My Spiritual Dairy – The Navdurga Sadhna – 1

Here’s to all my friends in spirituality, thank you for all the love and hopefully you’ll have a little appetite for craziness……….

Today, dear mother divine,

Folded hands of mine,

Express gratitude,

For a shower in plenitude,

You soaked me in the divine grace,

What else could I ask in this divine embrace?

Staying cradled in this blissful hold,

I want to see, the eternity unfold,

Basking in thy glory divine,

I want to meet each moment of mine.

First, I want to thank Swamiji! This experience was not possible without your contribution. Please accept my reverence and regards of the highest order to the very divine teacher in you. I am extremely thankful for a learning experience that happened through a very innate relationship of learning. The kind of powerful learning experience I had from you, far surpasses, what lies within the realm of a physically defined learning. Your incredible contribution to my spiritual evolution is way more than a cherished teacher.

As I experienced it, I found Navdurga Sadhna to be a very empowering and enlightening experience. It felt like the Navdurga Sadhna bestowed a lot of spiritual maturity on me. I am just narrating my experience, I have no means to tell if this is how it should be or not.

I came across the Navdurga Sadhna in the March of 2020, I was thrilled because I was looking for something like this, to chant in Navratri. “Mother divine you always know what I want and you will bring it to me! Thank you!”

I started chanting on the first day of Navratri and continued since then every single day, in the morning and evening, for over a year now. When I started chanting, I planned only for the nine days of Navratri. I think I just couldn’t stop because of what I experienced. I felt like it pulled me like a magnet. I used to chant the Navarna mantra every evening but now I chant it as a part of this. Wow! I can’t believe I did this, I don’t have anything to explain this except the divine plan for me. I am a fool and to see this wisdom can only be the divine!

I am pretty sure I must have made plenty of mistakes but I never skipped chanting. It is my routine practice to get my physical workout done before I go to work. When I added the spiritual exercise I had to wake earlier than usual. I even woke up at 5:30 am to get it done before I go to work! I don’t know how I did this! All my life my mother kept teaching me to wake up early I did not do it! So when I woke up early she said “why did you wake up so early, are you not feeling well?” I said “Yes I was not well but I think, I am now starting to feel well!” She gave me the most quizzical look. “You always wanted me to wake up early, see I woke up early today!”

Actually, I did not do anything other than chanting, of all the things that were prescribed. Because I don’t know anything other than chanting and lighting a little lamp in the evening and I was doing this prior to the Sadhna as well. I just chanted the three mantra’s morning and evening, plain and simple. Along with observing some basic simple principles explained in the books on meditation and ancient science of Mantras. Apparently, mantra Sadhna feeds of these practices, the book says. Swamiji said if you can’t do anything else just chant! So I chanted. Here’s what happened with that.

Each of the mantras of the mother divine in all the nine days, gave me a very profound deep energy experience. Each day it become deeper and more intense and continues to be so. I love each one of them. Especially the last one, I found it to be the most powerful. However I want to describe the most eventful and surprising element of the Sadhna! The Vow factor! And little anecdotes.

Here’s a little anecdote, my daughter with severe autism is usually sitting or lying next to me when I chant in the morning. I did not have the heart to give up on that little time that I spend with her in the morning before work. Mother divine being the epitome of all motherhood would not accept anything from me if I took it away from my daughter and gave it to her. So I had to make the best of the time I had. She can be very hyper and noisy and it was a test of my patience! It is almost like sitting next to a fluttering butterfly. One day, I was chanting the 9th day mantra, as I ended my chant and opened my eyes, her eyes were closed her hand was on me and she was in a completely calm and relaxed state that she was enjoying. Few minutes after the chant ended she opened her eyes, full of joy and happiness. Her eyes were lit up and she vocalized her happiness by making some joyful sounds. She looked at me as if “Why did you stop, I loved it?” for the first time I got the biggest kiss and hug from her. She was all over my face with tiny little kisses, like a little excited puppy. Thank you! Mother divine for giving her those moments and me the joy of having given her something meaningful in a world that makes no sense to her. This was a sweet moment but we had challenging times too!

I did once lose my patience and yell at her as she pulled a lock of my hair. I felt miserable after that. “Sorry! Mother divine, I should not have done that. But I assure you it will never happen again.” Then I decided that either I give up the chant or I learn how to maintain my calm because mother divine is not going to accept bad conduct from a mother. After that it never happened again.

I had followed Swamiji as he performed this with fire offerings virtually. Each of the nine days of Navratri in the end he would chant beautiful names of Shiva. I did not know how to chant so many names of Lord Shiva but I understood that offering to mother universe was incomplete without offering to Lord Shiva. I did not know this earlier, I carried this with me and planned to end my chanting by chanting Om Namah Shivaya! Eleven times. Because this was the only Lord Shiva name I could chant fluently enough.

It turned out be an extraordinary experience. I am extremely happy that I did this because this Lord Shiva mantra actually was a sort of a climax to the entire energy experience. It felt like the three previous mantras kind of laid a framework for this mantra to just take off! I found this Shiv mantra to be the most powerful energy experience among all others. I would have nearly missed it had I not followed the event.

Continuing on in the next post online already!