September 19-20, 2024

From the Introduction to what may become a book at some point:

A Myth

A long time ago there was a very devoted man who liked to view himself as a child of the Divine Mother. He had loved his earthly mother dearly. After her death in his young adulthood, he was an orphan, wandering, looking for something, someone…a Mother. As would be natural, he even tried to find that quality in the woman who would become his wife. In the completely natural flow of the Divine Mother, all of these happenings were perfect—even predictable.

But the man’s devotion to the Divine Mother was sincere, and because of that, it deepened and clarified and matured over years and decades. The worship and search for a relationship with the Divine Mother gradually shifted from being externally focused to being more internally focused. This shift was not planned, and certainly not forced; it grew as naturally as the buds coming out  at their appropriate times in the spring.

In his dedication and focused worship of the Divine Mother, he was shown and adopted practices that his beloved Satguru (enlightened spiritual teacher) taught and encouraged, though those practices came from another culture as well as from another, ancient time. But they resonated and felt real, meaningful, and powerful, and not in any way foreign.

As his relationship with the Divine Mother became more deep, personal, and honest and as his study of the Path deepened, a time came when he began to question the tools he had been given as they began to feel foreign and “put on”; no longer natural. How could he continue with them?

Fortunately, his loving Divine Mother had foreseen this eventuality and had over many years quietly been revealing Names of and ways of viewing Herself that felt powerful, personally relevant and meaningful to the man, Her beloved son. She knew that the natural growth of devotion must at some point move from using a “cookie cutter” form that someone else had found meaningful and relevant, to being completely sincere—with the love coming from one’s innermost heart. She, Herself, in Her infinite compassion and love, had shown Her devotee son how to deepen his relationship with Her in a way that would feel more and more sincere and would allow the personal connection between the “two” of them to become stronger and more honest.

The man, even as he feared veering off the “razor’s edge” of the Path, chose to follow his heart and what he personally felt as the guidance that the Divine Mother and his beloved Satguru had revealed to him over those many years. His love for the Divine Mother would not allow him to do otherwise, though he feared that he was heading in the “wrong” direction. In the end, he felt that if aiming at complete sincerity was heading him in the wrong direction, then so be it; if following the Heart was “wrong,” then the “right” direction—which at that point was only the direction of the head—had no more appeal. Devotion, if it were to be real, had to come from the heart and not be what he had been told was the “right” thing to do. What he had been told to do no longer worked to build an ever-growing love.

The man is, of course, “me.” The Divine Mother and my beloved Satguru are “who” and “what” they are. I offer all of this at the Divine Mother’s feet.

Backstory

I chanted the Thousand Names of the Divine Mother Lalita in Sanskrit (called Sri Lalita Sahasranama) daily for nineteen years. I chanted the Thousand Names of the Divine Mother Lalita in Sanskrit (called Sri Lalita Sahasranama) daily for nineteen years. Lalita is a Tantric goddess, a way of viewing the Divine as Energy and ultimately as everything! Her form and attributes are used as a focus for the mind, so we can move beyond conditioned thinking and awaken to deeper levels of Truth and That which is beyond the mind. (If you want to read more on Lalita and the metaphysical meanings of her story, Linda Johnson, a great writer, shared The Legend of Lalita in Yoga International.)

Most of that time I didn’t really care about the meanings of the Names and focused only on the feeling of devotion to the Divine Mother and on the energy of the mantras that are the Names. I took it mostly as a whole, rather than as a collection of individual parts/Names—basically as one long mantra, which is one way that it is viewed in the tradition. The practice left me feeling energized, connected with that Greater Thing, more open, more loving, softer yet more powerful. It brought me joy, and in a few extremely difficult life situations during those years, it was part of what kept me sane and clear enough to keep going on my Path and in what Life had for me to do.

Then the Covid happened. During that time many things became available online that had not been accessible previously. One of those was Brahmachari (a class of renunciate who is now a Swami, a higher order of renunciate) Ramananda’s weekly hour-long lessons for learning the meanings and pronunciations of all the Names of Sri Lalita. (Ramananda is a relatively newer renunciate in Amma’s organization in charge of Amma’s U.S. East Coast ashrams.) The process of studying with Ramananda over two years was very helpful and informative.

(You can view these talks on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Fma2uJCvo&list=PLKVnxlr1p7hczqWY8QiO3HKRbaaKaRFwr. FYI, it’s 104 hour-long videos.)

In those thousand (literally!) Names (capitalized as it is traditionally done to indicate Divine Names), the first hundred are descriptions of the Divine Mother’s (human-shaped) body and of a particular incarnation of Sri Lalita who manifested at one point to battle a demon named Bhandasura. Many of the Names after those describe what the Divine Mother is and many describe what She is not. In watching and studying all those videos, I was struck by the large number of the Names that were what I began to call cultural, meaning they are specific to a particular culture—Hinduism—that is uniquely Indian and is viewed as not “exportable.”

The saying is “You can’t convert to Hinduism; you have to be born in it.” For many years I resisted that teaching shared by my (Indian) mentor and elder brother on the Path. (Hinduism is a culture; Sanatana Dharma—the philosophy that is the spiritual essence—is a vision of the One, which is beyond any culture, but it is anchored deeply in a culture!) After the deeper study of the Sri Lalita Sahasranama, I came to believe the truth of it. As an unexpected result of learning all the meanings of the Names and trying to remember them as I chanted, it became—over months—harder and harder to practice it, feeling that it was more and more foreign.

This profound change in my experience while chanting them daily was primarily due to the large number of Names (I estimate about 20 percent) that had essentially no meaning for me personally or worse, were Names that I didn’t like or didn’t agree with. I felt—and still feel that way—about those Names, even after hearing what I considered the Swami’s lame attempt to explain and justify Names that would never have made the cut in this day and age, at least not in the rabidly politically correct climate that currently engulfs the U.S. yoga world. (It is possible, maybe even likely, that those “offending” Names would be totally fine in the Right-wing Hindu Nationalism that is currently in sway in India.)

To be clear, I continue to adore Sri Lalita as an entity and as an energy. She is still my Ishta Devi—my chosen form of the Divine. I still also completely revere Sri Lalita Sahasranama and greatly appreciate all that it has given me over the years.

Fortunately, as described in The Myth above, over those many years in meditation the Divine Mother revealed many ways to view Her that were personally relevant and meaningful, and in English! (And, at some point I had the thought to start writing them down, one by one as they came!) I credit Sri Lalita Herself and Sri Lalita Sahasranama with giving me a “way out” of the daily chanting of those Sanskrit Names, which I had had every intention of doing daily for the rest of my life. In my view, the Divine Mother gave me the same practice—chanting a thousand of Her Names—but in a form that I can and do feel whole-heartedly.

Every yoga and meditation teacher I’ve ever had—and I’ve had many great teachers!—gave teachings and practices that I took home and endeavored to practice in all sincerity as they were taught. In every single case, over months, the practices morphed and became, in different ways, part of “my” Yoga and meditation practices. In many cases, the practices were different from what I had been given but, I believe, remained true to the essence of what I had been taught.

As I told Victor Van Kooten, one of my main yoga teachers for seventeen plus years the last time I saw him (years ago), “I still consider you and Angela (his wife and teaching partner) my main teachers even though your style is so different from mine.” He laughed heartily and said, “I hope so! You’re a different person!”

In the end, it seems that Sri Lalita and my beloved Guru, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, gave me what I needed to have the same process of transmutation and personalization occur even with this powerful, traditional Yoga practice.

Now

Since March 2023, I have been chanting the now 1008 “Names” in English—my working title for it is the same as the title of this blog: Bowing to the Divine Mother in 1008 Moods—five times a week. After some time doing that, I shared it with only three or four very select people, and early this year, started to offer it semi-privately, by specific invitation to all the devotional people I could think of. I placed these “Names” physically in Amma’s hands for her blessings—finally—when I was with her in DC in late July. It now feels appropriate to put them out there in a bigger way. So I write this (“short”) blog as an introduction.

Information on monthly dates of the recitation of the “Names” can be viewed on the Loving Kindness website. RSVP’ing if you want to attend is always necessary for this.

This collection and practice came out of an intense desire for complete sincerity and wanting to feel each and every prayer. A few of them are personally relevant only to me, but the vast majority have some possibility of being universally applicable. At the very least, this can be seen as “Ti’s take on devotion,” or, as one woman called it, “Ti’s Devotional Hour.” 😄 Funny, but true (though it takes an hour only if I am going very fast, and usually it’s about an hour and fifteen minutes). I share it with others since people have found it helpful in clearing their mind, and in understanding devotion and what “God” might actually mean beyond the American, culturally sick way of viewing those concepts. As one woman said after she enjoyed hearing it for the first time, “You won’t hear anyone saying all that in church!”