Greetings friends,
And welcome.
Welcome to this guided story journey where we will meet the goddess Akhilanashwari from Hindu mythology.
This is the recorded version of a live nirvana meditation that I did for Insight Time Alive.
So it's a chance to revisit this goddess if you have joined me live,
Or maybe to meet her for the first time.
This style of guided meditation,
The story journey,
Is a way to meet the goddess perhaps in a different or a new way.
You may read about a goddess or attend a talk or lecture about her mythology,
But within meditation we have a little more chance to connect to our own inner world,
Our own intuition,
And maybe meet the goddess in a different way.
But we will begin as we so often do with our meditations.
Let's take some time to relax.
So find your comfortable place,
Bring in layers or any soft things for you to rest upon.
You can be seated or laying down.
We'll just take a minute or so to just let go of the noise of the day and the busyness of the mind.
And just let those layers begin to fall away as we find our restful place.
Maybe close the eyes and just allow ourselves to relax.
Let your limbs and muscles soften and allow yourself to be supported by the earth beneath you.
Let's take a minute or so to relax.
Within our mind's eye we will journey to the beautiful land of India.
Perhaps we find ourselves outside the busiest parts of the city and into the areas of beautiful green fields and tall trees with wide shady canopies.
The calls of birds carry on a warm breeze and we find ourselves gazing upon a golden temple.
Carved into this temple are rows of figures and deities,
Beautiful goddesses.
As you approach the temple steps you can smell incense and see scattered rose petals and flower garlands.
And entering the beautiful temple space you see a pool of water at the centre of the atrium.
The water is running as if a stream is running somewhere through the centre of the temple.
And atop of this water is the figure of a golden goddess.
This is Aka land Shwari.
And for the first time you notice that within your hands you have brought something with you into the temple.
Maybe not what you expected to bring.
It is a little pot or bowl but it is broken into many pieces,
Little shards.
And just as you are wondering what to do with these broken pieces,
The golden hand of the goddess rests upon your shoulder so gently and kindly.
She helps you gather the pieces together and takes you into a beautiful room at the side of the atrium,
Lit by candles and hundreds of tiny coloured oil lamps.
And she helps you piece together the bowl,
Piece by piece,
And secures the joins with gold from her own hands.
The rejoined bowl seems even more beautiful to you.
This is the power of Aka land Shwari.
Ishwari in Sanskrit means goddess,
Queen or female power.
Aka land has many meanings,
Including a collection of things or scattered pieces.
But her name has become to mean the goddess of never not broken.
Because what she represents is change and loss.
When we experience extreme emotions we may describe ourselves as going to pieces or falling apart.
And so this interpretation of the goddess who is never not broken is born.
And what she really wants you to know is that her power comes not from being whole,
But from being broken.
From the pulling apart like an atom that is split.
Aka land Shwari breaks apart and comes back together.
From this her power is created.
As we rebuild you are more powerful than you have ever been,
Exactly as you are right now.
Life is constant flux and change.
And the thing about sudden change is that it can for a time destroy the story.
The story we had in our minds of how our lives would unfold.
What Aka land Shwari offers us is the possibility and power of our choices from these broken pieces and uncertainty.
Times when we are shifting and unfolding in new ways are a powerful opportunity to decide how we want to put ourselves back together again.
In our brokenness we are unlimited.
We have the strength and ability to break,
To recreate and rebuild ourselves over and over.
Aka land Shwari helps us to grow,
To transform,
To heal and to mend.
She shows us how to move with the motion of life,
The impermanence of reality,
The flowing waters of the river and the rhythm of nature.
Having trust in ourselves that we will once again come together in perfectly imperfect wholeness.
When the time comes to leave this beautiful temple,
You thank the Goddess for her time and her wise words of comfort.
In carrying your mended pot with you down the temple steps you feel just a little stronger,
A little more full of hope for wherever your ongoing journey may lead.
You are Mechanics.
And so my dear ones,
Perhaps from your place of meditation you may wish to wiggle fingers and toes or take a little stretch as we begin to come back to the room and back to our day.
Whenever you feel ready to do so you can gently open the eyes and take a lovely deep breath and sigh and exhale.
Welcome back my darlings.
Thank you so much for joining me and the goddess today.
Thank you and namaste.
Thank you.
