NAVRATRI SPECIAL….by Vindi Kohli
6 min readOct 7, 2021
NAVRATRI IS THE FORM OF ENERGIES- FEMININE ENERGY.
Do you wish to explore your Inner self this Navratri? Are you willing to understand the real meaning of this Navratri and give yourself the gift of Purification- purification of your Body, Mind and Soul?
Our deep-rooted culture has a solid underlying logic behind every Indian festival and other than just having fun while celebrating them, there are many scientific reasons as to why that is done during certain times of the year.
‘Navratri’ means ‘nine nights.’ ‘Nava’ means ‘nine,’ and ‘Ratri’ means ‘night.’
Night provides rest and rejuvenation. During the night, you turn inwards through sleep, and you wake up feeling refreshed and rested in the morning. In the same way, Navratri or the ‘nine nights’ is that time of the year when you get the chance to experience deep rest. This deep rest brings freedom from all kinds of botheration, deep relaxation, and creativity.
Fasting, meditation, prayers, and other spiritual practices performed during this period help bring about this deep rest. Even refraining from over-indulging in sense objects during this time aid the process of attaining deep rest.
Significance of Navratri
Navratri is an exploration of the three main forms of the Goddess — Durga, Lakshmi and Sarasvati.
The nine days of Navratri are classified as per the three basic qualities of tamas, rajas and sattva. The Tamas, where the goddess is fierce, like Durga and Kali. The next Lakshmi-related — gentle but materially oriented goddesses. The last one is Sarasvati, which is sattva. It is related to knowledge and enlightenment.
The festival of Navratri is dedicated to the feminine nature of the Divine. Masculine and feminine are not about being physically male or female. These are two qualities. The feminine can be as alive in a man as it is in a woman. Only when these qualities happen in balance, can a human being live a life of fulfilment.
Let us understand this by using an analogy of Tree, which I always talk about. In my book Find My ‘ME’, I have deeply spoken about Tree analogy, if you call the root the masculine, the flower and the fruit is feminine. The very purpose of the root is to bring the flower and the fruit. If that does not happen, the root will go waste. Survival by itself does not take care of everything. After survival is taken care of, the subtler aspects of life must happen to you.
As per Hindu scriptures, the Navratri marks the beginning of the two seasons — Summer and Winter and those 9 nights are the time for the seasonal change. Since this seasonal change is natural, our age-old Ayurvedic and Naturopathic systems of healing health state that eating foods like garlic, onion, meat, grains, and eggs etc. continuously at all times make us prone to catching all kinds of energies. Energies that are not good, not just from the surroundings but even by absorbing those very energies that were present in what we ate. They say that at times, especially during season change since our body’s immunities always lie low and when we eat high-energy foods, we make ourselves susceptible to catching seasonal diseases. So how do we treat this problem?
Did you know that everybody — every single person — requires purification a minimum of twice a year to maintain a perfectly healthy body balance. So, I feel that because of this concept, came up the Navratri fasting so that we could cleanse our systems.
But we tend to eat more as somewhere it is in our mind that we are fasting. Isn’t it?
Basically, the scientific logic behind these fasts and the main reason is to enable the person to benefit from Detoxification, Mindfulness and Self Control.
During the Detoxification phase as we give up certain foods for 9 days, our bodies start to detoxify. We cleanse our system and lighten ourselves by eating easily digestible foods like fruits which clean our digestive system and vegetables that build it. In this way, we prepare our digestive and immune system for the upcoming season.
So those who fast are doing the perfect thing by taking care of themselves as it’s only during fasting that our internal organs get rest and thus start to heal and recover from their daily work stress. But for those who can’t fast, do yourself a favour by trying to not eat any heavy foods which you feel slow your digestion or cause you to discomfort like meat, eggs, chicken, spices, grains etc. for these 9 days to give your system a part-time break.
Now coming to Mindfulness, which is a wonderful thing and enables you to think clearly while putting your mind at ease. Fasting twice a year lightens your entire system, keeps your mind fresh and doesn’t allow you to develop brain fog. This happens because during fasting when your digestive system is at rest, your mind works at a faster speed from the fresh and positive energies it gets from all your intakes — physical, mental as well as spiritual — giving you clarity of thought.
Lastly, it’s all about Self-Control which is indeed the gut of fasting. This is the toughest because when you try to stop yourself from eating what you are accustomed to, you are trying to break an ongoing pattern that you’ve been following all through. And if you can succeed at this, you can succeed anyhow because by doing this you will develop an amazing discipline that leads to strengthening your will power and building solid self-control, making you the true ruler of your mind.
So, Lets purify our Mind, Body, and soul on this Navratri.
Special Tips………
· Start your day and end your day with gratitude.
· Meditate for 20 minutes, Yoga, or exercise for 45 minutes. Walk for 20 minutes.
· Have herbal tea in the morning and after half an hour have Coconut water.
· If you can skip one meal and only have fruits and raw veggies. This will help in cleansing your process.
· Replace the sugar with jaggery.
· Avoid too much of dairy products. Ghee content in the food must be monitored to the maximum. To use only 2–3 teaspoons of pure ghee daily as well use only Pink Salt.
· Instead of juices, have seasonal fruits. Only seasonal Vegetables.
· Have minimum 3 litres of water in a day. Water can be plain or made detox by adding things like mint, lime, orange, apple etc. to it.
Enjoy this Navratri by being totally in the Awareness state. Have conscious eating, Conscious talking, Conscious Action and Conscious Living.
Be conscious on your reactions, Complete Surrender and Let go…
Let’s start our journey towards our Self-Healing and Self-awareness TODAY…
I hope you enjoy this article. Wishing you, your family, and your loved ones a very happy and blessed Navratri.
Lots of love and Affection💕😊
Vandana Raj — (Pen name — Vindi Kohli)😊
Author/ Life Designer / Mentor
Read my book Find my ‘ME’ 👇🏼👇🏼
FIND MY ‘ME’: A Journey to Self-Discovery https://www.amazon.in/dp/1639404481/ref=cm_sw_r_oth_api_glt_fabc_2PT7WE4VHNF4RQRB2EHT
https://vandanakohli.lpages.co/find-my-me-book/
Follow us on 👇🏼
Facebook group- www.facebook.com/groups/980333792388697/
Facebook page — https://www.facebook.com/selfhealingwithVindi
Instagram Link — https://www.instagram.com/vindi_kohli/
YouTube link for Meditation and videos ….
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqEgH8cnHJ1L0-bnByN6eQ
Any Questions — Email us- at connect@vindikohli.com
WRITTEN BY —
Vindi Kohli
I am a founder of the ‘Find My ‘ME’ Holistic Healing Retreat, a Journey to Self-Discovery.
I’m on a mission to Aspire to Empower at least 1 million Working Professionals to get clarity in finding their True Inner Purpose by using the R.H.Y.T.H.M Mind model.
1
