The Nitya Devis are alive in you at every moment. The sequence of the NItya Devis from the new moon, Kameshvari, to the full moon, Chitra, is a way to look at our moment to moment lives and spiritual path.
Remember the last event you attended that inspired you. That is Kamesvari arising in you as the spark of desire to be there. The first moment the new moon begins to wax there is a movement towards expansion which is Kameshvari.
From that movement comes the fire of Bhagamalini where you show up fully engaged and committed. In the fire of Bhagamalini you are all in. The moon isn’t indecisive in its waxing and waning. Once the waxing phase begins it continues and has for millions of years. This dedication to the process is Bhagamalini. She wears a garland of bhaga, or fire. Bhaga also means yoni, and in the fire of your absorption you are completely open and receptive while wearing a garland of fire and yonis.
While you are immersed in the experience you have insights and realizations because when someone is talking to you their words speak to you from your own mind. You are essentially always talking and listening to yourself. Who knows who is talking and who is listening? Nityaklinna is being in the flow where you are orgasmic and always wet. This is not about the sexual act, but it also refers to the sexual act because even in the sexual act, who is doing what? It is all happening within you.
Sparks of recognition begin to break through and make chinks in your armour as Bherunda. You begin to see how a particular pattern is playing out in your life or your mind that you weren’t aware of. Whenever there is a chink in your armour you are on fire again. Bherunda breaks through the armor with her lightning bolt.
The fire that follows is Vahnivasini. Vanhnivasini surrounds you in the fortress of fire because you have a desire and motivation to act, make a change and end a pattern. Her fortress of fire protects you from distractions and keeps your focus single-pointed.
Mahavajresvari solidifies into clarity of knowing what you need to do and how to accomplish it. The vajra, diamond, comes after the fire purifies the rock with clear understanding of how to direct your awareness to where it needs to go in order to change, disintegrate or resolve a pattern. Your resolve is like a diamond, but how you move that resolve to your awareness is Shivaduti.
Shivaduti is Siva’s messenger. Here you tell Shiva, who is awareness, where you want to go. With steadiness of your resolve your awareness has to go to that particular pattern every time it arises. You are constantly looking at the pattern from all the angles it presents in your life, and your awareness is always turned towards exploring how this pattern manifests and why it is arising in you.
When your awareness and resolve are firmly directed towards changing a pattern you begin seeing rapid and immediate results. This is Tvarita, which means swift. Tvarita is the half moon, which looks the same whether the moon is waxing or waning. There is an equilibrium and steadiness that arises as your awareness is grounded in your intention to resolve this pattern.
Kundalini is the power to move your awareness where you desire, which activates Kulasundari. Your will, or iccha, drives kundalini and going through Bhagamalini and Vahnivasini’s fires while grounding in your resolve opens you to Kulasundari. There is a linga in her yantra, which is also kundalini. Kulasundari is the beauty of the kula, the different groupings, which is your own process. The NItyas Devis are their own kula and the grouping of desire, knowledge and action is another way to look at the sequence of the Nitya Devis, which are all ways to observe your own process.
This is an eternal pattern that does not stop with one issue. When you apply the same knowledge with Sivaduti’s awareness and the sharpness of Tvarita, through the activation of Kulasundari, you arrive at Nitya. Nitya is the knowledge that is continuously chopping off your patterns and decluttering. Nitya Devi’s mantra is confusing, and Nitya means all encompassing. There are so many petals and avaranas, or enclosures, because it applies to everything. What you have applied in one area applies to everything as long as you stay aware. If you lose awareness you start at Kamesvari again.
If you maintain single-pointed focus and awareness you arrive at Nilapataka. She is blue and has a flag of the sky. Everything looks all-encompassing in the blue sky because it contains all frequencies. You become like Nilapataka after going through Nitya because as you arrive at Nilapataka with this all-encompassing gaze you realize that always applying the teaching to all of my patterns will resolve them.
Continually invoking Sivaduti maintains your ability to keep applying. Sivaduti and Tvarita are in the middle of the sequence because if you invoke them you remember to go back to Kamesvari for each pattern, which brings you to Vijaya. Vijaya means victory because at this point you know how to conquer your demons through the power of awareness and applying the teaching every time.
If you practice with fervor, single-pointedness and constant dedication you arrive at the all auspicious Sarvamangala. No pattern is a problem in her light because every challenge becomes an opportunity. When you are consistently asking how to apply what you learned to yourself and turning inward you are graced by Sarvamangala.
Jvalamalini is fiery like Vahnisini and Bhagamalini but she is also the only Nitya who is standing. My guru likes her the best because he says she is always ready to run to you. We invoke her to create a retaining fortress around us so we don’t lose the awareness and auspiciousness of Sarvamangala. Jvalamalini is agni, which is everything. Consciousness and Siva-Sakti together are agni. Sakti is agni. The whole process we have gone through to this point and beyond is agni, the fire that digests, transforms and transmutes everything, including our patterns.
Citra means multivariate. In Chitra’s grace there is samarasa, which evokes the same taste, or rasa, in everything. There are innumerable tastes, but the underlying one is the same, and that happens when Jvalamalini creates a fortress around you protecting the auspiciousness and sweetness of Sarvamangala and Chitra.
These goddesses of the moon cycle are constantly waxing and waning and yet the moon is never changing and always full. This sequence can help us understand how life evolves within us, and it may happen over a fortnight with the moon but it is happening in a cyclical nature within us at every moment.
The Nitya Devis are in the innermost triangle of the Sri Cakra with five on each side. The fiery Devis are at the corners because you need agni to keep moving and catalyzing your experiences. It is impossible to talk about any one Nitya Devi because you have to talk about them in a sequence. One of the dhyana mantras of Lalita Devi is “the four armed one who is the form of the Nityas – Candra Kalas – the kalas of the moon.” She is the form of the kalas of the moon and since the moon is always changing you can’t describe it statically. The cycle continues and on our spiritual path we can observe where we get stuck in one part of the sequence. As you reflect on this sequence where are you currently stuck? What brings you back to Kameshvari? What helps you keep moving towards the single-pointed focus of Sivaduti so you can experience swift results of Tvarita and keep progressing you towards knowing everything in your experience as samarasa?
Image: Art by Dr. Kavitha Chinnaiyan