Navratri : Swami Tejomayananda

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The Spiritual Significance of Navaratri by Sw. Tejomayananda

 

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 (the lazy buffalo) , 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._________________Om Tat Sat,

 

Gyanswaroop.-- devishakti_india( divyabhakti )