navaratri

Night and Day Nine:
Siddhidatri - She Who is of great spiritual Powers and knowledge
Siddhidatri begins at Sunset Oct. 7 and ends at Sunset Oct. 8.
(Usually, the final day?s activities wrap up after lunch time on the ninth day.)

Siddhidatri: Siddhidatri means the giver of siddhis (magical or spiritual powers for the control of self, others and the forces of nature). It is said in Devipuran that the Supreme God, Lord Shiva received all of these powers by propitiating the Maha Shakti. The Goddess is sometimes shown atop a lion and sometimes atop a lotus. She is shown as having four arms, which hold a club, a conch shell and a lotus. The fourth hand forms a gesture of granting. Siddhidatri is considered to be the most powerful of all the nine forms of Durga.

Durga is said to be extraordinarily beautiful; she does not use her beauty for seduction, but rather entrapment. She entices her victims and then defeats them. She rides a lion, and it appears whenever her strengths are needed. Her role is not that of creator, but rather that of a maintainer: she maintains cosmic order by defeating demons that plague the universe.

Durga is not only a powerful force for cosmic order but also a protector of her devotees. She listens to her devotees and attends to their needs.

Goddess Durga keeps up the play of the divine universal God through the three attributes of Nature, namely, Satva (equilibrium and serenity), Rajas (dynamism and kinesis) and Tamas (ignorance and inertia). Knowledge, peace, lust, anger, greed, egoism and pride, all are Her forms. Maha Saraswati is Her Sattviki Shakti or power of equilibrium. Maha Lakshmi is Her Rajasik Shakti or power of activity. And Maha Kali is Her Tamsik Shakti the power of destruction. All these are feminine forms.

Shiva's power is Shakti, the dynamic creative mother aspect of the Godhead. It is she who creates and at the time of dissolution, it is she who swallows her own creation. Shakti cannot exist without Shiva and Shiva cannot personify without Shakti.

Our beloved Mother, Saraswati, the goddess of learning, knowledge, music, speech and all the creative arts. She is the Flowing-One. She represents the union of power and intelligence from which organized creation arises. Saraswati possesses all the learnings of the the Vedas, scriptures, dancing, musical power and poetry. She revealed language and writing to man. Her origin is the lost Vedic river Saraswati. This is the source of her profound connection to fluidity in
any aspect (water, speech, thought...). She is wisdom, fortune, intelligence, nourishment, brilliance, contentment, splendor and devotion.