Ditty for the dark deity

[Guest guest]

(The Financial Express, 9 September 2007)

 

The three gunas of sattva, rajas and tamas are the primary qualities

born of nature that binds the immortal soul to the body. Prakriti or

nature holds within herself all forms of creation, which find their

manifestation through the gunas. All the three gunas form a necessary

part of our lives, impacting our emotional, mental and spiritual

being.

 

Among the three gunas, rajas holds the central role, sattva creates a

higher light and virtue, while tamas creates inertia, decline and

vice. Rajas acts as the mediator between the two, allowing us to

ascend to sattva if we direct our energy inwardly, or sink into tamas

if we direct our energy outwardly.

 

In this regard, we can distinguish between higher and lower rajasic

forces. The higher rajasic force leads us to sattva, giving us the

energy to make efforts in our spiritual practices, while the lower

rajasic force takes us to tamas, with our energy aimed only at

enjoyments and gains. Sattva and tamas tend to be stable within their

own boundaries.

 

A higher rajasic force is the main energy prevailing in natural

healing and spirituality. A higher energy of rajas, or spiritual

aspiration, passion and zeal, stimulates our sadhana, allowing our

inner sattva to come forth, taking us to higher levels of harmony and

grace, removing our negative samskaras. The lower rajasic forces

create a violent and aggressive nature, drifting one into dullness

and insensitivity. Lower rajasic tendencies manifest through self-

centredess, enduring a Tamasic suffering, as if all life were dark.

For one's spiritual growth, a higher force of rajas is necessary to

awaken the shakti, the transforming power in one's own sadhana. The

rajasic rasa enhances the qualities of virya, strength and valour, in

guiding the kundalini shakti, the serpent power tomove upward.

 

Getting attached to sattva can also impose a gentle ahamkara or ego

in a person, where mere good actions may be mistaken for spiritual

realisation. Shakti takes us beyond the parameters of the ordinary

mind of justice and injustice, good or evil, love and hatred. A

strong upward and striving rajasic nature guides us beyond mere

attachment to sattva, tapping the underlying shakti behind all

primary qualities of our nature.

 

One needs a powerful constitution to withstand the vibrational

intensity of Shakti sadhana. Kali holds powerful higher rajasic

qualities, which lend her the potency of `Rakta Kali,' endowed with

passion and power. She grants her devotees enough rajas to withstand

the powerful flash of her lightning. Kali strengthens our nervous,

mental and emotional systems allowing the Shakti-seeker to undergo

radical inner changes without any side effects.

 

Women naturally carry more rajas, passion in their nature. This

energy surfaces even more during thetime of her their menstruation

every month. In traditional cultures, the first blood of a nubile

woman is a cause of great celebration. Special rituals honour the

deep wisdom and power emanating from a woman at this transformational

time.

 

The menstruation time is referred to as the dark time, invoking the

innate sacredness of the hidden woman, her unforeseen strength, the

surety and wisdom of her high aspirations. It is the ceremonial

unfolding of the crimson wisdom, the sacred heritage of nature's

power to renew itself. These are the silent powers of the Goddess

resting in the dark waters of her womb; every seed seeks its

creativity through the waters or blood of life.

 

Blood flows in its celebration through the sacred altar of the yoni,

doorway to the infinite divinty of the Dark Goddess. Powerful

vibrations prevail in this Goddess indwelling, symbolising Divine

shakti or kundalini energy. The yoni, the sacred symbol of female

creativity, indicates greater creative powers of the cosmic feminine

force.

 

Prakriti, which means `the power of action', is primarily rajasic in

nature; its movements and growth sustains an active energy. Sattva is

when this energy is receptive to the purusha, the consciousness

principle. Tamas is when it resists the inner consciousness. Tantra

is the science of the cosmic spiritual forces, working to redirect

the energy of the rajas as a spiritual force through the rising

kundalini. Shakti is the higher form of rajas that carries us beyond

all the gunas.

 

In every outburst of the spring season, rajasic energies capture the

brilliance of its blossoming, the vibrancy of its hues and the magic

of its scented trails. The gentler, paler shades of nature spell the

mystical wonders of sattva in the pure delight of its light, the love

for life and subtler spiritual nuances. There is an inherent wisp of

modesty, sweet virtue and a self-containment scripted in nature's

flourish of abundance.

 

And in nature's wilting review, lies the settling of its tamasic

traits in its decline of creativity and wonder in the flower's and

fruit's fading, non-feeling, death and darkness. Prakriti, mother

nature, holds the repose of all the three gunas, balancing out their

specific actions in the acrobastic manifest of equipoise. We have

only to seek the subtler truths in the wisdom of nature's unfolding!

 

(Extracted from Yogic Secrets of the Dark Goddess by Shambhavi L

Chopra published by Wisdom Tree)