The lessons to be learnt in celebrating Navarathri
Navarathri – 22 September to 01 October
Dr Roshan Singh – Jyotishacharya Shastri Pundit
The festival of Navaratri is a glorious time of the year, filled with joy, celebration, and also with great lessons for our lives. Navaratri means “nine nights.” It is not just a time for one to be engaged in ritualistic methods of worship but to take stock ones lives, to destroy the demons of anger, lust, greed, hatred and jealousy within ones self. It is only then that one can achieve the blessings of Mother Durga. On one hand people fast and make elaborate offerings of prashad and dhaar to the Mother but no sooner that the festival is over they resort to their bad habits which nullify all the pooja’s that are carried out by them which creates a further accumulation of bad Karma. It is therefore a time of cleansing the body, mind and spirit allowing the Mother to shower Her abundant grace and blessings upon the aspirant. The warden of the prison house (Durg) can only grant parole to that individual who has repented and vowed to lead a good and clean life from now onwards.
This festival occurs twice a year, at the change from winter to summer in the Spring, and again at the change from summer to winter in the Autumn. The Autumn festival is celebrated from the first day to the ninth day of the bright half of Ashvina/Aswayuja (September-October), while the Spring Festival is celebrated in Chaitra (April – May). The two Navaratri celebrations are known as Rama-Navaratri in Chaitra and Durga Navaratri in Ashvina. The celebration of Navaratri is in honor of the great Mother Goddess. The festival lasts for nine days, signifying the nine glorious aspects of the Divine Mother.
The meaning of Durga
No country in the world demonstrates such enduring reverence for the Great Mother Goddess, as does India. The Goddess is celebrated in every form, aspect and quality, through music, art, ritual, mantra and meditation. She is honored in women, the Earth, nature and the transcendent beyond all expression. Her worship is full of splendor, delight, mystery and wonder.
The Goddess is Shakti, meaning power, the resort of all transformative energy and cataclysmic force that mere human logic cannot comprehend. She possesses martial and regal forms that all must bow down before in awe. During the Navaratri – India’s famous festival of the Goddess celebrated not only in the autumn but also in the spring– she is worshipped as Durga, the supreme Shakti, holding all majesty, wisdom and grace.
Durga is the Mother of the universe from who comes forth the creation, sustenance and dissolution of all beings and all worlds. She is Chit-Shakti, the power of consciousness, out of which the cosmos coalesces as matter, life and mind.
India as a sublime culture and profound dharmic civilization is the gift of Ma Durga. Durga is the Goddess who personifies India as a whole and its incredible vitality, from her presence in village shrines to her representation of the highest yogic spirituality. Bharat Mata is Durga with her imperious lion. She was the image behind India’s independence movement, which worked through her inspiration, such as Sri Aurobindo so eloquently lauded. She remains the aspiration for future India and its global influence to draw the world back to its spiritual roots.
Durga’s protective force
Durga means she who takes us beyond all difficulties. She is the divine energy that protects the soul from duality, adversity and opposition, known and unknown. As Durga-Tara she delivers us across the turbulent ocean of ignorance to the radiant other shore beyond all darkness. She carries us over all dangers like a ship across the sea, as Vedic chants poetically reverberate.
Durga arises from Agni, our inner flame of immortal life, awakening our motivation to reach the highest bliss. She is born from the power of tapas, the wholehearted concentration of our aspiration to immutable truth. She is the spiritual fire on Earth who removes all impurities for the soul to shine. Her lion indicates her ruling solar force that illumines all existence.
Durga grants us the transformative knowledge that takes us to a higher level of existence beyond all that we have previously thought possible. She is the Yoga Shakti dwelling in the heart that opens us up to the clear light of Self-realization, the revelation of our true divine nature that stands above all time, space and karma. The Kundalini Shakti arises and works within us through Durga’s force.
Durga’s sword
Durga’s sword is the source of all dharmic ruling power at spiritual and mundane levels. She commands the celestial army and its earthly counterparts struggling for truth and justice in society. Shivaji Maharaj of the Marathas and Guru Gobind Singh of the Sikhs, among many other great leaders of India, received her sword and ruled by its support. Arjuna went to Durga for her blessings prior to consulting Sri Krishna on the battlefield, which she granted him. Sri Krishna affirmed to him Durga’s message of fearless resolve in the face of adharma.
Yet we cannot in our mere human nature wield Durga’s sword. We must draw out the Shiva consciousness within us for him to do so. We must surrender to her and let her direct us, taking the role of her devotees. All weapons, whether material or spiritual, should first be consecrated to Ma Durga, so that we use them wisely, without any pride or pity in their application.
As Mahishasura Mardini, Durga slays Mahishasura, the personification of ignorance, darkness and tamas. Vijaya Dashami is her glorious tenth day of victory, after displaying her nine magnificent forms, ending with Siddhidatri, her highest blessing aspect who grants all boons and accomplishments. This nine day dynamic display of Shakti takes us to a new vision and unlimited horizon on the culminating tenth day.
Ma Durga and the future of humanity
Ma Durga as the Divine Mother can guide humanity into a new era of peace and happiness. But she does so by first eliminating the powers of darkness, not by compromising with them, much less by consoling or appeasing them. Ma Kali arises as her martial aspect, dissolving entrenched old karmas, compulsions and attachments that bind us to adharma, to unfold a new creation.
Today we must bring back the power of Durga to deal with our mounting global crisis from the environment, to health, and social and political divisions. This requires we revive dharmic and yogic traditions that honor the Goddess as our inner guide. Awakening a deeper Yoga Shakti can restore India to its ancient throne as Vishvaguru, the guru of nations – with its Rishi vision leading humanity on the path to higher consciousness. Its profound yogic teachings can help awaken and guide all people on both individual and collective levels.
Honoring Durga means empowering women both in the social and political world and in the inner realm of yoga and spirituality. It necessitates protecting the Earth, through wise ecological practices and through uncovering the ancient spiritual destiny of our sages and seers that we have long forgotten.
Awakening Durga’s Shakti within us requires that we fearlessly and relentlessly challenge the forces of darkness, including our own weakness of will that allows us to tolerate or excuse negativity and corruption. It requires that we awaken the Arjuna in each one of us to achieve our highest dharma.
We can develop a new yoga Shakti to bring in a new yuga, a new world age for all humanity. Vedic yogic and meditation teachings are already bringing major changes into the world mind. Yet there remains a tyrannical Mahishasura of greed, violence, arrogance and fanaticism that must be removed to allow the higher forces to fully manifest.
May Ma Durga as the eternal Shakti and Supreme Mother descend once more to remove the shadows of falsehood on our struggling earthly realm, so that our planet can become full of light and bliss for all of its myriad creatures!
Who is Mother Durga
Śrī brahma-saṁhitā 5.44
sṛṣṭi-sthiti-pralaya-sādhana-śaktir ekā
chāyeva yasya bhuvanāni bibharti durgā
icchānurūpam api yasya ca ceṣṭate sā
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
Synonyms
sṛṣṭi — creation; sthiti — preservation; pralaya — and destruction; sādhana — the agency; śaktiḥ — potency; ekā — one; chāyā — the shadow; iva — like; yasya — of whom; bhuvanāni — the mundane world; bibharti — maintains; durgā — Durgā; icchā — the will; anurūpam — in accordance with; api — certainly; yasya — of whom; ca — and; ceṣṭate — conducts herself; sā — she; govindam — Govinda; ādi–puruṣam — the original person; tam — Him; aham — I; bhajāmi — worship.
Translation
The external potency Māyā who is of the nature of the shadow of the cit potency, is worshiped by all people as Durgā, the creating, preserving and destroying agency of this mundane world. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda in accordance with whose will Durgā conducts herself.
Purport
(The aforesaid presiding deity of Devī-dhāma is being described.) The world, in which Brahmā takes his stand and hymns the Lord of Goloka, is Devī-dhāma consisting of the fourteen worlds and Durgā is its presiding deity. She is ten-armed, representing the tenfold fruitive activities. She rides on the lion, representing her heroic prowess. She tramples down Mahīṣāsura, representing the subduer of vices. She is the mother of two sons, Kārttikeya and Gaṇeśa, representing beauty and success. She is placed between Lakṣmī and Sarasvatī, representing mundane opulence and mundane knowledge. She is armed with the twenty weapons, representing the various pious activities enjoined by the Vedas for suppression of vices. She holds the snake, representing the beauty of destructive time. Such is Durgā possessing all these manifold forms. Durgā is possessed of durga, which means a prison house. When jīvas begotten of the marginal potency (taṭasthā śakti) forget the service of Kṛṣṇa they are confined in the mundane prison house, the citadel of Durgā. The wheel of karma is the instrument of punishment at this place. The work of purifying these penalized jīvas is the duty devolved upon Durgā. She is incessantly engaged in discharging the same by the will of Govinda. When, luckily. the forgetfulness of Govinda on the part of imprisoned jīvas is remarked by them by coming in contact with self-realized souls and their natural aptitude for the loving service of Kṛṣṇa is aroused, Durgā herself then becomes the agency of their deliverance by the will of Govinda. So it behooves everybody to obtain the guileless grace of Durgā, the mistress of this prison house, by propitiating her with the selfless service of Kṛṣṇa. The boons received from Durgā in the shape of wealth, property, recovery from illness, of wife and sons, should be realized as the deluding kindness of Durgā. The mundane psychical jubilations of daśa-mahā-vidyā, the ten goddesses or forms of Durgā, are elaborated for the delusion of the fettered souls of this world. Jīva is a spiritual atomic part of Kṛṣṇa. When he forgets his service of Kṛṣṇa he is at once deflected by the attracting power of Māyā in this world, who throws him into the whirlpool of mundane fruitive activity (karma) by confining him in a gross body constituted by the five material elements, their five attributes and eleven senses, resembling the garb of a prisoner. In this whirlpool jīva has experience of happiness and miseries, heaven and hell. Besides this, there is a subtle body. consisting of the mind, intelligence and ego, inside the gross body. By means of the subtle body. the jīva forsakes one gross body and takes recourse to another. The jīva cannot get rid of the subtle body. full of nescience and evil desires, unless and until he is liberated. On getting rid of the subtle body he bathes in the Virajā and goes up to Hari-dhāma. Such are the duties performed by Durgā in accordance with the will of Govinda. In the Bhāgavata śloka, vilajyamānayā… durdhiyaḥ—the relationship between Durgā and the conditioned souls has been described.
Durgā, worshiped by the people of this mundane world, is the Durgā described above. But the spiritual Durgā, mentioned in the mantra which is the outer covering of the spiritual realm of the Supreme Lord, is the eternal maidservant of Kṛṣṇa and is, therefore, the transcendental reality whose shadow, the Durgā of this world, functions in this mundane world as her maidservant. (Vide the purport of śloka 3.)
The nine days of worship
There are different pujas and ceremonies performed on each of the nine days, most notably is fasting for the nine days and then the immersion of Goddess Durga’s image in holy rivers on Dusshera, which falls on the day right after Navratri ends (the 10th day).
Indian tradition is one of the few traditions in which the Feminine aspect of the divine is worshipped with as much reverence as the Masculine aspect. Throughout India you will see thousands of temples dedicated to various manifestations of the Divine Mother. You will find hundreds of thousands of people who are “Shakti worshippers.”
Shakti is the energy of the Lord. Without the divine Shakti, even God is powerless. The creative aspect (Lord Brahma), the sustaining aspect (Lord Vishnu) and the destructive aspect (Lord Shiva) all have their respective Shaktis who provide the cosmic energy and omnipotent power needed for these great feats.
Additionally, everything for which we pray – knowledge, prosperity, love – these are all manifest in the Divine Feminine. Goddess Saraswati is the Goddess of knowledge. Maha Laxmi is the Goddess of prosperity. This shows that without the Divine Mother, our prayers would be in vain, and our wishes would go unanswered.
So, Navaratri is the time of worship of the Divine Mother. Beautiful pujas, havans and aartis are performed for Her. Through singing Her glories we pray that She will purify our lives and bring us health, happiness, peace and prosperity.
Navratri is celebrated as the time that Goddess Durga (Shakti) conquered the evil demon, Mahishasura, thereby saving the world from his vicious tyranny. It is said that Mahishasura was reigning terror over the world and none of the gods was able to destroy him. Thus, they all approached Goddess Durga, Shakti, together and gave Her their weapons. Thus armed with Divine Shakti and the most powerful weapons, She conquered the demon and ended his tyranny after fighting for nine straight nights. On the tenth day, Vijaya Dasami, the demon was slaughtered.
This victory, and other beautiful stories associated with Goddess Durga, are celebrated with great fervor throughout different parts of India. Shakti puja is performed in elaborate and lavish ways.
The nine days of the festival also represent the three stages through which one passes on the spiritual path. During the first three days, the Mother is worshipped in her powerful, destructive, terrifying aspect. Many people, when beginning the spiritual path, have an inherent fear of God; therefore this first phase of Navaratri represents the first stage of a spiritual path. During these three days, the devotee prays to the Mother to use Her destructive power to destroy his imperfections and his faults. He prays for Her to make him pure enough to receive the divine energy. Additionally, this terrifying aspect of the Divine is the one who protects the new spiritual seeker on his path.
Thus, the first three days of Navratri are devoted to annihilating the negative tendencies of our minds and hearts.
The second three days of Navaratri are days in which the Mother is worshipped in Her prosperity-bestowing form. Once the negative tendencies have been annihilated, one is ready to begin developing a positive, spiritual personality. These are the days that positive attributes replace the negative attributes which were removed. These days are the worship of Maha Lakshmi, the bestower of prosperity. On the spiritual path, after people overcome the fear of God, they frequently pray for material wealth or external prosperity. They pray for success in their ventures and for the removal of obstructions in their path. The prosperity Maha Laxmi bestows is not merely material prosperity, but it is also all of the qualities which a sincere spiritual seeker craves – calmness, peace, equanimity, compassion, love.
During the last three days, Goddess Saraswati is worshipped as the bestower of true wisdom and understanding. Once the devotee has been purified by Goddess Durga and has had his vices annihilated, and once he has had the spiritual wealth of inner peace, calmness, compassion and love bestowed upon him by Maha Laxmi, then he is ready to receive the true light of understanding. This wisdom cannot come unless the devotee has passed through the first two stages. Just as one would not pour divine nectar into an unclean, broken and impure cup, one can similarly not expect to have divine wisdom granted unless the vessel has been purified and made divine.
Frequently on the spiritual path, seekers wish to attain divine knowledge without first purifying themselves and attaining positive qualities. This is impossible, however. The true light of Divine Wisdom can only be bestowed once the seeker has annihilated his negative tendencies and begun to develop a positive, spiritual attitude.
Therefore, Navarati should be a time of not only celebrating Goddess Durga’s triumph over the evil demon, but rather it should also be a time of praying to Goddess Durga to remove the evil from within us, not only the evil in the external world. We must pray to her to annihilate our inner enemies – our ego, our greed, our anger – just as she vanquished the evil demon. These traits inside us are just as powerful, just as insidious, and just as deadly as any of the asuras or Rakshasas.
Let us note also that Goddess Durga wears red, which symbolizes divine action. The Goddess is never idle. She is always busy in the destruction of evil in the world. As we vow to remove the evil from our own hearts and our own lives, we must be just as vigilant, just as active and just as conscientious. We must never become complacent; for anger, greed, ego, and lust are always present, always lurking, and always ready to make home in welcoming hearts.
Jai Sri Durge
Dr Roshan Singh – Pundit Roshan Singh
