CLICK HERE TO JOIN ONLINE ARKAYA COMMUNITY CLASS VIA ZOOM
Every Saturday from 11 AM – 1 PM PST
Nav means “nine” and rathri means “nights.” The divine mothers come to us in the night, to protect us, to be the light in the darkness, to help us face our fears, to nurture us and to help us participate in this play of light and shadow.
This festival is celebrated all over India for nine nights to honour the sacred feminine and welcome the power of the goddesses into our hearts. Ultimately it is a state we evoke from within or a vibrational quality we learn to tap into.
Shakthi Means Power
The mother goddesses are collectively called Shakthi or Aadhi Para Shakthi. Shakthi means “power” or “empowerment.” Aadhi means “the origin” and para means “highest.” So this original great power, this beautiful big bang that created life and manifestation is the mother divine. This eternal cosmic force that pervades everything is what we need to tune into in a focused way, at least for nine nights a year during Navrathri.
Money is also a gross form of power. It is interesting that the divine feminine held the purse strings. During these nine nights we are seeking synchrony with this transcendental supreme power, not a limited force or corrupt power. Astrologically we have an open portal for it to happen effortlessly and hence it is good to make full use of it. Yes the stars are aligned! :) There is also a lot of prana/energy enhanced through everyone focusing on this principle collectively.
Shiva Without Shakthi Is Shava
Shiva or “consciousness” is shava or “a corpse” without Shakthi. Shakthi is the driving force. There are many stories, where ascetics and sages give more importance to Shiva rather than Shakthi, negating the manifest universe. So she decides to teach them a lesson and withdraws just one physical manifestation, which is food. People begin to starve and they pray for grace. She comes into this world again as Annapurna or the complete nourisher. Through that particular incarnation she reminds us to be aware of eating healthy foods and respecting the manifest world, not neglecting it in the name of spirituality or out of laziness. She also reminds us to share our food. I sometimes ask people if they need something with respect to food a bit too many times compared to what may be the norm in the West. I warn people I know of this, and some of my students can attest to it as well. :) It is my eastern habit of checking that everyone is well fed which is deeply ingrained.
Playful Power
The divine mothers are a perfect embodiment of this playful power. They are depicted holding many forms and feelings.
The bhava, or emotion, is not personal and is needed to help us move from personalising emotions to making them impersonal so they do not have any energetic hooks in us. This enmeshment with emotions makes us depleted and entangled in unnecessary inner and outer battles. So she brings to us the lessons of simply being a channel of what needs to be done to bring back balance and harmony.
Story Depicting Playful Power And My Own Additions
There is a story that Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the trimurthis, or three divine male manifestations, decided to play a trick with Goddess Saraswathi. They asked if she would grant them whatever boon they asked and she said a big yes, being the embodiment of benevolence. The naughty gods asked that they be able to see her naked and wondered how she would get herself out of this one. In a kshanam, or instant, they found themselves as babies. The divine mother had no problem being naked in front of these personifications of innocence. This is just an example of how the divine mother has a solution for everything. Her right brain, lateral thinking capacity matches her compassion and willingness to give boons to the right people in the right manner.
This was thankfully not an asura or a dark soul asking this particular boon. I always imagined that if it were so, then she would take a fiercer form, cut off their heads and get naked in front of their heads and say, now you can see. That is what mother Kali embodies. Even the darkest and densest thamas ( inertia, ignorance), nightmarish and ghost filled night is no match for her.
I took this story even further in my mind and decided that for a rajasic (restless, agitated, hankering after power and money) person wrapped in the world, she would be mother Lakshmi who would strew gold coins and they will be distracted into looking at the coins and fighting for them.
Peaceful Power
Power is not only playful but inherently peaceful. That does not mean that we shy away from standing up for what is right because we hold this power. Mother Durga killed the asura Mahishasura to protect her children. Mahishasura, or “the great asura,” was terrorising everyone. Sura means “light” and "A" in front in Sanskrit negates it. So Asura means “one who is without light.” By killing his physically identified, egoic form, the compassionate mother liberates him into the light. Some of the paintings, depicting Shakthi using her trishul (transformational tool) to kill the asura, exude peace. Some paintings even show her with a gentle smile so as to say, “this needs to be done for the good of all.”
How Do You Start Invoking The Divine Feminine?
The most important way of invoking the divine feminine is to honour her in all her forms. In us, in others and everything around us.
The deity or personification is only to give us a point of focus to expand into the infinite forms she manifests as. Respecting Bhuma Devi (mother earth who is a manifestation of Shakthi), supporting the elevated arts, using money and knowledge wisely, creating harmony, and respecting the subtle are all ways of honouring the divine mother. Food, flowers, beauty, kolu, or small cute sculptures depicting scenes like the nativity, are all part of Navrathri.
A combination of lentils to fortify proteins and building blocks in the body are served along with many ladoos or sweet balls made from lentils, nuts and seeds and many other snack items, foods and desserts. Sometimes you hear Indian ladies in the north saying they are fasting during Navrathri. What this means is that they are fasting from the regular wheat and rice. There will be a whole bunch of other snacks made from millets, buckwheat, chestnut flour, lotus seeds and other nutritious seeds and grains that might otherwise be ignored. This is to honour the diversity of nourishment that is available and to partake of it.
Who Is Invoked During The Nine Nights?
In different parts of India there are slightly different focus areas, though invoking and evoking Devi is a constant. This holds good for both men and women as men too need to access their lateral thinking sides and go back into the womb of the divine mother to be rebirthed into more beauty and ease. This safety she provides is not limited to only females but for anyone who knows how powerful and protective a loving mother can be. There are navdurga or nine forms of Durga invoked on each day.
In the South the first three days are dedicated to mother Lakshmi, the next three days to Durga and the last three to Saraswathi. These are all personifications of Shakthi (power), the mother goddess or the divine feminine.
Lakshmi = lakshya = higher goal
She is the goddess of abundance. Not only is she the vibration of having enough but feeling enough. So enough money, progeny and nourishment. She helps us cultivate self love.
Durga = fortress.
She is the protection for all and her form symbolises that. She helps us cultivate assertiveness and strong boundaries.
Saraswathi = river = flow or fluid like
She is the one who beautifully allows for divine wisdom, communication and the arts to flow through us. She helps us cultivate discernment. In the south she is given slightly more importance during these nine nights
There is so much more depth of symbolism and the above is simply for you in a gist.
What Invoking The Sacred Feminine Is Not
The elder in me is out in full gusto, so if it offends some of you who have been sold the Western package of tantra or the divine feminine, please redirect that disappointment to the ones who have conned you into their patriarchal cesspool. Some may be so far from their inner compass, that they justify the potholes to themselves and think the indoctrination to be true.
Some self professed tantric gurus have mixed yogic philosophy so deftly with their self serving agenda and I have seen their blind followers, who cannot separate the two and remain eternally servile to the dysfunctions that were meted out. A classic example is to see women dressed as B grade bollywood actresses with even cheesier moves who are swaying to some self obsessed, potbellied, self proclaimed swami who profits in the name of tantra. And give him full permission to touch their privates because having sex with him will magically heal or rebalance them.
This is from many true examples without names being mentioned, so I am not exaggerating. Of course many lesser shades of these exist as well. This is for women who are conditioned to pander to that male fantasy in the name of tantra or being feminine. There are many other ways of owning your femininity without shame, pain or guilt that do not have to subscribe to objectification. However, I am not stalling self expression in safe and mutually reciprocal spaces. Only reminding you to not feel compelled by some lecherous so called swami or his voice in your head.
I can comfortably say this after decades of teaching and speaking at conferences internationally and knowing which lusty old men hiding behind saffron robes, to avoid.
Real Tantra
In real tantra, or expanding one's energy to liberate, a pada puja, or ritual worship of feet, is done to a sanctified woman. The feet carry nerve endings and therefore conduct energy. That is why in India we touch the feet of elders, so that energy and wisdom can be easily passed on. Just as the woman who wanted to be healed by Jesus had to only touch his garb and Jesus felt healing energy move through him to her. That is what the pada puja does. It allows for the energy needed to balance to move to the person, through the embodiment of the divine feminine. So the male submits to the divine that is shining forth through her. That is why, when in doubt, young girls/children are dressed up to look like the mother goddess and the feminine in them worshiped.
We will look into more ways to tap into and synchronise with our feminine in the next blog...