Religious symbols and myths are not references to historical events, they are often pointers to one’s own state of being, or a personification, an externalization of our ideals and aspirations. In Joseph Campbell’s words “They ( the symbols) spring from the psyche and they speak to the psyche and not to be read as newspaper reports of historical events”. India celebrates the Navratri, a string of nine sacred nights, each one dedicated to examining, consecrating, and mastering one aspect of the self, and reaching its crescendo in Vijayadasami, the victorious tenth when the individual self is healed, reconciled, and made whole again. Collectively the nine days and nights together, constitute our reflections on the deepest joys, fears, hope, and the insatiable desire for perfection and perpetuity. It is significant to note that this symbolic journey is night-based, and not day-based. It is Navratri ( nine nights) and not Navdin( nine days). Darkness, or night, is an absence of light, a trembling precursor to it, therefore, pregnant with possibilities. The body recuperates, the mind rests, and the soul heals in the womb of darkness to rise again, cleansed and ready.
The ingenuity of the ancient mind fashioned the representations for each night based on the deepest concerns of Man. The consuming terror of existence in Mahakali, the spark of intelligence, wit, and knowledge in Saraswati, the warmth of the creative psychic egg in Kushmanda, the joy of material comfort in Lakshmi, the dissolution of pain in Chandraghanta, the fire of celibacy in Brahmacharini, the stillness of the self in Shailaputri, the warrior self in Katyayani, the wholeness of perfection in Siddhidatri – these are the nine divine symbols of the mother. For nine days, we pour ourselves, individually and collectively, into each of these representations, in an attempt to draw ourselves away from the narrow, self-centered, habitual selves into a wider, deeper, and more expansive self, a communal self, a cosmic self, perhaps.
The tenth day of victory is not an outward one, but an inward state of bliss and reconciliation. The journey of nine days of Navratri consummates in the cathartic tenth, Vijayadasami, the day we rise purged from the accretions of psychological rust accumulated in psychological time, and reach a point of delicate balance within, a fulcrum from where the oscillations of pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, right and wrong are viewed with majestic equanimity and in a clear light; and then return to society with fresh and wholesome vigor.
Wishing all the readers a happy Vijayadasami.
God bless…
Yours in mortality,
Bala