THE VOICE WITHIN

Expounding on the central role of Shakti in Creation, Nitin Kumar narrates a profound episode from the Kena Upanishad:

“The gods in heaven, having defeated the demons, became puffed up with arrogance. The Highest God Brahman, who is beyond the reach of time and limit, saw their folly and appeared before them, so that they may repent. Blinded with the veil of ego, the gods were unable to understand the vision revealed to them.

Agni, the deity of fire, was deputed by the gods to enquire who the divine entity was in front of them. When Agni reached the Great Being, the latter asked him as to what power he possessed. Agni replied: ‘I can burn down the whole world’. The manifested Brahman then placed a blade of grass between them and asked him to burn it. Using all his might, Agni tried his utmost to set the twig ablaze, but failed.

Next came Vayu, the god of wind. He too boasted of his ability to blow away anything with his mighty power. But faced with the same miniscule twig, he had to retreat, humbled.

Indra, the king of gods, then decided to approach the Great Being. No sooner did he try to do so, the entity vanished. Instead, there appeared Goddess Uma, resplendent in the sky.

The Devi Bhagavata Purana describes her physical form as a divine maiden blooming with fresh youth, her luster like the rising sun, the digit of the moon shining on her crown. She was holding a noose and a goad in two hands while the other two displayed the mudras of varada, granting of boon, and abhaya, release from fear.

Her body, decked with various ornaments, looked auspicious and lovely beyond description. She was like the wish-fulfilling tree Kalpa Vriksha, her clothing red and her body covered with sandal paste. She was the Cause of all causes, the very embodiment of infinite compassion and mercy.

Seeing her, the hairs on Indra’s body stood on end with ecstasy. Tears of utmost devotion welled up in his eyes. He immediately fell prostrate at the feet of the goddess, singing hymns in her praise.

Goddess Uma then instructed Indra about the essence of the Supreme Reality, stressing that it was the power of Brahman manifested as Herself, which was responsible for victory over the demons, and the gods were but instruments in the grander design. In her book Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga, Sally Kempton writes of a transformative experience which made her fall in love with the natural world. The awareness of the Supreme Goddess spilled over as a new awareness of trees and landscapes, so that what had once seemed dull and prosaic began to vibrate with sentience.

“One October night in rural India, I fell in love with the Goddess. It happened on the second night of the Navaratri festival, which celebrates the divine feminine as the warrior Durga, slayer of the demons of ego and greed. Like so many festivals in India, Navaratri is both a big party and an occasion for mystical communion with the divine. Women put on gorgeous clothes; temples overflow with worshippers; nights are filled with dancing and storytelling. People have heightened, even visionary, experiences of the energy that the festival invokes.

That night, several hundred of us had gathered amidst a blaze of candles next to a huge statue of Durga, eighteen feet high in her red sari, seated on top of a white tiger, arms bristling with weapons. I was to tell one of my favorite mythological tales, the story of the romance of Goddess Sati. I was psyched for it, excited by the opportunity to tell a story — something I love to do — in such a heightened atmosphere.

But when I stood up to speak, I was seized by a feeling much bigger than excitement. It was a kind of ecstasy, a deep pulsing joy that nearly undid me while I tried to form the words of my tale. Later, I would learn to recognize this as one of the characteristic signatures of the Goddess’s presence. The divine feminine has a thousand names and a thousand moods, but when she chooses to show up for you, she very often shows up as ecstasy.

Ecstasy is a feeling that is hard to convey, but impossible to ignore. Every few minutes, I had to stop talking because tears kept threatening to break through my voice. When it was over, I knew that something had just happened which would change my life…”.

— the harbinger