NAVARAATHRI SPECIAL SERIES #10 Mahishaasuramarthini (Durga)

On the sixth day of Navaraathri, we saw how Kaathyaayani grew up to be a brave woman. Today we will look at how Kaathyaayani becomes Durga. 
Durga is both an Amazonian warrior and a mother goddess. In India, she has become, for young women especially, an icon of contemporary liberation and power. When you bring Durga into your inner world, she can empower your most radical aspirations and guide you through your most conflict-ridden life dramas. She appears as a divine female warrior, brought into manifestation by the male gods to save them from the buffalo demon, Mahishaasura. The assembled gods, furious and powerless over the demon, prayed to Kaathyaayani.
Between prayers, the gods contemplate their own hubris, their forgetfulness, while petitioning the Goddess. “Why did we think we were in charge?” they ask themselves ruefully. “So, only in extremis do you come to me for help?” Durga asks. The gods know enough to let that pass. They know she can do no less than save her world. A moment later, she agrees. As a world protector, Durga’s fierceness arises out of her uniquely potent compassion.
Durga doesn’t cradle you or coddle you. Instead, she lends you strength to do what you have to do. Famously partial to warriors and leaders, Durga is especially available when you’re struggling to right a wrong. If Durga the cosmic queen is a world protector, the Durga woman is the protector of her world. A woman tuned to the Durga archetype has a natural capacity for warrior-style leadership. She will naturally create zones of protection around the people in her life. She’s also an effortless multi-tasker. The Durga woman makes space for people to flourish, fighting their battles when needed but she is just as likely to push them into fighting for themselves.
Durga women have a natural generosity, combined with a no-nonsense, “pull up your socks” sensibility that can be abrasive when the Durga shadow is in force. “Pull up your socks” is a Durga mantra. She herself gives no quarter to her own weaknesses and has little patience for anyone who stays stuck in theirs. Come to her with a problem, and she will immediately suggest a solution–but may lose patience if you don’t act on it. Durga women are formidable. They don’t cry easily. In fact, they often don’t show emotion, especially not negative emotion.
An evolved Durga woman holds a big, often radical vision and she both the energy and the strategic skill to actualize it. As you uncover Durga within yourself, it’s important to be alert to the ways her shadow manifests when she is evoked in the service of egoistic aims. Durga’s shadow is harshness and the need for control. In her relationships, she needs to be in charge and she needs to shine, even to outshine and her pride can verge on haughtiness. As an employer, she expects perfection and she can be capricious. Negative Durga can be self-righteous and critical. In your inner world, the negative Durga voice can show up as relentless inner critic. She knows every one of your faults and she is likely to recite them to you at the slightest sign of a mistake.
Fighting injustice, she visits her sword on anyone or anything that stands in her way. If you earn Durga’s disapproval, she is likely to stick you in her box marked ‘demon’ and keep you there for a long time. But Durga can also give a woman an acute social or political consciousness. She is often behind a woman’s instincts to champion the underdog or to organize for change. On a more universal level, Durga is often the fuel for popular uprisings and the will to fight social and political injustice.
All the nine forms that we have seen so far are not nine different goddesses; they are the different visages of the same Goddess Durga. For the buffaloes which think that Kaali is different from Lakshmi and that Dhuumaavati and Uma are not part and parcel of the same Goddess’s personality, let Durga destroy your ignorance. Happy Vijayathasami from us, the whole Karutthu Kannammaa team!

~ Team Kannammaa ~ #OnlyAtKK