Tantric Tools: Tantroktam Devi Suktam for Self-Reflection
Talk by Satchidananda
Hosted by SitaRam Darshan, La Paloma
February 18, 2026
Note on This Transcript: This document was created through human-AI collaboration using Whisper transcription technology. The original talk was delivered in English with real-time Spanish translation. While efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, transcription errors may occur. Please refer to the original video recording as the definitive source: https://youtu.be/zV_W76AMFgY
New to the yoga terms in this talk? See the Glossary of Terms.
Hari Om Tat Sat, to everyone. Thank you for being here. We're going to just start with a short kirtan to give time for anyone running late to come, and then we'll continue with Shantipat and the session.
Opening Kirtan
PRACTICE — Kirtan: Jai Durga Lakshmi Saraswati
Jai Durga Lakshmi Saraswati. Jaya Jaya Ambe Bhavani Ma. Jaya Jagad Ambe Bhavani Ma.
[Kirtan continues]
Welcome and Disclaimers
I want to welcome you all and to thank Ram Navami for hosting me and helping organize, and Chittarupa for supporting my visit and for translating. And of course all of you for taking some interest in the topic and being present here. And of course to the gurus of our tradition living and in the past who bring us the vidya.
I always like to put a few disclaimers in front just so there's clarity about who I am and what I'm talking about. I am a yoga sadhak, ever more increasingly interested and sincere. I am not a Sanskrit scholar or even near that. But I've been listening and chanting, especially this chant, for over a decade now. And finally the desire to understand with more clarity what I'm actually chanting has started to sprout.
I use technology to help me in that regard. And so the resources that have been prepared are in collaboration with technology, specifically AI. And just like working with people, errors appear. I try and catch them. But what I've shared with you — please do not take as a definitive reference.
Opening Shantipat
PRACTICE — Seated Shantipat: external awareness, breath, eyebrow center, mantra OM, palming
So please arrange yourself into any comfortable asana. Creating stability through the positioning of the legs and the buttocks. A balanced platform for having the spine comfortably upright. The neck and head balanced on the shoulders. And the hands in a mudra or gesture of your choice.
You're invited to close the mouth and the eyes as well. And to bring yourself into this space by connecting to all the sensations you're experiencing right now. Start with sensations from the external environment. This can include smells and variations in light. Sensations felt by the body and sounds as well.
Allow yourself to be the observer of this experience. Noticing any thoughts or feelings that may arise from connecting with the senses more deeply. Sometimes when we focus the mind, we become aware of what distracts it even more. These distractions are also welcome in this self-awareness.
Find your breath and once you've contacted it, start to deepen it both directions. Progressively, so that over a number of breaths it easily lengthens and slows down.
With the next breath in, guide the awareness to the eyebrow center and hold the focus there. The eyes can be turned inwards and slightly upwards to look at that point from the inside. Imagine that you're gazing intently at a bright point of light in the form of a flame. Use memory or imagination to try and bring that idea to light.
With our awareness on that light, we will chant the mantra OM three times together and the shanti mantras together as well. Take a slow, full breath in to chant the mantra OM.
[Mantra OM chanted three times, followed by shanti mantras]
Hands in pranam mudra, moving to a round of palming. Once you have some heat or warmth to share, cover the closed eyes. Look into that darkened space. Then inhale that prana into the eyes, into yourself. Exhaling, you can lower the hands.
Context: The Kosha Conference and Shakti
We recently finished a wonderful five days at Yoga 104. It was an experiential conference covering a kosha each day. And we had different speakers who had some experience with that kosha for each day as well.
For example, the first day on the physical body, we asked someone who had cut into physical bodies and autopsies. For the prana day, we had someone who was an expert in tai chi and working with the inner energy. For the mind, someone who had worked with autism in children for many years and discovered things about their unique mental state. For the intuitive and psychic body, we had 24 hours of singing on Shivaratri. If you've never tried that, I think we're going to try and repeat 12 to 24 hours next year. Please come.
Usually we stay awake because we have work to finish or an exam. And singing out of joy for 24 hours provides a positive samskara to staying up all night. If you look at all the branches of yoga, they have techniques for providing positive experiences to negative samskaras.
And on the fifth day, we had a speaker who had worked with cancer patients saying: cancer does not touch the spirit. Because Shivaratri was the peak experience, a lot of emphasis was around this idea of consciousness, and the idea of subtlety in reality. But in every case, the speakers would always come back to the body as where we experience being human.
And it's in this manifest, tangible reality that we contact Shakti. It's Her domain — she creates this reality. From the Tantric perspective, or the Shakti Tantric perspective, anything we can experience is Her in some form. And so there are a number of chants that try and describe Her.
The rishis and yogis who intuited these verses tried to find ways for us to experience that energy in a real way. And from the Tantric perspective, to remind us that She is not only the positive, good, bright rainbow. She can also be the dark, heavy, unpleasant, destructive. And we all have that experience at home daily. If you keep filling the trash without emptying it, your house is going to stink. If you keep filling the toilet without flushing, your bathroom is going to stink. And so Shakti creates, but She also destroys. And throughout She is maintaining and transforming.
The suktam that we are going to look at today talks about that — the various forms that She takes in our consciousness.
Introduction to the Tantroktam Devi Suktam
I had first learned this chant at the Bihar School of Yoga. During that course we were taken to Rikyapit ashram, where the Satchandi Maha Yajna was taking place, and it included this chant. The Satchandi Maha Yajna is five days of shakti awareness and worship. It includes the daily repetition of some chants that describe wonderful stories about Durga and other forms of the goddess.
If you or your partner or your children enjoy modern day superhero films, you will absolutely enjoy these stories. They are bloody, they are supernatural, and they are ultra vivid. And they have very deep archetypal plot lines. I guarantee you will see yourself or one of your life challenges in every single story from the Satchandi. And this is where a lot of the value of taking the time to understand the old languages comes in. Because they were recorded and preserved not for posterity or religious value, but for our evolution and stability in life.
This suktam is particularly accessible because almost all the verses follow the same pattern. So once you learn the pattern, you are just putting in a few filler words. And those filler words are different forms of consciousness that shakti takes.
Personal Story: The Grandmother's Chant
So I learned this chant in the ashram, and then I came to my grandparents' house in Nepal. And I made a commitment to live with them for about three years, knowing that they were probably in the last years of their life.
My grandfather was a Sanskrit scholar and practicing Tantric, Hindu, and astrologer. And one day, by chance, as someone who never wakes up to go to the bathroom at night, I got up to go to the bathroom. And I heard my grandmother chanting one of the verses from this suktam in the middle of the night.
I listened for about a minute, took care of myself and went back to bed. In the morning, I said: I recognize the verse that you are chanting. And she was a bit of a cheeky personality, and she said: yeah, you and everyone else in this country knows these verses. Which is something I didn't even realize — that it was a widely known chant.
The particular verse was: Hey Devi, I call you in the form of sleep. I pray to you, I salute you, I respect you.
She had been experiencing a moment of insomnia, and she asked my grandmother — "Hey grandfather, what can I do to fall back asleep?" And he replied: you know how to call her in the form of sleep — just repeat that mantra.
And that was a very deep teaching to me for applied Tantra. That these mantras are recipes and invocations for energies that are able to take form in us.
Theory: Mantra as Invocation
For hundreds of thousands of years of our evolution, Prakriti has automated that process. The Yogic, the Vedic, and the Tantric cultures have tried to awaken that and bring it under our conscious control.
Hatha Yoga aims to bring conscious control over the autonomic nervous system. Raja Yoga has techniques for bringing conscious control over deeply embedded subconscious programming. Kundalini Yoga or Kriya Yoga brings awareness into the very subtle psychic energies. And mantras give us a very accessible way to start generating internal waves of consciousness — internal experiences that are normally dictated by food consumption rhythms, or the rhythms of the day and night. And so we break free of these natural rhythms and take control if we need to.
Ashram Recording: A Preview of the Chant
What I'd like to do is to first listen to a version recorded by the ashram. You're invited to follow along. It takes about ten minutes. And then we will go through each of the verses with more detailed pronunciation. At which time you're welcome to ask to repeat a word as often as you like. And at the same time we'll also look at the translation so that we know what we're invoking.
This recording starts out with a short satsang by Swamiji in English. Because this chant is often done during shakti sadhanas like Navaratri.
Swamiji's words from the recording: "The power of Saraswati is to give you wisdom, understanding, appreciation of the beauty of life. And the Tamasic power is Durga. Tamasic does not mean negative here. Tamasic means, in this context, something which has to change in order for something new to come. So the conditioning which is there — the existing conditioning has to be changed, altered, destroyed. And to change the existing, we need the power of Durga, and that is our sankalp shakti."
You can sing along if you would like, quietly.
PRACTICE — Listening: Ashram recording of Tantroktam Devi Suktam (approx. 10 minutes)
Namaste: The Meaning Behind the Greeting
Is this the first time anyone has ever heard this suktam? Any way you would describe it — it doesn't have to be positive, I'm sincerely asking. Would you describe it in any way?
[Audience responds with single words.]
Sweet. Soft. Powerful.
I find that even without knowing the meaning, many chants have their own energetic quality. Heavy metal has its quality. Classical music has its quality. And this type of Mangpada chanting, especially Devi chanting, I find has a unique quality.
And if you ever feel something, please know that there is an archive of Shakti chants available online. YouTube has hundreds of thousands. But SatyamYogaPrasad.net has a very careful selection. Swami Satyananda was a sensational DJ. So if you like the track, you might like the album.
Now, when you look at these verses, what is the pattern that you recognize many of them take? What is repeated again and again? The first part of the line is repeated very often. And the second part — namastasye — salutations to her.
Namaste has become a globalized word. Everyone knows namaste. What if namaste means you're smelly and no one ever told you? And it's just a big yogic joke, because yogis have a sense of humor — and you don't find out until you die and go to the afterworld. If you've never looked at the word namaste, you don't know what it means. Words have power in every language. So please know what you're saying to others.
And the feelings behind words, according to yoga psychology and maybe your own experience, have even more power. So by learning the meaning, we're not only able to say a word or show a gesture of respect — we're able to send a psychic wave, which is the actual energy of the mantra or sequence of syllables that we're enunciating.
Namaste or nama translates roughly as salutations, or respect. Many Sanskrit words don't have one literal translation.
For example, in the Satyananda Yoga tradition, what are some of the mantras used most often? Hari Om. Namo Narayan. Om Namah Shivaya. Om Shanti. What do those have in common? Put all of those four mantras together. My Kung Fu grandmaster taught us: the technique that comes up the most in a sequence of movements is the primary teaching. Everything else is the support.
Om Shanti. Hari Om. How many different ways can we put Om? You need to give something healthy to your kids once in a while, right? You put it in spaghetti. You put it in lasagna. You put it in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A skillful parent knows 50 ways to put fruit in a dish. The yogis, the rishis, the munis — they were the parents of society. They were social architects. They had a vision of thousands of years where they saw the challenges and how they could keep us alive for as long as possible. Because they knew multiple times in our evolution we will come to points where we will almost kill ourselves. The industrial age, including the nuclear age, is one such example. The new era of modern chemical-based farming is another. And this era of screens and technology is another. Technology and simulated intelligence is going to present another wave of challenge.
So a chant like this serves as a particularly grounding reminder of where we need to keep bringing our consciousness.
And all I want to say about namastasye is: we really want to develop the ability to generate feelings within us. In Buddhism this is the practice of bhavana or metabhavana — awakening loving compassion as a force. In yoga we have pratipaksha bhavana — awakening the opposite feeling to a negative feeling.
Look at the branches of yoga. Hatha yoga is usually the starting point for many of us. Can you control your body and your breath? Yeah, with a few years' practice we can get pretty good at that. Karma yoga — can you manage your attitude and change perspective? I have to paint the whole house? Yeah, I'm going to paint the whole house. With a little bit of lying in the beginning, that perspective will shift. Then raja yoga — can you keep the mind focused on one idea for an extended length of time? Can you hear the wind and block off the wind, both? Can you wake yourself up without an alarm? Can you go to sleep on command? Much harder. Usually decades of practice for people.
Bhakti yoga is the fourth mastery in this sequence. And what is it the management of? Emotions. Feelings. Imagine if I asked any of you to move this harmonium — doable. Imagine if I said there's too much sun, think of a solution to put some shade on me — still doable. Now imagine I say: on the beach, prevent this wave from crashing onto the shore. That's bhakti yoga. Those waves of emotion. Every day, all the time. Constantly shaping our personality. Our emotions are what shape our life.
Swami Satyananda has a brilliant reflection. What is the one thing in common behind everyone in prison? A mismanaged emotion. Either lack of control of an emotion or a lack of positive channeling. That's how significant and influential it is in all of our lives from childhood to the moment of death. From the yogic perspective, it is the final thoughts and feelings that launch you into your next life. That's a pretty loaded and heavy thought, given how universally scary death is for everyone. But that preparation will help us every single day.
When we say Namaste — try to see if you can connect with the real feeling behind the word. This was a practice of Swami Sivananda. He said that he would mentally do Pranam or Namaste to every living being and person he would pass during the day. Which for me generates a fabulous inner visualization and feeling. Because he was immersed in groups of hundreds or thousands at times. And you can imagine psychic rays of Namaste or greeting to everyone within his vision.
What would it be like to have that awareness where you at least acknowledged the humans, the dogs, the birds, the bees that passed through your everyday field of vision? When I do that, it makes me feel a lot more awake and present and connected.
Body Break: Namaskar Asana
PRACTICE — Namaskar Asana: squatting movement with Pranamudra
So, we are going to do Namaskar Asana. It uses the Pranamudra. Come into a squatting position if accessible to you, otherwise a standing position. Even a chair is perfectly fine.
If squatting is accessible to you, your arms are going to be on the insides of the knees. Palms together in Pranamudra. And as you bring the thumbs to the sternum, the elbows push the knees out and you look up. Then you straighten the arms, knees close the elbows, head comes down.
Inhaling, hands to chest, look up. Exhaling, extend forward, head down.
Namaste to something that you appreciate from above. Namaste to something that comes from below. Namaste to something outside of you. Namaste to something within you. Namaste to someone you love. Namaste to someone maybe you don't love. Namaste to your body. Namaste to your pranas. Namaste to your mind. Namaste to your emotions and intuition. And Namaste to your innermost self.
Put the fingers under the insides of the soles of the feet. Take a deep breath in looking up. Three more times on your own.
When you finish, come back to a comfortable sitting position.
[Short break]
Intermission Kirtan: Bhaja Mana Ma
PRACTICE — Intermission Kirtan: Bhaja Mana Ma
Bhaja Mana Ma, Ma, Ma. Anandamayi, Ma, Ma.
[Kirtan continues]
Verse-by-Verse: Tantroktam Devi Suktam
PRACTICE — Call-and-repeat chanting through all verses with commentary
Hopefully you or someone near you has a copy of the paper that has both the verse and the translation.
How the Verses Are Structured
The pattern is: the first part of the line is repeated very often, and the refrain is namastasye — salutations to her — again and again.
From verse 8 to 26, we follow a particular pattern:
Ya Devi Sarva Bhuteshu [quality] Rupena Samsthita Namastasye Namastasye Namastasye Namo Namaha
She who resides in all beings in the form of [quality] — salutations, salutations, salutations to her.
Verses 1–7: Cosmic and Earthly Forms of Devi
Verse 1: Salutations to the Goddess
Namo Devye Mahadevye Shivaye Satatam Namaha Namah Prakritye Bhadraye Niyata Pranatasmatam
Salutations to the goddess and great goddess. And to the auspicious ones, always salutations. Salutations to primordial nature. To the good one, we are ever dedicated and prostrated to her.
So a general greeting to Devye in her most cosmic forms.
Verse 2: The Fierce One, Moonlight, Happiness
Rudraye namo nityaye Gaurye dhatre namo namaha Jyotsnaye chenduru pinye Sukhaye sattatam namaha
To the fierce one, salutations to the eternal one. To Gauri, to the sustainer. To moonlight and the moon-formed one. To happiness, salutations to you.
Still very large qualities, but bringing in things that are closer to us — but not yet of the earth. Already these verses for me are starting to generate those waves of: okay, we're bringing her in, remember she's this amazing being, she's even the moonlight. Who doesn't love moonlight? You get the light without the sunburn.
Verse 3: The Auspicious One, the Accomplished, Lakshmi
Kalyanye pranatam vridye Siddye kurmo namo namah Nerkritye bhubhritam Lakshmi Sarvanye te namo namah
I mispronounced that first word — there's no ka, it's nerkritye. It's like an R followed by a ri. Those types of tongue movements are very challenging. And the connection between the tongue and motor and sensory cortexes is very deep.
I've worked one-on-one with mantra chanting for stroke and Parkinson's patients. It's amazing what it has done for some of their speech articulation. Mantra chanting is like practicing Surya Namaskar for the tongue. Regular Sanskrit chanting of mantras will really help keep that at bay, because it forces sound production from guttural all the way to labial — the whole range of sound possible for humans.
To the auspicious one who increases those who bow. To the accomplished one, we make salutations. To the southwest one, to Lakshmi of the earth supporters. To Sarvani, the wife of Shiva, we salute you.
Now we also have human relative directions. Cardinal directions. I read that the aboriginals of Australia always knew where north, east, south, west are — certain groups of them did not use relative directions, no right, no left, only absolute directions. This means in their working awareness they always knew where the sun and other celestial bodies were. They are some of the best navigators we know of in history. Their brain is physiologically different, thought to be partly because of absolute positioning rather than relative referencing.
When I say "the southwest one" referring to Lakshmi, I have a different brain. I have to really think and do the calculation of the setting sun. What would it be like as an exercise just to work on this one verse for one year, and know where the directions were anytime someone asked you? That would feel different. How could it not? Imagine a sailor or a captain that knows where the lighthouse is versus wondering where the lighthouse is.
Verse 4: The Rescuer, the Dark One, the Smoky One
To Durga, to the rescuer from difficulties. To the essential one, to the doer of all. To the famous one, and likewise to the dark one. To the smoky one, our salutations.
I like this verse because it plants this idea from Karma Yoga that we are not the doer. I don't feel that most of the time. I'm controlling, I feel like I'm controlling my thoughts and actions. But then life slips out of control and I realize — I'm reminded — I actually don't have control.
So even just verse four as a reflection for any amount of time: the doer of all, the rescuer of difficulties. But not in an obvious way — she's dark, she's smoky. Reminding us that her manifestations aren't always obvious. That we might have to actually pay attention if we want to perceive her.
Verse 5: Gentle and Fierce — The Foundation
To the one who is at the same time extremely gentle and extremely fierce. We bow to her, our salutations. Salutations to the foundation of the universe. To the goddess, to the active one.
So with this verse, classical eastern paradox. She is the gentlest and she is the fiercest. She's the whole thing. The entirety. And the foundation of the universe. And this always makes me ask in a very honest way: what is the foundation of my universe? Is there any one thing that if I lost, I would truly unravel? Is there any one thing that would make me lose my mind if I lost it?
For some it's how they look physically. For some it's their mental health. For others it's a person of which they are so dependent that if that person disappears, they would really have a downfall. What is that thing that would affect us so much if we lost it?
Some people live with cancer and no legs and blindness at the same time. Health is not their foundation. Health is a luxury and a privilege that not all humans have access to. Even some of our health comes at the cost of others' health — and that's the truth about humanity at the current way the world works. Are we nourishing that which we are so dependent on, that which is so important?
Verse 6–7: Living in All Beings — Ya Devi Sarva Bhuteshu
To the goddess who resides in all beings, and is called Vishnumaya, or the illusion of Vishnu. Salutations to her.
And so now we've brought it down to the plane where we live. She's in all beings. And she's an illusion.
Ya Devi Sarva Bhuteshu Chetanitya Bhidhiyate Namastasye Namastasye Namastasye Namo Namaha
She lives in all beings — in what form? Who resides in all beings, given the role of consciousness. So specifically, that's how she resides within us.
Verses 8–26: Qualities of Consciousness
From verse 8 to 26, each verse asks: in what form does she reside within us? And the answer is a different quality of consciousness.
Buddhi — Intelligence
Buddhi — the same word as buddha, intellect, or enlightened. What does intelligence mean to you? What does it appear as in your life? Problem solving. Decision making. Intuition.
Some people really separate intellect and intuition. Manomaya Kosha is the domain of intellect. And Vijnanamaya Kosha is the dimension of intuition. But others will say the lower mind is Manomaya Kosha — simple intellect, intelligence. And refined intellect is Vijnanamaya Kosha.
Dogs have intelligence. But why aren't they flying around in planes? So there's levels of intelligence. Some people talk about the body as having intelligence. In our Kung Fu teachings we come to understand that the prana has its own intelligence. That prana is intrinsically intelligent and all we have to do is get out of the way. Traditional healing modalities come from this perspective of: don't do — rather, stop doing the wrong thing.
Nidra — Sleep
Nidra, sleep. Sometimes it means you're awake but you're asleep to what's happening. I always say that if you give yourself 10% of what you're giving your phone, you're going to be doing pretty well. Call it the phone sadhana. What does airplane mode mean? It's Yoga Nidra for the phone. What is turning off the screen? Close the eyes — our brain takes up more than 50% of our brain effort. Same with the phone: as soon as you turn off the display, you save energy.
Why does this seem to reflect every aspect of the human being? Because we designed it. Because humans made it. What happens to the things we design when we have a deeper understanding of what it means to be human? Our products become much deeper. And that's why art and architecture and sciences that come from Vijnanamaya Kosha touch different levels of humanity. And sciences limited to the lower intellect are often drier and more functional.
Kshudha — Hunger
What do you hunger for? Let's see how honest people are willing to be in this session. Recorded. Will be uploaded to YouTube.
You're hungering for spirituality. What else is someone hungering for? Peace. What else? Love. Knowledge. What else? Pleasure. What else? Peace. Shanti. Y'all are a very sattvic crowd. Thank you. Power. What else? Freedom. Union.
Where do you feel hunger? I feel it like... the whole being wants to go from here... to here... to this. You know the essence of knowledge? You want to take something you don't understand, which is chaotic everywhere, and the feeling is: I want it like this.
So my hunger feels different from yours. You have to feel your hunger in the kosha that it's coming from. If you can't imagine what that feels like, you don't know what's driving you. The hunger is real, but the direction it's coming from is unknown.
And when that happens, we risk feeding ourselves the wrong thing. Sometimes we're hungry for relief from an emotion, and we feed it with ice cream and fries. Mismatch of koshas. The body gets fat, the emotion doesn't go away. We have to know where our hunger is coming from.
Another way to say this: if we are inviting Devi to a date, we have to meet her at that location. You don't ask someone out on a date and not share the address. So whether she's invoking you or you're invoking her — ask, where are we meeting? If she's invoking you, you ask her: where are you, so I can meet you there? If you're invoking her, you tell her where you are, and be accurate. Have you ever shared your location on WhatsApp? It says accurate to 34 meters. You can be a little less accurate — guaranteed she'll find you. But you have to share the location.
Chaya — Shadow
You know Chaya Samadhi in Munger? The Shadow Samadhi? What is shadow? Usually a lack of light, an absence of light. It's an object that interposes between the light and reflects the shadow. Something unknown of ourselves.
We have shadow in the physical reality. We have shadow in the psychological domain. Shakti is not the unmanifest, unaccessible. She is the manifest, the counterpart of Shiva. If we need a shadow, we can invoke her as a shadow. If there is a part of ourselves that keeps eluding us, we can say: I want to understand you as me as that shadow. Don't limit her to this or that. That's the same as saying don't limit yourself about what you are or you are not.
We need courage and we don't have it — that's just a reality of life. But what we can do is create a version of ourselves, a statue. And we say: look, I've made a statue, now come and inhabit it. Show me what courage looks like in a reflection of myself. So it's not you doing the work — you're inviting her to live out that version of yourself in your mind, in your consciousness as courage, and you just watch and take notes. And you do that again and again until her movements, her dance becomes familiar, until you learn it. And as soon as you learn it, what do you do when you learn a dance? You put the music on and you start to dance.
So for me, this suktam is basically a recipe for how to enter the world of visualization in a way that changes our psychology and manifests in our life.
Generally we give up visualization because we think that it is so vague. Or so impossible. I once talked about an experience in acute depression. I could not imagine ever being happy again. The life was so dark. The idea of happy was just like — I don't even know what that word means. In that moment, I felt so bad that I couldn't even imagine how it feels to be happy again.
In this approach, you don't have to do that. You just say: Shakti, you do it. You show me what happiness could look like. Until it feels familiar — which my claim is, it will. Giving Shakti the permission to modify consciousness within yourself will have an effect on the personal consciousness.
Shakti — Power
Shakti. Can you feel the word power in the word Shakti? When I say power, what do you think of? Energy. Strength. Sun. Firmness. Ocean. Wind. That's Shakti.
What is the most masculine thing you can think of? Hanuman, for millions in the world. If I think of Ram, I feel his nobility, because his stories are amazing. Saying the word masculine is an idea. Thinking of someone who embodies that is one step closer.
You see how it's very easy to get stuck in words? To get past Manomaya Kosha into deep feeling. To really enter the waters of bhakti and bhavana.
And I think the reason the fear is there is because it's really powerful. And you as an ocean culture, you all know that better than some of us who are landlocked. You all have access to that every day — that getting in the wrong way at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you can be sucked in to a point of no return.
For some of us, waking up our masculinity means we risk becoming the worst version of a man that we've seen in our lives. For some of us, waking up peace means we see the worst version of passive aggressiveness in our lives. So with every form of consciousness, there is the tamasic condition, the rajasic condition, and the sattvic condition. Those introductory verses are trying to keep it sattvic — the auspicious one, the great one, the helpful one. Auspicious masculinity, auspicious peace, auspicious power, gentle sleep, gentle intelligence. So it's not just the quality, it's the color as well.
Trishna — Thirst
Like hunger. I remember once I was living in the ashram for two years. I had access to my guru every single day. Then we were sent on a trip to teach around India. And someone played a kirtan from Swamiji. And as soon as I heard his voice, I felt it in my body and psyche at the same time — this sense of sort of drinking him. And that's when I realized I was thirsty, having been in his physical absence for some time.
Our thirst reveals what sustains us. You can go without food for 40 days — that was the master fast. The Essene people of the desert where Jesus was around: if you could fast 40 days, you had attained a certain level of mastery. But thirst, much shorter — some say three days, some say five.
Kshanti — Patience
Kshanti. Not shanti — kshanti. That's patience.
Jati — Species and the Intelligence of Nature
Jati — species, or life form. She can come in any form. She's not limited to just one.
I used to teach environmental science. A western journalist came to the bush people in Africa. He was supposed to meet someone to study a tribe. And when he arrived at the location, a young boy was waiting for him — no bottle, just himself. The journalist said: you don't have a water bottle, you don't have a watch. How did you tell the time? And he said: I just came a few days early. And the journalist said: but you have no water. We're in the middle of the desert. How did you survive? And the boy said: there's a water bird. I just call it. And then it comes and I follow it back to water.
And at that moment, the journalist was forced to ask himself: who is more intelligent? And this was the question to my high school students: who is more intelligent, us now or people from 2,000 years ago?
We often don't ask ourselves — and we rarely ask our children — to really think about where so much of our current life has come from. Who created these solutions? Very few solutions are human solutions. They're poor copies of nature. We now use that scientifically in the science of biomimicry. And the solutions that come from that are far more evolved than what our limited minds come up with.
The Remaining Qualities
Lajja — modesty. Shanti — peace. Shraddha — faith. Kanti — beauty. Lakshmi — prosperity. Vritti — activity or modification. Smriti — memory. Daya — compassion. Tushti — contentment. Matri — mother. Branti — confusion. Indriya — senses.
This process we did with the first few verses — I really hope you take time, if you resonate with this chant, to do for the remaining verses. It's really interesting. It never gets old, I find.
Closing Reflection: The Suktam as Consciousness Rotation
And so my final thought is: in the same way that we do body rotation in Yoga Nidra, you can use this rotation for seeing where you feel and experience these modifications of consciousness. And just like in Yoga Nidra, if you feel an absence or a block, that's an area to pay attention to. And invite Shakti into.
Closing Shantipat
PRACTICE — Seated Shantipat: mantra Aum, palming
Please come into any position suitable for Shantipat. Take a few deep breaths and imagine that each breath clears the mind of anything you heard. Use each breath to connect more presently to your body.
Imagine each breath as a form of Shakti — shifting as she does. Shakti integrating with the body, which she also is. Shakti extending life through that breath — life, absolutely what she is.
Imagine Shakti at the heart center or the eyebrow center in the form of light, a flame. Either dancing for you or sitting still with you.
With our awareness on her in this form, we chant the mantra Aum to her. Followed by Aum Shanti. Inhale to chant the mantra Aum.
[Mantra Aum chanted, followed by Aum Shanti]
Bring the hands into Pranamudra. To a round of palming. Before you lower the hands, take a few moments to notice what you see or feel in Chidakash. Inhaling that warmth in through your eyes, into yourself — breathe in. And exhaling, you can lower the hands and then open the eyes.
Hari Om Tat Sat.
Announcements
Pardon me for going ten minutes over. If you are interested in sadhanas that work with Shakti in particular — I hold four to five of them online throughout the year. They are often five to nine days each. They are very flexible, per what your lifestyle allows. They are also recorded. And yogicapproach.com — that website will lead you to the WhatsApp group.
And this year I am also doing a retreat in Nepal in the village when the villagers are planting rice. So if you or someone you know has ever wanted to really contact the old way that we all came from, and be in quite a natural environment and just be playful with very simple people — then you are invited to my aunt's village. And we will do yoga and chanting every day.
And in any case, please — in your own way, as you might already be doing — contact Shakti in all the ways that she is available.
Transcribed and formatted with human-AI collaboration