To bring the goddess' blessings into your home and reap the benefits of Navaratri, I always advise people to recite the Durga Saptashati. This is also called the Devi Mahatyam, depending on which part of India you come from. It is the ultimate religious text of the Goddess worship tradition and reciting it during Navaratri brings enormous blessings into your life.

Just to give an example from my life: I started reciting the Durga Saptashati 4 years ago on Navaratri when I was having a really horrible time. That was just a bad year, after another really shitty year before that. I observed the fast for Navaratri and apart from regular puja, I started reading and reciting the Durga Saptashati. By the 6th day of Navaratri I had received a job offer and my luck kept turning around until all my problems started to slowly fall away. I've observed that whenever I read Durga Saptashati during Navaratri, good things happen for me.

To explain the custom of wearing different colors for different days of Navaratri, the colors correspond to a set of goddesses called the Navadurgas.

These are the nine avatars of the great mother, Durga.

Each avatar is said to have a special spiritual role to play in the ascension process of the devotee. One Navadurga may represent the emptying bliss of mindfulness, one Navadurga may show us the power of bhakti yoga, one Navadurga may destroy our inner demons, etc. So we wear colors that attract their energies to us.

Anonymous wrote:Yes! We are devotees of Ammachi and celebrate at her local ashram.

I love her and Karunamayi Ma! Your family must be very blessed, celebrating the Mother Goddess in the presence of her own Avatar.

I love this festival. May the Mother Goddess bless you all.



Image credit: molee from deviantart

Yes and not very successful with the fasting aspect, although managed to avoid the grains. Looking forward to dancing the night away ( garba, Dandiya ) with my Gujju friends!

Navaratri ( nine nights) is dedicated to the worship of the goddesses Durga, saraswati and Lakshmi. They represent the energies of bravery,(valour), knowledge (education) and prosperity (wealth). It's a season of vrat(abstinence) , Puja(prayer) and celebration. At the end of the festival is Kanye puja where you literally worship girls as goddesses and offer them sweets and gifts. in southern India there is a tradition of arranging and displaying dolls also called "golu".

Anonymous wrote:I am curious about the changing order of the colors. Can you explain?

It depends on the day of the week that Navratri starts, which is different each year. The order and colors after that generally stays the same it's just the day of the first day that starts the color order.

So if for example it started with grey this year on Sat and the second day is orange, third day white- if next year it starts on Sunday the first day will be orange, second day white, etc. Each color has a special significance to the forms of the Divine Goddess for each of the nine nights.

It's just a way to stay in harmony since it flows on a rotational/cyclical cycle.

Yes! We are devotees of Ammachi and celebrate at her local ashram.

I am curious about the changing order of the colors. Can you explain?

I'm^^^

Happy Navratri!!

I'm winding down from my first evening of celebrating the Mother Goddess.

I'm spending these special days by hanging up lights around the house, fasting for the 9 nights with one special vrat style meal. I do japa and puja after sunset for about 1 hour then have the meal.

(Vrat= fasting. Since I'm fasting for the 9 nights, I will eat a meal once a day but only certain types of food. No to wheat, barley, rice, lentils, beans, certain spices, onion, garlic, regular table salt, etc. and obviously no meat or alcohol during this time either. Simple yet delicious food with alternative grains such as amaranth)

I like to wear the Navratri colors for each day. This year it's the following order:
Grey, Orange, White, Red, Royal Blue, Yellow, Green, Peacock Green, Purple

It's a fun way to get in the spirit, I don't wear head to toe clothes in all those colors, sometimes it can just be a scarf-- of which I have a ton to choose from!

I really looking forward to some fun garba nights too.

May Maa Durga bless you and bring joy, peace and prosperity. Subh Navratri!! Jai Mata Di

Anonymous wrote:My husband's family is Sindhi and observes. Along with puja he usually keeps a 10 day fast each day with only a simple meal after sunset.

Same here. I have only one meal a day during Navaratri, only sattvic food (yogic diet - whole grains, no garlic, no onion). My single meal is offered to the goddess first and sits on her shrine for a while before I eat it.

My husband's family is Sindhi and observes. Along with puja he usually keeps a 10 day fast each day with only a simple meal after sunset.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a westerner, but am currently in a class studying shakti and have just been introduced to Navaratri. Please share more. I would love to hear about it.

Aww yay! I'm the OP and I'm a devotee of the Goddess (so I belong to the Shakta sect of Hinduism). Sure I can share a few things; let me know if you have any questions.

The Divine Mother worshipped in both Tantric and Vedic traditions of Hinduism, and in Shakta Hinduism, she's the supreme reality - Godhead is conceived of as feminine, as she is the Creatrix of the Universe. All the male gods are her disciples and she is their guru. She creates, preserves and destroys the universe in endless cycles. This is her divine play of consciousness, her lila. In Tantra, she is ultimately neither male nor female (or agender, or really any gender), and everything is her - all the suffering and horror in the world, and all happiness, is the Goddess. All prosperity, all injustice, all beauty, all pain - all of this is the Goddess. Everything is an illusion of her making. The delights and horrors of Earth are not real, only she is real, and she takes us to union with Shiva.

(The best way to describe the relationship between Shakti and Shiva - the Divine Mother and her consort, the Primordial Yogi - is to compare an ocean to its waves. Shiva is the still ocean, Shakti is the ripples and the waves. He is consciousness, she is matter. He is the static principle, she is the dynamic one.)

I'm a westerner, but am currently in a class studying shakti and have just been introduced to Navaratri. Please share more. I would love to hear about it.

We have been invited to some parties, DH didn't want throw one because we are saving money for the holiday season. So my home celebration mostly involves puja and meditation.

For non-Hindus, the quick and dirty summary:
- Navaratri is "Nine Divine Nights of Goddess Durga", a 10-day festival in the Hindu calendar
- Durga is the ferocious, demon-slaying form of the Hindu Mother Goddess
- In mythology, she spends nine days and nine nights killing demon armies to protect the gods; day 10 is her victory march
- the ten-day period is considered auspicious; prayers to the goddess will be answered, problems in your life will be resolved, etc.