Ravi Valluri

The Navaratri festival is celebrated across the country with tremendous fervour. This is an incredible time in the year to soak into the incantations, festivities, music, chanting where the presence of the Divine Mother is invoked. In the prepossessing tradition of Navaratri, the nine nights of celebration make it a perfect opportunity for the devout to visualize events from a singularly different dimension. It is believed that propitiating the Goddess brings the seeker and the devout fortune, peace, wisdom, happiness, success, energy, compassion, creativity and confidence.

The lady of any South Indian household is decidedly specific that Lalitha Sahasranama- the thousand names of the Goddess need to be chanted unfailingly. A peacock possesses extraordinary feathers but reveals them only with the first showers as an expression of its jollity. Similarly, chanting of the Lalitha Sahasranamam during the auspicious days of Navaratri has an efficacious impact on the body, mind and consciousness.

This is the day when Goddess Durga overcomes the challenge posed by the Asura (demon) Mahisasura. She emerges victorious and is also referred to as Mahisasura Mardini.

This is also the time when Lord Rama overpowers the chicanery of the ten-headed hydra monster in Ravana. The ten heads are symbolic of the negativity present in the human body. Righteousness triumphs over the diabolic and antipathetic forces.

These festivals are celebrated across India where the devout and the seeker meditate, undertake fasts, look inwards and rejuvenate and replenish the soul.

This is the Vedic wisdom which has been imparted to us since time immemorial by several Rishis who observed deep silence. This esoteric knowledge was passed on person to person by word of mouth.

“You are unimaginably dear to the Divine. This is the message of all the rituals and pujas of Navratri,” says H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.