Greater Noida (Hridaya Mohan): The word Navaratri means ‘nine nights’ in Sanskrit, nava meaning nine and ratri meaning nights. During these nine nights and ten days, nine forms of Goddess Durga are worshipped. The nine form of Devi are Shailputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, Skandamata, Katyayini, Kalaratri, Mahagauri and Siddhidatri.
Goddess Durga is believed to be the combination of Trinity of goddesses – Lakshmi, Parvati, Saraswati. In other words, the Trinity is worshipped during Navaratri. This festival not only teaches us the supreme power that women possess but also give us reasons to be inspired and learn from these nine manifestations of Durga.
Rediscover Self and Awaken Inner Strength
Goddess Shailputri is an absolute form of Mother Nature. She is an epitome of strength, courage, and composure. She guides in the process of rediscovering self and identifying the inner strengths. She supports in the actions and vigor to be steadfast in achieving your goals.
Be Perseverant
Goddess Brahamacharini is synonymous with dedication and devotion. She helps you to get rid of negativity and blesses with great emotional strength, perseverance, tremendous will power and confidence in the most trying times of lives. She teaches to be absolutely clear about your goals and remain a go-getter in achieving them with determination despite of herculean challenges.
Keep Learning
Goddess Chandraghanta is the embodiment of divine knowledge and learning. If you stop learning, you stop winning. There is no age limit to learn new things. Have fun, learning every day and spread knowledge to the world.
Follow the path of righteousness
Goddess Kushmanda is the source of all the energy in the universe and symbolises dharma and justice. She created the universe verdant with vegetation. She teaches to always stand for right. She helps to eradicate the darkness from life and shows the right path. Think of crafting your life vision as mapping a path to your personal and professional dreams.
Self-Control
Goddess Skandamata awards devotees with salvation, power, prosperity, treasures and can grant oceans of wisdom, if worshiped with absolute control over senses and mind. During Navaratri, devotees observe fast for all nine days which is an exercise in self-discipline. Fasting trains the mind and body to be prepared for any hardship in life. Fasting inculcates in devotee the necessity to abstain at all costs from anti-social activities and from all ungentlemanly words and deeds.
Be Passionate
Goddess Katyayani is worshipped as the Warrior Goddess and is the symbol of shakti, knowledge and courage. She is considered being a destroyer of evil and teaches us to take initiative to fight against all odds in life. Be passionate always, come over low times and not remain bogged down for a long time. Take initiative to help people out and spread happiness.
Be Peaceful
Goddess Kaalratri is the most fearsome Goddess who eradicated all signs of darkness from the universe. Destroy all the evil emotions from your thoughts, words and deeds; Lust, Greed, Anger, Jealousy, Hatred, Ego and Guilt. Replace all these with Love, Sharing, Understanding, Admiration, Forgiveness, Sharing and Correction. Make sure your actions encourage non-violence and promote the well-being of people.
Be Supportive
Goddess Mahagauri has the power to fulfill all the desires of her devotees and gets relief from all the sufferings in life. Offer your services to those who need it, be available to listen, provide appropriate advice, show love & affection and support in decision-making process.
Be A Giver
Goddess Siddhidhatri blesses her devotees with Siddhis. Siddhi means ‘fulfillment’ or ‘perfection’ and datri means ‘giver’ or ‘awarder’. This Goddess bestows abilities that help achieve success. Giving is accompanied by compassion, caring and love. Try to help others in the pursuit of their rightful purpose in life – personal as well as professional – material as well as emotional – psychological as well as spiritual.
Eradicate Negativity
On the first three days, the Mother is invoked as powerful force called Durga in order to destroy all their negativity, impurities, vices, defects and imperfections. Devotees pray to be made pure so as to receive the divine and spiritual energy of the goddess.
Be Positive
The next three days, the Goddess is adored as a giver of spiritual wealth, Lakshmi, who is considered to have the power of bestowing on her devotees the inexhaustible wealth. During the first three days, we remove our negative attitude; hence, in the next three days, positive attitude replaces the negative attitude. With a positive and optimistic attitude, devotees pray for removing obstacles and bringing success in their path.
Enhance Knowledge
The final set of three days is spent in worshipping the mother as the goddess of wisdom, Saraswati. Knowledge, the Power, is very important for a human in life. Saraswati is not just the goddess of knowledge; she is also Shakti, who bestows wisdom. Without removing negative tendencies and without having wealth of love, inner peace and calmness, one cannot attain divine knowledge. We first have to purify ourselves to get the path of wisdom. Goddess Saraswati bestows the shakti (energy) to the devotees so that they can attain knowledge.
Respect Women
Females have always been at the top in mythology. Even On the last day of Navaratri, ‘Kanya Poojan’ is performed, where nine young girls are considered to be the nine forms of goddess Durga. They are worshipped like goddesses. Devotees wash their feet; offer them new clothes and other gifts. This ritual has been performed in India since ancient times to mark the importance of females. The famous Sanskrit sloka says, where women are honoured and respected, divinity dwells there and all actions are fruitless where women are not honoured.
The importance of women’s emancipation cannot be limited to mere tokenism during Navaratri. Somehow in modern times, the respect and veneration accorded to women in ancient times has gone missing and the disturbing trend of treating women as not equals has begun. Every day should be a women’s day for putting an end to any sort of discrimination and achieving gender-based equality and women’s emancipation. Badminton ace P.V. Sindhu once said, “Indians rarely walk their talk in terms of respecting women”. There is absolute need for change in the mindset of people, particularly men. It is unfortunate that even 74 years after Independence, we are still talking in terms of ending gender discrimination and the abhorrent practice of female foeticide. Education, empowerment, entitlement and emancipation are required to usher in a society where women are treated as true equals in all spheres of life.
According to the Puranas, we are currently living in the ‘Kali-Yuga’ stage of the cycle of Creation. Apparently, it’s the darkest, cruelest and the most miserable of times that the human race has ever gone through. It is now that we are the furthest from finding God within ourselves. There are medical conditions being diagnosed that were never heard of before, crimes committed so horrific that it’s easier to simply keep walking than trying to help; and betrayals so deep that it’s hard to even trust your own family. Navaratri encourages and inculcates the way to get through this pain.
There will be times when life will look like it’s in the dumps, with no quick way out of it. You will simply have to ride it out during those times. Some divine energy stops us from completely breaking down, gives us the strength to keep going and find hope. In today’s fast-moving world it is imperative that work on our Success Pentagon – upgrade our Knowledge, enhance our Attitudes, sharpen our Skills, develop better Habits and plan effective Strategies – on a constant basis.
Durga, who stands for destruction and creation, symbolises that end of something is not necessarily a bad thing. It also signals new beginnings and regeneration. Finally, things to learn from Navaratri are to be a good human being, do good deeds and develop the nature of love, affection and compassion. Spirituality should be the only religion of every person.
About the Author:
Mr. Hridaya Mohan is a regular Columnist with a renowned Indian daily “The Hitavada” and some other newspapers / magazines internationally. Superannuated as Executive Director, Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL), he is Senior Adviser, Metallon Holdings Pvt. Ltd. presently. He headed SAIL office at Beijing as Chief Representative (China & Mongolia) for six years. He has published and presented seventeen papers globally. Recipient of “Sir M Visvesvaraya Gold Medal” for one of his papers, “Benchmarking of Maintenance Practices in Steel Industry” from The Institution of Engineers (India), he was awarded with “Scroll of Honour” for the excellent contributions to Engineering fraternity from IE(I), Bhilai, “Jawahar Award” for leadership excellence in SAIL and “Supply Chain Leader – 2017” award from IIMM.
