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'The women awakened series' - Workshops/Teachings by Women Spiritual Teachers
Organized by Swati Chopra
The wisdom tradition
that sprung around the Goddess in India cannot be understood without
turning to living, breathing, seeking women. In India, wisdom has often
been defined as a felt, tasted experience. It must be lived for it to be
real. To us, our divinities are alive; they need to be bathed, fed,
clothed, put to sleep, woken up, and about whom we weave stories. At
another level, our philosophies embody felt psycho-spiritual truths. The
Goddess, who was posited as a kind of 'maximum woman', cannot be seen
and studied without taking in consideration those living women that
embody her strength, her abilities and her energy in their lives, their
choices, their paths.
In this festival,
dedicated to fostering and engendering a deeper understanding of the
Goddess, three sessions will bring those acknowledged as 'women of
wisdom' into the circle of discussion. These women are travellers of the
inner journey, having chosen a path that took them towards an
understanding of life and reality that was different, and perhaps more
meaningful, than the mundane, everyday one. Today, each one has spent a
considerable part of her life exploring hidden dimensions of life and
consciousness.
These sessions, held
each day of the festival from 2 pm to 3:30 pm, are envisioned as a 'transmitive
sharing'. The women who will conduct them will share their stories, the
choices they made and why, along with insights unearthed as they walked
on the razor's edge of the spiritual path. All sessions will include a
guided meditation practice.
 These
sessions have been organised by Swati Chopra, a writer and editor. Her
new book, Women Awakened: Stories of Contemporary Spirituality in
India (HarperCollins, 2011), explores the idea of feminine
spirituality, and the larger question of what it means to be a spiritual
seeker in today’s world, through the lives and choices of eight women.
Her previous books are Dharamsala Diaries (Penguin, 2007) and
Buddhism: On the Path to Nirvana (Brijbasi, New Delhi; Mercury
Books, London, 2005).
Her writing, exploring spirituality and its relevance to modern lives,
has appeared in several publications in India and abroad.
www.swatichopra.com
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friday 4th march
2 to 3.30 pm
Empowering the Yogini Shakti – by Yogini Shambhavi
%20Yoginin%20bio.jpg) Now,
more than ever, women need to open themselves to the flow of
divine grace and the power of the Devi, the Mother Goddess, to
facilitate the birth of a higher consciousness in the world, not
merely at an individual but also at a planetary level. We must
recognize and honour the Goddess in all of her forms, of which
her transformative manifestations are the most central. Feminine
gentleness, nurturing, healing, sustenance and compassion are
the key tools necessary to soothe the turmoil, anguish, pain and
anger that is burning us from within, stoked by the voracity and
arrogance of the commercialisation, ambition and ignorance that
seems to surround us on every side.
The Yogini as the Yoga Shakti represents the deep intuitive
voice of the ‘Inner Guru’ or spiritual guide. The outer guru
works to awaken our inner being and to direct us to the sacred
practices necessary to connect with it. The quintessential
spirit of the Yogini is to provide an expression for our inner
being, who unfolds the flow of divine grace. Without the
anugraha or grace of the Devi, we cannot move far on the
spiritual path. It is her divine benevolence that steers us into
surrendering to the higher consciousness, letting go of our
outer confusion and agitation.
My unique Devi sadhana paved the way for the intrinsic lightning
dance of Ma Kali to color my life. Experientially one sought Her
in the heart as Subhadra the ever auspicious Goddess of beauty,
bliss and abundance. Ma Kali reveals the divine magnificence and
splendour in all creation. She gently guides us from darkness to
the idyllic light of dawn. Kali lends mystery to Shiva’s
enigmatic transcendence. Kali is the yogic power of Shiva which
dwells beyond the illusory Maya.
I have not experienced Ma Kali as fierce or even intimidating in
any way. For me the Goddess represents the soul’s victory over
all darkness, sorrow and conflict, encompassing the higher
virtues of feminine divinity. Kali is severe with all that is
unconstructive, negative, trivial and narcissistic. She gently
purifies the heart, mind and body to help us heal through our
karmas. Yet there is no divine being more compassionate and
blissful. In surrendering to her, she guides us through the
vortex of suffering.
Yogini Shambhavi is a mystic Yogini, spiritual guide and
preceptor rooted in the ancient teachings and traditions of
Shakti worship. Shambhavi is one of the foremost women teachers
of the deeper aspects of Yoga, Ayurveda and Jyotish coming out
of India today. She shows how to use yogic practices of ritual,
mantra and meditation to bring the power of the Goddess into our
daily lives. She is also trained in Vedic astrology and teaches
special yogic methods of working with the planets. She is noted
for her clear, direct and uncompromising expression as well as
her power of devotion and her ability to inspire. Shambhavi
draws one to the deeper ‘Yogic Reality’, awakening the universal
power within us.
As co-director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies, Santa
Fe, along with Dr David Frawley, Shambhavi offers consultations
in Vedic astrology, Shakta teachings, personal empowerments,
training programmes and workshops in North and South America,
Europe, UK and India. Dr Frawley and Yogini Shambhavi host a
special yearly March ‘Ma Ganga Shakti Retreat’ above Rishikesh
for spiritual aspirants and Yoga and Ayurveda practitioners
worldwide.
Shambhavi has authored two bestselling books – Yogini: Unfolding
the Goddess Within and Yogic Secrets of the Dark Goddess, and a
special CD of Devi chants and Bija mantras – Yogini Bhava,
Shakti Mantras Invoke the Divine Within (Lotus Press, USA).
www.vedanet.com
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saturday 5th march
2 to 3.30 pm
The Feminine Principle in Buddhism - by Khandro Thrinlay Chodon
 The
feminine principle can be viewed at different levels in
accordance with an individual's understanding or perspective.
Some of the ways she has been known is as 'the wise crone', 'the
nurturing mother', 'the powerful shakti'. Within the Vajrayana
tradition of Buddhism, the feminine principle has a specific
meaning, which unveils to us her presence at the heart of
everything. She is revered and respected by practitioners as the
spacious quality of mind itself, and through deep practice, her
truth unfolds unceasingly. Subtle, mystifying, intriguing,
nurturing and pervasive, she is actually beyond gender, and is
dynamic.
Today, this feminine aspect of our being needs to be respected
and reactivated by both men and women. Science has recently
broadened its view from seeing the brain as static to seeing it
as having a unique ability to constantly change, grow, and remap
itself over a lifetime. Of course, the brain, in addition to our
being, has always had this plasticity, something the Buddha
mentioned and taught some 2,500 years ago, but modern science
has understood only now. It is time to harness our innate
ability to go beyond our conditioning, for if we do not, we will
continue to remain limited, and suffer as a consequence. At this
time, our world needs to focus on the feminine principle so that
we can develop the ability to surrender expectation and concepts
and move into a realm of ever-flowing wisdom. In this day and
age, it is vital to master and fully incorporate the feminine
principle into our meditative practices.
Khandro Thrinlay Chodon, who is widely known as a living yogini,
will lead us in an afternoon session that illuminates this
aspect of her spiritual tradition. She will speak both from the
heart of her practice, as well as from her personal experience.
The session will begin with a meditation and reflection and end
with a short question and answer session.
Khandro Thrinlay Chodon is a lay, female Vajrayana Buddhist
teacher, who holds her family's yogic spiritual lineage, which
is the Drukpa tradition revered in Tibet, Bhutan and the Indian
Himalayas. She began her spiritual training as a small child and
has studied both Eastern and Western approaches to psychology.
Since the death of her husband, His Holiness the IXth Shabdrung
of Bhutan, in 2003, Khandro-la has, with the encouragement of
many Vajrayana Buddhist Masters, been teaching in the West. She
focuses on spirituality in daily life. Her organisation,
Khachodling, engages in spiritual and humanitarian projects in
the remote Indian Himalayas.
Khandro-la is the embodiment of warmth and humanness. Her
contemporary and profound Buddhist teachings inspire and direct
practitioners to deepen in their awareness, and courageously
expand into the path of wisdom, joy and compassion.
www.khachodling.org
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sunday 6th march
2 to 3.30 pm
Ganga, the Celestial Goddess – Workshop/teaching by Sri Ma
Amodini Saraswati
 Ganga
is a composite of many Himalayan rivers, most notably Bhagirathi
and Alakhnanda, and it is only at the confluence of these two at
Devprayag that she is recognised as Ganga. She is worshipped as
celestial goddess, known as Tripathagamini. She flows in the
skies as the starry Akashganga, or the Milky Way; she was
specially invoked to descend to the earth to save human
civilisation from extinction at the end of a great war. Ever
since, the gracious goddess is revered as a life-giving flow of
rejuvenation and liberation. She also flows in the netherworld
as Patalganga, who releases the souls of those incarcerated
there for grave misdeeds, to enable them to begin a fresh new
evolutionary cycle upon earth. She is known as Makarvahini,
goddess who rides on the back of a fearsome crocodile, an apt
vehicle representing the sheer force of the river at her very
source.
Ancient rishis and seekers have performed austere spiritual
practices by the Eternal River, and legend are the stories of
her healing, rejuvenating and liberating powers, woven into the
cultural fabric of India across millennia. This river is like
none other, and has acquired the status of a sacred river whose
awesome powers are intertwined with the cultural history of the
country. Kumbh Mela, the largest periodic gathering of people
anywhere on earth, is a grand tribute to Ganga and her spiritual
hold over the imagination of people, increasingly at a global
level.
Sri Ma Amodini Saraswati talks about her personal experiences of
the profound transformative powers of the sacred Ganga as a
living goddess, especially through her participation in three
Kumbh Melas. She gives a fascinating account of how her work in
Yogic Astrology-Tarot connects people from over the world with
the Ganga in Rishikesh, to enable wholeness, empowerment and
transcendence.
Sri Ma Amodini Saraswati is a first class first Social Work
graduate from Mumbai, with a Social Welfare PhD from Berkeley,
and an International Fellow of the American Association of
University Women. It was in the course of her doctoral research
on women farmers in a remote forest hamlet in Western India that
she began parallel forays into spirituality, including
self-directed voyages in kundalini exploration.
Later she met three gurus who encouraged her to engage in brief
bouts of fearless personal sadhana in solitude in the wilderness
of the Western Ghats. It was at the Mahakumbh Mela in 2001 in
Allahabad that Mahavatar Babaji actively stepped forward to
connect her with the Ganga. For eight years, this included
repeated forays to Hardwar for meditation in the Ganga. Amodini
has been led over the years to develop core transformative
practices and teachings in River Work, such as underwater
meditation, allied with Vipassana, Kundalini Yoga and Surya
Yoga.
Amodini shifted to Rishikesh in 2007, taking formal initiation
to sannyas at the 2010 Hardwar-Rishikesh Kumbh Mela. For the
last three years, she has been engaged in an evolving practice
of Yogic Astrology-Tarot with spiritual aspirants from all over
the world.
Amodini is also a published writer, traveller, cook, gardener
and photographer.
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