THE GODDESS EPISODES: In Search of The Mother

My pilgrimage to Shakti Peeths in the legendary Tantric heartland of West Bengal

Pilgrimage is an important part of my spiritual path and I try to go on a yatra whenever possible. Over the past decade, I’ve traveled through- out India to places like Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, Kerala from top to bot-tom, to Mysore and Goa in South India, to Orissa and Varanasi further north, and on the Buddhist Trail to places like Bodhgaya, Rajgir, Dharamsala, from Manali to Leh, Darjeeling to Sikkim, and finally up into Nepal where I now spend a few months every year.

I’ve done various sadhanas to cultivate bhakti towards deities from both Hindu and Buddhist traditions, from Shiva to Shakyamuni Buddha, Padmasambhava, Avalokitesvara and Vajrasattva. I’ve followed in the footsteps of Guru Rinpoche through the Upper Mustang Valley in Nepal along the route he took to spread the tantric Buddhist Vajrayana teachings in Tibet. Even though I’m a Nath yogini and belong to the Natesvari family, or panth, that embraces a synthesis of masculine and feminine energies—of Shiva and Shakti—I realize I’ve been focusing on male deities, ignoring my feminine side. It’s time to embrace the Goddess, the Mother. Pilgrimage is about transformation and I hope my journey will take me to the heart of the Mother.

I decide the best place for this is in the tantric heartland of West Bengal. I want to experience the energy of Devi in the sacred geometry, the contours of the landscape, and places that have been associated with the Goddess throughout the ages—axis mundis—where devotees can easily communicate with the divine. The ultimate destinations of my sadhana are the Shakti Peeths, the auspicious places where parts of the Devi fell to earth. I want to have darshan of the goddess and in doing so have her reveal the feminine within me.

Jai Ma!

Devi is the sanskrit word for Goddess and means “heavenly, Divine, anything of excellence.” The title Devi, or Mata, refers to the Goddess as the Divine Mother in Hinduism. Devi has been known by thousands of names, names that refer both to the Absolute, like Mahadevi and Adi Parashakti, and to specific female deities like Durga, Saraswati, Lakshmi, Parvati, Sati and Kali, to name a few. Every village in India has its own unique Brahma Devi. Some manifestations of Ma have a thousand names each. Devi often appears with her male counterpart—Parvati with Shiva in Shaivism, Saraswati with Brahma in Brahmanism, and Lakshmi with Vishnu in Vaishnavism. In addition to the pantheon of individual goddesses, there are groups of goddesses like the Matrikas, Navadurgas and Mahavidyas. There is a group of 64, sometimes 81, tantric devis—yoginis—who are devotees and attendants of Durga, and there are many anthropomorphic goddesses who remind us to examine what is real and what is illusory.

Goddesses come in all forms and sizes from the fair-skinned and demure Gauri, with curvaceous hips and full breasts, to the ferocious emaciated crone, Chamundi, who lives in the cremation grounds with ghouls and predatory animals like jackals and vultures.

Durga is the fierce warrioress who rode her lion into battle at the request of the male gods in a time of crisis, to slay the evil Buffalo Demon who was threatening to destroy the world. When things get rough, Kali Ma appears as the terrifying dark-skinned goddess with wild hair, blood-dripping fangs, a skirt of human arms and a necklace of skulls, her extended tongue sucking up the blood from the battlefield in an act of compassion.

Each female deity is depicted either standing or seated on her special animal mount or vahana that transports her through the various realms of consciousness. You can identify each goddess by her particular stance and mudras (hand gestures). The same goddess can have a different number of arms; Durga is depicted in her 2-armed form or 18-armed, or anything in between. Her various hands hold magical tools that are symbols to discern her identity and powers. The more arms she has the more powerful she becomes. Each manifestation of the Goddess also comes with a mantra and a yantra. The proliferation of forms and names for Devi can be confusing. I remind myself to keep it simple. ALL the Hindu goddesses are manifestations of one goddess, Devi Durga. Even if she has 108 forms.

Yogini or Dakini (Skydancer) cults became popular during the tantric era in medieval India and might be a continuation of the group of goddesses known as Matrikas, who appear in the earliest texts such as the Mahabharata and various Puranas. Hindu and Buddhist texts have mythologized yoginis as frightening, untameable women with an uncontrollable sexuality, the opposite of the docile and respectful daughter, sister or wife. The yogini is the archetypal dangerous female ‘other’, associated with the darker or more wrathful manifestations of the Goddess expressed through extreme and unorthodox behavior and terrifying appearances. Wild, unkempt hair, an enigmatic smile with protruding fangs and a third eye on the forehead all suggest danger, yet she is the compassionate mother. Her naked body is draped in animal skins or adorned with bone ornaments; she is often garlanded with a mala of severed human heads, holds a human skull (kapala) for drinking blood or amrita (nectar of immortality), and wears an animal head that points to the shamanic roots of the tradition. Names like Pretavahini (Corpse Rider), Yamaduti (God of Death’s Messenger) Bhayankari (Fearsome One) and Narabhojini (Cannibal) reflect the ferociousness of the yoginis and might explain why they have been feared throughout history.

But who are these women described as crones, whores, blood-thirsty hags, with a volatile sexual power that threatened the social order? Around the same time in a different part of the world, their European sisters were persecuted and demonized as witches, burned at the stake by the Vatican. Perhaps this fear of yoginis reflects the cultural fears within orthodox Hindu culture of female sexuality and power? A sexually liberated woman is often seen as threatening because she is NOT in relation to a man. These female Tantrikas are also considered to be in the Nath tradition of the Kaula School of Yoga, under the tutelage of the mythic Bengali tantric Matsyendranath. Although it’s difficult to situate Matsyendranath in a historical framework, scholars have placed his birth around the 8th century C.E. In his important tantric treatise, Kaulajnananirnaya, Matsyendranath treats yoginis with respect and devotion, believing them to possess the intrinsic force of Shakti and to be the embodiment of the siddhis (sophisticated techniques to give supernatural powers and transcendental states)

Continue to part 2 >