“If there is to be a future, it will wear a crown of feminine design.”
Aurobindo Ghose
Aurobindo Ghose, one of the great spiritual visionaries of the twentieth century, wrote passionately about his vision of a radical transformation in humanity. He believed that the crises of his time—the rise of totalitarian movements as well as the freedom movements that ended colonialism—were the external forms of an upheaval in consciousness that would eventually give birth to a new order. When demonic forces are unleashed in the world, the forces of evolution become highly accessible, and not just in human minds and hearts. Aurobindo believed that the force of the Shakti is yearning to evolve our awareness, to help us create a world in which we live in balance with each other and the earth, and with our own sacred masculine and feminine natures. His teaching, contained in his book The Mother, articulates one of the underlying meanings of the Durga (the Warrior Goddess of Protection & Inner Strength) myth: to access her transformative power, we have to call it, ask for it, pray for it.
It’s as if the protective, transformative power of the divine waits, just out of reach, unable to intervene until we summon the courage or the desperation to throw ourselves at her feet, literally or metaphorically, and ask for her help. In asking for her, we bring her forth.
This is true not only in our battles against external enemies or desperate illness. Our spiritual journey and the evolution of consciousness in society as a whole are impossible without help from the subtle realms. Inner awakening is not under our control. It arises spontaneously, through grace. Moreover, we need enormous grace behind us in the struggle with our own limitations and egocentric delusions. To see through the illusions that trap us, the genetic patterning, the imbalances of intellect and emotion, the warring desires, the fears, the cultural biases, and the sheer weight of our physical senses is impossible without help of the Shakti.
Om Dum Durgaye Namaha