Sense of Soul - Roar like a Goddess

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Oh my Goddess! Today on Sense of Soul Podcast we have author Acharya Shunya, she is a trailblazing Vedic spiritual teacher and author of the new bestseller, Roar Like a Goddess. Acharya Shunya is the first female head of her 2,000-year-old Indian spiritual lineage, Shunya reinterprets and recontextualizes ancient teachings for modern times, empowering people everywhere to lead fearless, fulfilled and enlightened lives. Her newest best seller, Roar Like a Goddess, is a revolutionary revisioning of ancient India’s primary goddess archetypes, is a rallying cry for women everywhere to awaken their true nature. Throughout her book, Shunya honors her progressive Vedic/Hindu roots while breaking the shackles of tradition to bring modern-day women an inclusive, feminist spirituality.   Sharing classic myths, original insights, and empowering practices, Shunya offers a profound process for awakening the many faces of goddess within.  Learn more and purchase her book Check out her Shadow to Self Podcast. https://www.acharyashunya.com https://www.awakenedself.com Follow her journey  IG: @acharyashunya  Visit Sense of Soul at www.mysenseofsoul.com Do you want Ad Free episodes? Join our Sense of Soul Patreon, our community of seekers and lightworkers. Also recieve 50% off of Shanna’s Soul Immersion experience as a Patreon member, monthly Sacred circles, Shanna and Mande’s personal mini series, Sense of Soul merch and more. https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul Thanks to our Sponsors KACHAVA: www.kachava.com/senseofsoul ATHLETIC GREENS: https:// athleticgreens.com/senseofsoul

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Check out our Patreon. Today we have with us Acharya Shunya. She is a truth teller and a trailblazing spiritual teacher who facilitates online courses, workshops, retreats, all to help those awaken their goddess within. She has empowered, educated, and inspired a worldwide community of students where she unpacks Vedic wisdom and ancient teachings for modern times, empowering people everywhere to lead fearless, fulfilled, and enlightened lives. And she is also the host of the podcast, Shadow to Self. She's here to share with us her latest bestselling book, Roar Like a Goddess. And we can't wait to talk all about this. Welcome on Sense of Souls. Should we call you Acharya or Shunya? You can call me Shunya and Acharya,

like a cheer, like in channel. Acharya is my title, but I love being just called by my name Shunya, which means infinity, by the way, in Sanskrit. Oh, I love that. Your name means infinity. Tell me about that. Was that something that your parents

specifically picked out for you? Yeah, my grandfather, this is my spiritual name, like I went through a ceremony and I was initiated into a life of spiritual quest and bold roaring like a goddess. Oh my gosh, I love that. So tell us a little bit about your grandfather then. So my grandfather was a great renowned spiritual teacher in India. I come from an ancient lineage. It traces its roots to 2000 years in India. And you know, it sounds like a lot, but in India, we go back several thousand years. It's not such a big deal because we are an ancient culture. And

I'm the first female head of this lineage and wrote this new book, Roar Like a Goddess, which is this feminist book from my tradition. My tradition is known as the Vedic tradition. And I'm established in California and I have students worldwide. You know, we teach through streaming technology and retreats and all of that stuff. Yeah. We were so excited to have you. I was reading up on your podcast and way to go. You guys are really popular and you've been friends forever doing amazing things. Yes, we have.

We were excited to have you on for so many different reasons. The goddess Sophia has been speaking to Shanna for this entire last year. And so when you came across our email, we were super excited to learn about other goddesses. Yeah. And to learn that we're not the only ones that are kind of feeling like the age of Aquarius and women's voices are on the rise. And it feels like the goddess is coming out of those exclusive, rare, occasional women gatherings and moon circles into the mainstream. Yes. It really feels that. and the goddess is a motif like the woman's coming out and god's also coming out in the full feminine colors so

yes i mean i want to get down to what you were saying how you are the first woman in the lineage which would be where you're at. And that is so powerful. And you're finding that I know even for myself, I would say I am the first woman in my lineage to step out of old patterns and trauma from those before. And it's very powerful. I feel the healing that the women before me needed. And they like reached through the lineage to grab me to do that for them and for the future. How did you come into this? I was born into it. I'm grateful that the immediate men spiritual leaders who preceded me, my grandfather, great-grandfather, my father, they were progressive beings or they were being readied by the Divine Mother so they could receive me. I'm saying it with humbleness as well as I see that I have some work to do in this world.

And so I don't want to be overly humble either as we are conditioned to do. And I want to say like, you know, circumstances were being prepared on earth so I could be received and still, despite a somewhat progressive raising and being enabled to be a leader, I still had my first marriage encounter and I walked into, once I left my home,

I walked into patriarchy. And then even when I left my country, I thought, oh, now I'm going to be relaxing. Well, I met more patriarchy in just different forms. And that's why I wrote this book. And that's why I want to call a spade a spade. And typically when men lead any institution, be it the church or the Vedic Hindu tradition or the Buddhist tradition, they insist upon celibacy and holiness because that's their big achievement. Look at me, I didn't shoot my sperm here and there,

so I must be holy which is like for women for us childbearing is holy for us breastfeeding is holy and so my emphasis in the lineage is now on a wholeness more than holiness and i wanted I want that to be a driving point for human spirituality, not just my teaching. So I talk about it. Yeah. Do you think that if you were still living in India, you would have been able to step into your goddess the way you were able to here in the United States? So India is also very has different cultural climates or echo planes and plateaus and so there is a lot of goddess movement and feminist Durga Shakti movement happening in India too and, the tradition itself, the scripture is more progressive than the people. The Vedic tradition says that women are goddesses. I don't have to reclaim it.

I have to point to the scripture. So probably yes, but probably it would not be as quick because I would keep getting pulled into wanting permission or some kind of approval. It's just like, you know, for women like you too, it's easier to be the person outside the family. But when you go back to the family, you get pulled into this conditioning, yeah? So I feel like maybe it's a little easier to be outside, but also the book is not just about India.

Now it's about people worldwide. And it's about the different ways diminishing beliefs show up in feudal or modern contemporary or traditional societies. and we owe ourselves better so when you say you don't have to claim it you just had to point to it what scripture are you talking about we're talking about the actual Vedas themselves you know India is known for its religions Hinduism Buddhism Sikhism Jainism But before any of these religions came to be in India, there was this universal, progressive, gender-neutral tradition known as the Vedic

tradition. And its teachings are known as the Veda. And the Veda, and I've quoted that in my book, talks about, hey, woman, are you leading the military or not? Or, hey, woman, drive the ship to safety. Or, oh, wise woman, keep moving forward like a river moves forward, breaking all boulders on the way. Show us the way. So these are some quotes from a scripture, 10,000 years old. And what more significance to its progressive nature than the fact that this is the only spiritual holy scripture known to humanity, which is not just being written by male seers, but 27 female seers have also composed it. So it came from a time that clearly on earth, India was buzzing with spirituality and truth and oneness. That's why it gave the world teachings like yoga and read the Vedas. But my grandfather said, what humbug?

Women have written the Vedas. Now they can't be taught the Veda. So he taught me to be a proud carrier of the Veda. And I and my other female children, we were taught. And then I was chosen among many to be the leader at a time when I didn't even fully comprehend that I would be you know having this conversation with you one day in 2022. the men in my family and and my grandfather probably even my dad they'd be like you don't need to worry about reading you need to go in the kitchen and learn how to cook. That's what they were saying. I mean, literally.

Yeah. So, I mean, and I also see, and I've seen this in every culture that there is a similarity that occurred where women were a power at one point and did right and and were priests, and were honored. And these things were hidden or destroyed. And there was this quiet of women. And then now they're rising again. And you are finding even in Christian scriptures, like the Gnostic Gospels, you're finding that women were honored. And so now we're able to actually connect with the way it was from the beginning. And we're making an attempt to we're pointing to the original teachings. For example, even in Christianity, we're talking about the women who are so close to God, to Jesus, they had full access. And because God doesn't make those differentiation so at what time did humanity fall asleep and it was important to

bring up the manning and bring down the womaning and then people of mixed genders had no room or no place somehow we need to like shake ourselves up from this slumber and i wrote this book i mean the cover says for women because I did want to have a conversation with my sisters and feminine gender identified beings. But then onwards, in every page, I really do refer to all genders, because patriarchy also does a number on men and male psyche, and forces them to be different than their true nature because the divine feminine is in each one of us and yet we have to lead these artificial false versions of what it means to be a man a woman and and i wanted us to all just breathe and come into our true power.

And I wanted to have conversations on how we women seem to value love. And yet what we should be really valuing is self-respect, because that's the foundation of self-love. stories of these goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati who interestingly also seem to face some slighting or some disrespect or some danger you know how we feel unsafe on this planet but how do they contend with it do they do they become silent like we are applauded to be silent? Do they become stoic? Do they suffer? Do they sacrifice beyond need? Do they become generous to the point of being rescuing and codependent? No.

They roar with clarity, with power, with courage, with straightforwardness. And then with inner self-respect and self-esteem and self-assurance and with self-recognition and self-celebration. So I wanted to juxtapose that goddess behavior with what's happening now in our life. Earlier, you said something that really just like struck me. How do you stay humble, but at the same time roar? I stay humble because I know that my light is also a gift of the goddess. My ego is in relationship with a greater factor. And this is the spiritual journey that makes me humble. I don't feel like it's human ego that becomes so bloated just with science alone, you know, where the man has become the God and we are playing havoc on the

environment. I stay humble because I know everything is a gift, but I have pride because I know that I'm flowing those gifts with dharma, with ethics, with intelligence, with wisdom. So there are two kinds of pride that are explained in the Vedic tradition. The false egoic pride and the worthy pride that one can have. And I'm experiencing more and more of that worthy pride. Yeah. When I really truly was able to embrace the divine feminine and there was a specific moment I had with the moon and the sun both outside, I didn't have to turn my head. And I sat in the middle and I had this moment of clarity that one could not exist without the other and nothing would be created without one or the other.

And as I received that, this white dove came over my head. I mean, it was, I have goosebumps telling you this, but what happened to me is that I didn't hate men. In fact, I love them more. And I think people think as soon as they hear like a book like yours, they think of another woman hater. No, in fact, it was the opposite. I saw the balance that was needed. And just that's what I wanted to implant into the world. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

I think that hating men, i think that phase is over i think it was a quick response to let's blame someone out there for how we are abandoning ourselves if we have to hate anything we have to hate our own ignorance. And when we wake up, we liberate not just ourselves, but men too, from these false silos of expectations and behaviors. There's another kind of distinguishing between people that I have provided from Vedic mythology, and it offers two kinds of people, the light bearers and the darkness bearers. And this is not a typology based on gender, race, color. This is based on do you have light?

As in these are the people in your life who got your back, who might say something harsh to you, but it's truthful to you. They're going to be there. They won't let you down. And you have those light bearing thoughts too, that give you the courage to get up and be a better version of yourself. And then there are darkness bearing people who are stabbing you in the back, who are pretending to be your friends,

but pulling you down. And they can be of any gender. And we have as goddesses, modern day goddesses, or goddess bearing children of the goddess, we have to learn to discern between who got light and who is still wrestling with their own darkness. And that way we don't have to choose between genders, but we can be wise in who we befriend, who we keep close to us. So there is some deep wisdom, 10,000 year old wisdom in the book that ultimately leads to self-compassion and understanding to be a bit smart around that

compassion and not be sucked dry just because you're a compassionate person. So others are taking advantage of you. You're so good with words. Wow. When you came across our email, I have to be honest, I had never heard of the Vedas. Is this something that has been hidden? Is this something that is more common in your culture? Like where has it been? So thank you for that honesty. It allows me to talk about the Veda.

You've heard about yoga, right? And the yoga is coming from the Veda. So the Veda is the fountainhead. So people like learned about yoga, but forgot to acknowledge or minimally acknowledge the tradition from which it comes from. Similarly, you may have heard about Ayurveda, the system of health. Again, Ayurveda even has veda in it it is the medicine that comes from there similarly people talk about non-duality advaita and we have famous teachers they are teaching that but not necessarily they choose to not do that but one is so busy teaching that sometimes one doesn't go back in time to give credit to the tradition i am one of those rare traditional teachers who not only teaches yoga and ayurveda and advaitha and all that non-duality and the meditation and all of that i'm also

eloquent with this language english to be able to then go back and say, wait, and did we thank the original source text? Because there is all this movement around appropriation or misappropriation by the Westerners of Eastern culture. When I look at that, I think, you know what, maybe we also need to do a better PR job and inform people of what is, what is, what is our, what are our resources? What are, what do we need to be acknowledged? And that's why in any book I write, this is my third book. Whenever I teach something or claim something, I always give a reference to the original Vedic texts or the Vedic tradition or the yogic texts, because I feel like if I can inform the world, somewhere I am helping preserve an ancient tradition that was so universal that 10,000 years ago, we find teachings like, and I'm going to just say a bunch of words

that will sound strange but I'm speaking in Sanskrit but it says but look at the sentiment the Vedas says 10,000 years ago the world is one family how sorely we need this today this center can you say that again vasu vasu means earth vasudeva kutumba means family kutumbakam the world is one family this is a teaching from the veda there is another one i want to say it, you know how religions fight with each other? And so it says, Ekam Sat Vipraha Bahudha Vadanti. Sat means truth and Ekam means one. So the way that's saying,

really there is only one truth of God or Goddess or consciousness. It is fine. The pundits of different culture call it by different names. Some call it Mother Mary, some say Durga, some say Jesus, some say Zarathustra. It doesn't matter. It's really that one truth. Look at this beautiful sentiment. And that's why you've not heard of it, but I plan to stick around on this planet for a few more decades so you you might be giving a whole podcast on the Veda soon we had J Dev sing on and I love his wife's music

in fact it is those chants and those mantras that really broke me open to begin with that vibration and that and I didn't even know what I was you know listening to I didn't know the meaning but yet my soul remembered it and so a lot of this whole journey that I've been on I've been tricked but my soul knew maybe my conscious mind didn't but it was higher than I well it is said like you know you've heard about the law of karma, which comes from the Vedas. And so words like karma, you know, nirvana, moksha, mukti, liberation, these are all Sanskrit words that come from the Veda. In fact, I have a friend, Philip Goldberg, he has written a book called the American Veda, where he talks about this whole spiritual revolution that has happened in America with the Beatles and even prior to that with Thoreau and all of that, who was studying the Vedic texts like the fountainhead of this more, the Aquarius age, the more open, progressive, inclusive spirituality that does not shun religion, but it takes us to another level.

Wow. Yes. And that's the thing. So you're honoring the root, which I love. I feel even with like something like Reiki why is it powerful because there's so many things behind it and I think that if you can connect with the root of things then it's so much more powerful yes yes and I had an opportunity I had an opportunity to just take the tools and become popular because of the tools only which is one way and help people the other was i wanted the tools to be connected to the roots as you said and i have still achieved what i wanted to achieve and people like you are thanking me from all over the world to say well thank you for taking us to the root because then people can explore on their own too

you know some of these texts and traditions that i talk about in my books can you talk about a couple of the veda goddesses well there are many goddesses sometimes people think that in india what is their polytheism like too many gods and goddesses. But actually, there was this one truth of pure consciousness. And it was hard to leave out what does not have God in it. So you have animal gods and goddesses, plant gods and goddesses, humanoid gods and goddesses. So we have these feminine goddesses, Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati and I talk about them. The first part is dedicated to Goddess Durga and her archetype and its relevance for us modern people. And Goddess Durga represents sheer power. I love it that power itself is seen as feminine in the Vedic tradition.

And that comes with understanding of like, you know, true power, if it's feminine, would then be collaborative, would be nurturing, and would not be usurping another's power for sure. But it's electric. I have a chapter called raging is a goddess thing to do and she's often shown going into a rage to correct the wrongs that are done at a cosmic level and then she and through her i talk about three kinds of anger one is the unconscious anger just just comes from foolish entitlement like it's too hard and we're angry with the sun you know and that just makes us bitter so we want to eschew that but then i do talk about conscious anger which durga embodies because it because anger is a divine emotion and it tells us of our boundary violation, physical, emotional,

sexual, social, spiritual. It tells us that something needs our urgent attention, like we may get angry with ourselves for not exercising or we may get angry with a neighbor who just walks in without announcing. Either way, we need some correctional behavior here but women and people of non-binary genders have historic and people of color you know sections of society have been told your anger is dangerous if you're angry you're a hag nag witch bitch in the wrong sense of which can be a compliment but no it's in the wrong sense. Women have been punished, been realized, burned at the stake for being angry. And I wanted women to get in touch with their anger because without anger, we are neither safe from, you know, others,

and nor are we safe from our own false addictions, habits, and behaviors. But what have we done? We've severed that artery that connects us to our rage. So I wanted us to once again embody our conscious rage. And ever since I did that, I tell you, I became a force to reckon with. Because for many years, for like maybe a decade or so of when my first marriage fell apart, I tried to, you know, bypass my anger and convert it into something peaceful and beautiful. But it was false.

Anger was more beautiful and it was the path to true peace, nothing else. And I had to feel it, experience it, express it and make changes because I was guided by it. And that's what led me to who I am. And thirdly, Durga shows superconscious anger, which is where it's not personal, but you feel angry for something like for the collective. And I feel like my book, Roar Like a Goddess, has arisen from that

because I lead a pretty privileged and happy life right now. But it's not from an immediate issue that I'm writing this book, but it's like, hey, enough already. Everybody deserves space on their mother planet to be safe and happy and trusted and respected. I mean, that made me want to roar my entire life. I somehow had this narrative that anger made me a horrible person because I struggled with anger as a child. One of my therapists explained to me that anger is a divine emotion and it was just about how I use the anger. And yeah, and so I so appreciate that this was in such a ancient, beautiful text and goddess to explain that because I have never heard that before. And I truly had self hate because of my anger. Was there a time where they used that anger against this goddess? See, this is the beauty that the goddess was never punished for being the goddess. That's why there is still a tradition intact.

I'm not talking about the society. I'm talking about the tradition itself is really respectful of the woman and the goddess. Do you know we even have a god that is half male and half female in India? Yeah. You know, I wanted to tell you, I did have an experience at the beginning of my Sophia journey. I had all of these goddesses coming towards me that I'd never heard of. I went on this long thing with goddess Bridget. But prior to her, I had a goddess Tara come in and I was like who Tara Tara what is this and I had no idea who she was so I looked her up and she also which was very interesting was known as a goddess of wisdom but then quickly other goddesses were coming in and they're like

it doesn't matter which one we're all the. We all are the personification of the divine feminine. One, I'm so wowed that the goddesses are coming to you. I hope I can maneuver a private session with you just to sit down with you. I would love that. And feel the blessings of the goddesses through you. So one, how grateful i am for that number two it's interesting because sophia tara and saraswati the goddess in this book in the part three of this book they are all the same they represent wisdom the birth of intuition the great feminine knowing and the ability to know so much your true whole essence

that you can heal from trauma that you can heal from woundedness and brokenness and so Saraswati is a goddess among the three goddesses that are the chief goddesses in my book who is described as sitting on a white lotus and she's wearing white and she is playing a veena or a lute and she's lost in it because that white here represents like withdrawal from the world whereas Durga is in the world she wears red a lot you know she's in it and she's dealing with it and she's she has passion saraswati represents this more inwardness to connect with the inner mystic the inner goddess the inner voice and that musical instrument that she's playing is like when all the shooters would have could have of the society calm down, that is when we hear our inner soul music. And it's fascinating that Sophia came to you, Tara came to you. So if you were to start reading the book from Saraswati section, things would become so clear to you. You know, this morning, I didn't know I'm going

to be meeting you. I mean, I knew I'm meeting you too, like I'd seen your biography and my publicist told me great things about you guys, but I didn't know I'd be having such a personal conversation about Tara and Sophia and Saraswati. And you know that stage of time when your eyes are not open, but you're kind of waking up in the morning. I started hearing Saraswati mantras in my head and i'm like wait you know it's time to wake up and yet i want to just listen to it inside me and

here we are talking about this goddess so this goddess represents deep healing and i do talk about my trauma ladies i even talk about patriarchy induced trauma which is a recognized condition and in our dna we are carrying the screams of millions of women across countries nations cultures who have been made second or who have suffered or who have been tragically humiliated or even killed on this planet that's still growing up, where the consciousness has not evolved for everybody to be safe. And from that perspective, I felt like Saraswati was a beautiful balm to me. And so in the Saraswati section of my book, readers will find a lot of peacefulness to just meet that goddess within. And I believe power is knowledge and is wisdom.

So when I heard you speak about the first goddess, the different aspects of this power, this trio, which is always, there's always that triple power. So the first one was the power of passion and rage and courage yeah and so in the last one wisdom she can't use her her instrument this divine energy she can't use it without wisdom so beautifully said and then the final goddess is Lakshmi and I wonder if you guys have seen her poster image. She's very popular worldwide, but she's the goddess of abundance and wealth and prosperity. And she is also the goddess of sensuality and sexuality. So everything material. So if Durga, the first goddess through her courage and strength makes us safe, and the final goddess makes us intuitive and wise, then this goddess Lakshmi makes us playful, and joyful, and abundant. And just, you know, not just like worried about survival, but blossoming into higher consciousness and a greater generosity.

And these three goddesses teach us modern women lessons on how to channel courage. Lakshmi teaches us how to be unapologetically abundant and be okay with wealth, with materialism, with beauty, with sexuality, because we've been taught to kind of prove a point around being skittish around it. And finally, the Saraswati goddess takes us into our innermost journey. And this is what roaring is about. One roars with courage, the other roars with pleasure, and the final, the Tara Saraswati Sophia goddess roars with peace because it comes from knowledge, as you say. Wow, triple goddess right there. These goddesses, do they have consorts? They do. They have beautiful, harmonious relationships with their divine masculine consorts and Durga is paired

with Shiva a Yogi God Lakshmi is paired with Vishnu the God who is maintaining harmony in the universe and Saraswati is paired with Brahma the Creator God but I don't like go on and on about their concerts though because i wanted to focus on the goddesses but yeah they're in the background there last night all night i dreamt about just the simple word nirvana but it was broken into nur and then vana and it was almost like the ying and the yang like the man is the nur the woman is the vana i don't know but this was my dream last night this is so amazing because in sanskrit these are two words there and vana you women i don't know what's happening with you guys but you're you guys want to hear what i dreamt of last night oh yes please i literally it was the craziest dream i think i've ever had i've had a lot of crazy dreams. I'm a dreamer. The last night in my dream, this circle appears and inside of it looks like

this grid. Okay. And the grid is forming into this like sacred geometry and there's colors. And then I felt that I should go ahead and jump into it and I kind of did and something woke me up around that time and I don't think it actually went anywhere that's very interesting because I too woke up this morning from my dream and for some reason when I was just sitting with you and your name knowing you were coming on at best I was seeing a grid as well. I don't know. I think this conversation is also lending strength to the fact that there is more to what is visible and then the invisible realm to which mythology is connected of all cultures connected to that eternal invisible realm that's happening all the time in the present too and and you just need that symbolic language and understanding to

grasp wisdom from it and i think what's happening with you guys what happened with me in the morning and it happens all the time these things it's just i think it's beautiful i have a saying that's kind of slangy and fun which i say to my students who study from me divine feminine truths and roaring workshops and i say gg you god has got you she got your back you know it maybe like you can interpret what's happening, but something is happening. That's for the better. Yeah, it hasn't stopped for me. I think that's one thing about women, right?

So these goddesses are persistent as shit. Let me tell you, they are persistently like hear me roar. So that's why when I read the cover of your book and just the title I was like oh yeah that's definitely the energy I get from the goddesses oh you hear them and feel them feel them until you become a true teller like them yeah I thought I was a true teller a long time ago but you know even that quality of the truth, it's not just the truth of you speaking to others, but it's the truth of what you're speaking to yourself. Like no self deception here. Let me ask you, because when I first started, so I have

a whole other podcast about Sophia, the beginning of it, I literally say how I never even thought of the idea of a goddess. I thought there was fairy tales and princesses because I am from a Catholic background. And how silly is that to think that we wouldn't have both a mother God and a father God, you know, the conditions that we have, especially over here in America, I really have obviously embraced the goddess, but yet other people have, I can see their doubt or I can sense that it's so hard for them to wrap their head around that. What would you say to someone who was kind of like when I was, you know, over a year ago, just newbie to receiving this energy of a goddess. Well, bodies are containers of a greater spirit consciousness.

We all know that there is an earthworm body, a bacteria body, a rabbit body, a deer body, a human body. And then there is a god goddess body. To think that evolution ends with us is ignorance again and there are angelic beings and there are higher than angelic beings gods and goddesses and god and when i describe god i'm talking about i want to break up the word G-O-D into the great omniscient dimension, the great universe, the great intelligence. And so to have a body called Durga or Lakshmi or Saraswati or Sophia to contain powers that we can't even imagine. Because if you look at you have a cat or dog, you're like God to them because you have powers. They don't. Andia has powers but collectively all

of us don't and to deny her is our you know human mind is the only mind that has a choice to deny something or to accept something but you can keep doing your part as i will keep doing my part to share the wisdom because then people come into the knowing gradually. There has been a great forgetting. There used to be a remembering and a connection. Pre-religion days, we were all living in more matrilineal and also more naturalistic societies. And then we decided to fight our gods, but really that great gods are all connected. So if you ask me that Sophia is an existence, Durga is there, and I have seen it personally where our human body and mind live in the material three-space dimension but then as we contemplate more and more on that

other dimensions gradually our sleeping faculties open up what you're experiencing for one year now you didn't experience until 10 years ago we had told you that you will go through this you would have said what nonsense is that and And here it is. This is your reality. Similarly for me, last year, I was working on an academic book on Vedic psychology. I was almost complete. And that's not a time we started writing a Vedic feminist book on goddesses. But I felt like this calling, which was beyond me, my hands froze froze i couldn't do anything but start a new page on my laptop and i finished this book in four months and my publishers it sounds true loved it and so much is happening because of this book there is even a consideration of releasing a

children's grade version comic book on the goddesses as superwoman so yeah and you know I felt like this calling like that I became an instrument for a greater body that is invisible but she's there let me also say how I never searched for Sophia she searched for me the first time I heard of her name I didn't hear it right in fact it was a guest who who teaches the pistis Sophia but I was hearing the priestess of fear and so I kept on looking for the priestess of fear I don't know what kind of book she's talking about but she has an accent from English and I love you Bridget Binclair. And I was like, well, who the hell is a priestess of fear? And eventually I discovered her because of another book

and I happened to see Pista Sophia and then I was like, wait a minute. And it was only through the actual gospels that I'd never read in my life and through my dreams and through amazing, amazing synchronicity constantly that I learned who she was. And when I hear other people speak of her, I'm like, I don't know where they got that

information. Sometimes I'm like, it's not my truth, but I can't say that that's not theirs. But it's interesting the way I've received it. It's not through me studying her or seeking her. So using my discernment and trusting in my witness of Surya. Similarly, in this book, we have a whole tradition that claims to have a relationship, a whole nation that has a relationship with Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. But what I have written in this book is, has emerged from my multiple decades of relationship with these goddesses and how they transformed me and my students from being more bound people into being boundless people, boundless personalities.

So it's my truth and a truth that feels connected to the tradition and yet it is singularly mine. So tell me a little bit about the podcast Shadow to Self. The Shadow to Self podcast emerged, I think it was in 2020. And I'm happy that it's it's in the top 2.5% percentile right now, amongst all the many hundreds of thousands of podcasts it's well received because i think my podcast touches the journey that a lot of us are doing and we do encounter the shadow and sadly sometimes we even settle for the shadow but it's important to keep going on and to not be afraid of the shadow in our spiritual journey, but then to milk it, so to say, and learn from our own darkness and pain,

something that the three of us have already been talking about. And so in Shadow to Self, I continue twice a month talking about, you know, my adventures with the goddess of its yoga or Ayurveda and spirituality. And it's been a riot, really, to be able to have those deeper conversations. Yeah. Can I ask you, I just lately have been open to hearing new stories of creations and what many of us here in the West have been told. Are the goddesses a part of that creation or was it just a male source? Oh no, oh no. The Divine Mother is said to be the mother of this cosmos. Her womb is from which the cosmos has emerged. In fact, there is one goddess who is not in the book, though I talk about her in my other teachings,

but she's in my next book. But there is one version of the goddess where she laughs and from her laughter, the world comes about. So in the Gnostic myth, it is Sophia laughs and the sun is birthed. It's beautiful, just beautiful just beautiful in the bible there's just like a few sentences at the beginning and that's what we've gone off of and I also feel that when we are laughing when we are relaxed I think that is also when we are giving birth to a

new possibility in our life and so I connected laughter with Genesis. So I connect laughter with creativity in my teachings. And my teachings have moved from being like this, overly intense to a more relaxed, smell the roses along the way, enjoy with friends and family and contemplate on that divine truth in your heart so that there is joy and from that joy we can recreate ourselves so that's been a theme

that has explored and roar like a goddess also so which goddess does laughing fall under the middle actually the goddess who is all about joy and playfulness but you know you can't say that durga doesn't laugh she's not angry all the time she's only shown to bear weapons against wrongdoers and wrongdoings but otherwise she's often seen she rides a lion and she's often seen just frolicking with the lion or playing with his hair and she's a divine mother of compassion so this is the beauty of the older traditions where we don't have such hard and fast typologies but they're all really embodying all the colors of an emboldened and liberated womanhood.

You know what, Lynn laughing is so powerful. The other day, I shared, you know, this was so funny. It was raining and my son's room in the basement was starting to get water in it. So my daughter, my oldest daughter, who is 23, we went outside and we're putting buckets and stuff under this, you know, water that's dripping down to catch it. And my daughter steps in the hole of the sprinkler system. And she just goes down.

And instead of me helping her, I'm laughing so hard. We both peed in our pants laughing so hard. But it's an energy that your body, your soul, like every bit of you feels that laugh it is such a powerful thing did we forget to laugh like we were so stressed we're so and we're watching our phones all the time or we're like just so consumed with news and news is always morbid and that's why we have to cultivate this lifestyle of more joy more laughter and I'm glad that I mean I'm not surprised that you laughed a lot of people would be like come on we'll be telling your daughter what's your name stepping because we have this tendency to be so safe all the time.

It feels releasing. And, you know, there is a book that someone had wrote about how he watched a funny movie like every single day and he cured himself from cancer. So that just shows you how the vibration of laughing can be so very healing. Oh, that's a beautiful. Oh, I'm going to look that up. Who's that person? If someone was a student of yours, what does that look like? And what's the ultimate

goal? Is it to stand in their truth to stand in their goddess to be able to roar humbly? I think the ultimate goal of all my roaring teachings is wisdom, to know when to roar with righteous rage, when to roar with peace. There's that discernment, fine tuning. So for example, I teach workshops on roaring relationships. how do you navigate the world of relationships with goddess wisdom how do you know when should you become a durga goddess and not put up with violation of your respect like when should you not be willing to negotiate around your respect and that it's fundamental. When do you channel Lakshmi and really give yourself the permission to enjoy your family life, your friends, your parties, your barbecues

and have the right attitudes in your work life so that if money is coming your way, you don't have the wrong kind of attitudes to push it away or think that you deserve less and settle for less. Similarly, from a relationship perspective, Saraswati is important because she has to do with wisdom has everything to do with relationship with your own self. How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as a lost case or as a superior one, which will cause the wrong kind of pride or do you see yourself

as a work in process and how can you carry all parts yourself how can you bring radical acceptance to yourself so in short when i teach roaring relationships or i teach roaring abundance or i teach roaring health even i'm bringing the divine feminine wisdom into our daily life. I'm trying to make it easy to interpret and understand. We unpack the mythology. Here is what Durga did when she faced this situation. Maybe it's interesting that in one of her mythologies, Durga was sexually objectified but she didn't just say me too which is fine it's a start she was unabusable because of what she spoke and what she did which is mentioned in this book and the start she took that she couldn't be violated and so

these learnings are really important and if we learn about the sun, we'll be willing to hold up a lamp. But if we only think about a torch, then we can maybe hold up a battery. Like, it's like you need to learn more, more about the ultimate drawing of the goddess so that as a woman, you can be a confident, empowered and discerning person, a more whole person.

And I'm not just teaching this to women from my country, because I have lived now in the United States longer than I have lived in India. And I have students from every part of the world, and I found the same challenges of abandoning ourselves, of doubting ourselves, of retreating more than necessary, of fading away, of settling for less, of sacrificing for unworthy people and reasons, of being generous when we need not be generous, when others were not showing their generosity. And I noticed that it's across the board. And then I realized that, gosh, these beliefs are in the air we breathe. And that's why I wrote this book. And that's what I want for my students. They're going to walk away more empowered and smarter. I would say that. This whole time, I keep going back to

like birthing a child. You know, I wish I was more mindful and more relaxed in that creation. Another condition, you know, women go into giving birth, like, oh, we're going to be in pain. It's going to be miserable. I don't know why it's coming to my mind right now. I just, I sometimes so wish that I could go back and rebirth my children in that state of presence. I think me too, because despite all my knowingness, I was not mature enough to bring that then. But I've used my roaring wisdom to turn around the relationship with my child who in teenage had pulled away as they do. And there was some distance that had erupted between us.

But because I'm a roaring goddess woman, I could use that wisdom to rebirth a new relationship and to allow him to see me and to see him. And so now I have had a new childbirth and I have a new child to raise with this wisdom. I think we keep getting opportunities, maybe not in the same way, but in a different way. I got to get married again and I enjoy a roaring, equal, happy, communicative, progressive relationship. So

we got to do it again, I think. I think that sometimes when I think of like roaring, I think that men find roaring women very intimidating. It scares them. It's like some women I think are afraid to step into the roaring in fear that maybe they'll be misunderstood. Yeah. And there is a tendency to keep the lid on something uncomfortable because our roaring, because our power makes the people who are conventionally holding the power, they're intimidated. It's not that they're just intimidated by one, that woman that you are there is a whole system that gets rocked when one woman roars and there will always be those women who choose to suppress their roar or hide their horror and that's why if i may read just a paragraph from my book i just begin the book with exactly this same point. So may I? Yes.

Because that would be a great response. And it goes like this. This is the preface. The authority and dominance associated with the act of roaring are not typically associated with the human female on our patriarchy rural planet today. Vocal expressions generally attributed to womankind generally fall into several categories. First, there are the submissive and melodious, sing-song, wispy, out-of-breath, cute-as-hell, daddy's little princess voices.

Next are the always questioning, never decisive voices, placating and overly persuasive, begging and imploring, can you help me? I'm a damsel in distress. Then there are the nagging and whiny voices. And how dare women enter male territory? Because then we are called the shrill, stride and bossy and bitchy voices. And last but not least, there are the come hither, foxy, sexy, siren voices. Of course, these voices are not the real, fundamental representation of womankind.

They have emerged from the internalization of a cluster of self-lessening beliefs collectively known as patriarchy. And then I go on to connect us women's real voice to a roar because the roar is a real authoritative voice you know it sources its authority from within and when the roar is heard in the jungle people know that okay who that is who is roaring who is speaking similarly in the human jungle when we will roar with pleasure or peace or when

we ask for a raise or tell our mom-in-law, no, that's not okay to give our child extra candy or ask for more sex or ask for more space, we'll be listened to and respected without needing to yell or scream or act out or, I'm going to just say it, open our legs to get what we want. And that's why I want to write to these very women who are intimidated by the thought of intimidating others. And I hope through the agency of this podcast, and by you asking this very valuable question, women will not hesitate in discovering their power. I love that. And so powerful that you use the lioness because a lion does not foolishly roar before it pauses, it's very strategic, you know, and uses all three of that daughter's energy

to move forward. Wow, that's very, that's yes. And you can call on that. That's the one thing I learned throughout this journey, is that if you are feeling depressed or something, call on that energy of playfulness. And if you are feeling like you don't know which direction, call on the wisdom. If you need to ground yourself in that goddess, you know, that's in the earth and connect with her, we have these energies available. Absolutely. The archetypes help create an image, a story. We may forget all the notes we write to ourselves, but we don't forget a story. We don't forget an archetype, a name. And I can give my own example.

I had a lot of passion and courage, and I had a lot of introversion and wisdom. What I didn't have was enough playfulness, and I wouldn't mind a little more abundance, material abundance. So I started calling upon Lakshmi, remembering her stories, remembering her inner permissions. And I'll tell you guys, I started changing. I've had way more luncheons and soirees in my backyard than before ever. I have laughed so much. I have been receiving maybe gifts

that I may not wear or keep and I move them on. But like the energy is moving of beautiful things, a basket of fruit, a beautiful scarf just coming my way. It's like, hey hey mother Lakshmi and now my way to become so abundant that which I've always done I'm gonna be sharing more and more because I care because that's a Lakshmi energy so it's like I brought her into my life and my life feels more balanced because of it. I am so excited about this episode.

Like I'm sitting here just thinking, I can't wait to release this. Because women need to come together. This sisterhood, this conversation between three goddesses right here and your raw honesty and not afraid to say things like and open your legs i mean unfortunately that is the conditions that we women have grown up with it's the conversations that need to be had so that we can raise a generation of roaring goddesses and as spiritual teacher, if I was just carved in stone from my tradition, I would never write this book, never talk about this, never say these words. Yeah. But as a goddess woman representative of my tradition, oh yeah, we're going to call it out.

We're going to say it because unless we say it, we don't change it. We don't own it. We don't accept what's okay and not okay. And I'm ready. I'm ready to keep roaring. And I've started, I'm not going to stop. And thank you for being great company for that. You know, I can't help but think about when my mom would go to these tea shops in India where these women had had acid thrown on their faces for disrespecting their

husbands in some way. And she told me that it impacted her life so much because these women were basically told that they could no longer be part of their families and they had to leave, not only with the scars of this acid being thrown on them, but to go try to find a living. And so in my mind, I always thought about women in India being suppressed. And that story, like just that my mom told me really hurt my heart. And so to have you here to represent all of those women to be able to roar and and the power of roaring together hopefully there'll be a shift yeah I'm definitely the face of more progressive India but I'm not just a progressive Indian who happens to have her circumstances supportive to work for her

because I work in Google or you know or I you, I work in a bank or I'm in a university and I have my life going. I am still in the tradition. I come from a small town and I'm going to continue championing this progressive tradition that has been forgotten by our people. And I'm going to continue working for these grassroots women. I am going to have my book translated. I am taking this book to the Prime Minister of India in these coming months because he is also championing women's rights. And I want that wherever women are being asked to be servile in the name of domesticity, that needs to go. How do we know that across the world, they're not looking at us and going,

can you imagine those Americans believe that only a man created them? And that's why the situation may look like with a certain face. Of course, you know, acid being thrown is a unique case it's not happening every day all the time but the face of what this inequality internalized misogyny does may look different in India different in Peru different in the United States but it bleeds nevertheless absolutely yeah so how can we support you? How can our listeners support you? I think one, you guys have been awesome. And actually, I really enjoyed how

we just chatted ourselves into this comfortable space of the goddesses expressing themselves. I really like that. Yeah, thank you so much. And let's continue to roar from our part. Where can our listeners find you? Can you shout out your podcast, all of your social media as well? Your Instagram is amazing. My podcast is a shadow to self and it can be found anywhere you find podcasts and my website is awakenedself.com it's not awakening but awakenedself.com and you will find me there and I have social media handles by my name which I'm sure our beautiful goddess hosts will post my name So if you look up on Facebook or Instagram, you guys will find me. I already ordered your book and I'm super excited to learn more about these goddesses and connect with them. Thank you so much.

And now it's time for Break That Shit Down. Just breathe in the goddess and breathe out the shit. Because everything else that is not goddess is shit. That's all. Oh my God. I freaking love you.

That was the best. I think that might be my favorite BTSD ever. Oh my God, me too. Thank you for just raising my vibration today and reminding me of my roar. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much.

It was so nice to meet you. You can come roar on our podcast whenever you want. Done, we're friends forever now. Roaring together. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you.

We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.