It  is Navratri all over the Indian sub-continent and among Hindus around  the world. Some non-Hindus also celebrate this popular festival  as a “fun colorful cultural event”.

Navratri  is nine nights of celebration of the Goddess, mostly in the form of  Durga, and many of her complexities, paradoxes, diversity of  strengths, roles and intentions. Nav or Nava in Sanskrit and several  Indian languages means "nine.” Ratri means "night".

Though  the Goddess, or Devi, during Navaratri is presented first as eight  powerful manifestations, with their own unique names and  characteristics, it is in the ninth form as Durga, when all the eight  manifestations unite and strengthen, that the Goddess is popularly  worshipped.

Durga,  who was specifically created with eight different Shakti (or energy)  forms united and intensified, is also given weapons from the Hindu  trinity (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) for the purpose of defeating the  demon Mahisha Asuran.

The  Goddess Durga, or her more gory manifestation in the form of Kali, is  not your traditional benign consort, or a soft nurturing mother, that  has been popularized in many old feudal, pagan and patriarchal  religions. Durga is not a Goddess who is merely pretty, decked up,  attractive and very pleasing to men. Nor does she present herself  exclusively as a hyper feminine female that other women emulate, or  are jealous of. Durga is not the traditional submissive obedient  wife, consort or follower - constructed or popularized in patriarchal  religions and cultures. She is not a Goddess who merely adjusts,  adapts and accommodates. In fact her femininity, with masculinity and  going beyond gender, has many forms and faces.

Goddess  Durga can manifest as gory Kali who is unattractive and fearsome, as  seen in many idols or iconography. Durga as Kali not only defies all  male images of women as attractive, graceful, nice, gentle, quiet,  demure, well behaved, ever giving, ever nurturing, pretty and  predictable, she, as Kali, does everything that even men will find  difficult, and most likely disapprove of.

From  a Western perspective Kali would be seen as badly or poorly dressed.  From an Eastern perspective Kali could be seen as immodestly dressed.  Her attire, sometimes sparse and sometimes shocking, would be frowned  upon in many cultures around the world. Some of her iconography shows  her with matted hair, clothes - stained and torn, blood red tongue  jutting out and her eyes glaring at the world dark and furious. Her  ugliness, fierceness, fearsomeness or loathsomeness defy all male  definitions of beauty, and men's demand for female conformity: both  in appearance and demeanor.

Durga,  as herself and as Kali, walks untamed and on the wild side. She rides  tigers and lions without fear, she courageously visits graveyards and  applies ashes on herself (usually associated with the hyper masculine  male deity Shiva). She finds refuge in deep forests and dark caves.  These are places where ordinary women do not go to, or are told not  to visit.

For  Durga, and her other form Kali, no man made rules exist. She breaks  all patriarchal rules, and she sometimes demands you do too: to set  yourself free, develop true knowledge - beyond conditioned response,  and cultivate courage and intuition. By doing things that are  socially frowned upon or considered culturally unacceptable, as well  as doing things that are unfamiliar or unknown, we learn to become  strong, self aware and our false understanding and knowledge, or  preconceived assumptions, are confronted and corrected.

Goddess  Durga, in her iconography, carries in her hands (typically  represented as four on either side) instruments given mostly to men.  She has a discus and conch shell that Vishnu carries. She has the  trident and the club that Shiva usually holds. She has the book and  rudraksha (sometimes a ball of string) that Brahma (the Supreme deity  or Universal Consciousness) possesses. Her fourth hand on the left  holds a lotus, while her right is a mudra of blessing and protection.  Sometimes Durga is shown carrying a sword, an axe or a bow and arrow.  She uses these instruments for reasons that are both known and  unknown. She uses these instruments for the same reason that men and  male deities do: as weapons to fight the bad guys, the demons, the  tyrants, the rakshasas or the asuras, and also metaphorically to kill  human falsities, ego and the poorly understood reality. She also uses  these instruments in ways that are not always easy to know in her  cosmic endeavors.

Durga  has many forms, roles, rules as well as anti-rules. She is the kind  of paradox that occurs in evolved societies and evolved minds. She is  chaos and order. She is masculine in many characteristics that are  traditionally attributed to male sex - such as warriorship,  leadership, and power. She is feminine in qualities that are  culturally attributed to the female gender in many societies – such  as gentleness, kindness sweetness and nurturing. She also goes beyond  narrow gender identifications. She is energy or Shakti, depicted as  "a strong powerful independent woman." But in reality,  energy has no gender...hence Durga goes beyond gender.

Durga's  paradoxes are infinite. She can be strong and benign. She can be  vicious and totally harmless. She is dark and light. She is black and  white. She is many colors and no color. She is bright and visible.  But she can be dark and invisible also. She is universal and very  specific. She is mysterious and obvious. She is subtle and blunt. She  is beautiful and ugly. She is all of these diverse and opposing  qualities, characteristics and manifestations - at the same time or  at various times. She carries these paradoxes without becoming  contradictory, inconsistent, or hypocritical.

Durga  says what she means, and means what she says. She says a lot, but she  can be withdrawn and silent for years. She acts on her words, but her  words may have many meanings and layers. The more you see the world  through her or by her, the more you will know and understand. But at  times the more you know the more you realize you  do not know. This shifting of  reality, or the peeling of reality, is referred to as maya...or  what in English is usually translated as "illusion”. I will  explain later why the translation of the word maya as illusion may be incorrect, or incomplete.

Without  the Goddess' energy (Shakti) there is no action or movement, and  without movement there is no time. Hence Kali, the more fierce form  of Durga, is also kala - time. Our universe expands and keeps time, but this time is more  complex than a unidirectional or uni-dimensional variable that merely  increases continuously. The Big Bang that is purported to have  created the universe, which in Indian tradition was Brahma's  initiation, can occur in a micro second, but the expansion of the  universe can go on forever, or seemingly forever...caused by Shakti.  Light travels across the cosmos at an amazing speed, but stars that  produce a lot of our heat and light can take billions of years to  wither away. These kinds of extreme, and even opposing, cosmic events  are supposed to be initiated and controlled by Durga. But just as she  creates order she also initiates disorder...that she herself cannot  always control.

Durga  is a woman of all colors, for all seasons, with varied  qualities...and most of the time beyond categorization. She does not  say or insist that women conform one way or another. She offers no  prescription except for what is just, right, compassionate, fair,  true, and is of pure essence in our nature, or with our nature. She  breaks every box, cell, and conditions, while also creating new  conditions for justice and order. That is her paradox.

In  Devi Mahatmayee, the Goddess says, "I will come down to earth,  and other lokas, to break man made religions that mislead, oppress  and harm." Her paradox is that she herself, as a Goddess, is  outside all man-made institutions and patriarchal religions. Her  temples, away from other traditional temples, and often in open  spaces - wild and free, perhaps exemplifies this “non conformist”  nature of hers.

Many  temples for Durga Mata, as she is affectionately called in many parts  of India, are in forests, hills or mountains, sometimes near rivers  and oceans. Her abodes are usually part of the natural landscape,  sometimes without any man made construction over or around her image.  Because she has no male partner, or considers men only as her  subjects, she occupies the sanctum sanctorum by herself. She stands  on her own - not alone, and not afraid to confront, attack or be  aggressive when needed.

Durga  can create turbulence and chaos to prepare the world for Vishnu's  next Avatar.  It is said that Vishnu himself pays homage to Durga, and endorses her  exalted place in society...because she makes his birth, as an Avatar,  in the planetary system of our Bhur, Bhuvar and Swara lokas possible. (Her role in lokas beyond Swara loka, which includes  Mahar, Janas, Tapas and Satya/Brahma lokas remains a mystery). Hence,  Vishnu considers Durga indirectly as his mother, through whose energy  he takes many Avatars for dharmic order.

Shiva,  who lives with a form of Durga, referred to as Parvathi, gives her  willingly his trident and club to help her fight the dark forces and  the dark side. Shiva can only destroy one planet at a time, and  sometimes much less. Durga, on the other hand, can destroy an entire  planetary system or a whole galaxy. Hence Shiva not only hands over  his weapons to help, assist and serve her, but also surrenders to her  intense power. Without that power, known as Shakti, Shiva himself is  inert and impotent.

At  the highest level of cosmic reality and existence Durga, according to  Hindu tradition, creates much of the energy, materials and movements  needed for planetary formation, while Vishnu puts it all together in  an orderly manner. She thus comes, in the cosmic timeline, before  Vishnu and after Brahma. For some followers of Shakti, who worship  the Goddess exclusively, Durga as pure Shakti is universal and  primordial. Hence she is considered beyond Brahma, and separate and  parallel to all of Hindu pantheons. One might consider her more like  a parallel universe where our current cosmic and planetary laws might  not apply, and that universe remains inaccessible to most except for  a tiny few who can achieve greatest or highest of knowledge,  enlightenment and evolution...and have broken Shakti’s dark energy  secrets.

Durga,  in Hindu and Buddhist cosmology, is both light (the visible) and dark  matter (the invisible) in our universe. Dark matter is substance -  not just a vacuum or a void, though empty spaces also appear dark.  Hence Durga helps us understand that  there is value, usefulness, power and relevance to dark space or dark  matter, and all the empty spaces around us. A sociological  interpretation and application to this is that there is place and  space in our lives and our communities for all qualities and  characteristics (human and animal). And just as some invisible light  (like the infrared) become visible only when we are able to develop  the ability or the technology to see it, Durga represents Maya - that which we cannot see at first, but becomes more obvious and  clear with certain mental improvements, also aided by technology.

For  this reason Durga, like few other Goddesses, is also known as Maya or  Mayavati. As reality is layered, deep, shifting, not obvious, and its  essence is not always quickly or clearly discerned or understood,  reality is referred to as Maya. Unfortunately Maya is incorrectly  defined as illusion in the Western world. Maya is not illusion. It is merely many layered  truth or reality that requires great deal of research, thinking,  reflection, analysis and awareness to see through, or clearly and  accurately discern.

In  counseling and education I have to often teach clients and students  the difference between perception and truth; truth and reality and  reality seen and understood one way, versus reality seen and  understood another way. This exercise helps improve analytical power,  critical thinking, reasoning, logic, creativity and intuition. It  helps individuals and the collective overcome maya,  or false perception and inaccurate knowledge.

For  example, if one applies reason and logic to our social reality we  will find that lot of classism and sexism in our communities are  meaningless or irrelevant. These destructive, divisive "isms"  cause disparities without truth, justice or compassion. It also makes  some communities vulnerable to colonialism, poverty, injustice,  inequality and terrorism.

Durga  wishes to not only break men's false doctrines, and their oppressive  or controlling religions, but she is against man-made disparities,  segregations and divisions that are not rooted in truth, fairness,  justice, balance and compassion. Hence to create a better,  and more just, kind and inclusive, society she destroys the old  order. Durga, in this role of a defiar and destroyer, becomes a  social change agent ...who speaks against unfair, unkind,  exploitative or cruel divisions and hierarchies.

Because  Durga's order is shifting, it requires constant vigilance, evaluation  and change. Order without appropriate change will lead to social  stagnation. Without feedback, research and inclusion of new ideas and  new knowledge, that is accurate and valid, society can become rigid  and close minded. Any order that is too rigid, unfair and  hierarchical can lead to oppression, dictatorship, tyranny and  fascism.

As  Durga causes chaos before creating a new and better order, free from  oppression and tyranny, her laws, unlike Vishnu's, are not just  rooted in books, and written or spoken codes. Her laws go beyond  specific earthly time (like yugas).

Durga's  laws are more complex and integrate compassion, values and the truth  at a higher level. Her laws are rooted both in the context in which  an action or crime occurs, as well as in its higher consequence or  relevance. Hence Durga can forgive a murderer, not only because she  has the compassion to do so, but because she can see the context of  the crime and motives of the murderers with clarity, logic and  foresight. She will forgive a man or a woman who murders to defend  innocent people, or any perpetrator who steals food or medicine to  help someone in a desperate situation. She will support those who  protest against exploitation, crimes of the powerful and the  privileged and tyranny. It is this complex understanding and  application of justice that makes her unique among the pantheon of  Hindu Gods, and unusual for any leader. Her justice pays attention to  context and its many layers - reality as is and as it shifts.  Including such a paradox effectively in the justice system is no easy  feat. It requires the highest level of knowledge, awareness, facts,  truth, intuition and compassion.

To  me personally Durga, the Devi Puranas and the Shakti Agamas represent  the evolution of the homo sapien with a large forebrain. A forebrain  that feels, thinks, plans and acts in ways that are complex, diverse  and appropriately changing. It is our sophisticated capacity and  commitment to discern, distinguish, see subtle differences and  understand the nuanced reality we experience (internally and  externally), and live in and constantly interact with, that makes us  homo sapiens and a more evolved human.

I  tell many male clients (and some women) all the time:

It  is in knowing these subtle differences, and integrating them into our  thinking, actions, personalities and lives, that we can create a  better self and a better society.

Happy  or Shubh Navratri to all of you.

About  the author

Dr.  Meera Srinivasan has a Ph.D. from the University of Southern  California, and has taught at several private and public universities  in the US at the Bachelors and Masters levels. She earned her B.Sc.  in Statistics from Bombay University, and her Masters in Medical and  Psychiatric Social Work from the prestigious Tata Institute of Social  Sciences. She also has a post-graduate training in counseling from  Australia. She has many academic papers and published articles to her  credit. She has also presented in numerous conferences and seminars.  She has lived in four countries (India, Thailand, Australia and the  US), and has traveled to over thirty nations. Her commitment to  social research, social development, mental health and social justice  have played a big role in her personal life, professional work and  public activism. She has won several awards for her professional  contributions and community work. She has been praised very highly  for integrating cultural and social diversity, in a complex and  nuanced way, to her mental health and social work theories, analysis  and practice.

Also  read
1. Durga Saptashati (Devi Mahatmyam)
2. Durga Worship from Prabuddha Bharata.
3. Pictures of Durga Pooja celebrations in Kolkatta
4. About Mysore Dussehra
5. Grand Dussehra celebrations in Mysore
6. Worship of God as Mother
7. Appearance and reality – concept of Maya
8. By same Author Differences on women rights and choice between the U.S., India and Middle East
9. Pictures of Kamakhya Temple
10. Vaishnudevi Temple pictures