Dhumavati: The Grandmother Spirit [A REPOST]

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As promised, here is a little more on Dhumavati:

 

"Dhumavati is the eldest among the Goddesses, the Grandmother Spirit.

She stands behind the other Goddesses as their ancestral guide. As

the

Grandmother Spirit she is the great teacher who bestows the ultimate

lessons of birth and death. She is the knowledge that comes through

hard experience, in which our immature and youthful desires are put

to

rest.

 

"Dhuma means 'smoke.' Dhumavati is 'one who is composed of smoke.'

Her

nature is not illumination but obscuration. However, to obscure one

thing is to reveal another. By obscuring or covering all that is

known, Dhumavati reveals the depth of the unknown and the unmanifest.

Dhumavati obscures what is evident in order to reveal the hidden and

the profound.

 

"Dhumavati is portrayed as a widow. She is the feminine principle

devoid of the masculine principle. She is Shakti without Shiva as a

pure potential energy without any will to motivate it. Thus she

contains within herself all potentials and shows the latent energies

that dwell within us. To develop these latent energies we mut first

recognize them. This requires honoring Dhumavati.

 

"Dhumavati shows the feminine principle of negation in all of its

aspects. On an outer level she represents poverty, destitution, and

suffering, the great misfortunes that we all fear in life. Hence she

is said to be crooked, troublesome and quarrelsome -- a witch or a

hag. Yet on an inner level this same negativity causes us to seek a

greater fulfillment than can be achieved in the limited realms of the

manifest creation. After all, only frustration in our outer life

causes us to seek the inner reality. Dhumavati is whatever obstructs

us in life, but what obstructs us in one area can release a new

potential to grow in a different direction. Thus she is the good

fortune that comes to us in the form of misfortune."

 

Excerpted from Frawley, David. "Tantric Yoga and the Wisdom

Goddesses." (Passage Press, 1994). Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri) is an

initiated disciple of K. Natson, a Shakta guru in the line of Sri

Ramana Maharshi and Ganapati Muni.