Core strength

Kashi-bashis (those who live/baaśh in Kashi/Varanasi) have an amazing sense of balance.  Their awareness on the streets and on vehicles is like bees moving around a beehive, carefully avoiding others while attending to their own tasks efficiently.

It is inspiring to see the confidence and elegance with which people manage themselves on two-wheelers.  ‘Two-wheelers’ in Kashi refer to motorcycles and scooters.  Most every woman knows how to ride side-saddle, holding a week’s shopping, two or three children, infants, and sometimes maneuvering a piece of luggage between her and the driver. Most everything can be transported in Kashi on a two-wheeler: furniture, bicycles, huge bags of linens, hardware, 20 Liter water bottles, and of course, an entire happy family of five or six members.  No helmets, no frozen gapes of shock. Just the dance of Varanasi traffic and a gratitude that the road is open. They are at peace with, and at one with, the environment. And in fact, they are safer per capita and per journey than in America.

This awesome balance is perhaps because daily life requires maneuvering that actively involves the thighs and core muscles of the abdomen. Most Varanasi toilets still require squatting for daily ablutions while facing north.   Hindu mythology also actively mentions the importance of thighs: Bhim had thighs that destroys his enemies in battle. Humans in the West pay good money to “strengthen their abs,” funding well-developed new industries of pilates, home gyms, countless home exercise gadgets, modified and trademarked yoga lines that emphasize core strength, as well as tummy toners, surgery specials, and belly blasters.  In the meantime, Kashi bashis just live daily life, getting on and off two-wheelers.

One weekend I venture to Delhi, whose traffic had shocked me years ago as I wove through streets with no sense of lanes, little respect about direction of traffic, and a variety of vehicle types and paces.  Now, it seems in comparison like orderly movement, and I have to think hard to distinguish it from New York traffic. It gives me confidence as I pull out the key to my new Honda scooter and attach it to my keychain, as I tighten my core muscles.

rupang dehi jayang dehi

As the day awakens, the skies remain a gainsboro gray, from Cyclone Phailin spinning its web of karma 600 km southeast of this fortress city on the Ganges. Gentle rains continue to drizzle on the lush green trees that live for the winds from the Ganga. The temperature is pleasant for me at 24C/75F.   Shankhs and pujas continue to resound through the cool air, as Durga puja mantras pepper the breezes that come wafting across my drenched marble verandah.

Today is Vijaya Dashami, when it is time to give Durga to visharjan and let her melt away. 

Chandipat

One of the books forbidden for handling by us when we were little, with our constantly soiled playful hands, was the Chandipat. It lay quietly in its fierce red cover, in our altar room, lined with its many pictures, all icons of the facets of our inner selves, my mother told us.  One sister loved the long-haired, lovely Lakshmi, sitting on her lotus throne, pouring gold from her hands; she is now an epidemiologist and consultant living near Malibu. My baby sister mused at the elephant god, humming Henry Mancini’s Baby Elephant Walk when she could barely walk herself; she now removes obstacles as a family lawyer. Another sister loved Shiva, with his fountain of water, his meditative pose and view of the Universe, and his comfort in sitting still til it was time to act; she is now an astrophysicist.   But I loved Durga.

Nava-ratri

The nine nights of Navratri (nava=nine or new, ratri=night), celebrated in some parts of India, are also known as Durga Navratras or Ashwain Navratras, as they are observed during the Hindu month of Ashwin, from mid-September-mid-October.  Navratri is divided into three sets of three days to adore three different aspects of the Supreme Goddesses: Durga as Kali, as Lakshmi and as Saraswati. The first three days she manifests as the spiritual force of Kali, to destroy our impurities. The second three days, she is adored as the giver of spiritual wealth, Lakshmi: true spiritual wealth has the power of bestowing those devoted to Spirit with inexhaustible material wealth because they learn how to transmute energy into matter.  The final three days are spent worshipping Saraswati, the symbol of wisdom, which is steady and triumphs all evils. To have well-rounded success in life, we must look inside and develop all three aspects of the Divine feminine.

During Navratri, especially Durgāshtami, one can achieve very high energy fields if worship of shakti is done properly. This includes fasting with only fruits and clean water, ingestion of sattvic foods that will allow one’s energies and chakras to flow smoothly.  During these nine nights, Durga will give special attention to ghosts and spirits, resolving their ignorance and darkness and transforming them into good things.

Narrated in ‘Devi Kavacha’ of the Chandipatha scripture, the nine names of goddess Durga are Shailaputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmānda, Skanda-mata, Katyayani, Kaalratri, and Mahagauri, and Siddhidatri.  The 9 Durga forms celebrated are the symbols of the 9 powers we have within. These 9 incarnations are worshipped during Nav-ratri and symbolize strength, austerity/brahmacharya, awareness, sacrifice, simplicity, knowledge, fearlessness, patience and seva(service to others).

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The Echo of Ashta Bindu

Every time another scientist or physician writes about man’s new discoveries of medical science, I stop to wonder why Sanskrit-knowing Ayurvedic physicians remain quiet. 

Do they not live on this planet? Why do they remain unwilling to reveal to the world that evidence validating these ‘new’ discoveries were written 2000+ years earlier by Caraka or Sushruta using metaphors of nature, and keen observation of jungle animals, patients, and livestock?