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april 2019yogajournal.com.aubetween our physical self and the subtle
energies of the invisible worlds. When
you invoke Durga, you may very well feel
her as a heightened energy. But
connecting to Durga’s energy is just as
likely to result in a subtle feeling of
greater insight, in a feeling of being
supported with strength to carry on
during a hard time, or in the strategic
instinct that helps you win your battles.
This can happen so subtly that it’s only
in hindsight that you realise you were
being supported. And this can happen
in surprising ways.
Sasha, a lawyer and the mother of
two girls, fi rst discovered the Durga
shakti when her daughter Lee began
failing in school. It turned out that
Sasha’s husband, Lee’s father, was
engaging his daughter sexually. Sasha
vowed that, whatever it took, she would
protect her daughters. She fi led for
divorce, insisting that her husband not
be allowed unsupervised visits with their
girls. He fought hard for joint custody,
deploying a high-powered legal team.
(Though a lawyer herself, Sasha’s fi eld is
wills and trusts, and she had never
litigated.)
In the midst of this, Sasha took a
class I was teaching on the goddesses.
She felt an immediate affi nity for Durga
and created a meditation in which she
imagined Durga’s strength inside her
own body. She would visualise each of
Durga’s eight arms holding a particular
power. In one hand, she imagined the
power to use words skilfully. In another,
the power to read fi nancial statements
with care. In another, the skill to face
down her husband’s lawyers. She
imagined all of Durga’s weapons as
energies empowering her to protect her
two daughters.
She won the case and, soon
afterward, realised that an enormous
weight had been lifted from Lee. The
fact that Sasha had fought on her
daughter’s behalf seemed to give the
teenager a sense of purpose and a new
understanding of her own feminine
strength.
Like Sasha, any one of us can tune
into our personal Durga strength by
invoking the goddess’s energy and
wisdom. As you do, you’ll likely discover
your personal capacity for warrior-style
leadership. Anyone in touch with her
inner Durga will naturally create zones
of protection around the people in her
life. (Durga is also an effortlessmultitasker, like a mother who
manages three children while cooking
a fi ve-course meal—or an executive
running a team of diverse employees.)
The Durga woman makes space for
people to fl ourish, fi ghting their battles
when needed—as Sasha did for her
daughters—but she is just as likely to
push them into fi ghting for themselves.ANSWERING YOUR
CALL TO LEADOne way to feel a sense of the Durga
shakti is to remember a moment when
you recognised, from the deepest place
inside you, that something was wrong,
that it had to change. If that
recognition comes from the Durga
shakti, it goes beyond mere frustration
or cognitive awareness of a social
problem. Durga’s transformative power
carries a conviction that comes from
deep inside the body, and with it often
comes a sense of “Now!”—meaning
the time is now. When that sense is
strong enough, it is followed by action.
You will put your body and your speech
on the line to change the situation,
whether it’s internal or external.
One of my Durga country friends
in noticed that her son’s asthma
was activated when local crops were
being sprayed for pests. She organised
a group of mothers to protest
spraying in her area, and after several
years, the group not only had it banned
in, but also had the pesticide removed
from circulation entirely. Now, along
with her day job as a psychotherapist,
she runs an environmental group
focused on lobbying against potent
pesticides.
The same power of purposeful
action can be invoked when you need
the will to change a deep-seated habit
or addiction, to carve out time for practice,
or to follow an inner calling. The Durga
shakti can give you the power to face
parts of yourself that stand in the way
of your evolution, but she can also
show you how to speak up for yourself
when you need to ask for a raise, face
a challenge, or take on a diffi cult
responsibility—in short, to set things
right.
The more you invite Durga’s energy
into your life, the more you’ll feel her
opening you to your inner warrior. Her
power guards your highest aspirations,
and she promises never to let you down.We usually
prefer to
take a gentler
attitude toward
our dark side.