Navaratri

The Ninth (Final) Day of Navaratri

We’ve made it through (almost) the nine days of worshipping the Goddess, by the tradition known as Navaratri. Today is the final day, which transitions early in the morning tomorrow into Vijayadashami, which is observed as a huge celebratory holiday in the Hindu calendar. With tonight being the ultimate culmination of this process, it’s like the final stage of the process, and in the mythology it is the day in which the great oppressive force to human evolution is vanquished. This “great oppressive force” is depicted in the story as the all-powerful demon king Mahishasura but is metaphorically or symbolically seen as the divisive forces of the human ego. We are in a time of great purification of all oppressive tendencies, which exist in the substratum of the human psyche and, unless they are reconciled and integrated into our totality, remain as external manifestations and projections in the “world”. Today is a time to celebrate the final victory and integration of these fragmented and divisive forces and give thanks to the great power of the Mother to provide us with the life-saving and dharma-restoring energy needed for this ultimate task. 

When we look at world mythology, universal clues lie hidden inside the stories that have been told for millennia. The reason a story survives for so long is that it remains relevant. If the story no longer possesses a living energy, that story dissolves back into the unmanifest level of human language until a new revelation occurs and something else takes its place in the garden of living wisdom. Some stories, more so than others, relate to deeper and more universal levels of the human condition, and therefore exist in a timeless space. No matter the time or age, they possess codes and teachings which are relevant and helpful. When these stories become central to human culture we call them “myth” and entire civilizations are built around the themes & teachings found in these myths. The words themselves become organizing pillars for the life-force of many human beings. On a deeper and more esoteric level we might acknowledge that these myths are stories filled with symbols and metaphors which literally shape the perceptive lens through which we see and observe the world around us. One might say that they even give rise to the world around us, due to how they influence our perception. 

As human society was developing and evolving, the necessity of universally relatable stories became more and more important. We had to become clear about the the distinctions in human language and the discrepancies in each individual’s ability to ‘perceive’. If we didn’t have a way to relate around critical topics such what to do when the forces of darkness are threatening our overall well-being, then when the shit hit the fan we would fragment as opposed to unified in our awareness and thus the channel of where we are focusing energy. This means the myth helps humans rally around mutually understood insights — we could be motivated from within based on our own meaning around things and at the same time be supported and boosted by those around us who have agreed to do the same. This advancement in technology — which we could call a magical progression in the technology human speech — allowed bigger “tribes” to form. Before this achievement in human language, the organizing principles were not as powerfully all-binding and could not contain the larger and larger amounts of energy that came as a result of more humans gathering together . Anthropological studies show us that at one point, the population capacity of the tribe was limited to 150 individuals. Beyond that, tribes would fragment and dissolve. They were not unified in their mind and direction and therefore, when the inevitable forces of destruction unveiled their ugly heads from deep within the human psyche, fragmentation would occur. War. Conflict. This side versus that side. Someone believing that their “myth” was somehow superior to another’s “myth” and forgetting that we are the one’s establishing the meaning in the first place. 

When the myths became alive inside of culture and in the hearts of the humans who fed their spiritual energy into them, the characters in the stories — the gods and the goddesses and all other deities and beings — these characters became alive as well! It was and is our “belief” in the forces themselves that give them life. When & if the power of the belief wore off, the forces no longer had any perch inside of the human mind. The idea is that we can allocate some of our spiritual energy, attention and focus into forces which symbolize qualities such as goodness, dharma, and other human virtues, and by placing our “belief” in those forces, we organize the maze of the psyche around certain pillars of perception; when we focus on a quality in the mind, our body responds physiologically due to the power of our concentration, and our nervous system literally re-patterns itself according to where our attention is being placed. When this isn’t the case, the mind, being a reflective & impressionable lens through which the world sees itself, takes on and is imbued by the qualities which appear “externally”. In the yogic tradition this process is well understood and an emphasis is placed on the importance of purifying the mind of these negative impressions. 

It’s not that we don’t have qualities of evil or wrong-doing inside of us. The potential is there. And yet, often, because of the pain that looking at our own ignorance can bring, a tendency exists to externalize this apparent “darkness” and see it in the world “out there”. The divisive tendencies of the mind have “won” the battle and the oppressive force of the ego reigns supreme, holding dominion over the world. This is even seen in the mythology of Durga when the demon invades the Sarvg-Lokah -- the divine realm of the angels — and him and his dark forces rule over all the forces of good. 

We must remember that these themes are attempting to help us understand a universal struggle. 

The garden of the mind is a place of great potential. Anything will grow there, if you allow it. The soil is fertile. Often, just as in agriculture, the “land” must be tilled and prepared for the seeds of the next growth cycle. Navaratri represents this great culling — the “demons” (known as asuras , meaning “not light”) are the weeds which have sprout unwanted in the crevasses and corners where we haven’t been paying close attention. The mind is a vast landscape and many realities exist inside of each. Impressions of the world, unbeknownst to us, can creep in and set up camp, whether we like it or not. During this time and especially now we are being called into vigilance. We are being called to make a stand against the true enemy, and to find where he/she/it/they have taken up camp in our mind, and uproot this darkness to bring it all back into the Light of Consciousness. 

There is nowhere that the Light of the One is not radiating. However, there are places and parts of us that have turned their back on this Light, and thus cast a shadow. Asura — “not light”. Fortunately, there are also parts of us which are not afraid — the Devas or “shining ones”. A battle has ensued and will — possibly eternally — continue between these two conflicting forces — the devas and asuras. The eternal conflict between good and evil. 

Here lies the arena of the yogi — the one who possesses the courage and desire to restore balance in the universe. The yogi is one who sees the inherent unity in things and aligns their thoughts, words, actions and speech to reflect this understanding. Each person plays their part exactly and precisely as needed, but for the soul it doesn’t matter, because there is ultimately only ever one journey to take — the journey back to the One. Some take longer than others and that doesn’t matter either, because a single step in this direction is already a victory for every “one”. 

-GI