Fwd: The Spiritual Significance of Navaratri

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HinduOpenForum, "naikdayanand"

<naikdayanand> wrote:

The Spiritual Significance of Navaratri

by Swami Tejomayananda

 

 

Let us discuss the values of the Indian culture and the subject

matter of the Vedas in terms of the Navaratri Festival.

 

Even though Hindus celebrate this festival every year, many have no

idea of the significance of Navaratri. Recently, an American boy who

was attending my talks regularly had gone to see a Navaratri

Festival in a Gujarati community where they were doing the garba

dance throughout the night. He asked some of his Hindu friends what

it meant, but they were unable to explain. They could only say, "Oh,

it's a nice thing isn't it? A social gathering. Just enjoy, dance,

sing and eat, and then go!". We should also know, however, the deeper

meaning of this important religious festival, which can be explained

briefly below.

 

Ratri means "night" and nava means "nine". At Navaratri ("nine

nights"), the Lord in the form of the Mother Goddess is worshipped in

Her various forms as Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Though the

Goddess is one, She is represented and worshipped in three different

aspects. On the first three nights of the festival, Durga is

worshipped. On the following three, Lakshmi and then Saraswati Devi

on the last three nights. The following tenth day is called

Vijayadasami. Vijaya means "victory", the victory over our own minds

that can come only when we have worshipped these three: Durga,

Lakshmi, and Saraswati. Durga.

 

To gain noble virtues, all evil tendencies in the mind must be

destroyed. This destruction is represented by the Goddess Durga.

Durga is durgati harini: "She who removes our evil tendencies." This

is why she is called Mahishasura Mardini, the destroyer of Mahisha

asura (demon), mahisha meaning "buffalo." Isn't there a buffalo in

our minds as well?

 

The buffalo stands for tamoguna, the quality of laziness, darkness,

ignorance and inertia. We have these qualities too. We love to sleep.

 

Although we may have a lot of energy and potential inside us, we

prefer to do nothing - just like the buffalo that likes to lie in

pools of water.

 

In the Puraanic story, Durga Devi's killing of the Mahisha demon is,

symbolically, the destruction of the tamoguna within us that is very

difficult to destroy. In the Durga Devi Havana (sacrifice), we invoke

that Divine Power within us to destroy our animalistic tendencies.

 

Lakshmi

 

For knowledge to dawn within us, we have to prepare our minds. The

mind must be pure, concentrated, and single-pointed; this

purification of the mind is obtained through the worship of Lakshmi

Devi.

 

In our society today, however, when we think of Lakshmi, we think

only of money - counting gold and dollar bills! This is why if one

goes to a Lakshmi temple, one will find a crowd. Everybody likes

Lakshmi Puja (Lakshmi worship) because they think she represents

material wealth. But what is real wealth? Even if we have material

wealth but no self-discipline or self-control, nor the values of

love, kindness, respect and sincerity, all our material wealth will

be lost or destroyed. The real wealth is the inner wealth of

spiritual values that we practice in our lives, by which our minds

become purified. Only when we have these noble values will we be able

to preserve our material wealth and make good use of it. Otherwise

money itself becomes a problem.

 

In the Upanishads, the Rishis never asked for material wealth only.

In the mantras of the Taittriya Upanishad, they first asked to have

all the noble virtues fully developed in themselves. "Having gained

the noble virtues, thereafter Lord please bring wealth to us". The

Rishis express here that in the absence of right values and good

qualities, all our money will be wasted, and there are countless

examples of this in the world around us.

 

Our wealth of virtues is our true Lakshmi. Its importance is shown by

the fact that Adi Shankaracharya himself, in Vivekachudamani,

describes that sat sampati, or six forms of wealth (calmness of mind,

self-control, self-withdrawal, forbearance, faith and single-

pointedness) that are to be cultivated to attain wisdom. These

virtues are important because our goal is victory over the mind - a

victory such that we do not get disturbed by every change that takes

place in our lives. This victory comes only when the mind is

prepared, and this mental preparation is the symbolism of the

Lakshmi Puja.

 

 

Saraswati

 

Victory over the mind can be gained only through knowledge, through

understanding; and it is Goddess Saraswati who represents this highest

knowledge of the Self.

 

Although there are many kinds of knowledge in the Vedas - phonetics

astronomy, archery, architecture, economics and so on - the real

knowledge is in the spiritual knowledge. Lord Krishna himself says in

the Bhagavad Gita: "The knowledge of the Self is the knowledge"; and

He adds, "It is My vibhuti, My glory." In other words, we may have

knowledge of many other subjects and sciences but if we do not know

our own Self, then that is the greatest loss. Therefore the supreme

knowledge is the knowledge of the Self that is represented by Goddess

Saraswati.

 

 

Navaratri

 

Thus, at Navaratri, Goddess Durga is invoked first to remove

impurities from the mind. The Goddess Lakshmi is invoked to

cultivate the noble values and qualities. Finally, Saraswati is

invoked for gaining the highest knowledge of the Self. This is the

significance of the three sets of three nights when all these three

are gained subjectively, then there will be Vijayadasami, the day of

true victory!

 

At Navaratri time, the rasa dance (dance of joy) of Sri Krishna and

the gopis is also performed. As the mind becomes purer, calmer

quieter, and more cheerful and greater understanding is gained, do we

not feel happier? Similarly, the rasa dance is the dance of joy and

realisation. But, nowadays, the theme of Sri Krishna and the gopis

dancing around the rasa seems to have been lost in our society. The

true meaning and purpose of the ritual is often forgotten, as more

importance is given to other types of dancing.

 

Why is the Navaratri festival celebrated at night rather than in the

daytime? This is another interesting question. Night-time is

generally the time when we go to sleep, so the spiritual message

is, "You have lived long enough in the sleepy ignorance of tamoguna.

It is time to wake up now. Please wake up!"

 

For a puja, unfortunately, we are never willing to stay up late and

so we ask, "What time will it end?" For a party, we never ask this

question. If the party ends at 10.00pm, we say "What! The party is

finished?! What kind of a party is that?!" Yet we find it difficult

to stay awake for a puja!

 

 

The Importance of Ritual

 

Not everyone, it is true, will be of the intellectual type to

appreciate everything philosophically. Therefore, philosophy or

spiritual truth must be demonstrated visually in some ritualistic

form. In this way, when children are first introduced to it, they

enjoy a dance or a festival, and then later begin to question, "What

is this dance? Why are we doing this Puja? What is the meaning of

Navaratri?" So the purpose of the concretised ritual is fulfilled

when these questions begin to arise in the children's minds.

 

Unfortunately, when we take our children to functions at the temples

and they begin to ask questions about what they see, we cannot answer

them. Yet when the children revolt later as teenagers, we say, "What

happened to the children? These kids are terrible. We never used to

question our religion!"

 

We take pride in the fact that we never used to question anything,

but it would have been better if we had asked questions and found

out. Why did we not ask? Because of intellectual inertia. Inertia is

of different kinds. Physical inertia is not as bad because it is

usually temporary. There are also mental or emotional stupors that

some people remain in, but the intellectual inertia is the worst kind

because under its influence, we do not want to think at all. It is

said that people can live without air for two minutes, without water

for a few days, without food for a month or so, and without thinking

for generations! Some people just do not want to think.

 

This is our inner Mahisha, and our spiritual Mahisha is that we do

not want to wake up from this sleep of ignorance.

 

As we can see, the theme of the entire Vedas is reflected in the

Navaratri festival: Purify the mind and remove all negativities;

cultivate positive virtues; gain spiritual knowledge and transcend

limitations.

 

This is the real victory - the dance of joy - ritualistically

performed at night, as it is also on Shivaratri (auspicious night),

to signify our spiritual awakening.

 

 

 

Regards,

Dayanand Naik.

 

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"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything."

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