Tag hindu festivals

Ma Durga is the innermost power of consciousness – David Frawley

VOI

Sri Durga Devi

Ma Durga is not a mere formation of human thought, an image or archetype of our minds or culture. She is Adi Shakti, the inmost power of consciousness, ever taking shape within and around us as the creative and transformative force that is the essence of the cosmic life. – Dr. David Frawley

Ma Durga is one of the oldest, most powerful and widely worshipped of the great Hindu mother goddesses, claiming the very name of Jagadamba, the “Mother of the Universe”.

Ma Durga arises from Agni, the Vedic deity of fire and light as a protective force, as is mentioned in the ancient Vedic Durga Sukta. All the devatas arise through Agni, the flame of immortal consciousness within us that brings our spiritual potentials into manifestation.

Durga literally refers to difficulty. She takes us across all difficulties like a ship across the sea, the great Vedic metaphor for going beyond all the sorrow of our samsaric or worldly existence. Durga Devi delivers us from darkness to light, from non-being to being, from death to immortality.

Durga as Agni, the Vedic deity of speech, is the power of the divine word, the mantric vibration of cosmic intelligence that is our inner guide and guru. Agni is invoked as the first of the divine powers that manifest the divine light within us. Unless we have awakened that divine flame, will and awareness, our spiritual practices may not take us beyond the illusions of our own minds.

Skanda Mata

Agni is the divine child, Kumara, who holds the potential of immortality. Durga is his cosmic mother. She gives birth to and nurtures the Agni within us by directing the movement of our lives. Agni becomes Skanda or Murugan, the son of Shiva and Parvati who has the nature of fire and destroys all negativity. Skanda is Durga’s son as Skanda Mata, one of the nine forms of Durga worshipped over Navratri.

Tara

This saving power of Ma Durga is also called Tara, who similarly takes us across all difficulties like a ship across the sea. In this regard, Durga represents divine compassion that we need to help us go beyond our karmic limitations and attachments.

Aditi

Ma Durga is Aditi, the great Vedic mother goddess from whom the solar godheads or Adityas arise, who is invoked as a ship to take us to well-being or swasti. Aditi is the unbounded, a-diti, or the infinite. She represents the cosmic space that is the womb and matrix of all existence, yet she is also Mother Earth, who upholds the ground of our own being.

Taking us beyond ignorance and death 

Yet the most important action of Ma Durga is to take us beyond death, the greatest of all calamities and its related factors of time and karma. It is not our mere physical death that she saves us from but the spiritual death that is the ignorance of our true nature.

To accomplish this extraordinary task Durga assumes her multi-armed martial form and wields her many weapons, extending to Lord Shiva’s trishula, to destroy all the powers of darkness from our minds and hearts like so many intractable demons.

Ma Durga removes the evil forces that plague us, the forces of duality, division, conflict, and egoism that our mortal world abounds in. Yet the saving grace of Durga will not shield our own ignorance or arrogance that she will purify with her fiery force and burn away from the core of our being. She also protects the earth and its creatures, for which humanity is becoming a great oppressor. We must honour her power and her rule over the entire universe. She does not function for our personal benefit or to fulfil our desires.

Ma Durga is not a mere formation of human thought, an image or archetype of our minds or culture. She is Adi Shakti, the inmost power of consciousness, ever taking shape within and around us as the creative and transformative force that is the essence of the cosmic life.

It is the greatness of India that Ma Durga represents its inner reality and guiding spiritual force. This same Durga becomes the Yoga Shakti that arises like a flame within the mind, expanding and uplifting our awareness to the universal Self.

May that supreme Durga Shakti arise within all! May we have the receptivity to allow it to both purify our faults and energise our highest aspirations! Jai Ma Durga! – Daily-O, 20 September 2017

› Dr. David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri) is the director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies and the author of more than 30 books on Yoga and Vedic traditions. 

Ghatasthapana Puja

Ganesha: A figure of great mystery, power, and paradox – David Frawley

VOI

Shiva, Shakti & Ganesha

Ganesha represents the cosmic realisation of the Self as all nature, and can teach that infinite truth to us. But for this to occur we must also learn to go beyond the mind, something that most modern intellectuals with all their opinionated views are not likely to attempt. – Dr. David Frawley

Ganesha is a figure of great mystery, power, and paradox. We sense in his unusual figure something of the unknown, unlimited and mysterious, far beyond our human considerations. What are the secrets that he holds and what do they mean for us at the deepest level?

Ganesha’s arising or birth, if you could call it, appears very strange. It is said that his mother Parvati created him for her protection and asked him to prevent anyone from entering into her room. While Parvati was bathing, Lord Shiva approached, and Ganesha true to his role would not let him in. When Ganesha obstructed Shiva from entering, Shiva sensed an infringement on his power, fought with him and in the skirmish cut the boy’s head off.

Soon learning his mistake, that it was Parvati’s son, who was quite angry at his demise, Shiva quickly, sometimes it is said by chance, found the head of an elephant for Ganesha, put it on the headless body and brought him back to life. The story seems contradictory and arbitrary, like many Puranic depictions that have been the subject of denigration, if not ridicule.

Clearly, such bizarre tales are riddles for the mind to ponder, and not meant to portray literal events. They require a deep insight to unravel. This story has been analysed politically and psychologically, extending to bizarre Freudian and Marxist theories, but the inner meaning, which has nothing to do with sex or politics, has been missed altogether.

Symbolism of Ganesha

Ganesha symbolises the human soul and its latent aspiration for the infinite. Initially, the soul is bound to Maya or Prakriti, symbolised by Ganesha being created by Parvati (Prakriti) and seeking to protect her as her servant. The ignorant soul does not know Shiva, the transcendent reality beyond Maya. Shiva, therefore, cannot recognise the soul as his own.

In cutting off Ganesha’s head, Lord Shiva takes the soul beyond the human mind, its dualities and expectations—which is a common theme in deities with their head cut off, be it Hayagriva, Chinnamasta or Ganesha. In giving Ganesha the head of an elephant, Shiva connects it to the profound cosmic intelligence that is under his guidance.

Shiva is Pashupati or the Lord of the Animals that symbolises the souls bound to ignorance, ruling over them from his unbounded awareness. Ganesha as Ganapati or the Lord of the Group is the chieftain or head of the animals, the foremost of which is the elephant and indicates Shiva’s consciousness in manifestation.

The elephant relates to memory, concentration and the hidden wisdom of nature. Ganesha as the awakened soul learns the secrets of the universe and gains the ability to teach them to all who are receptive. Ganesha becomes the guide to the cosmic processes of birth and death, karma, and liberation, and holds all the vidyas or sacred ways of knowledge for understanding all existence.

Ganesha as the Guru

With the head of an elephant, Ganesha becomes awake as Shiva’s son, and functions as the great guru and the giver of wisdom through Shiva’s power within him. He gains access to the mantric energies of the cosmic mind, in which all the higher knowledge is stored, the omkara of Lord Shiva, which is Ganesha’s own word of power.

Such higher knowledge as Ganesha possesses cannot be transmitted to the mortal mind, put into ordinary language or logic, or confined to the parameters of mere human depictions. It requires going beyond the intellect and emotions to unitary awareness or samadhi, which rests upon a profound Yoga sadhana.

Ganesha represents the cosmic realisation of the Self as all nature, and can teach that infinite truth to us. But for this to occur we must also learn to go beyond the mind, something that most modern intellectuals with all their opinionated views are not likely to attempt.

To worship Ganesha, we must become Ganesha, which is to let go of our outer minds and embrace the unknown higher knowledge, becoming the entire universe and beyond, Shiva and Shakti, both within and around us. To do that we must become humble and let Shiva and Parvati enter into us. Jai Ganesha! – Daily-O, 24 August 2017

› Dr. David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri) is the director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies and the author of more than 30 books on Yoga and Vedic traditions. 

Ganesha Symbolism