14 nr 4-navaratri

8/12/2019 14 NR 4-Navaratri

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NAVA RÄTRIDR. ROBERT E. SVOBODA

Adapted from a talk given at

The Old School, Temple, NH during Nava Rátri 2003

F I when it comes to frequency and

range of religious observances. In manylands the sacred origins of traditionalcelebrations have been quite forgotten,but the majority of Indian festivalscontinue to serve both as social occasionsand spiritual events.

Even in India, however, evidentfervor notwithstanding, few devoteesknow more than the superficial

significances of the holidays theyobserve. e following article examinesin greater depth one of these annualspectacles, Aùvin Nava Rátri , the nine(nava ) night (rátri ) period that recurseach late September or early October, asindicated by the moon.

Children of Ma, the MotherGoddess, dedicate themselves to all-embracing adoration of the GreatGoddess during the nine nights of NavaRátri, the primary yearly occasion of

goddess worship. Before Nava Rátri begins, we prepare our hearts to receiveHer grace by celebrating the PitäPaküa, the fortnight during which weremember our ancestors. We venerateour foremothers and forefathers duringthis fortnight for the very good reasonthat they, alive or dead, but particularlydead, exert a strong influence uponus. is is but logical—we are after allmaking use of genes and chromosomesthat they think of as theirs. During

the period that they were alive all theirenergy—their mental and physicalùakti , their práóa , their very auras—continuously imprinted on these genesand chromosomes. As long as we work with genetic material thus imprinted, we remain connected to the imprinters.

Being thus connected is a particularlygood thing when our ancestors happento be saints and sages, wonderful people,always equitable, ever bent on promotingprosperity in all the three worlds. Buteven when our predecessors are less

benevolent, we must still befriend andlove them. If one forebear happened tobe a particularly troublesome person,then we will simply need to love thesinner without agreeing with the sin, just as Jesus advised us to do. By lovingour ancestors unconditionally we extendlove to our own genetic material, whichtranslates into a desirable current of loveand self-acceptance within ourselves.

Autumn, when the year is heading

towards its end, presents us with aperfect opportunity to remember ourancestors and to thank them for havingprovided us with the genetic materialby virtue of which we all exist hereand now in physical bodies. It is alsoa fine time to remind them that theyare dead, no longer connected directlyto a physical body and to that geneticmaterial to which they were once sotightly connected. Now they need to gotheir own way, to find a nice new womb

from which to be born, that they maybind themselves to new genetic material,and be less tempted to live vicariouslythrough us.

Ancestors living vicariously throughus would be less problematical if their“living” was merely symbolic; but infact they live through us in a very literal,material way, though in a manner noteasily perceptible to us, the living.Our ancestors influence our thinkingprocesses, desires, and paths through

life so significantly that encouragingthem to shift their fixation away from usbefore Nava Rátri begins is vital. isis because it is during Nava Rátri that we attempt to accumulate ùakti, to openourselves to the Mother Goddess andencourage Her to pour energy into us.

Energy is amoral. It is neitherpositive nor negative, neither good norbad. For example, there’s nothing likegood or bad electricity. Organized andchanneled properly, electricity givesgood results; used improperly—as by

sticking your finger into a socket—electricity delivers bad results. It’s thesame way with ùakti in general. Wemay have a good relationship with theGoddess, and She may be in a positionto deliver ùakti to us, but this in no wayguarantees that we will employ that ùakti wisely. In particular, should we elect toinvoke some sort of ùakti that is for usinappropriate, we will not digest it well;and when we have trouble digesting

ùakti, we will very likely find that it will move us in a direction that will bebeneficial neither for it nor for us.

T Nava Rátri to help improve our

“ùakti digestion.” Immediately priorto the ancestor fortnight comes theGaóeùa festival, during which werequest Gaóeùa to remove any obstaclesthat might stand in our way. Gaóeùa isthe obstacle-remover par excellence, but

he specializes in obstacles due to gaóa s.Gaóeùa literally means gaóa iùa —“lordof the gaóas.” Gaóa , like all goodSanskrit words, has a number of differentmeanings, at least three of which arevery important in this context.

First, a gaóa is a category; in thiscontext, “the gaóa s” means all thecategories in the world. In Äyurveda , forexample, we have all manner of differentcategories, including the vàratarvádi gaóa , the group of plants that begin with

vàrataru , and the kämighna gaóa , or thegroup of plants that remove parasites. We would like very much for

all the categories in the world tocooperate with us, so that whenever we require something, its category willautomatically suggest itself to us. If Iam practicing law, for example, I don’t want to waste time sitting in front of apile of law books poring over each onesearching for precedents; no, I want theprecedent to jump out at me, which it will do if the law categories and I relate


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well together, if we are on good terms.Getting the world’s categories to be ongood terms with us is the first goodreason to worship Gaóeùa .

Second, “the gaóa s” are the senseorgans. We definitely want Gaóeùa toprevent our sense organs from causing

us any kind of vighna s, or obstacles. e ghna portion of the interesting word vighna means “to kill,” and the vi heremeans “distinctive.” A vighna is thus anobstacle that “kills,” in a specific, special way; it may kill literally, but usually itkills figuratively, by interrupting ourprogress in a certain direction. A vighna“kills” our intention, our momentum;it diverts us from our goals. Our senseorgans are particularly good at creating vighna s, particular ways of being

destroyed; when our sense organs areallured by things that are not good forus, we find ourselves being led by thosesense organs into situations where thosevighnas can “kill” us.

But when Gaóeùa is activated, hedirects our sense organs to remain undercontrol, either under his personal controlor under the control of the iüôa devatá ,the personal deity. Well controlled,our sense organs are freed from payingattention solely to our cravings and

desires—cravings and desires that maybe roused by dead ancestors who arelooking for a body through which toenjoy the things that they wanted toenjoy just before they died. Controllingthe sense organs is thus a second excellentreason for worshipping Gaóeùa .

A third important meaning ofgana is “ethereal being.” Gaóa s arealso disembodied intelligences of everyvariety: bhâta , preta , piùáca , brahma- ráküasa , vetála , vimána gandharva ,

yaküa , yaküinà , õákinà , ùákinà , and soon. Some of these were once embodied;some have never been embodied. Some were once human, and some have neverbeen human, but all can influencehumans because they are so subtle.ey can slip into our fields of energyand influence us, usually without oureven being aware of what is going on.Since we don’t approve of such behaviorin beings who are pursuing their ownagendas, we request Gaóeùa to keep allof them under control as well.

Worshipping Gaóeùa is thusimperative. e question then arises:Once Gaóeùa has taken care of all thegaóa s, all ethereal beings, why should we even bother with our etherealancestors? One answer is that Gaóeùa is in charge of ethereal beings that are

basically “external” to us, not part ofour innate, intrinsic reality, while ourdirect progenitors are an integral part ofthe process through which we enter thehuman mold.

In order for you to become a humanyou have to be poured into the humanmold, for which you need a womb. ebasic cosmic principle that generatesthe human womb has evolved into thatform and function over millions andbillions of years, producing individuals

generation by generation. Ancestorstend to believe that, simply by virtue ofthe fact of having been born in a certainlineage, by familiarity with the wombsin that lineage, they have a right tocontinue being nourished by the people who follow them in that lineage.

Cultures the world over haverecognized this ancestral expectationearly on, and have developed rituals toaddress it; in India, the äüis , or Seers,established the Pitä Paküa , a fortnight

( paküa ) dedicated to feeding all the ex-humans in one’s lineage ( pitä ), withthe aim of satiating them for a while.Satiated, they are less likely to inflameour cravings. is is especially necessaryduring Nava Rátri, when we try toaccumulate ùakti. Trying to accumulateùakti in the presence of substantialresidual cravings can lead to all sortsof difficulties. Amassing ùakti aftergetting our cravings under control,even temporarily, can make that ùakti

available to us for other applications,like lessening the impact of the karmasthat create the vighna s that obstruct usand “kill” our progress, and increasingthe positive influence of the iüôa devatá ,the personal deity, in our lives.

T N R Ä .During the nine nights of Nava

Rátri devotees focus every evening on worshipping the Goddess, encouragingher energy to move in their direction.Nava Rátri’s culmination arrives on

Vijaya Daüamà , at sunset. Vijaya means“victory,” and Daüamà is the tenth dayof the lunar fortnight. A daüamà can beeither of the bright fortnight, during which the moon waxes (from new tofull) or of the dark fortnight, during which the moon wanes (from full to

new). In our solar system the moon isthe archetypal female energy, and the sunis the archetypal male energy. DuringNava Rátri the moon waxes; this gives usan opportunity to accumulate feminineenergy of the archetypal variety during atime when the celestial feminine energyis waxing. Nava Rátri is a fine time formen to come to appreciate their innerfemininity, and for women to flower inan ever more fully feminine way.

Note that the moon also represents

the mind, and the sun represents thesoul. We need both mind and soulto exist in a dualistic world like theone in which we live. Like the soul,the sun is relatively constant: it dailyrises and sets in more or less the sameplace. e length of a day may vary,and the apparent brightness of the sunin a particular location may fluctuate(depending on the angle that the sunmakes with the horizon), but the sun’sabsolute brightness never varies. e

sun continues to put out, with but smalldeviations, the same amount of energythat it has put out for many millions,and possibly billions, of years.

In contrast to the sun, the moonvaries moment by moment. It is thefastest moving celestial object that we can see, and it changes its shapeas it moves. Sometimes you can evendetect—though it’s very subtle—adifference in the size of the moon fromthe time it rises, to the time it sets. Like

the moon, the mind is always becomingsomething other than what it was a fewseconds before—at least until that point when it takes on that quality of the soulthat we call sthairya , stability.

Your soul, your indwelling spirit— which is a reflection in you of thesupreme, absolute consciousness—doesnot change. ere is nothing changeablein it. It has no qualities, no limitations,no attributes of any sort. It neverbecomes colder or hotter, further upor further down, brighter or dimmer,



more intelligent or less intelligent; it cannever become anything other than whatit already is. Even though we can’t reallydescribe the ultimate reality as having aquality, this immutability gives it, fromour perspective, the property of beingmuch more stable than anything else in

the universe. As the mind takes on thisquality of being firmer and more stable,it will automatically start to shine withgreater brilliance and constancy.

Even amidst change—when thechemistry of our blood is stronglyaffecting the way in which we think, when our ancestors are exerting their in-fluence, and when the seasons revolve—the better the mind relates with thespirit, the more the mind will take onthe spirit’s quality of stability. Greater

stability means that change becomes lesslikely to throw us off balance.

As we become better balanced, morecentered, continuity develops, of akind that facilitates our re-visioning ofourselves, recreation in the image of thedeity that we worship. Transmutationrequires energy. e Goddess isimmensely generous, and will provideyou with that energy any time you askfor it. It becomes easier to procure andprocess energy during Nava Rátri, when

hundreds of millions of other humans will join your energies with theirs to worship the Goddess. We should takeadvantage of the astral gravity thatbecomes activated for goddess worshipduring this period, and open ourselvesto the Mother during this time, that shemay bless us for the coming year.

Each lunar month actually harborsits own Nava Rátri. Worshipping theGoddess from the first day after everynew moon through the tenth day after

every new moon is likely to provideextra benefit. But three of the NavaRátris during the year are particularlynotable. Most notable among these is Aùvin Nava Rátri, so termed becauseit occurs during the lunar month of Aùvin, when the moon is full in thelunar constellation (naküatra ) of Aùvinà .

Aùvinà occupies the first part of thesidereal constellation of Aries, whichdiffers from the tropical sign of Aries. When you think of a planet in thetropical sign Aries, in western astrology,

three times out of four that planet will actually be in the constellation ofPisces. Why? Because of the precessionof the equinox.

In Jyotiüa , Indian sidereal astrology,

however, when we say the moon (orany other planet) is in a particularconstellation, it does in fact occupythat constellation in the sky. So when we say in Jyotiüa that the moon willbe full this month in Aries, as the so-called Hunter’s Moon, it will in facttenant the constellation of Aries, at thebeginning of the zodiac; this acts as a“new beginning” for the moon. Fromthe Indian point of view this moon,called Kojágari Pâróima, is particularlynoteworthy, being the night on which

the moon sweats drops of nectar downonto the earth. Five days after the endof the Aùvin Nava Rátri, the wise collectthis nectar as it drips down, and makegood use of it to help them get into right

relationship with ùakti, and to enhancethe organism’s ability to accumulate anddigest ùakti.

Another important Nava Rátri iscalled úákambarà Nava Rátri. A third, which is second in importance only to Aùvin Nava Rátri, is Caitrà Nava Rátri.Caitrà Nava Rátri happens during thespring, when the moon is full in thenaküatra of Citrá , a naküatra which issplit equally between the last degrees ofVirgo and the first degrees of Libra. Onthe border of sidereal Virgo and Libra is

D u r g á



the bright star Spica, so this Nava Rátri basically occurs just before the full moonand Spica conjoin, on the opposite sideof the sky from Aùvin and Aries.

e year’s two most importantNava Rátris are thus roughly sixmonths apart, the Caitra Nava Rátri

occurring in the spring when new birthis happening, and the Aùvin Nava Rátri occurring in the fall, the time of death.Rámacandra , hero of the Rámáyaóa and seventh among the avatára s of Viüóu, was born on the ninth day ofCaitrà Nava Rátri; six days later, on theensuing full moon, comes the birthdayof Añjaneya , or Hanumán, Ráma ’sdevoted servant. Two importantpersonalities met their end on VijayaDaüamà; Ráma slew his adversary

Rávaóa , and the goddess Durgá slewMahiüásura , the buffalo demon.

T DURG Ä M AHIûÄ SURA is told in the Durgá Saptaùatà

(“Durgá’s 700”), the text that offers usour basic stories about the Great Goddess.Durgá Saptaùatà, which is also known asthe Devà Mahátmyam (“e Greatnessof the Goddess”) and the Caóõà Páôha (“Caóõà ’s Text”), is told by a äüi to aking and a merchant. e humbled king

and merchant have become ùaktihàna ,deficient in power. e king had beenkicked out of his kingdom by powerfulenemies in concert with his wife andson, and the merchant, who sports themeaningful name Samádhi, had beensimilarly ejected from his home, also byhis family. Expelled from their respectiverealms these two wandered about,unsure of what to do with themselves,until each independently stumbled uponthe äüi’s aùram . Symbolically, of course,

they represent you and me, wanderingaround in the world, separated from ourtrue family, the family composed of thegreat gods and goddesses. Cut off fromdirect communion with the ultimatereality of universal consciousness, andfrom reality’s ultimate substrate, theGreat Goddess, we drift aimlessly along,longing for direction.

e king and the merchant meet atthe äüi’s aùram, and jointly seek the äüi’s guidance. e äüi’s name is Medhas,literally “Intelligent,” and he is as clever as

his name suggests. He tells his guests notto worry: “I shall now relate to you somestories about the Great Goddess because,as you will soon clearly see, whenever thegods have a problem that they themselvescannot solve it is to Her feet that they goand bow. She and She alone will be able

to solve your problems.”e äüi then proceeds to tell the king

and the merchant three stories. e firstis about a time when Viüóu lay sleepingcalmly on his thousand-headed snakeúeüa , floating in the Ocean of Milk.úeüa means the remnant, that which isleft over; everything in the universe thatis not part of the divinity that Viüóu here symbolizes is a part of úeüa . Viüóu preserves the cosmos. Saying that Viüóu is asleep suggests that the entire universe

has been destroyed by Lord úiva dancingthe Táóõava , the dance of destruction,enjoying as he did so the bliss of theintense intoxication that dissolving thecosmos brings.

All of creation had vanished saveBrahmá , the creator, who remainedsitting calmly on his lotus that opensfrom a stalk that grows from Viüóu’s navel. It just so happened that, atthis point, for reasons that can onlybe understood by the Goddess or by

someone who has Her ear, out of Viüóu’s ears appeared two demons, created fromhis earwax. ey were known as Madhuand Kaiôabha . Madhu means the sweetthing, the desirable thing, the usefulthing; kaiôabha is waste, the thing thatis leftover, unwanted. So it was Mr.Desirable and Mr. Undesirable whoemerged from Viüóu’s ears. Both weredemons, and all they could see whenthey looked around themselves wasBrahmá , the creator, who sat quietly

on his lotus hoping to avoid beingseen. When they saw him, they decidedimmediately to kill him, as they hadnothing better to do, and because they were, after all, demons. Brahmá was,of course, terrified by this danger. He wanted very much to preserve his life aslong as possible, just like you and me,and he understood that, number one, Viüóu, the only being who could savehim, was sleeping; and number two, thateven though he, Brahmá , is the creatorof the universe, he had neither the

ability nor the adikhára —the right—toawaken Viüóu.

What did he do? He used hisnoggin—he sang a hymn to thegoddess of sleep. e goddess of sleephad embraced Viüóu intimately, whichis why Viüóu slept. All of his sense

organs, his very awareness, had beencompletely embraced by the darknessof tamas , of inertia. Brahmá started hissong to the goddess of inertia, which isthe very power that creates the universe.Creation can only occur when oneportion of the supreme consciousnesscomes to believe itself to be separatefrom the ultimate reality, which it can dosolely by embracing inertness. And the whole purpose of creation is to permitindividuals to arise who will shake off

inertia and rejoin with the supreme.is is what the Great Goddess is allabout: She causes things first to becomevery dense, then to become subtle again;She causes the cosmos to wander faraway from ultimate reality, then leadsthe cosmos back to that reality. At thetime of the dissolution of the universeeverything that had set forth at itsinception returns to embrace Viüóu, with great intensity and great closeness,and Viüóu embraces it back. All of his

attention goes in that direction, andthen there is quiet in the cosmos.But Viüóu apparently forgot to wash

out his ears before he went to sleep.is is a good reminder for all of usto remember to always keep all of oursense organs, not only our teeth, butalso our eyes and ears and everything,very clean, to discourage demons frombeing created during sleep.

Inspired by impending calamity,Brahmá sang such a beautiful hymn to

the Goddess that She became so pleasedthat She disengaged herself from Herintimate embrace with Viüóu, and Viüóu came promptly back to consciousness.Being Viüóu, he instantaneouslyunderstood the situation, and rose upto fight with those demons. Having just woken up, he had nothing betterto do, so the fight continued for manythousands of years.

Viüóu played about with thosedemons until they become thoroughlyintoxicated with their strength and



energy, their ùakti. ey became sointoxicated that they came to believethemselves to be utterly mighty;otherwise, how could Viüóu have beenunable to subdue them for so long? eysaid to Viüóu, “We have become pleased with you, O great Viüóu! Ask a boon

from us and we shall grant it to you!”is is what Viüóu had been waiting

for; after all, they were parts of him. Hedidn’t want to kill them unilaterally,he wanted to wait for them to requestdeath, which they had just done. Viüóu replied, “If you are pleased with me thengrant the boon I request. Permit me toslay you now.”

Now they were stuck; they had saidthat they would grant whatever Viüóu asked. Looking around they saw the

entire universe covered with water, andso they said, “Please kill us where there isno water,” thinking, “Ha! Ha! Ha! Now Viüóu is the one who has been tricked!”But of course, Viüóu is far ahead ofthem. If he were playing chess, he wouldbe the grandmaster of all grandmasters. Viüóu said, “ere is no problem. I’mabove the water. I shall put you here onmy lap and kill you here.” So with hisdiscus he chopped off their heads. ey were, after all, a part of him; he could

have solved this problem earlier, with aswab. But because he did not Brahmá was motivated to compose a beautifulhymn, and the tradition of calling on theGoddess in times of supreme need wasestablished. is initial karma served asthe foundation for the process that led tothe second incident.

T demon Mahiüásura . Mahiüa means

buffalo, as in water buffalo. Cows are

respected in India as embodiments ofsattva (think of sattva as everything thatis sweetness and light, and equanimityand equilibrium, and good feelingand happiness, and unselfishness andaltruism, and the like). Indians regardcows as being archetypally maternal, which is why they worship them; insteadof eating cows, they feed them.

In spite of this, the vast majority ofpeople in India who drink milk, drink water buffalo milk, because the buffaloproduces more milk, and that milk has

more cream. Is this a good idea? Notfrom the traditional Äyurvedic pointof view. Even though the buffalo is

maternal in its own way, water buffalomilk is said to contain tamas instead ofsattva. Tamas means inertia, heaviness,density. It is true that inertia andheaviness are essential cosmic factors;the world would not exist withoutthem. But we are better off having nomore tamas than we absolutely require.Drinking water buffalo milk in excessmakes the mind dense and dull.

is is of course relative. A diet ofbroiled cow will create more tamas inyour mind than will a diet of water

buffalo milk (provided of course thatyou are digesting both properly). etamas inherent in roast beast is greater

than that in milk, even water buffalomilk. But, when we compare milks, we find cow’s milk to be energeticallysuperior to buffalo’s milk.

I have had a long relationship with water buffalo. Six of the years I lived inIndia I spent in Pune, in the Äyurvediccollege hostel. My room was right nextto the overhead water tank, and the men who filled the tank didn’t bother payingattention to when the tank had filled;they would just leave the pump onand, of course, the tank would always

L a

k ù m à



overflow. As a result a small pond haddeveloped outside my window, and everyday water buffalo would come to wallowin the pond; as their name suggests, theyare very fond of water. So everyday Ihad the darùan —the vision—of waterbuffalo. It was not hard to enjoy thevision of cows either, but I usually hadto go out into the street to find them, whereas the water buffalo came to me.

at said something I suppose eitherabout the college or about me, or both.In any event, I became intimately

associated with these water buffalo, andfound that, while they are not inherentlybad animals, they are indeed inherentlytamasic. is means that they followthe principle of inertia—whatever ishappening goes on happening. Staticinertia means that a vase is highlyunlikely to jump off a table and start todance around the room. It will insteadstay where it is until energy arrives

from somewhere and causes it to move.Dynamic inertia means that somethingthat is already in motion will tend to stayin motion until it is interrupted. A trainthat is moving down the tracks has verypowerful dynamic inertia, because it is alarge mass that has been accelerated intomotion. Should such a train run intosomething, that something will probablybe destroyed, by that sizable mass that

dynamic inertia will continue to try tomove forward even after the collision. A water buffalo enjoys both static

and dynamic inertia. Sitting down, heis static—if you try to move him, it willnot be an easy thing to do. Walking, heis dynamic; if you stand in front of him,he will run you over simply becauseyou happen to be in his way. ere isnothing personal about it really; he willsimply think of you as one more obstacleto be overcome. Unlike Gaóeùa , whogets rid of obstacles in a very tasteful

and adept way, the water buffalo gets ridof obstacles by simple bulldozing. Or, Isuppose, by “buffalo-dozing.”

Mahiüásura displayed this sort ofattitude. He was an asura , a selfish astralbeing of extreme power, who had takenthe form of a buffalo bull, which madehim extremely tamasic. e demons(asuras) and the gods (sura s, or devas)are cousins; their mothers were sisters,

Diti and Aditi. And, as you well know,cousins often don’t get along well withone another. e suras became overlordsof the universe, which annoyed the asurassufficiently to cause them to vow eternal warfare against the suras. e devasare filled with sattva, they are chieflysattvic—but they also display a certainamount of tamas. ey are satisfied veryeasily—they sit up in heaven eatinglotuses and drinking ambrosia, anddon’t tend to pay attention to what’sgoing on elsewhere.

D u r g á s l a y i n g a n

a s u r a a t o p a

S o u t h I n d i a n t e m p l e . P h o t o g r a p

h b y P a s c a l e W i l l i .



e asuras live down in Pátála , underthe earth. Convinced that they shouldbe running the cosmos, they nurse anunending grudge, which spurs them intoeternal plotting to conquer the celestialregions. Asuras have tremendous tamas,plus just enough sattva to inspire them

to perform penance. e inertia oftamas permits them to become intenselyfocused, and when they decide to focuson accumulating energy and ùakti, theycan get so fanatical about it that theymight stand on one toe for 10,000 years,living only on the smoke from sacrificialfires. Such terrific penances allow themto generate tremendous energy, whichthey then use to conquer heaven. eirproblem is that once they conquerheaven they don’t know what to do with

it, and the universe then becomes verychaotic. Eventually someone graciouslyhelps the gods; someone reminds themof how stupid they were to get into thisproblem by failing to pay attention,because of their own tamas, and hownow it is time for them to reform andrepent. And after they have sincerelyreformed and repented and boweddown, somebody helps them reconquerheaven. Usually it’s the Goddess.

Mahiüásura accumulated a lot of

energy down in Pátála , and he used thatenergy like a water buffalo bull uses itsenergy, to bulldoze everyone in its way.Mahiüásura tossed the devas on hishorns, he trod them with his hooves,he kicked them out of heaven. e godsfell down to earth, where they wanderedaround helplessly, like ordinary mortals.Eventually they pulled themselvestogether and said to themselves, “WhenBrahmá was afflicted by Madhu andKaiôabha , he hymned the Goddess, who

was kind enough to help him out. ishappened thanks to Viüóu, so let us goand visit with Viüóu.”

Taking Brahmá the Creator withthem, they all proceeded to where Viüóu and úiva were visiting with each other,and explained everything in detail.On hearing the situation Viüóu andúiva became mightily irate, dreadfullyoffended; they became amarüa pâróa —filled with righteous indignation.Righteous indignation so unsettledthem that from their bodies emerged

tremendously powerful goddesses thatclosely resembled them. en the gods, who were still fairly clever, caught on.ey instantly became furious, andfrom each of them emerged a powerfulgoddess. All these redoubtable goddessesthen merged into one supremely potent

goddess, whom they named Durgá .Dur means far away; ga means to

go. e word durga means inaccessible,unattainable; it can also mean a citadel,fort, or stronghold. e Goddess Durgá is remote, hard to reach, impossible toconquer; it is exceptionally difficult toaccumulate the energy required to alignoneself with Her. is mighty Durgá mounted Herself on a lion, and set outto destroy Mahiüásura , which She didafter an epic battle that takes up several

pages in the Durgá Saptaùatà .Toward the end of that mêlée allof Mahiüásura’s underlings and all hisarmies had been slaughtered by Durgá ,Her lion, and Her armies. All diedexcept Mahiüásura , who continued tofrolic about. Durgá then grabbed a cupof mead, drank, and spoke:

íú@ íú@ ’®Ä º› ß º∞‹ æŸ∆⁄´¥∏ŸΩæ“ºÎ | ºæŸ ´∆⁄æ “™‰É&Ê ∆ í⁄ú@ œæ≥´æŸÀ‹ Æ‰ ∆™ŸÅ||

Garja! Garja! küaóaê mâõha, madhu yávat pibámyaham. Mayá tvayi

hate’traiva, garjiüyantyáùu devatáë (Devà Mahátmyam III.35)“Roar, roar on, O fool, while I quaffthis mead. e gods will soon roar inthis very place when I’ve slain you.”

Durgá enjoyed Her mead, whichreddened Her eyes. As Her eyesreddened, She took Her trident andpinned down the demon. Pinned down,he came out from his buffalo body in aquasi-human form, unable, perhaps, topretend any longer to be something he

was not. He had only partly exited fromthat buffalo form when Durgá took Hersharp sword and sliced his head fromhis body. Down it fell, at sunset on thetenth day of Aùvin Nava Rátri.

e gods were so happy that theyroared with joy, and then sang anotherbeautiful hymn describing the Goddessand Her wonders. Durgá then appearedto them and said, “I’m pleased that youhave sung my praises. What would youlike?” And they said, “Our heart’s desireis that, the next time we let our chestnuts

fall into the fire, You should please comeand pull them out again.” Durgá replied with the single word “Tathástu !”—“Let itbe so!”—and so ended the second story.

By now the merchant and the king were listening very closely, noting thatthanks to the Goddess good things can

happen even to those who have beendiscomfited. King and merchant hadbegun to think that there might be hopefor them as well.

T ÉûI , which concerns the conquest of

the cosmos by two demon brothers,úumbha and Niùumbha . Again the gods were mortified, but on this occasionthey didn’t waste any time. Insteadthey promptly recalled, “e last time

we were assailed by asuras the Goddessassured us that all we need do wasremember Her, and all our difficulties would be eliminated.” So inspired, theysang a beautiful song. Here is one verse: æŸ Æ‰ ⁄∆ –∆@∫› ™‰ Œ‹ À⁄# ¬¥‰ ® –Ä ⁄—¨™Ÿ ≤º—™—æÊ

≤º—™—æÊ ≤º—™—æÊ ≤ºË ≤ºÅ ||31|| yá devi sarvabhâteüu ùakti râpeóasaêsthitá namastasyai namastasyai

namastasyai namo namaë (Devà Mahátmyam V.31)

“To that goddess who is, among all

created beings, the very embodimentof energy and power in the universe webow down to you we bow down to you

we bow, profoundly bow, to you.” e gods sang this song, describingthe many wonderful qualities that theGreat Goddess embodies. is naturallypleased Her no end, and She appearedto them to say, “I see that you are ingreat distress, and I have come to solveall your problems.” She then madeHerself most beautiful, and positioned

Herself atop a mountain.e servants of úumbha andNiùumbha saw Her there, and returnedto report: “O kings! You already owneverything in the universe that is worthowning, but somehow you have missedthis most beautiful woman of all. Whyshould you not own her?” úumbha andNiùumbha agreed, and sent a messenger, who said to Her, “Beautiful woman, mymasters, úumbha and Niùumbha , owneverything in the universe that is of anyvalue—everything except you. Kindly



come willingly with me, that they mayown you too.” And the Goddess replied,“Gosh, I would love to oblige, but un-fortunately I cannot. Long ago I tooka foolish oath that I would only marrythat man who could beat me in battle.Having taken that oath, I must fulfill it.

Have one of those great warriors comeand defeat me, and as soon as I yield, I will marry him.”

ese words filled the messenger with annoyed amazement. He replied,“My masters have conquered the entireuniverse, subduing every man and godtherein. You are but a helpless woman.How will you be able even to stand infront of them, much less meet them inbattle?” e Goddess said, “I’m sorry. Itis true that I am a helpless woman. But

there remains the matter of my foolishoath. Let’s not waste time; just have oneof them come here and face me. It willbe a mere formality for such champions.Once I am defeated, we will marry.”

T indignantly explained this

effrontery to úumbha , the elder of thebrothers, and therefore king. úumbha immediately called over his generalDhâmralocana (“Smoky Eye”), and

ordered, “Proceed immediately to thatshrew, and insist that she accompanyyou back to me! Should she refuse,discomfit her by dragging her by herhair.” Dhâmralocana enthusiastically,gleefully went about his errand, andsoon found the Goddess, smilinggently at him from a high peak of theHimálaya . He called out to her, “Odivine one, come quickly! If you don’t,I shall distress you by dragging you byyour hair!” e goddess then smilingly

uttered the sacred syllable HUM , whichat once turned Dhâmralocana intoashes. He started out with a smoky eye,and ended up a pile of ashes. He hadissues with fire, clearly.

After Dhâmralocana met his doom,his army became very upset. ey triedto attack the Goddess, which incensedHer. From Her sweetly smiling gentlegoddess self emerged the extremelyintensely irate dark goddess Kálà, who was impossible to look upon, muchless withstand. Frightful teeth gleaming

in her dreadful mouth, Kálà laughedloudly, with earsplitting fury, as sheminced her adversaries. She hoistedeven war elephants into her mouth, andmaniacally munched them with theirriders, bells and other accoutrements.She was extraordinarily, splendidly put

out, and she quickly put an end to thatentire army. One messenger survived toreport the debacle to úumbha .

is news so annoyed úumbha thathe summoned his two top generals,Caóõa and Muóõa , and shouted atthem, “Hey Caóõa ! Hey Muóõa ! Bringthat shrew to me, dragging her by herhair! Slay her lion! And, should anyonestand up to protect her, be he man,gandharva or god, strike him down,smite him ruthlessly!” Caóõa and

Muóõa , of course, were also impressed with their imagined cleverness, and offthey went. By this time, the Goddess was really enjoying herself, and decidedthat She’d had enough of being onlyKálà, so She created from Herselfseven additional goddesses, each with adifferent weapon and a different power, who proceeded to slaughter Caóõa andMuóõa ’s entire army. Kálà herself slewCaóõa and Muóõa , for which deed shebecame known as Cámuóõa . en the

goddesses danced, intoxicated with theblood they had drunk from their foes.Everyone was blissful—except of coursethe dead asuras.

úumbha now became so upset thathe realized he’d have to handle thesituation himself. He ordered a generalmobilization of all the asura armies, which he himself led into the field—hisname means “killer,” and he was readyto kill. is pleased the goddess no end,of course; this was part of the plan from

the beginning. When the armies were ready forbattle, the Goddess created yet anotherversion of herself, one that shouts withthe clamor of a hundred jackals. isgoddess called to Lord úiva : “Great Lord!Go as my messenger to those scoundrels!Tell úumbha and Niùumbha that if they want to remain alive, they should returnimmediately to where they belong, andleave heaven to the gods. Otherwise,let them come, and let my jackals besatiated with their flesh.” is goddess

was named úivadâtà, because she madeúiva her dâta , her messenger.

What úiva said to the demons is notrecorded in the Devà Mahátmyam , but we can imagine that it went somethinglike this: “Now look here, úumbha and Niùumbha ! You are my devotees,

and it is thanks to having worshippedme for so long that you have endedup with such power. But don’t let thatpower go to your heads! You want tomarry the Great Goddess, but She istoo much of a woman for the likes ofyou! Go back down to Pátála , and livethere in comfort. If you remain here,you’ll be finished.”

But, of course, demons are tamasic;once they set out on something, they say,“We can’t go back. Even if we’ve made

a mistake, we have to go forward.” Sothey probably answered úiva in this way:“We’re sorry, Great Lord! ough we areindeed your devotees, we have embarkedupon this course of action, which we willpursue until we succeed or die.” Andúiva probably replied, “You are mostfortunate to be killed by the Goddess;you will be most blessed to lose yourlives at Her hands. Have a nice death.”

A giant battle now ensued, whichcontinues for several chapters, during

which all manner of exciting eventsoccur. At one point the demon Raktabàja(“Blood-seed”) appeared. From everydrop of his blood that fell to the grounda new asura sprang up, looking just likehim, and equally strong. Eventuallythe goddesses had to grab him, cut histhroat, and allow all of his blood todrain into Kálà’s mouth, so that nonecould fall onto the ground and createmore asuras.

e goddesses fought with abandon,

Váráhà powdering asuras with hersnout, Maheùvarà piercing them withher trident, Aindrà blasting them withher thunderbolt, and Vaiüóavà dicingthem with her discus. Kálà, úivadâtàand the lion devoured any that escaped,until finally no demons were left aliveexcept úumbha . e other goddessesthen returned into the goddess’ bodyfrom whence they came, and that onesupreme Goddess then slew úumbha —after which the entire cosmos returnedto balance and calm. e gods then sang



the Goddess’ praises, which pleased Hergreatly. She told them, “Just in the same way, O gods, that I have eliminated yourrecent troubles, I shall offer the samesort of benefit to anyone who repeatsthese three stories of mine during NavaRátri. All difficulties will surely be

removed from anyone who worships me with enthusiasm and devotion duringthis period.”

A G to back you up, you will have no

problems in life. Nava Rátri is the perfecttime to worship the Goddess and obtaingreat benefit, and it is quite possible thatyou will want to perform some sort ofkámya pâjá during this period. Kámya means with a particular desire, and

kámya pâjá is worship performed witha particular intention, a particular resultthat you wish to obtain. Of course,you should always ask yourself whetheryou are in a position to know what isgood for you or not. Usually even if youthink you do, you do not. Most often itis better to perform a niükáma pâjá , in which you simply invoke the energy ofthe Goddess, requesting Her to deliverto you what you most require, what isbest for you.

Since the distant past, of course,people have been convincing them-selves that they know what is goodfor them, and have permitted theirpersonal intentions to spill over intotheir worship. One result of suchthinking is that, since classical times inIndia, three principal goddesses havebeen worshipped: Lakümà, Sarasvatà,and Kálà. People tend to choosetheir goddess for worship accordingto whether they believe creation,

preservation, or destruction to be mostnecessary for them at any one moment.Each of those three stories in the DevàMahátmyam is dedicated to one of thesegoddesses—the first tale, the Madhu-Kaiôabha ear-wax allegory, to MaháKálà, the Mahiüásura myth to Mahá Lakümà, and the úumbha-Niùumbha saga to Mahá Sarasvatà.

ere is in reality, however, butone Goddess, who can and doescreate as many versions of Herself asShe pleases. Just before She slaughters

úumbha , he says to Her, “Do not beso haughty, you wicked woman! emany goddesses who assist you are theones who have destroyed my army!” Shereplies, “Villain! All these goddesses aremerely my manifestations. Look!” Afterdrawing Her many materializations

back into Herself, she says, “See! ereis but one of me, just as there is but oneof you. Stand resolutely and fight!” Andthat was the end of him.

So why ever bother with more thanthe One Goddess? Why not alwaysrely on that One to send you creation,preservation or destruction as yourequire, instead of respecting goddessesof creation, preservation and destructionindependently? One answer requiresthat we consider human nature, and the

nature of our world, which is a worlddominated by sattva, rajas and tamas.

To understand why this is, we mustreview the Sáïkhya philosophy, whichforms the basis for Äyurveda , Jyotiüa , Vástu and other Indian classical sciences,and is the philosophical system that manyof the puráóas —the “histories”—employ.In essence the Sáïkhya philosophyoutlines the cosmology that modernphysics describes, that before creationall that existed was contained in one

point without magnitude, a singularity.Modern and ancient physics differ inthis regard: Ancient physics believes thatthe singularity was a condensation ofawareness, and modern physics believesthat singularity was a condensationof matter. Indian science teaches thatmatter materializes as consciousnessprogressively densifies, and modernphysics teaches that consciousness iscreated somehow—by some inexplicableprocess—out of matter.

Both cosmologies describe a sim-ilar process, a process of outwardexpansion and inflation that enlarges, with inconceivable violence over aninfinitesimal period of time, thatdimensionless singularity into a cosmosapproximately eighteen billion light yearsin extent. is inflation occurs, accordingto the Sáïkhya philosophy, because of thedesire of that consciousness to experienceitself. When consciousness exists onlyin its singularity, it has no attributes ofany kind, no up or down, no anterior or

posterior, no space or time, no causation.Nothing exists other than sat , cit andánanda , the reality of consciousness, theawareness of that reality, and the blissthat arises from that awareness.

But even this state is not ultimatelysatisfying, because there is no way for

that ultimate reality to experience itself.ere is no outside, no objectification,no external position from which realitycan view itself. Among the writings of Jñaneùvar Maharáj, the well-belovedsaint who lived about 750 years ago inMaharashtra, is a beautiful text knownas the Amätánubhava (e Nectar ofExperience). In it Jñaneùvar observesthat, just as a human requires a mirror inorder to see his or her face, the ultimatereality of absolute consciousness requires

a mirror in order to perceive itself. euniverse is that mirror, and the individualhuman being—the culmination ofbillions of years of evolution—is thebest medium yet developed through which consciousness can mirror itself.e individual human is regarded as amicrocosm of that macrocosm becausehumans have been engineered by natureto act as vehicles through which thatultimate reality can perceive itself. Youand I and all other humans were born to

serve as mirrors for the ultimate reality,and it is in the direction of fulfilling thatdestiny that we should all be moving.

e question then arises: Why is itthat desire for self-perception shouldarise within the supreme reality? Whence this desire? Some say that it isthe result of previous karmas from pastuniverses that have not been completelyexhausted—which is not much of areason. Where did those past universescome from? Some current cosmological

thinking holds that when enough energyenters into that singularity known asa black hole, and the black hole can’thold onto it any longer, then the energyprojects suddenly into a new universe.Of course, that still begs the questionof where the black hole and the energythat destabilizes it came from? Clearlyit came from a preceding universe, and where did that come from? We don’tknow. It’s unending, end-less.

inkers in India have postulatedover this problem for centuries, and



most of them eventually concludethat the ultimate reason for creation isacintya , which is Sanskrit for “you can’teven think about it, so don’t try.” Italianhas a similar word: bo , which means“We don’t know where it came from, wedon’t know what it’s doing here, we don’t

know what’s going to happen to it, let’sleave it be.” We humans will likely neverknow how things began, where theycame from. What we can know is howthey have developed from that start.

At the moment of creation, a certainportion of that unlimited consciousnesscame under the impression that it waslimited, separated from the rest of theboundless ocean of consciousness. atsense of limitation was the only differencefrom the instant before (we speak of it as

an instant, but of course there was untilthen nothing like time), but as differencesgo, it was inconceivably colossal. Beforetime began, everything was completelyhomogenous. Time began the momentthat a part of that consciousnessbelieved itself to be different. A partof that consciousness turned to face what previously had had no face, andthen two faces faced one another. eportion of consciousness that turns iscalled prakäti , which becomes the basis

of the entire cosmos. Prakäti is Ädya ,the Original Goddess, the Ultimate,Supreme Goddess, the Number One,thanks to whom everything in any sortof manifestation, of any type, howeversubtle or dense, is generated.

at Ultimate Goddess is utterlyultimate at this stage. e onlydifference between her and the UltimateReality is that She believes Herself to bedifferent. e only reason She believesthis is to permit the làlá , the cosmic

play, to unfold. Because She has sucha great desire to facilitate this cosmicplay, She is willing to submit to theinfluence of Her own máyá , Her ownillusion, and convince Herself that Sheis something She is not. Like an actor ina play, She takes on a different personafor as long as the play continues. To bean effective actor, you must believe thatyou are someone other than who youactually are, until the end of the play, at which point you will go back to beingyourself—we hope.

I , which goes on for billions or trillions

of years—or more—the Great Goddess willfully believes Herself to be separatefrom the Ultimate Reality. Withoutthat firm belief, no creation would takeplace. When the curtain comes down

on this play, She tosses off Her máyá and, like the goddess of sleep embracing Viüóu, re-embraces Ultimate Reality,and they again become one. So as longas she is separate, Viüóu can exist, the world can exist, things can exist; at theend of that time they recombine, and alldifferentiation is lost.

It is thanks to the Goddess alone thatany sort of manifested reality can exist.But She can do what She needs to doonly if She is eternally focused on that

ultimate consciousness. From the instantof the first separation She is totallyfocused on the ultimate consciousness,and He is totally focused on Her. Ifthings stayed like that there wouldstill be no creation. He and She wouldenjoy bliss, but nothing else would becreated—so intelligence must be added.Intelligence, which we call in Sanskritmahat , or buddhi , is the perception ofthe fact of this face-to-face.

e He-She face-to-face could go

on indefinitely, the Divine Couplesimply enjoying one another, paying noattention to anything other than theirenjoyment. And, at a certain profoundlydeep, ultimate level of the universe, thisis exactly what’s going on. What keepsthis state from going on forever is thedevelopment of the awareness of beingaware, which is one step further removedfrom the awareness itself. e awarenessof being aware is also a variety of máyá ,for once you become busy being aware of

awareness, you will tend to lose sight ofthe undifferentiated consciousness thatis the source of all awareness. You beginto pay more attention to the reflectionthan to the thing reflected, and as youdo you strengthen that reflection.

At this stage we have unityconsciousness, which is self-aware;duality consciousness, which is awareof the Supreme Self; and intelligence, which is aware of both Supreme Self andlimited selfness. But even at this stage,the awareness of being aware is totally

and completely homogenous; it existsequally throughout the entire cosmos,and as such no further developmentneed ever occur.

But the cosmos itself arrived fromsome perturbation in the singularity,due presumably to some pre-existing

preferences, and that perturbation acts onbuddhi, on the awareness of awareness,to create individuality, individualizedportions of intelligence. Individualityis the real beginning of manifestation.e force that partitions buddhi intodiscrete pieces of intelligence is calledahaêkára , literally, the “I-creator.” Ahaêkára creates selfness, “I-hood.”

Even now, evolution couldhave ceased, leaving a bunch of in-dividualized consciousnesses that

would have wandered independentlyaround the universe—except thatspace did not yet exist, so there wouldstill be nowhere for them to go. edrive for self-expression now instigatesahaêkára to create the maháguóa s,the three great attributes that allowmanifestation to continue to evolve.ese are sattva, rajas, and tamas.

When earlier we compared cowsto buffaloes, we defined sattva asequanimity, happiness, altruism, and

the like, and tamas as mental densityand dullness. ese are their specificfunctions in living beings. In a moregeneral sense, sattva is the tendencyexternally, in the cosmos, and thetendency internally, in you, to move inthe direction of equilibrium, balance.Rajas is the tendency, external orinternal, to activity, and tamas is inertia,personal or cosmic. As these threeGreat Qualities combine, sometimesenhancing one another, more often

suppressing each other, they create theuniverse we know.ree cosmic characteristics, three

chief goddesses: coincidence? Not at all;but neither is there simple equivalence.Despite our human preference forsymmetry, there is no one-to-onecorrespondence between the guóa sand the goddesses. We can no more saythat one goddess completely embodiessattva, another completely embodiesrajas, and the third completely embodiestamas, than we can assert that the suras,



the gods, are completely sattvic and theasuras, completely tamasic. e gods aremainly sattvic, true, but they do have astreak of tamas, which gets them intotrouble. e demons, the asuras, aremainly tamasic, but their streak of sattvapermits them to consider performing

penances. In this regard the asurasare superior to the suras: they employrajas to activate their tamas, to createtremendous momentum that movesthem in their chosen direction. eirdifficulty is that their chosen directionis almost always selfish, tamasic.

I Lakümà, Sarasvatà and Kálà relate to

sattva, rajas and tamas, we must diga little deeper into the history of the

Goddess. e Mother Goddess hasof course been worshipped for tensof thousands of years, all around the world. ough today in India mostpeople think of her in terms of Lakümà,Sarasvatà and Kálà, these goddesses wereobscure during the Vedic era. People thentended to worship the goddess úrà—She who provides prosperity, both materialand immaterial. e Vedas also drawa distinction between light and dark,between Gáyatrà or Sávitrà, the goddess

of the sun, and Rátrà, the goddess ofnight. It was only during India’s classicalera that “triunity,” the threeness of theGoddess, became predominant, becauseof the great utility that the numberthree offers.

e number one provides us with adimensionless point; the number twomakes available a second point, and thosetwo points extend outward to describea line. Add a third point, and we geta plane, which describes a space. With

three, multiple permutations becomepossible; and thus threeness, particularlythe geometrical threeness of the triangle,came to symbolize the Goddess’ creativepotential. Look at the various yantra s,the arrangements of abstract symbolsthat are the geometrical embodimentsof the various goddesses, and you willfind them filled with triangles.

Today the most famous of all yantrasis the yantra of Lalitá Devà, the “playfulgoddess.” She is the Playful One because,thanks to Her làlá , thanks to Her play, the

entire universe is created, sustained anddestroyed. Her yantra is the úrà Yantra , which is composed of many trianglessuperimposed precisely upon oneanother. At the center of the úrà Yantra sits a point: the singularity, the ultimatesupreme consciousness that is limited

by nothing whatsoever. at point isenclosed within a triangle, which is theGreat Goddess Herself, in triangularform. is particular triangle representsthe three fundamental ùaktis of existence,icchá , jñána , and kriyá. Icchá means willor desire, jñána means knowledge, andkriyá means action. ese three powersprompt everything that happens in life:First comes the desire to do something,then the understanding of how thatthing can be done, and finally, the actual

doing of the thing. At the center of the úrà Yantra sits

the supreme consciousness, whichexpresses itself in the world in the formof icchá , jñána , and kriyá . Many bookshave been written about how to alignthe three goddesses—Sarasvatà, Lakümà and Kálà—with the three ùaktis—icchá , jñána and kriyá —and the three guóa s—sattva, rajas and tamas, but to little avail.ese relationships resist simplificationbecause of perspective. From our point

of view the triune Goddess creates,preserves and destroys, but from Herpoint of view there is no tri-unity; Shesees things solely in relation to Her pointof unity, the supreme consciousness.She acts always in precisely the way Sheneeds to act, at the precise moment thataction is required.

We humans see things differently. When we look up we see the sky asblue, when in fact air has no color whatsoever; it appears blue because

of the way that light gets scattered.Similarly, we ordinary humans canat best see the light of consciousnessbeing scattered by the different aspectsof the goddess, and so we think of Heras being multiple. is multiplicityis often useful to us, but we need toremember that it is but minimallyuseful from the Goddess’ point ofview. From Her viewpoint, reality isall that’s important. She wastes notime pondering over whether She isat any one moment acting as creatrix,

preservatrix, or destructrix; She thinksonly of what needs to be done, anddoes it.

I , , three roles are quite essential, and

though they often behave as if they act

independently of one another, they areactually quite interrelated—what life iscreated must first be preserved until itcan reproduce, then must be destroyedto provide space and resources forthat new life. Creation predominates when a sperm and an ovum unite tocreate a zygote, and during childhoodthat zygote goes from being one cellto being an organism of one hundredtrillion well-integrated cells, whichintegrate with other hundred-trillion-

cell conglomerations to create families,associations, societies. During adulthoodpreservation predominates, and withage deterioration takes over; bodies fallapart, cultures fall apart. Our hope isthat the awareness that ahaêkára hasprovided to these individuals has evolvedduring its period of earthly existence,that it may later continue to evolve intoa fit mirror for consciousness.

However—from the moment azygote is formed, creation, preservation

and destruction all participate in itsdevelopment. Looking at a child fromthe outside, it appears that the childis simply growing, that creation aloneoccurs, and this is true overall until we stop growing, around age twenty.But creation is in fact marching handin hand with destruction, moment bymoment, in every human, from birthuntil death—even during childhood.

Patterns are being created anddestroyed perpetually inside each

individual. A pattern was created inorder to bring you into existence,and as soon as that pattern outlivesits utility it is destroyed, and a newpattern arises. e entire evolutionof life, from its earliest origins untilits earliest human circumstances, isreplicated within each fetus during thenine months that it sleeps in the womb.During the next twenty years outsidethe womb physical development peaks,then afterward winds down as mentaland cultural development comes to



predominate, followed eventually bydeterioration and demise.

Lakümà, Sarasvatà and Kálà inspireand control creation, preservation, anddestruction, each performing these tasksin certain contexts. Sarasvatà, goddess ofknowledge and learning, wears white

clothes, and carries a book and a vàóá ,a lute. Sarasvatà offers to help us gainthe knowledge that we will need as weattempt to deal with dharma , artha ,káma and moküa , in our lives. To know what we have to do in the world, whatpath we have to walk through life,that’s our dharma. To accumulate thepossessions that we require in order toachieve our dharma, is artha. To achieve what we need and want to achieve,stirred by those desires which drove us to

take birth, is káma . To recognize, at theend of life if not earlier, that the path,the accumulations and the desires are allinherently empty, is moküa . Moküa isthe destruction of delusion. Hopefully we eliminate as many of our delusions aspossible during the time we are alive, sothat when we die we are deluded to theminimum, rather than the maximum.

Sarasvatà is, on the one hand, thegoddess of creation, being as she isthe ùakti of Brahmá , the Creator, and

because she creates knowledge. When we look at her we see mainly sattva.However, the very act of learning islimiting, destructive, in that sense thatthe acquisition of information fills, tosome extent, your brain and mind, andso restricts the tabula rasa, the field ofinfinite possibility that stretches out infront of an unlettered child. To becomea really good doctor, or astrologer, orlawyer, or carpenter, you will have toturn your attention in the direction of

gaining that specialized knowledge andexperience. By doing so, you turn awayfrom all the other hundreds of millionsof things that you could conceivablylearn to do. To open yourself to learningis to shut yourself off from all thosealternative possibilities that you do nothave the time and energy to master; youeffectively destroy those possibilities,however virtual they may have been.

But this destruction in order to learnis literal as well; there are for exampletwo points—one occurs around age

three and the other around age ten, ormaybe a bit later—when neurons andneuronal connections first proliferatetremendously in the brain before theyare pared down to about ten percentof that proliferation. Just as duringyour development your brain selects a

certain number of neural connections topreserve before destroying the rest, youas an individual select a certain varietyand degree of connectivity to the worldaround you, which limits your abilityto connect to everything else. Sarasvatà may be chiefly a goddess of creation,but she is able to create only becauseshe also destroys. Destruction, and theknowledge to be gained through death,actually predominates in one form ofSarasvatà: Nàla Sarasvatà, the “blue”

goddess of the cremation grounds.Lakümà is fundamentally a goddess

of tamas, because she relates to materialprosperity. Material prosperity meansthings like money, and money, ofcourse, is very sticky stuff. Having beenhandled by lots and lots of people,money accumulates filth. Some years agosomeone pointed out that every dollarbill in the USA had traces of cocaineon it. is may or may not be the casetoday, but all currency notes even today

carry all manner of bacteria on them,and dirt of all kinds. In addition to thephysical grime, money also accumulatessubtle muck and contagion, in theform of mounds of desires. To possessmoney means to cling to a substancethat has been spattered with the desiresof everyone who has held it before you.Numberless cravings and sticky karmasget associated with money, which youand I carry in our very wallets, often,particularly if you are a man, very close

to your heart.Lakümà is thoroughly tamasic; butlearn to employ that tamas in a good way, and you can transform it intocreativity. In the Vedic hymn to Lakümà known as the úrà Sâkta , she is describedas being redolent of cow dung, because,of course, cow dung is very goodfertilizer. Properly applied, fertilizertransforms itself into rice and wheat andvegetables and such, which can serveas sustenance, or can be turned intomoney. Either way, harvests facilitate

creation, of one thing or another, inyour life. So even though Lakümà herselfis tamasic, she produces substances that, when properly employed, can be used tohelp create sattva.

e facts are these: You and I are,from the perspective of the cosmos,

about as dense as living beings can be,being composed as we are from thefive elements, päthvà , ápaë , tejas , váyu and ákáùa —earth, water, fire, air andspace. Everything that is solid in ourbodies is made up of the earth element, which is the densest of this group offive. We replenish the earth elementin these bodies with the help of food which, having grown in and on theearth, is full of the earth element. Togrow our food we require cow dung

and similar fertilizers, which add theirmeasure of tamas to food, which isalready tamasic by virtue of being fullof the earth element. Even sattvic foodis thus full of tamas.

And money? Money is nothing butcow dung, at one remove; money isconcentrated tamas. My mentor wasalways fond of remembering that theman who invented money—Croesus,king of Lydia in Asia Minor—came toan unhappy end. He created money,

and when the time came for him todie, molten gold was poured downhis throat. Why? Because moneyturned Lakümà into a trollop, a “looseùakti” who could be traded, hoarded,speculated on, gambled with. Back inthe Vedic era people had no money; theybartered, and paid for large purchases incows. Prices were denominated in cowtails, gopuccha . e tail being connectedto the cow, something that cost tencow tails would actually cost ten cows.

eoretically you carried those cows with you to the seller, and after you hadformally handed their tails over to him,you owned your purchase. In practice,you might only hand him one tail, andkeep the other cows in a pen, since youmight have difficulty holding ten cowtails together (unless those cows wereon exceptionally good terms with oneanother, and with you).

Before money,Lakümà was a stability-creating factor. Cow dung, though in-herently quite unstable, will, when


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mixed with dirt and applied to the baseof a plant, cause that plant to grow anddevelop, thereby becoming more stable.ough itself unstable, cow dung is aform of the earth element, and the verynature of earth being to create stability,cow dung, and Lakümà, can increase

stability in life.But once money came into the

picture, Lakümà became a destabilizingfactor, because she became unstable(cañcala ). She began to wander fromhand to hand and house to house,accumulating bad vibes, desires pilingatop her as she was passed from personto person. Here we have to draw adistinction between práptá Lakümà and apráptá Lakümà. Práptá Lakümà means that prosperity that has already

become solidified, turned into money. Apráptá Lakümà is Lakümà energy,prosperity that has not yet beenconverted into the reality of money. Apráptá Lakümà is often less tamasicthan práptá Lakümà because it has notyet “solidified” into manifestation.

Like it or not, Lakümà is an essentialingredient in our lives, which meansthat we need to be on good terms with her. Unfortunately, people tendto become obsessed with Lakümà,

either desperate to avoid her, or (morecommon nowadays) desperate to possessher. If we want to keep our mindsfrom being too disturbed by the manynegative influences that money carries, we should make sure that we focus onobtaining our prosperity directly fromthe goddess úrà. úrà’s subtle prosperity isavailable to us at all times, and can beconverted into physical prosperity likemoney at a moment’s notice. Instead of“solidifying” all our prosperity at once,

which might destabilize us, úrà willretain the bulk of our prosperity withher, as apráptá Lakümà, releasing it to usas we are able to “digest” it.

F K Ä LÅ. W think of Kálà, if we do, we tend

to think of her as the goddess ofdestruction, grinding up foes with herfrightful teeth. On first glance this makesher look thoroughly tamasic—although we could argue that her predilection forchewing enemies to a pulp makes Kálà

more rajasic than tamasic. But, of course,Kálà is in fact no more one-dimensionalthan any of the other goddesses. eyare all multi-dimensional, which is whythey have to be described in terms ofmyths, because myth alone can describethe nonlinear celestial world.

It is indeed true that Kálà is thegoddess of destruction. It is particularlytrue that Kálà will come to you at theend of your life, and will dismemberyou. Your body may be eaten by worms(if you are buried), devoured by fire,or (if you happen to be a Tibetan ora Parsi) consumed by vultures, crowsand other birds of prey. But Kálà is alsoactive within you, at every moment,destroying those parts of you that you nolonger require, that no longer “fit” you.

It’s thanks only to Kálà, to destruction,that creation can occur. Live cells canproliferate only after dead cells havebeen obliterated. New thoughts canappear in your mind only after deadthoughts have been removed. Mostimportantly, new self-definitions, newversions of the individual you, can ariseonly after previous iterations of yourpersonal self-definition have dissolved.

Rather than posit independentgoddesses of creation, preservation and

destruction, we should picture themexisting in a dynamic relationship withone another, as a goddess of creation who promotes preservation, a goddess ofpreservation who promotes destruction,and a goddess of destruction whopromotes creation. Creation balancespreservation balances destruction,everywhere and always.

D days of the goddess-worshipping

period, people conventionally worshipduring the night. After all, the initialappearance of the goddess was in the formof sleep, which generally speaking happensduring the night. e sun, the ultimateconsciousness of the universe, expressesitself internally as self-luminosity thatappears in all directions at every moment,but you and I can experience thatluminosity only when we have adequatedarkness to act as a contrast. Otherwisethere would be no way of telling what waslight and what was dark.

T G G very embodiment of darkness, by

virtue of which we are able to exist,to identify light, and to flow in thedirection of light, will be at your serviceduring the nine nights of Nava Rátri.Take the benefit of her grace and mercy!

If you are of a mind to do so, you canread the Durgá Saptaùati —it is noweasily available, translated into English.If you are not of a mind to do that, youcan recite some mantra, for whatevergoddess you most appreciate. Rememberthat the Goddess has all names and noname. Every goddess connects you tothe Supreme Goddess, without anydoubt whatsoever.

Go to that goddess who claimsyour devotion, be she Sophia, or Mary,

Pachamama or Inanna. Envision thatgoddess as being present within you,in the form of your own ùakti, as youdirect your ùakti to take on her image.Invite that goddess to reside within you;humbly request her to organize your lifein the best possible way, for she is in thebest possible position to know what youneed, and how to deliver that to you.Bow down to that goddess, request herassistance, permit her to nourish andprotect you just like a child. Nothing

will remain for you to fear once youhave curled up safely on Her lap. Whatmaternal magnanimity! What love! JM Ä

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