wish them well with sincerity.

The offering is addressed to Maa as a giver of prosperity and kindness. It carries your need without asking you to treat your friend's joy as evidence that she has turned away from you.

Return to the card, with the larger fear set down

The friend still holds 6♥. Your hand still needs to be considered on that basis. Nothing about the prayer requires overlooking that fact.

What you can set down is the extra fear that their good moment proves your exclusion from Maa's favour. You can say, “That was a useful card for you,” and then look honestly at your own possibilities.

For a DiwaWin reader devoted to Lakshmi Maa, the two wishes can remain: play your own hand with care, and keep a generous place in your heart for another person's good. Jai Lakshmi Maa.