IFC Temple of Divine Love
Australia / IFC USA / IFC Netherlands / IFC India
IFC Tantric Soul-Mate Connection
Women's Net
Photo link to Women in Business. Comprehensive health service
Directory, Women’s Health Directory, Global and by Regional
Devi the Mother of Tantra
It is time that we make clearer contact with the feminine dimension in
religious experience. Women are now ordained ministers and rabbis in a number of
communities where a few years ago the idea would have been laughed at, but with
Hindu temple almost all temple the puja are conducted my male priest.
Champions of the patriarchy suppresses the worship of the Goddess in the west
and the Aryan-Vedic pantheon had little place for a powerful goddess. It is not
enough to acknowledge the powerful goddess, when we fail to acknowledge the
Goddess of our home (our female partners) as powerful. The same way the Goddess
was suppressed from being worshiped, so were women, purely out of fear for her
power.
To make the acknowledgement that all women are Goddess, as such the puja at our
proposed temple will be mainly conducted by priestess and in some areas where
needed by priest. As of October 2004, we propose to train women to become
priestess, and we look forward to those interested to write to us.
The temple is about Devi, singular and plural, the Goddess and Goddesses of
Tantra. Indian society like it western counterpart is patriarchal, as is often
said, but the realm of religion the picture is far more complex.
Bha gavan ek hi hai – God is One as a common Tantra understanding, yet God has
many rays as the rays of the Moon, which each day influences life on earth
differently.
The great Goddess incorporates the world, as we know it, as well as transcending
it. In some sense, Goddess is our world, in a way that God is not. Hence, the
multiple forms she takes are connected in a way that strikes us as more intimate
than those we typically project when we understand the divine as male.
Her most prevalent expressions she spreads herself across the landscape of much
of India, and in south India especially. Hindus have overwhelmingly
conceptualized that place-specific, divine reality as female. Village deities
are usually understood as goddesses, not gods. In most instances there are
acknowledged by calling each of them as Ma for Mother. These, village goddess
tend to collect under the common heading of Mariyamman.
The temple focus will be to help the world see the Goddess in every women, and
to worship her for her real strength, as we see the Great Goddess of Tantra, who
are the power behind their male partner. The Microcosm or the individual unit is
a part of the Macrocosm, and is the same as it is.
Parvati, Uma, Gauri, Durga, Chandika, Kali
For the ignorant, you are the island city of the Sun
For the mentally stagnant, a waterfall of nectar
Flowing from a bouquet of intelligence
For the poor you are a rosary of wishing jewels
Praise of the Devi in Saundarya Lahari
The Devi, means the Goddess and a Tantrika have imagined her as a kind and
giving Mother. She can be at times ruthless is destroying the demonic qualities
of her children. She has many faces and many names ranging from the benevolent
Parvati to the beautiful golden skinned Gauri and the dark and ruthless yet
benevolent Kali. The Goddess is the luxuriant earth and a symbol of fertility
and she is the divine force, the Shakti (power) of Shiva
In the beginning, there was Aditi Para-Sakthi, the supreme mother of creation;
she is the Dynamic energy within Parabrahman (what we consider God). From her
came the trinity, namely Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and their consorts Sarasvati,
Lakshmi and Parvati.
In the beginning, the Goddesses were worshiped as the consort, or the Shakti of
the Gods, their divine strength and cosmic power. The worship of the Divine
Mother Devi is intimately intertwined with the worship of Lord Shiva. In Tantra
Lord Shiva is known to be a passive force that is energized only when he is
combined with the active force of Shakti of the Divine Mother. In the same way,
men must perceive the connection that they have with their feminine partner as
an active force in our lives. It is also important that women acknowledge their
strength and yet being soft, modest and gentle, which is the natural quality of
a Divine Mother, the compassionate wife-mother-provider
Mother Durga has a third eye like Lord Shiva, she wields the trishula, the
trident and at times she has matted hair like Lord Shiva, and at this form she
possesses a destructive and fears face
The worship of the Devi, especially as Durga and Kali is prevalent amongst
Tantrika’s in India. In Bengal and Assam Mother Durga receives devotions in her
own temples and has her own festivals where Lord Shiva is just a token presence.
The Divine Mother is the protector who even has a family that comes down to
earth with her.
There was the worship of a Mother Goddess in the Indus Valley civilization, but
the Aryan-Vedic pantheon had little place for a powerful goddess. There was
Prithivi, the earth Goddess, Aditi, the Mother of the Adityas, Ushas, the
goddess of dawn; Aranyani, the goddess of forests, but it was only the male gods
who received praise and oblation till the time when Tantra become popular. Both
Lord Shiva and the Divine Mothers forced their way into the Vedic pantheon
because the priesthood could not deny their popularity. Even during the epics,
Lord Krishna, the supreme avatar of Vishnu instructs Arjuna to ask Mother Durga
for her blessings.
Then in the Tantrik worship of the Divine Mother, here she acquires a total of
ten personae, the Mahavidyas of Kali, Tara, Shodashi, Bhuvaneshwari,
Chhinnamasta Bhairavi, Dhumavati, Bagala, Matangi, and Kamala.
Mythologies of the world all have embraced the Mother Goddess everywhere. From
Isis in Egypt to Ishtar of Babylon and Cybele of the Greeks, they were
influential goddesses’ cults.
In India, even heterodox sects like Jainism and Buddhism could not resist the
power of the Goddess cult. One of the Mahavidyas, Mother Tara, also became the
merciful goddess for the Buddhists and for the Jains, Saraswati, the goddess of
speech and learning.
Sita-Parvati-Uma is the benign wife-mother-provider and Durga-Chandika-Kali
encompasses the active, and at times the dark aspect of the Divine Mother Devi.
Durga as Vindhyavasini is often shown to live in the Vindhya hills, Kali is seen
in the battlefield and as Bhairavi in cremation grounds and with Chandika she is
only absorbed in the destruction of asuras within.
Each of the active Goddess were created through the divine emanation of the
goods, they were the Shakti or primal energy, and only appeared when there was a
need. The first such Devi was Durga, then from her are Chandika and Kali a
fiercer aspect of her more benign face.
Mother Durga, seated on the lion that epitomizes the Devi is worshipped across
the world
The Divine Mother Devi has varied and highly contrasting persona that ranges
from a loving provider and mother to a merciless Goddess who destroys the asuras
within. She has many names and forms, The Adya Shakti; the primal energy is the
Uma-Sati-Parvati-Chandika-Chamunda-Kali-Durga. She is also praised as Ishani,
wife of Lord Shiva who is called Ishan; Annapurna, the provider and Girija, the
mountain born. She is Rudrani, the wife of Rudra; Haimavati, daughter of the
snowy mountains and Bhairavi, the terrible. Ambika, the mother, Vijaya, the
victorious, Gauri and Kaushiki, the golden skinned one. Sarva Mangala,
auspicious, Shakhambari, the one who nourishes the world with her body,
Kamakshi, the love-eyed goddess, Meenakshi, with eyes shaped like fishes, and
Kapalini, the ascetic.
In the south of India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia she is also know as Mariyamma, and
in the very south of India, as Kanyakumari. At our temple project at 118/1b
Killankulam Village, Periyur Taluk, Madurai Dist, South India, we intend to have
all aspect of the Divine Mother Devi, as each of her aspect will nourish each
aspect of our need.
My favorite Mother is Mother Kali as she puts the order of dharma in
perspective, or perhaps put it in its place, by reminding the Tantrika that
certain aspect of reality are untamable, unpurifiable, unpredictable, and always
threatening to society’s feeble attempts to order what is essentially
disorderly; life itself.
Her devotees know Mother Kali as mother because she gives birth to a wider
vision of reality than the one embodied in the order of dharma. The dharmic
order is insufficient and restricting without a frame, as it were. Mother Kali
frames that order, putting it in a compelling context. As the alternative to the
order of dharma, as Maya, Prakrti, and Sakti out of control, as death and blood
are out of place, Mother Kali makes that order attractive indeed.
From the prospective of moksa, final release from the endless cycle of birth and
death, the order of dharma is seen as a reliant good, a realm that must finally
be left behind in the quest for ultimate good. Standing outside the dharmic
order, threatening it, Mother Kali may be viewed as she beckons humans to seek a
wider, redemptive vision of their destiny.
Depending upon where one is in one’s spiritual journey, then Mother Kali has the
power either to send one scuttling back to the womb of dharma or to provoke one
to cross over the threshold to moksa. In either role, she might be understood as
the mother who gives her children shelter, a benevolent mother.
In iconographic representation of Mother Kali and Lord Siva, She is more often
then not, shown dancing of Lord Siva’s prone body. When they are depicted is
sexual intercourse, she is on top, straddling him, this clearly shows us the
power and might of women, that needs to be taken serious notice off, and
harnessed for the sanity of humanity.
