Navaratri Fall 2026 - Night 2: It's All Her

Tonight is the second night of the sacred observance of Navratri.

All over the world, people are engaged in Shakti Upasana.

So many ways.

[coughs] What is really common is the love and devotion to that supreme presence.

And that love and devotion is expressed in so many different ways.

"Bhave vidyate deva," that divine, that mother, is hungry for our bhava.

She doesn't take anything.

She doesn't need anything.

She is very fond of our bhava.

Bhava means inner disposition, inner sentiment.

How I feel, think, about the mother.

When I empty my mind and think about her, is there a little smile that happens in my heart? [coughs] Does my whole being open like a flower? Can I feel her in the breath that's coming in and expanding me, opening me up? She's not out there.

She's closer than we can imagine.

She is visiting us with each breath.

She is that breath itself.

She is the breath.

She is the one that's expanding.

She is the one that's feeling, observing, witnessing.

"Ya devi sarva bhutesu buddhi rupena sansthita." She resides in every little being, every living being, in the form of that buddhi, the intellect, the intelligence.

So we think, "I am thinking.

I am doing." The truth is, it is all her doing.

Without her, we cannot even open and close our eyes.

Shakti, she resides in every living being in the form of that ability, that capacity, that energy.

So where does this "I" come in the middle? I am doing.

And this whole Navratri is really about coming close to the mother, so close to her that there is no separation.