Navaratri and Ayurveda Part 2 | The Three Nights of Goddess Kali

Spartan Mind Strength

Episode Topics

• Happy Navaratri!
• The 3 nights of goddess Kali
• The goddess Kali is the most compassionate of all deities
• The creation of Kali, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva
• What Kali represents and why she is misunderstood
• Kali and Nietzsche
• Strength, discipline vs shadows / daemons
• Kali and the American Gods
• Kali as the observed
• Navaratri and Ayurveda as written by Charaka
• The episode we did on Navaratri And ayurveda the previous year (2020) Happy Navaratri - The Nine Nights of Kali, Lakshmi and Saraswati
• Kali's mantra: Om Kreem Kalikaya Namaha!
• Find us on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/c/AskTimAndVie
• Email us your feedback and any questions you may have at: [e-mail]
• We will surprise you with a gift for supporting your friendly neighborhood podcast
• May we all be well, adapt and thrive! - Tim and Vie

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Audio Transcript

Hello, this is Tim

And this is Vie and we welcome you to another episode of the spartan mind strength podcast,

And this is episode 2 of 4 on navaratri.

Stay tuned. We’ll be right back.

And we’re back. And we’re going to be talking about navaratri.

Navaratri, the nine nights, 10 days.

And when is navratri this year?

Navaratri, this year starts October 7th.

So it’s very soon.

Yes. It’s in a week.

And each year it’s a little bit different though.

Yes, because it goes by the Hindu calendar and it’s usually September, October.

Okay. And, and, and, and, and it’s, it’s related to three goddesses.

Yes.

And they are

Kali, Lakshmi and Saraswati.

And today’s all about

It’s about Kali because the first three nights of this nine night - 10 day celebration are dedicated to goddess Kali.

Yep. And last year we did one on navratri also. So we’ll put that link in for last year’s, because it was also related to

Ayurveda and Navaratri

Yes. So now tell me about Kali. Because when I grew up in the seventies, eighties, Kali was basically here in the states was more represented, like, you know, punk rockish like rock and roll and drugs and sex. So it had this weird concept. And then in some of the old movies with, you know, like, not Batman, but, there were certain ones where Kali was, Kali was like the evil God.

Yeah.

But that’s not who Kali is.

No Kali is actually the most compassionate of all the goddesses. Kali is completely misunderstood because it has to do with, it has to do with the aspect of discipline.

Kali, Kali makes us look at who we truly are. And most of the time who we truly are, we don’t lie unless we’ve done a lot of work on ourselves.

And Kali is also strength.

Kali is about strength. Kali, in terms of ayurveda, Kali is all about the aspect of health, physical, emotional, and mental.

And I know that, in one side of her body, in her hands, she holds everything that gives life. And in the other side in her hands, she has everything that takes lives.

Exactly, because Kali is all about the, the giving mother and the disciplinarian mother, Kali wants to bring the best out of her children. Kali wants to protect her children. And the only way for Kali to protect her children is making them strong, physically, emotionally, and mentally. And if there is no discipline, how are you going to develop strength, right?

So if you get mad, because somebody says something that makes you mad, that’s not Kali.

No, it’s not Kali, that’s your weakness coming out.

So if you offend me, Kali’s going to be pissed because I got offended.

No, Kali county is going to be pissed at you, for being - exactly, exactly

So this world needs a lot more Kali right now.

Exactly.

It is so interesting that Kali is actually our dark part and our dark part is what creates our weakness.

I, I forget who said it, but we were listening to someone yesterday to a really intense scholar. I should remember the name, but he said, that’s actually, I believe it was Nietzsche. I believe it was Nietzsche, who said that our issue is not actually fear as humanity, our issue is laziness.

Yes, that was Nietzsche.

That was Nietzsche, ok.

That we’re more, it’s because we’re lazy is

Exactly. We are lazy physically, emotionally, and mentally. And that’s who Kali is.

Is the one that takes that away.

That takes that away.

Kali kills, if we allow her to, Kali kills out daemons. But we need to be able to identify our daemons, right?

We can’t, we can’t do anything if we can’t identify them.

So if you see yourself as perfect the way you are, you’re not identifying any daemons.

No. Exactly. And just the mere fact that we are humans means we have a shit load of daemons.

So that’s what Kali does. And, how are you going to be able to see what’s dark in you if you don’t shed some light, righ?

And so the Navaratri is all about the nighttime, the nine nights.

Exactly. Because what the navaratri represents is our battle against our shadows, our battle against our daemons, against our darkness.

And I know that in one of the stories of Kali is - she was born out of fear, fear of the other gods. The other gods were so afraid, that Kali was born. Which reminds me of, from the American gods, anger gets shit done.

Actually it wasn’t out of fear. It was out of anger.

Out of anger.

Out of anger, she was created.

Yes. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva helped create Kali because they were so pissed off, they were so angry at the asuras.

And then it goes into what, what was his name, it was an African God, oh, I’ll remember his name shortly. but anyways, he said, anger gets shit done.

Exactly.

And then the gods after Kali was born, gave her all their weapons that they liked best so that she could fight daemons in all different ways, because your daemons can come in all different forms.

Anansi, Anansi, yup. Yup, he was the God from the American gods.

But anyways, so she received all of these weapons so that she could fight each of the daemons that she runs across and we’re given and the representation of that is we are given all these different weapons through our mind to be able to fight any issue that we need to fight.

Exactly. But it takes courage. It takes effort. It’s not easy. It's simple, but it’s not easy.

And the only way you can get shit done is you have to get angry. You can’t see yourself as being perfect. Oh, I’m perfect. I love myself. And then just go back to being who you were. You have to say, yes, I am good, but I can be better. So you have to get that umph to be able to see more, to see yourself to be able to be more.

Exactly. And that’s one of the things they talk about Kali is, in the commodity world is, oh Kali helps you get rid of your ego. And everyone talks, all the aspiring yogis, talk about letting go of the ego and all that stuff.

And what they are doing is feeding their own ego more and more. The spiritual ego is actually the worst thing. And that’s where they talk about, in the symbolism for Kali fighting the daemons, they were saying how when a demon would get killed, a drop of blood would hit earth and then the daemon would become stronger.

It would be reborn stronger. And that represents the spiritual ego, as far as you thinking, you got rid of it and now you’ve become this more arrogant person.

Exactly. So when a lot of the people start talking about the ego, oh, it’s your ego or my ego that makes me do this, or that person has to work on their ego and all that, you better run away from them because that means that they have way more issues.

Because there is nothing - and then they talk about the Western world, cultivating the ego, there is nothing wrong with the ego in the form of confidence.

Because the good ego gets shit done too.

Exactly. We have to be the, we have to be individuals that are able to stand on our own two legs. We have to work independently. We have to get stuff done independently. Otherwise the whole community is going to collapse,

Yeah. So in, in this type of ego, it’s confidence and it’s the ability to do things where the other ego that they’re talking about is arrogance.

And literally, and I’ve seen this in so many times, the yoga teacher that all of a sudden learned yoga and then took some courses on meditation or whatever. And now they have this spiritual, I’m better than you because I meditate or I’m better than you because of this. I’m better than you. So they have almost a spiritual arrogance to them.

Exactly, exactly. And that’s what Kali helps you identify. Is what you’re doing good for your community? Is what you are doing good for yourself as a valuable part of your community, or are you just fooling yourself?

So in terms of what we talked about last time, the observed, the observer and the process of observation, Kali identifies with the observed. Kali is the physical, physical body, emotions and mind.

And from Charaka, it is the --

It's the health. It’s a desire for health because when Charaka talks about health in ayurveda is holistic, physical, emotional, and mental, they all go together.

You can’t have one without the other. It’s impossible.

Now there is a mantra.

Yes. For Kali. And the mantra is -- oh kreem kalikaya namaha -- oh kreem kalikaya namaha

And it’s going to be in the notes also.

So now that you’ve given that, say night night.

Until next time, much, much love from both of us. Na’maste kala. May we all be well, adapt and thrive.

Happy Navaratri! Happy Navaratri!