This is the Celebration of Mother's Final Victory in the Epic War

Today is the concluding day of Navaratri.

This is the celebration of Mother's final victory in the epic war. This ancient story is told in many lands and in many ways. The story tells how the best of the best gave their all to endow Mother Divine with weapons and tools for the grand battle. Her Bow and Arrow, Discus, Thunderbolt, and Trident were manifested from the collective and universal good, intelligence, right duty, and vigilance. These weapons were forged in the fire of faith and courage. 

Mother Divine battled for nine days and nights against myriad demons. Every demon she smote sprang back up ten-fold, hundred-fold, thousand-fold! Still, she battled on from deeper and deeper levels of her own inexhaustible force of Everything until there was stillness, calm, and peace. 

Who were those demons? Mother Divine fought against the demons who are our very own weaknesses, greed, egoisms, and ignorances. She won over the legions of our fear, disgrace, and our every ineptitude  and sin. When was this battle waged? It was waged long ago, it is waged now, and forevermore, and whenever it needs to be fought. There will always be victory over ignorance and there will always be Divine Mother's valiant grace and protection. 

...among deep thunder sounds,
you sit above kings and queens,  
having no fear, champion over all,
     you are fate, and the fiery mother of destiny,
never born or dying, you are continuous life
     and know what comes.
You are the Great Plenum, and you alone give birth.
Holy Mother, we pray you in this season lead us
onto peace and health and increase of good things.  

--Orphic Hymn from The Soul is Here for its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures (Robert Bly)

The Divine Mother Makes Her Appearances on Earth

White Buffalo Calf Woman, Original artwork above by Rogue Guirey Simpson, 1992

On this eight day of Navaratri, we consider Divine Mother's embodiments, her appearances on earth in story and as sacred woman.

Mother is an inherent and inseparable part of creation. The glory of the natural world is her raiment. Her visage can be seen in the faces of people; the fragility, the fierceness and the tenderness of all humanity is there. For all peoples, cultures, and throughout history, she has also moved amongst us, making Herself known. Often, she will take form. She may appear as a beautiful woman, not even recognized as the entity she is. There are many stories which illustrate this. She becomes embodied in order to teach and to give blessings or boons.

One embodiment of Divine Mother that has been told of again and again is that of White Buffalo Woman. Below follows one of her tales:

It was a winter morning, and two hunters on their hunt saw a beautiful woman approaching. She was in buckskin that was pure white and she carried a small pack. One of the men saw only a beautiful woman and immediately began lusting after her. His partner told him to stop having such thoughts because it was obvious that she was a "wakan" or holy woman. 

The woman came close, put down her bundle and asked the lustful man to speak with her. He came close, and all of a sudden, a great cloud enveloped the two of them. When the cloud disappeared, the woman stood there with a pile of bones at her feet which were being cleaned off of flesh by snakes. 

This story, according to the Lakota Holy Man, Black Elk, teaches how our thoughts should be considered and measured and disciplined because worldly passions can consume us entirely. 


To many, the stories about White Buffalo Woman are seen as ways of living, guideposts to spirituality, and ways of honoring community, and the environment. In fact, White Buffalo Woman has been told to have brought seven sacred rites to the Oglala Sioux, that support those very things.

This Darkness, Take It! Lift the Veil, Mother!

Statue of Veiled Isis at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site,
West Branch Iowa, 

On this seventh day of Navaratri, we ask: 

Mother Divine, draw aside the glittering veil of cosmic motion pictures and show me Thy delusion-dispersing face of mercy. Cosmic Mother, take this darkness away! When I sit with eyes closed, enveloped in self-created shadows, cause Thou to blaze upon me in splendor the aura of intuition. 

– Paramahamsa Yogananda

The Only Answer Is the Question

"Moon Goddess" by Josephine Wall (http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/art_gallery.html)

Today is the sixth day of Navaratri, and as we try to contemplate you, Mother Divine; Creator of All and Goddess Supreme, we cannot find any answers. There is no solution to You, or equation for You or definition of You. 

You are the future, the immense morning sky
turning red over the prairies of Eternity.
You are the rooster-crow after the Night of Time,
the dew, the early devotions, and the Daughter,
the Guest, the Ancient Mother and Death. 

You are the shape that changes its own shape,
that climbs out of fate, towering,
that which is never shouted for, and never mourned for,
and no more explored than a savage wood. 

You are the meaning deepest inside me,
that never reveals the secret of its owner.
And how you look depends on where we are:
from a boat you are shore, from the shore a boat. 

--Rainier Marie Rilke

You have no permanence except eternal impermanence. Even the Inevitable becomes the Never-Was under Your spell. 

For more information about the events Navaratri and forward, please visit our calendar at The Sai Humanitarian Outreach Webpage:

This Terrible Beauty

detail from the painting "Anunciation," of Kali by Nafeeah Kim

“… Oh Goddess, this child has contemplated

awesome Aspects so intensely.

Put down your terrible sword. 

Drown me in your tender delights.”

- Babaji Bob Kindler

Today is the fifth day of Navaratri. On the first day, we discussed embracing all aspects of Mother Divine. Today, we'd like to discuss this point further: 

There is a certain understanding, a deeper initiation, a perspective that the Divine Mother gives to the souls who she alone chooses. It is the understanding of the Terrible Beauty.

There was a Sage who had this understanding. On a walk, one day, he came upon some others, who after having observed his manner and character, decided to test whether he would remain as he was. The others pointed out to him a dead and rotting dog in the gutter. It was quite a sight to see!

After contemplating the decomposing corpse for some moments, the Sage remarked with admiration upon the pearly white perfection of the dead dog’s teeth. Was the Sage merely a blind optimist or a goody-good who couldn't admit the unpleasant? Or could the Sage see the beauty in the terrible and the terrible in the beauty? 

One who can see this way sees the world more mystically, most profoundly, and sees beyond the duality in creation. What does it take to gain this perspective? Perhaps it's a calamity, a walk with death, a confrontation with the brutality and then the mercy of Nature? Or is it perhaps decades of penance or sadhana or a shock and shame that culminates in redemption? 

There are many ways to gain this perspective and when Mother grants the gift of this understanding, it will be yours forever. 

For more information about the events Navaratri and forward, please visit our calendar at The Sai Humanitarian Outreach Webpage:

Prayers to Mother Divine

Prayer is not asking God for something; prayer is a yearning of the soul, a beautiful communication with Mother Divine! Open your heart to Mother and experience Her presence in the form of inner peace, bliss and divine love.  

--Sri Karunamayi

Today is the fourth day of Navaratri, and we consider our prayers to and our communications with Divine Mother. We call on her by her many names:

The Divine Mother is everywhere.
She is in everything.
She is the Divine Essence that lives within all beings.
Her domain is the field of life, for she gives
to all beings the sustenance that is needed for life. 

Her beauty lives in the natural world,
and spans the universes in all their splendor.
She has been called by many names,
for all traditions recognize Her. 

--Julie Redstone

We call upon her to fulfill our deepest desires. We do not call upon her selfishly:  

I have learned from ancient scripture
     that Goddess Tara is the liberator
of those who travel through temporal existence.
Compassionate Tara, take responsibility for me!
Please purify the intentions of my heart
     so the cruel and clever enemy,
egocentric passion and compulsion,
can no longer laugh at me and deride me. 

--Lex Hixon

For more information about the events of Navaratri and forward, please visit our calendar at The Sai Humanitarian Outreach Webpage:

Honoring and Approaching Mother Divine

Today is the third day of Navaratri, and we continue to honor and celebrate all aspects of Divine Mother. She has many faces, many stories, many embodiments, and representations. All are honored and welcomed here.

Approach her with an open heart, lay bare your heart to her with frankness and humility, be as simple as a child. Kill ruthlessly the enemies that are egoism, cunningness, selfishness and crookedness. Take a total unreserved and ungrudging self-surrender to her. Sing her praise. Repeat her name. Worship her with faith and unflinching devotion.   

– Sri Swami Sivananda

For more information about the events Navaratri and forward, please visit our calendar at The Sai Humanitarian Outreach Webpage:

Mother as Leveler Paves the Way to a Life Evergreen

Goddess Durga Photo Credit: josephalmighty.multiply.com

Today is the second day of Navaratri. 

In some traditions, Navaratri is divided into sets of three days to adore different aspects of the supreme goddess. On the first three days, the Mother is invoked as a powerful force called Durga in order to destroy all our impurities, vices and defects. This can be described as a great leveling of the field, a clearing, a preparation for what comes next. 

Below follows an excerpt from the poem, "The Mother Supreme," by Sri Chinmoy, which speaks to this clearing and leveling aspect of Mother:

   Soul stirring eyes of gold delight,

   All where reigning supreme--

   Our blind secrecy's dream

   She seizes with Her all forgiving Sight.

   Torn now asunder our ego's screen, 

   Under her Smile of Grace

   Blooms quick our surrender's face.

   She paves the way to a life evergreen.

This is Who We Love, and She's Startling, Wild, and Unpredictable (!)

Today, Saturday the 5th, is the first day of the autumn celebration of Mother Divine which is known as Navaratri. This is an ideal time to draw close to and celebrate all forms of the goddess. Navaratri is celebrated all around the world by many faiths and traditions. There are almost as many customs celebrating Navaratri as there are forms of Divine Mother.

Detail of Painting by Nafeeah Kim Johnson

It is easy to adore a docile, gentle, and beautiful form of Mother Divine, however, Mother Nature teaches us that the feminine can be brutal, exacting, dangerous, and fierce. To fully love Mother Divine and appreciate her power, you must embrace all aspects of her Nature. 

Below follows an excerpt of poem by Lex Hixon from his book Mother of the Universe: Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment, which celebrates her wildness:

Wisdom Mother cares for this child
      more tenderly than human mother,
yet her creative and destructive actions
      are startling, wild, unpredictable
as those of a mad person.
She is surrounded by swirling energy,
manifest in various feminine forms
      as human beings and etheric beings:
powerful women warriors, peaceful contemplatives,
terrifying protectresses surrounded by flames.
Godhead in its three aspects,
Creator, Sustainer, and Revealer,
stands humbly before my Mother.
She is supreme. 

For more information about the events over the next nine days and forward, please visit our calendar at The Sai Humanitarian Outreach Webpage: 

We Have Some Very Special Guests this Weekend at Shiva Sai Mandir!