the the vibe of our goris is one thing is they also worship women so they were cleaning the feet of actual living women because it's Shakti they show a lot of respect to the to feminine energy and that's what's believed of Shakti some many historians believe that people didn't know that only when a man copulated with a woman did she give birth they just got to see that a woman suddenly is able to give birth and that was remarkable for them look at Ganesha he's never born with the help of Shiva he's born just through Parvati and that must be hearkening back to a time when people actually thought women gave birth men had nothing to do with it so we've created a ton of what people call dharmik podcasts on DRS we've spoken about the basics of Hinduism we've not spoken about the outcomes of following a yogic lifestyle a Hindu lifestyle a lifestyle full of or pass now or praying to deities this episode is about the


or praying to deities this episode is about the outcomes what does practice and study eventually lead to so if you want to learn about the divine feminine and of course if you want to learn about the Divine masculine you've clicked on the right episode very intense conversation with the Incredible Dr nilma Baker I'm not going to talk too much about it what I will say is that if you enjoyed our conversations on Hinduism you're going to enjoy this one even more for more episodes like this make sure you follow us on Spotify every episode's available on Spotify for eight hours before it's available anywhere else in the world our meditation app level super mind is also live on the App Store on the Play Store meditation is a concept that we've brought up repeatedly even on this episode as we do with all our episodes and for now I'll let you slip into this incredibly deep philosophical spiritual conversation with Dr shitko Baker enjoy [Music] thank you there's very intense


enjoy [Music] thank you there's very intense energy in this room today ma'am it's because you're here thank you I can feel it myself intense but a very wonderful energy nothing to be you know nothing scary very very positive energy that's right you're an expert on Shiva that's right and I know that you've written this book on Shiva about three years ago if I'm not mistaken four years ago uh well one I've written several books on Shiva yeah so the last one I wrote yes it was about three years ago you're right the book I want to highlight of yours that really had an impact on me is the Shakti book okay which I've been reading recently because there's just been such an entrance of Devi MAA in my life okay Splendid that's wonderful in such strange ways um it's like in my childhood I was very drawn to Krishna I was very drawn to hanumanji and I never really even thought of Devi man in my adulthood especially after I


of Devi man in my adulthood especially after I had like a big Turning Point like you know I had a terrible breakup some career stuff went wrong and post that it's like the universe gifted me this Devi my energy in my life I found this Idol in my dad's study and my dad's not lived in India for the last 12 years 13 years so it was just lying there and it's like the idol found me kept in my old office moved into my new office and one day when I was looking for something else again the idol found me and then we got one of our most epic podcasts from a tantra practitioner on the same day we found this wow so I've been questioning reality uh and then your book found me and it's had such an intense impact on my life I'm reading very slowly the way to go the way to go first of all thank you for like the book Thank you thank you for being such a wonderful reader we authors love to get in


a wonderful reader we authors love to get in touch and meet our readers I have so many questions for you man okay great the first of which is your sense of style you have a unique sense of style especially with that neck piece I want to know if that has any significance uh well the one that's underneath the gold one yes which I don't know if you can if you can it's Shiva and he's meditating he's in his meditative posture right so this as well as this Om namah Shiva I never have not taken off for the last 20 years maybe I um I just love everything about Shiva and you can't love Shiva without also getting close to Shakti since they both are inseparable you know whether you see in the sankya philosophy purusha prakrati there Shiva Shakti you know so they're the energies that get together and and creation takes place we know that these are all things we all know so uh I love everything about Shiva and uh also the women he


love everything about Shiva and uh also the women he brings into his life like Parvati Sati Kali Durga these are uh very powerful very powerful female entities and it's only and Only a God Like Shiva who can deal with such powerful women and that is the beauty that is the beauty rookie question yes as someone who's just learning about these things am I supposed to visualize that there was actually a really evolved being called Shiva and then there were really evolved female beings called Shakti and Parvati and uh Sati and Kali are these astral stories are these physical stories or is it stories that actually capture philosophy and then for the masses they are retold as stories how do you regret it so the last thing that you said okay so we have so much of Mythology in the purans and the purans are what are Hinduism and our India is all about it's not The Vedas people think go back to The Vedas no Vedic gods and goddesses we


Vedas no Vedic gods and goddesses we hardly worship you get married or the last you know when when you die cremation the last sacrifice you do to the world into the so-called higher being is is your death with the fire being lit okay so Agni is there Agni was very important in The Vedas we really don't look at those deities and those Gods we look at all the gods and goddesses from the qurans which came much later which were written much later and those stories and those myths are wonderful and I would think that those stories come up it's a con it's it's a combination of dreams that human beings have It's a combination of intuitions it's a lot of history it's a lot of the region it's a lot of to do with the topography and with geography I mean topography if you look at kamakya when you have a rock formation with so much resembles the female vagina I mean why would stories not be built around that why would


why would stories not be built around that why would it not happen because in ancient times people really looked at their landscapes in a religious manner whether you see it in Native American culture you see it all over the ancient cultures Indians did too so when they saw that in Assam they started worshiping that as Shakti and what part of Shakti the womb the actual boom what creates the world so I think this last point that you said a lot it's it's so I said it's dreams it's intuitions actual beings there may be similar beings moving around at different points of time because Shiva was not created at one point of time plenty of Concepts got attached to Shiva first time when you look at him in the rigved for instance he's only called rudra he has dark qualities he's he's got this thundering you know his word if you break down rudra it comes from Ruth howling sounds of the Wind storms everything that's dark everyone is scared of him people are going


dark everyone is scared of him people are going to worship him only to appease him it's his wrath that has to be a beast they don't love him they don't admire him but it's the Wrath it's the anger so it's just that how does he later on after some centuries become shankara how does he get a wife how does he have two children all that is the evolving of Hinduism taking in stories in myths from different regions from different centuries from different peoples and that's the beauty of it that it evolves so much there's no one text telling us this is how Shiva should be this is how he should be manifested this is how he should be represented in art literature scripture anything um so many tangential questions but because as a podcast we are currently in this very history oriented Zone I'd actually love to ask you from a very sapiens perspective yeah like harari's book okay where he speaks about the evolution of man yeah so it's common understanding


the evolution of man yeah so it's common understanding that we were hunter-gatherers before we became settlers then started farming uh they say that basically temples likely came first or places of worship all over the world came first because even ancient man just little bit after he had evolved from whatever the previous state of evolution was started asking himself or herself questions about life and questions about God yeah because that's probably what Solitude did yeah made you look at your hands and think what made me why am I here what is my purpose and then places of worship came up it was the uncertainty of life that made people worship times were such so tough right from the time from the earliest times Paleolithic Neolithic you see signs of worship and it's usually it's the female divinity because they it some many historians believe that people didn't know that only when a man copulated with a woman did she give birth they just got to see that a woman suddenly is able to give birth and that was


woman suddenly is able to give birth and that was remarkable for them so when we even I mean look at Ganesha he's born he's he's never born with the help of Shiva he's born just through Parvati and that must be hearkening back to a time when people actually thought women gave birth men had nothing to do with it so um wow New Perspective but I'll also give you some of the other stuff for me these podcasts aren't just me asking you questions yes I have a lot of questions from previous podcasts okay left me with like nuggets of thoughts yeah um so again going back to sapiens and that book has had like a crazy impact on mine and I highly recommend anyone who's even slightly inclined to a psychology and history should read that book um now what he says is it's very likely places of worship came up first they figured that okay let's all come here and pray together Etc and then eventually when there were festivals around those places of worship


when there were festivals around those places of worship it became important to have food that Supply those festivals therefore farming became a thing and once farming became a thing then settling down became a thing that oh I guess we can just stay near the temple yeah that's how towns and uh cities started and we see that in Indian Villages today where uh the temple is the central part of religion all Villages are built around temples um now that's one nugget I have in my head the second nugget is from an archaeologist we had on the show uh his name was Dr prabhakar and he was an africanistan what's the craziest link that you found between Africa and India yeah he said that in parts of Nigeria they worship something that looks exactly like Shiva but it's a female version of it then now I'll give you one more input I've got from someone called mohsan Raza Khan he said that classical religions existed of which likely Indian religions


religions existed of which likely Indian religions Hinduism is one of the survivors yeah another Survivor would be Zoroastrianism you know an older world religion yeah but it's also likely that religions like that Celtic religion in Scotland all they kind of say the same things when you study the Aboriginal man religions in Australia even they sing similar things similar Concepts you know so maybe early man followed some very ancient version of Hinduism and all of us had this Shiva element kind of as a important part of uh important representation of God the phallus which is the link the male sex organ this was worshiped in many countries but what is remarkable is that it continues in India today the shivling the shivling now what is also remarkable and not surprising most people don't associate the shivling with the male sex organ they see it as a style it's highly stylized now it doesn't look like what it originally was some historians don't even believe that but see they say no


don't even believe that but see they say no it's a pillar it's a representation of Shiva it's not the phallus it's not the penis but it is because we have the earliest representation of the phallus in an absolutely anatomically correct image in Guri malama place in Andhra Pradesh and it dates back to something like 2nd Century BC so 200 300 years before Christ there was already this huge lingam which was completely accurate like it was just like a male sex organ that's how it may have started and that's that's something we see in different countries as well but only in ancient times only when you look at archeology they don't continue to worship today I don't think so I don't know if there's some African nations which continue to worship the pharise but we in India if you go to any Shiva Temple it's always the shivling and it's placed on what is called a uni the coming yeah the coming together of the male and sex male or organ and the


of the male and sex male or organ and the female organ but it's highly stylized because it was not Bala it was not palatable to the brahmanas they did not like it that it was so realistically portrayed so slowly slowly you find that the Ling which was so realist realistic in ancient times started looking more like a pillar like a conical kind of you know the shape that we see the lingam today the Western World calls shivelings monoliths yeah like in a lot of Western podcasts like I have an idol when Joe Rogan who runs one of the world's biggest podcasts yeah he keeps bringing on historians who always refer to monoliths yeah and first I thought it's like a rock formation then I realized no these are like man-made yes basically shivelings yes from other cultures Native America yes South American cultures Etc but you have very very uh you know very much like a male sex organ uh palaces from ancient times we have so many of them quite a few


times we have so many of them quite a few but what were they it's the power it's the energy that you know sex is energy sex is so important and the male sex organ the female sex organ that's what when it comes together you have creation you have reproduction and in an Agricultural Society like India agricultural economy like India we've always been a more agricultural prone especially in the past then all sexual rights everything to do with fertility was exceedingly important so whether you look at Indus Valley Civilization you have small little siblings now sometimes people say it's very clearly has the head Etc but they say no maybe this is not those who don't aren't uncomfortable they said they could have been chess pieces they could have been a you know board game they could have been pieces for that how do we not know that they were actually carried by people like the lingayats today carry the Ling somewhere on their body we don't know for sure so it's left it's left like open-ended


for sure so it's left it's left like open-ended we don't know because we've not been able to decipher the in this script as yet so we don't know is it are they shivlings what are they but 3000 BC we already see very realistic looking lingams okay yeah uh I want to now take this into a more esoteric place and then we can come back to history maybe no I'm sure whatever you because you've actually added something to this whole historical narrative that maybe they started understanding that sex organs can create life yeah that's where it began then it became a whole Divine masculine and divine feminine thing which eventually evolved into imagery of the Gods in order to explain it to the masses but before you even ask me this I want to say this in one of the qurans I remember reading a sage is being asked by a disciple that you know Vishnu is worship through his conch through his discus through his you know this and Indra through his you


through his you know this and Indra through his you know bhajra and so and so too if is it that Shiva is the only one who has worshiped through his sex soccer his that's the snippuran so the sage replies because every man carries the Ling on his person and every woman carries the uni on her person so he represents all of humanity because the Ling and the Shiva the Yoni and the Ling are together in the temples that pedestal that where you put water the pedestal dresser that's the female so look at the answer so even in ancient times they're they're questioning why is it because it must have been something that was among the Aboriginal population among the indigenous population we do not hear of the Ling in the Rigbys which is the earliest text only later when the population would have moved among the other people they would have come across the Ling worship and they're trying to justify it why is it why is it shivada is not worshiped


is it why is it shivada is not worshiped through his image why through his lingam so the Aboriginal people like who are kind of I mean I don't like using a word primitive but yeah in Forest areas in forested areas who had not been brahmanized who had not gone into this whole culture of the brahmanas which we see in The Vedas they were also living in India it was not a vacuum so they worshiped they had other methods of worship they worshiped uh Fierce goddesses they worshiped the lingam they worshiped we have archaeological evidence to show us that there's no mention for instance of Shakti and Durga in the earliest text she came later she came much later when people came across her then then the texts were written the most beautiful and first representation of Shakti in the Sanskrit text is Devi Mahatma and that is 5th Century CE 500 CE epic of the current ERA the Common Era that's that's when it came in it's 80 for the


that's when it came in it's 80 for the people yeah okay yeah we now see CE which is a Common Era this is our era and before that there was no representation we see her in sculpture but we don't see her in Sanskrit then she's brought in through this wonderful text called Maya where she's coughing she's drinking blood she's drinking liquor she's getting fear she's a martial goddess she's the kind of goddess that you can't even imagine because even today so much of whitewashing has taken place so when we see Durga Puja she's completely covered and she's got a mild look on her face and all that this is all I mean the bigger word is boulderization making something more comfortable for the current populations conscious read in the past she was a bad bodied lady going into battle riding on her tiger you know it's it's amazing the kind of goddesses that India has produced but we are a little embarrassed about them we we're


we are a little embarrassed about them we we're so westernized that we don't like this naked raw feeling of the Goddess so you know okay we're gonna get back to 2023 now okay and I'm gonna give you something I'm so sorry I'm a historian so loud trust me these are the best podcasts okay okay uh but I'll give you context about uh my life a little bit yes okay um so I've had a relationship with someone who wasn't a Hindu very open-minded though very accepting very non-judgmental but she was trying to understand Hinduism more and she'd ask me some tough questions which you take for granted when you're a Hindu for example she said explain what an avtar is to me yeah because in abrahamic religions God is God yeah okay and then how does God take human form and then come as a human and I asked the monks who come on the show these questions I ask people like yourself to get my answers and her questioning me like


to get my answers and her questioning me like that actually increase my understanding and therefore the viewers is understanding of Hinduism as well yeah okay uh now the thing is in abrahamic religions there is an aspect of demonology as well where um you know someone is possessed by like a higher power it can be looked at in a negative way worshiping multiple gods which are not the God can be looked at as paganism which might have a negative connotation so this made me deep dive into this concept A lot what are deities on the show and ask him all these questions and he said that a deity which is a representation of God has the ability to be both the deity which has its own powers and its own identity but it's also a part of God it is God in itself yeah now this is one thought bubble the second thought bubble is from last night and this is what I've been waiting to tell you from the time I met you um at 8 pm a close friend


I met you um at 8 pm a close friend of mine calls me and says hey man you know the cola that they've shown in kantara uh there's a place outside Mumbai where it happens I'm not going to name the places amazing Temple like I've never been to a temple like that okay it's like about two and a half hours away from Mumbai like I'm Blown Away by what we felt in that Temple I took two teammates both these guys are with me okay the Cola in itself was not too long now Kola is basically where I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right cool okay it's it's basically where they say Mata okay okay uh a deity possesses a priest yeah and then they say that the priest represents whatever the deity is trying to say to uh the people in the temple that's right and to just see The Possession and uh see the deity perform its own dance yeah it was maybe like a one minute long or two minute long experience


like a one minute long or two minute long experience but all of us were gripped and all of us were just like yeah the hands went up in prayer and you knew it was something Divine like in front of you I don't even want to get into the details of what we saw yeah but the boys in the room know exactly what I'm talking about and I felt pure after this experience I felt like I was ready for today and I was gonna bring it up okay in today's conversation the thing is before the cola actually happened uh we went and prayed in that Temple which wasn't experienced in itself I it wasn't just a temple of a Devi it had like multiple tiny temples in that same complex the central Temple was a Durga Mata Temple where everything was lit by like dias and it was the most like what's the word for a magnetic feeling I've ever had in my life where if you actually steal yourself you go on an empty stomach if


yourself you go on an empty stomach if you go with pure intention you can connect to like the temple much more deeply yeah yeah yeah so I stood in front of the Durga Mata Temple I looked at it and I asked for whatever my material desire is at this point which is not money related yeah like you know it's something else it's about like uh other aspects of Life personal aspects I I just felt like this very intense energy exchange and I know I'm talking to the Divine here yes and then parallely I see the cola happening where the deity is talking through that priest and answering people's questions and answering it kind of an almost a fear scary manner yes it's almost scary to look at yes uh how do you explain all this now to someone who doesn't understand Hinduism exactly are these possessions how do you look at all this have you looked into these aspects of Mata what is this angle how do you explain it to external


is this angle how do you explain it to external yeah yeah I would let you go so there's a lot there I mean psychologists say that it's something to do with human psychology I mean they don't necessarily say it's something Divine but I do know that in Kerala and different parts of the country and different parts of the world you know you go to Mexico you go to Latin America any country in Latin America there are possessions and the POS the person who is possessed is able to heal I mean not only answer the questions but is able to heal the people who've come there who have various illnesses and things like that I think it's a combination of lots of things it's the rhythmic beating of the drum it's the music it's the incense it's all the senses get alive because everything is there the incense the music the singing the chanting the The Waiting everything is there and all that makes you feel psychologically uplifted everything in this world is about rasas and especially we in


in this world is about rasas and especially we in India talk about the navrasas and when everything is aroused in you you know you they have a wonderful word in uh English called horribulation when your hair stands up you know it doesn't just automatically happens it happens when you're experiencing something but all I can say is it is it has to be experienced if it's not experience you can not explain it to somebody I mean it's like a mother saying you know I love my son so much but a person who's never had a son probably would not be able to entirely know what that feeling is so you have to feel it uh and and you have experienced it yeah and so I I mean I I have experienced these things many times I started off as a dry academic just looking at sources to talk about Shiva but things kept happening how long are you going to call it a coincidence so then I started thinking yes there is something beyond what I'm reading in these


there is something beyond what I'm reading in these very cold libraries why don't you share the most impactful experience oh there's there have been many and I also feel that when you read a lot of the so-called scriptures in Hinduism and I've had to go through all the Vedas the the purans sometimes your intuition and I also practice a certain amount of pranayama and at that time I was doing more pranayama the incident I'm talking about so I just you know I teach in a college and I have a big large class of you know whatever 40 girls or whatever usually and I remember this was not an Indian class Indian history classes American history class and at you know I had to finish the syllabus so I was in a hurry I I entered the room and I can't explain I can't tell you what happened to me Runway I just like there was this Darkness Darkness and I tried to open my mouth and I remember I was going to talk about a certain


I remember I was going to talk about a certain president in America and words wouldn't come out this has never happened to me I said no what's going on what's going on I'm looking around at the students and finally I said what's going on so they said nothing ma'am I said no something's wrong with this class why am I not being able to speak I actually said that to the students it was early in the morning and then one girl ran out of the class crying so I said what's with her so they said ma'am her boyfriend you know Valen it was Valentine's day yesterday and he gave her a hard time so she went I said okay now let me teach I'm not interested in all that I tried to teach again my voice would not come out my words would not come out finally I just put down my register and I just started looking at each and every girl and finally there was a girl right at the end and the head was down I won't take her


end and the head was down I won't take her name she's well known today I just looked at her and I said look at me and she put to I suppose why is your head don't look at me she looked at me and her eyes had complete Devastation in them I cannot even describe what her eyes had in them all I said was being a practical person myself I said leave my room go down to the canteen please have a cup of tea or coffee just leave my room and believe me she left my room she got up and I saw and I was scared at the same time so her best friend was sitting in when I said go with her cool I'll give you attendance because that's all that students are bothered about the two of them left and I was able to take my lecture I took my lecture I came to the staff room the two girls followed me back to the staff and then they apologized we are so sorry that we disrupted your class and then I


so sorry that we disrupted your class and then I said what's wrong with you I taught you last year you were perfectly fine what's happened to you today then she said tell her the other friend started nudging her tell her tell her tell her tell ma'am you have to tell her she said ma'am the moment you told me to look up I was just wondering how I'm going to commit suicide we're on the third floor ma'am the rocks are very sharp here in JMC I was going to jump from that window how did you know ma'am I said what you said yesterday was Valentine's Day I tried to use the fan and my Chutney it didn't work today I parked my car on the opposite side of the road so that I could get run over it didn't work I'm sitting in your class and I'm saying the best thing to do is to jump from this window and you know I I I just was shocked at two things number one that this beauty she's like


two things number one that this beauty she's like a beauty queen she's she is an extremely rich and I never knew anything about her because I don't get into the personal lives of my students unlike some professors and I said wait wait wait just hold on and I was shocked that I could sense it that was shocking me let me cancel all my classes for today because I knew it was serious I went I canceled all my classes I said come to my personal room and I took them in for two hours she cried I cried I won't tell her tell you why she wanted to commit suicide and I said I'm not a professional but you need to see a psychologist right away she said my parents are so well known they will not let me because the word would spread I said then let me meet them they said no she said no then they'll know that you know something about our family about me I was in such a state I cannot tell you but finally she did better sense prevailed


cannot tell you but finally she did better sense prevailed she did see a psychologist and a psychiatrist and she cured herself completely she's a very successful person today this was many many years ago and to this day I cannot explain to anybody what was that Darkness I felt in that classroom it's never happened to me like that again when these kind of things started happening to me when I became more and more intuitive sometimes I could read people's minds what they were saying then I got scared my God what's happening to me and my husband used to keep saying uh be careful you're just becoming like one of those Matas mataji's ordinary married couple and he said watch it I'm called Neelam at home watch it Neelam what's happening to you because I was going to London and I I said you know what if there's bombing you know in 2005 and he said oh said oh yeah and you've gone and stayed in Oxford and you've gone to London


and stayed in Oxford and you've gone to London and you're so familiar with I said you know the tube stations at night before sleeping I'm so glad I told my husband nobody would believe me I go to London I have to give lectures in Oxford I give one I'm uneasy the whole time especially in the tube stations finally I just told Oxford University I can't give the second lecture why I said no I'm not feeling too well I need to go back home I come back home and the bombings take place and you would have been a part of it I was because it was on that route that I used to take and to save a few pounds I used to go early in the morning like uh before nine if you go it's just said that I had to go to the British Library I used to go to you know visit the British museum one of the bombings took place in a bus on that trail that I used to walk on uh to go to the British Library


to walk on uh to go to the British Library one of them took place in one of the stations that I used to go to and I used to feel this uneasiness when I was there and I was just so uneasy and everybody was so shocked because England happens to be one of my favorite countries to visit I love Oxford University I've stayed there and I just you know gave lectures there I just said I'll be back I told them they said well the Flyers are out and everybody's coming to hear your lecture on the Sunday yeah I said I'll be back and I went back and I never felt an uneasiness or anything at all so you know these things happen and how do they happen Okay call it coincidence but why did I say bombing specifically why did I say in London to my husband you know right before this podcast we were talking about how we couldn't talk about things like this five years ago and the internet has changed and now we can talk publicly about


internet has changed and now we can talk publicly about things like intuition I also feel that the internet widely accepts that the concept of intuition exists having a sixth sense exists yes my question to you is other than meditation what else improves it like I've seen that meditation improviser now I don't know whether that is because your inner world gets so stilled out that you're able to recognize patterns much more easily or there's a deeper layer which can't be accepted it's not that easy sometimes it's very very scary to be intuitive it's very scary I mean somebody gifted me tarot cards and I mean I literally opened the tarot card and I could I could see somebody's death there and it happened and so sometimes it's scary also it's not like it's something that's going to help you so I don't open the tarot cards now I put them in a black cloth and kept them away it's just that okay I'll share this with you when I was in Oxford the


share this with you when I was in Oxford the first time everybody gave me a nickname sunshine and we were at a party one of my farewell parties and they took out these tarot cards and I've never read tarot cards or anything and they said ask a question and choose a card and I opened the first card I open it's the Sun and they said my God we've been calling you sunshine and you open the Sun and they just gifted it to me so looking at books I tried playfully with my son with his friends I would you know sometimes read the tarot and it would all come true and it was scary I want to give the listeners context yeah while reading your book Shakti yeah you've put in yantras in that book yeah yantras are extremely powerful symbols and when I saw that my first thought was the person who's written this book is blessed to be able to be a channel for this knowledge and even though we've written mantras I know that there's those pages which


written mantras I know that there's those pages which just happened yeah from different texts no this is not a book that I would go to a bookstore me okay this is not a book that I just go to bookstore and buy because I'd assume that it's a coffee table book or something like yes yes and it's been one of the most powerful books I've read I'd almost look at it like like a children's book for adults and then I opened it the imagery yeah the yantras the wave written the mantras it's so important for the experience of reading that book you've captured an experience in that book yes that experience can only be captured when you yourself have experienced yes I have experienced some things I I have to say I have there's some very strange things some horrible thing was happening and I remember sitting in my car and going to the dry cleaners and and I was writing the book on Durga I've written a book called The Book of Durga so it was just Durga


The Book of Durga so it was just Durga on my mind why do you start writing these books do you get some sort of it's so wonderful no it's so wonderful the big publisher has come to me and commissioned me they asked me to write there's something going on I questioned you was on that deeper layer ma'am and I'll tell you why I've done more than 400 guests I've never felt so Eerie yet safe when I'm talking to anyone but I'm feeling that with you I feel eerie honestly but I feel very safe with you okay Eerie okay um you know uh nobody has this you know like when I hear other people who work on religion talk they'll say I won't take the names they'll say you know I'm steeped in religion because I've had dining table where my parents used to discuss the purans and the opening shirts and Shiva and this and that then somebody says something I've been doing this since I was a kid I had no background


this since I was a kid I had no background to religion nothing zilch part of my childhood was in America my parents are not really like religious or practitioners or anything like that I stumbled into a cave Shrine when I was about 11 years old it's called tapkeshwar it's in dehradun a okay that's the way uh that's why it's called and I we all went for a picnic and I don't know what led me there alone now I should have been scared I was barely real 10 10 years or 11 years old is this the river cave there's a little river passing through there and there's a there's a proper cave and there's many people when they go to dehradun they want to go to them and many people have asked me where did it all start like the interviews that I've done people have asked me where did it start I had to trace it back somewhere and I said maybe it's tabkeshwar because I went there I stumbled in and


because I went there I stumbled in and I saw the Puja taking place for the shivling and there was a one family there and it was so empowering at that young age I felt wonderful and all my friends and my family were at the picnic I was alone that I didn't feel scared I should have felt scared I did not feel scared and I remember when I had to give the senior Cambridge exam an uncle of mine said you're studying so hard ask for anything now we were not rich somebody else he had done the same she said I want nice heels somebody else said I want to have you know this you know whatever I said just take me to dabkesha I didn't have a car myself you know I couldn't have gone it was very far from where I lived take me to the case well it was freezing cold exams used to be held in November derodun was cold I grew up in there and I went all alone again he stayed up because he had


went all alone again he stayed up because he had bad knees I went down the steps to turkishra and I prayed there I don't know what came in my mind take me out of this place I want to go to Delhi I want to do well I want to get admission into a great College I prayed to Shiva that time I don't know how that came over me nobody told me to go to the place I was 16 years old but I think now I can see some kind of thread and so it was first Shiva and so when I was asked when I was going to do a PhD who do you want to what do you want to work on this is the history Department in Dell University very Marxist at that time not at all favoring work on religion I said I want to work on Shiva and they said what you're a history this is a history Department this is not a theology or you know this is not what are you going to do with Shiva and I


what are you going to do with Shiva and I quickly said I'll see I look at the social economic background to Shiva why did he rise so much in the state of madhya Pradesh I had to give it a historical background and that's what I did for my PhD but I got more excited when I started reading about Shiva then I came across these dosat yogurtis 64 yoganis wonderful goddesses I went running to my mentor my guide I said who are these 64 yoganis no no stick to Shiva I said but they're accompanying him everywhere you write another book about and I did that yogani's 64 yogunis I cannot tell you what powerful divinities they are what does that mean Jose 64 goddesses situated in different temples only in central India so chance at yogini temples I mean everything about John City organisms is very unusual firstly the temples are almost always circular not like the usual temples that are built in North India or even South India secondly


are built in North India or even South India secondly they are hypithril hyperthral means they don't have a roof they're ruthless and thirdly there's not one not two not three day divinities there but 64 yoganis sometimes 81 yogurtis in a round circle on top of a hill away from the City why away from the city there were rights and rituals done there which were orgiastic in nature what does that word mean orgiastic meaning a lot of sexual content a lot of you know they were consuming items that were making them being giving them the feeling that they were flying in the sky hallucinations oh like uh hallucinatory things they were consuming because when you go into tantrism there is the Pancha Makara means the five M's you're supposed to have all these things which sort of like make you possible to transgress the Norms of society yeah I'll just give some context here yeah please please um so this is from what I've learned with rajashi nandi Tantra has


what I've learned with rajashi nandi Tantra has different stages one of the last stages later stages includes use of the some people have actually said mass is human flesh some people have even said that madhya is liquor Mithun is fish uh not with you Mithun is sexual intercourse and what is the mudra the fifth one is mudra it can even mean hand gestures which are very powerful mudra can also another meaning because Sanskrit words have many meanings it can also mean some kind of dry parched wheat which it can be hallucinate when you dry it and drink yeah really mudra yeah so you have to have these five things if you become a desire if you become a a disciple of Tantra if you convert or you want to be a tantric then these are the things you have to ingest and these are the things you have to do the 64 yoganese and it's open to the sky open space maybe there were all these rituals taking place there because


there were all these rituals taking place there because they're not family friendly let's just say that one thing I want to say about Shakti sure and I want to say about the goddesses sure what I love about it is they show the goddesses in India in Hinduism All Phases of a human life of a woman's life she can be an old hag ugly as drooping brass with her your all her you know skeletal her bones showing she can be voluptuous and beautiful at the same time she can be a married woman she can be an unmarried woman she like I said she can be old she can be a widow we have those every goddess is every stage of a woman's life is represented by the goddesses and when you were talking about why there are so many gods and what happens look at it that concept of ishta devta every human being has the autonomy has the intelligence we have we have thought that the human being in India has the intelligence to choose his our


being in India has the intelligence to choose his our own desired one whenever they want and it's like when you started talking you said it was first Krishna I mean you could just move from one deity to the other you have the freedom to do that that's the beauty of Hinduism see there's a lot that's not beautiful in Hinduism but one beauty is this whole concept of ishta devta I want this Devi today to be in my heart I want to worship her or today I want this male divinity and so then at that time the yoganis must have been looked upon as being so powerful with all the occult practices and mass eating and you know doing things that transgress the society societal Norms empowers you psychologically you know that Adrenaline Rush that they say you get when you do something that is forbidden I would think psychologically that was happening to people when they were involved in those rights and rituals I mean there is definitely a part of me


I mean there is definitely a part of me and this is after doing a ton of podcasts including the Tandra oriented ones I feel like there are higher beings also around us and innovate Devi's deities as you said and as I've learned from your book yeah it was so much a part of tribal culture as well yes yes that was tribal people if you go and meet them today they know the forests inside out they know their land inside they know all the energies including energies of the animals of the plants exactly obviously they had access to some higher energies or some higher beings that's right so maybe the presence of those beings around these temples or within that Temple enhance the Tantra practice of the humans which in its core people when they think of Tanda they think of sex they think of like all these yeah things which Tantra is not entirely no no tantras are extremely fast way of spiritual progression that's right uh and probably these beings just assisted it in the


and probably these beings just assisted it in the same way that your football coach can teach you how to play football but apparently you have to play football so the coach is just present in telling you what to do yeah so you get mukti in Tantra also you need more you want more the ultimate goal is mocks but you get it through bhukti mean you get mukti through bhukti that is bhukti means you enjoy everything in this life and it's all about the body the deha is not dirty it's not something to be just uh discounted the way it is in most of the ascetic religions even within Hinduism it is something to be taken care of and that's where you also become in with a lot of scientific knowledge that Anthrax had a lot of scientific knowledge in the past they were so good for an Agricultural country because they knew how to get rid of the Vermin in the fields the tantrics would be called they knew which medicines to use they


be called they knew which medicines to use they knew about chemistry so there was a practical use there also and they were probably the ones who also looked at the body you know in in Hinduism brahmins and all the higher casts would never touch a dead body then how are you going to get to know about medicine the physiology of the body unless you look at a corpse and study it the tantrics used to do it so they had medicinal knowledge as well so it's not it was not all bad you know now today in today's age not today last last with 30 40 years all over the world people think that's like oh that means free sex and oh great and all that but there was a lot more to it when you look at it historically yeah okay I'll let you continue about like the temples like you said so the chance 64 yogani temples are just magnificent because either the images are standing their life size if they're seated or they're standing and they're very beautiful


seated or they're standing and they're very beautiful some of them have wonderful hairdos and Bejeweled like you cannot even imagine and the one in Orissa that I went to uh you know very close to bhuvaneshwar has smaller ones so that you can sit into Puja and see them in front of you not like in if you go to perakat in jabalpur in madhya Pradesh then you have big ones it's very sad that many of them have been desecrated willfully people have gone and broken them and you know not like the kind of uh image that they portray of a very bold woman I mean think of goddesses who are not spousified Lakshmi had to be specified at some point in history she had to get a spouse she had to get Vishnu who was an independent goddess at one point she had to get her spouse because Society had moved towards marriage becoming important so the divinities had to be shown to be also married couples but the 64 yoganis


to be also married couples but the 64 yoganis are without any male only female Divinity so that's the power raw form of raw form and the fact that the temples were built at such a cost royalty was involved rich people were involved they knew the efficacy of worshiping these Chaucer tokenis speaking about temples I have to take you to the kamakhya Devi Temple yes I've been there BBC made a film with me it's there online you can see it I did a film with them yeah one thing I've understood is it's possibly correct me if I'm wrong the most powerful Devi Temple yeah anywhere in the world yeah um wow you're agreeing so uh uh yes in a way it is because it's so mysterious it's so scary in a way it's all in darkness you've been there I have not been there yeah when you go into the cave you can also feel very suffocated because there are lots of people I went during the festival time they also say


people I went during the festival time they also say that tantrix and agoris yeah carry out their own practices yes and I've heard people also say that's an entire Temple which is visited by visitors but it's meant for thandrak practices so the rich people still do the sacrifices there of pools and Buffalos and all that the rich people too they say it's bad but I saw it with my own eyes I was I was walking around in the temple it was very hot at that time so I was given socks I came back to the hotel with blood soaked socks and I didn't have another pair and I was with the BBC team who are so particular when they're filming anything I had to actually use it again the next day so I was in the kitchen sick cleaning out the blood so much of blood everywhere on the entire Temple grounds I can't tell you how much are they put the head on the tile and take it down to the goddess I've seen


and take it down to the goddess I've seen the sacrifices and the beauty I don't want to say beauty you have to respect each Region's culture I'm sitting there there's there's it's like you have steps there to watch the sacrifices taking place so I saw this beautiful young Assamese women they had come from far you know all the tickets it's free to travel during that time or whatever that Festival October Festival is called and they were lifting their babies like this to see the sacrifices you know because they were sitting there they were lifting like that and they were all watching like intent and I said why are you doing that they said if we watch this sacrifice the bull being killed for the goddess then our entire year will be so cool we will not fall sick all very much it's just part of their culture they say it proudly that's why we watch and I said my God I'm not scared of the blood not scared of the core not scared


the blood not scared of the core not scared of that decapitated head because after all Shakti in the Devi Mahatma she has to kill that mahisha Sur who is the Buffalo demon and I think it goes back to a time when there must have actually been women who used to capture Buffalo's buffaloes were a big you know in the marshy lands they could be very much a problem uh you know for the agricultural areas Etc so there may have been women actual women who captured them and then then the whole story of Durga unfolds you know where they talk about he was actually a shape-shifting Asura and uh you know she and then the beauty of Kali and her tongue and how she uh you know look at the way our Hindu myths are at one level the people who don't like the actual story of Kali they'll say she sticks out her tongue why tell me you tell me why does she stick out her tongue why is her tongue always you


her tongue why is her tongue always you can never have a Kali without a tongue sticking out I believe it's to look Fierce like it's like sword you know how they do the in New Zealand they do that dance yeah Warrior dance yeah hakka okay it's sort of the Indian version of that okay so let me tell you what the people believe who are Orthodox and like this version they say she was dancing she went on a rampage and she was you know bloodthirsty and she was so happy that she had killed uh she had killed Chanda and Munda that's why she was then called chamunda okay so she killed Chanda Mundo both asuras and she was dancing away and then this uh and you know killing every there was Mayhem everywhere she was destroying the Earth in her blood thirstiness she just had no control and then Shiva then everyone went running to Shiva that please you're the Savior please save her and that's one thing I write a lot


save her and that's one thing I write a lot in my books he's not the Destroyer he's the Savior so please help she's your wife after all in another manifestation so he comes and lies down like a corpse in front of her and she jumps on top of him and when she realizes that this is my husband she takes them you know how people take out their tongue if they're embarrassed now this some women in Orissa when they were being interviewed said that this is the reason why she doesn't no she does it because she wants to take that you know rakta Beach story the moment you hit him and a drop of blood falls on the ground another clone will come up another at the beach will come up that's the the beach the blood of rakta is blood so she her she has a lulling long tongue that before the blood touches the ground and another duck the beach comes up she sucks up that plant you know it has drama it has it's so


you know it has drama it has it's so grotesque it's so gory and I live in that world of reading the Devi Mahatma and seeing all this and that's why I don't like it like one publisher told me I said I want to show Durga should have her legs you know properly Seated on the on the lion not on one side like they show now how can you ride a lion like that so let us sit astride I said make her wear a short skirt and then letters like I see in the sculptures the ancient sculptures we can't do it there will be people who disapprove of that so we look at ancient sculptures we look at ancient texts we know what the God how the goddess was portrayed at that time and I have written about it in my book I'm not scared in the kamakhya temple did you see any agoris yourself yes I saw and what's the vibe of being around agoris the the vibe of agoris is one


around agoris the the vibe of agoris is one thing is they also worship women so they were cleaning the feet of actual living women because it's Shakti it's female so that's what I mean not mine you know I had all this book I had socks on and I was with the Brits I was with the BBC uh it's a it's a film called when God when God was a girl so they were going to they the acting I had to do was to be a professor who is roaming around the temple and then they come and ask me and say what is the concept of Shakti and then I speak to them that's the role I played in that BBC thing that was in 2012 or 2011 long back so no they didn't do mine but I know that they do do that they wash their feet they may be drinking the water also but they show a lot of respect to the to feminine energy so every woman has that feminine energy and that's what's believed of


that feminine energy and that's what's believed of Shakti every female and the it's the males who create her in one uh brahminical version but actually she's always been there but in one version they say that it's from the Tejas of the of the male divinities that she's created and you know many feminist Scholars don't like that because they said what is this but it's there I'd probably like to believe at first there was a woman yes because all of us have come out of a woman yeah why would the universe not work in that manner then patriarchy took over and men were everything patriarchy took over all cultures not just Indian culture yeah that's what Dr prabhaka also said about Africa yeah he said that when they actually started seeing signs and symbols inside the pyramids inside ancient African structures inside ancients South Americans yes yes what they figured is there was lots of phases of human history where Society was mostly matriarchal yes in some cases to a toxic degree yes


yes in some cases to a toxic degree yes yes it can be yeah but uh ancient civilizations always tried transferring knowledge forward to Future generations and the one thing that was constantly transferred was male and female equality yeah equality of all human beings yeah and in saying all that I still believe and maybe it's because I am sort of into Devi worship right now yeah I feel we all came out of a woman yeah so yeah somewhere maybe I'm 51 on the side of matriarchy yes yes yes yes yes and what I do love very much is uh when I go through the purans and I see how Parvati is depicted usually in most of the Quran she's very submissive to Shiva then I found these absolute nuggets I found these Beautiful episodes there's one episode in which she makes him take off his loin cloth while they're playing Chaucer and uh he always wins and there's always this competition between the two of them that Shiva is more powerful than Shakti but Shakti


is more powerful than Shakti but Shakti was also very powerful when we go back to the matriarchal pass and uh so she says she's she wins at one time and when she wins she just takes tells him take off that that crescent moon on your head and he takes it off and gives it to her she makes a hole in it and she wears it on as an ear yeah exactly in the qurans it's written like that then she looks at him and she makes him take off he's gotten with reaction she doesn't like the snakes at all but she said take off the snakes he loves his snakes he's very tonic he's very earthy now ground so she takes the snakes and also I've read that poison you know he's so poisonous himself only he can handle poison someone who himself is fierce and strong can handle the snake's poison but anyway then she takes the snakes away and then finally she said I have one in Chaucer now you take


said I have one in Chaucer now you take off your loin cloth and then finally Shiva speaks up till now he's not spoken he said you want me to go around naked what kind of wife are you and then she says you did that don't you remember how you seduced all the Sage's wife and so and so episode in the daruvana episode you know Sushi it's such a nice egalitarian relationship that I see between Shiva and Parvati which you don't ever see this kind of dialogue between any other couple explain the word egalitarian egality very equal like they play Chaucer they play board games they go swimming together they very often they are discussing the purans so you'll see images of her with her hand on her chin like this and he's talking very often he's asking her questions she's talking so they they both give each other space and he's decorating her with flowers she's decorating him with flowers and one of my favorite sculptures is you know whenever Shiva and


favorite sculptures is you know whenever Shiva and Parvati are shown together in a loving way in a metun wake as a couple you know he's she's either seated in his lap and his hand is cupping her breast and blah blah blah in some images you'll see she has got her hand around his shoulder and she's having because he's taller than her she's having it the sculptor has done such a wonderful job showing her straining her hand but she's also not just the man puts his hand around my shoulder how many times have you seen in India a woman putting her hand around a man's shoulder especially in Olden maybe now and in those ancient sculptures we are seeing Parvati do it to Shivan I was in entranced when I saw those images and I put them in my first book and I wrote about it I said look at Parvati because they had that kind of relationship she used to get very angry they used to have such fights I can't tell


they used to have such fights I can't tell you just like any married couple showing how couples can fight he teases her he calls her Kali she says how can you call me Kali you're the one who's called mahakal taking place also over there you're the one who's called mahakal where am I Kali and in most of the other ones you'll uh purans you'll see she goes running and she does penance and she becomes gory and one she insults him she says you're a rogue you're a skull carrier you're giving me a headache I don't want to have anything to do with you and she goes away so there are these things which male historians don't want to talk about because that shows the male God in bad light but when I saw them I emphasized them that there was a Consciousness in the past when the qurans were being written where women were also strong and had a voice in a marriage also he said I don't want to have children


also he said I don't want to have children I was never born I was I will never die why do human beings want why do people men want children so that they can do the Agni at the death I will never die I will never have children and used to run away from her she made her own Ganesha that's how autonomous She was That's how much of a mind she was look at the myths like that and they Empower you and they make you feel so good I can talk to you for hours I can talk to you also I like listening now you tell me something you tell me what do you feel about uh Shakti the book like I mean you talked about yantras uh yantra's geometrical representation of the Goddess some people don't want to see her anthropomol anthropomorphically which means as a human being they want to see her in a diagrammatic form or geometrical form so they use yantra that's another thing there's such a variety you can just recite mantras


such a variety you can just recite mantras of the goddess and she'll appear in front of you you can do the yantras and she'll appear in front of you you can see her image and she'll appear in front of you just a red dot that's the beauty of Hinduism which I want I want this to be open I don't want anyone to try and straitjack it and say this is the only representation of the Goddess this is the only holy book I mean the British came I think at that time and they made bhagavad-gita the holy book and which we have to swear upon in the courts but how many people worship I mean see it as their main religious text I don't think that many if you do a survey I don't think there are many many people believe in the Devi Mahatma Hall of you know Orissa and Bengal they favor that many people prefer Ram charit Manas ramayan there are different texts we don't have one text we don't have one


we don't have one text we don't have one form of representation and that is the beauty of Hinduism yeah um best job in the world yes this is what I do for a living like this is like absorbing all this yes the stage I'm at in life is very curious I'm still seeking meditating for years yeah uh I'd be very raw and honest here I can't stop thinking about that podcast with rajashi nandi who's the topic because it shifted my path a little bit for sure okay it's got me more inclined towards Devi it's got me more inclined towards learning about it that's what I'm at then parallel your book enters my life at the same just imagine no coincidence of what you're also like a big part of this shift uh something is spiritually changing very heavily in my life at the end of those podcasts when I was talking to him outside he just looked at me for a bit and I'm telling him something and I can clearly tell he's


telling him something and I can clearly tell he's thinking about something else and he's like listen I think you can do devio if you want you've earned it like because you've been meditating for a while so I think your body is ready for it okay and I said cool and then he gave me like a tiny Mantra which I've been doing and I can feel the effects off okay in my life so that's where I'm at they say the teacher appears when the student is ready yes um I look at your book as a teacher wonderful at this point like at least you're my you're my second standard teacher you're paying me the best confidence that's what I can say uh but those pages with the yantras on them those caught my attention because I just feel people don't understand what yantras are in the mainstream yeah people don't understand that symbols have power yes uh I love podcasting because I get a 360 degree view from other cultures as well that's right uh I'd love to know about


well that's right uh I'd love to know about yantra usage a little bit more from you because I feel that certain things you couldn't write in that book yes I mean we we had almost I mean though it's 200 000 words believe me and and about the book you know when you talk about power and Shakti and you talk do you know the book was written it's 200 000 words and it was written in just less than six months while I was taking online classes it was like I some kind of frenzy came over me yeah the book is written with a lot of ferociousness but my question is very simple of course I'm not going to do this but it is a question if I draw a big tarama yantra in my room because I feel wrong to Tara yeah what effect will it have it can only have a good effect I'm sure about that if you feel like it yeah it can only have if you believe in it and you're looking at it constantly nothing I I mean I see


looking at it constantly nothing I I mean I see I I haven't done anything like that myself but um I do believe in uh the Mala the Mala I think it's wonderful I think it's very empowering whichever Mantra you use if you have a guru the guru tells you which Mantra to use or you choose yourself like I said we all have the autonomy to choose ourselves so I do believe in it and I I know that many bugs do it like hundreds of times I think just once is enough 108 beats do it on the favorite beats that that Divinity likes it just makes your mind so still and I've written about this in another book of mine a kagrata is required one mind concentration is required for any good profession or anything in life and you know that right it's a cliche whether you're eating whether you're exercising that one that kind of devotion you give to that one thing and that is what a writer does at least I did with this book when


writer does at least I did with this book when I wrote it in six months when all the libraries were shot and the people were dying left right and Center pandemic I was very sorry sad because I lost some people also whom I knew and yet I just yeah you're right you're so intuitive and you said ferociously because that's exactly what I did night and day I would be woken up with dreams of the goddesses I was right now I can tell and I would get up and go to my study and my husband said my husband just got used to me being mad my study was next door in the old house that I used to live and I used to go turn on that small lamp I would just be woken up in the middle of the night and dreams with deities are not to be looked at as simple Dreams yeah there's something more Divine that's happening yeah it's a blessing yeah so it's a it's a it's a cute little anecdote which


it's a it's a cute little anecdote which I want to tell you I wrote a book called rudra the idea of Shiva which is a biography of shiva's life and it's written in the first person all the gods Vishnu says I am Vishnu I am the arch rival of Shiva he does this he does that like that it's all in the first person so then Ganesha he writes and in my dream I got this you know there is an image called in which she's dancing and then there's natraj Shiva is the great dancer what is Shiva he's the ultimate answer and in my dream it came that Ganesha is trying to mimic his father but his big stomach is coming in the way and he's so unhappy because he can't dance as beautifully as his father I woke up in the middle of the night it's not in any Quran or anything and say I wrote it in the book and people have asked me that's so cute that the fathers I


me that's so cute that the fathers I said he has such a con conflict because he has this thing that he's not as good as his father but he wants to be so he also dances he also carries the threshold he also tries to be as great as Shiva but he can't be he envies his father in a way where did that come from nilima which purana I said no purana does my dream so it's like that you can dream and it's like somebody is telling you this somebody is actually coming into your dream and telling you this and you must immediately act upon it like write it down because you'll tend to forget the next day important for all creative all creative people so you would know that um you know when you're translating words from Indian languages like Sanskrit to any other language there's a loss of information as is the case with any if you translate from Japanese into English now I'm gonna try my best to explain Tantra so that we can understand okay uh


explain Tantra so that we can understand okay uh the word Tantra Loosely translates to technique yeah I believe it consists of mantras and yadras mantras Loosely could be understood as spells yeah again I'm trying to talk to a restaurant uh and yantras is tools yeah you know things that help forward your practice Yeah if you learn how to use mantras and yantras correctly your process of Tantra moves forward exactly yeah okay uh absolutely and you need a guru to teach you this there are certain rules you can't uh I believe that if you draw the yantra on a wall yeah uh there'll be certain rules that you'll have to follow in your life after talking to that rajashi nandi at every stage of my questions about Andra he was talking about rules and disciplines so I'm sure that there are rules and disciplines but I also believe uh that somewhere Zamata yeah you know like even this particular uh Murthy like in front of us yeah it's God so much


like in front of us yeah it's God so much power and I after that podcast is the only podcast where I've brought it out oh yeah wonderful otherwise it's kept in my room and I'm so honored because I mean it's so weird why did Cola happened yesterday yeah you know why are you coming why did you go to the test yeah something important about this conversation and also I how did you didn't know that I was planning to come to the Bombay you know this is just amazing yeah but the events are lying yeah they're all aligned um which is why that Cola I mean invited us yes we didn't choose to go there that's right uh and the same with this conversation that's right uh when I'm ready to learn more about Devi you're coming into my life which is why even though you're a Shiva expert I'm continuously taking you to like Devi because you're answering my questions was it uh you know that was my PhD and I got wrote books on


was my PhD and I got wrote books on Shiva but I've also written at least four books on the Devi so it's not that she's you can't take her away from Shiva okay they both are so closely connected with each other Shiva Shakti they said that without without the Shakti Shiva can't even move a limb not even a finger he's like a corpse have you met tantrix uh nobody wants wants to openly admit that they are tantric and they're very secretive and they uh they will allow you to meet them only if you're ready to become a tantric if you say that yes I'm ready to become a practitioner uh then they will talk to you but I have heard of people because many people come and talk to me about the religious practices so I know that uh people have tried tantric rituals in very dire circumstances and terrible things have still happened to them it's not like those things haven't happened but they when when there


those things haven't happened but they when when there was one person I know he was going to be put I mean I knew him through somebody into jail for some kind of reason and they did it but he still went he still had to suffer what possible things can happen as an outcome of Tantra no I don't know if terrible things can happen I wouldn't say that I was saying his what terrible things had to happen in his life still happened okay it's not like he was saved from it um see Tantra is mixed with Hinduism it's not exactly separate this whole idea of smearing you know putting on a tiller Canal it's all tantric Hinduism didn't have all that many Puja rights and all that we just practice ordinarily are all tantric in nature they're intertwined with each other yeah yeah but it's such an organ the certain rights which are very extreme that those are done by tamfax you know in the in the quiet of the night


you know in the in the quiet of the night and they have their own group and their own secrecy and they don't want everyone to know they don't want everyone to get that power apparently they get the power but I mean um I'm not a tantric but queer things have happened to me also where people have said that they've seen Shakti on my face I feel that okay I feel that lots of people have told me that and then when I so I come out of the temple just went there to survey the temple in the iskcon temple to give you an example and a couple came out of the temple and I was with this Australian girl who was a iscon so she's I said I'll accompany you I've never gone to iskcon but I'll accompany you I'll drive you there and I just came out of the temple I was just standing there and this couple came out she had a girl in her hand she bowed down to me put the Garland on me and


down to me put the Garland on me and walked away so I said maybe that's a discount practice the first person you see when you come out of the temple you have to calendar so I told my friend her name was Angela Angela do they always do this she said no why did she do that to you I said I have no idea why she did that to me so things like that have happened to me many times so I'm not saying it but other people have said it other people have said it and one lady actually got a little annoyed with me because I said she called me up while I was driving to college and she said that day you came and I speak in Hindi office you came to get your new book that was my second book it's called invoking goddesses gender politics in Indian religion so she said you came to pick up your book and I saw something on your face so I got a little nervous I was driving I made a joke I


I was driving I made a joke I said I don't know what her name is Mrs Mrs maybe my makeup got messed up that's what you saw she caught actually angry she said came running to me and said did you see did you see what was on her face did you see did you see and then I said and I was still driving and I still remember where I was I was in front of that bedroom Mark you know that's the route I used to take to college I said she said now you can't I don't know that lady at all she knows I'm a professor that's about it she said then I told her I said um because I'm a skeptic also so I said you saw happiness I get my book and the cover is looking so beautiful I said I was so happy you saw ronak of happiness you saw that look she said name ma'am so when people say things like that then that's their faith that's their belief you somehow then have to go


that's their belief you somehow then have to go with it but I'm still somewhere a little bit of a skeptic you don't do Mantra yourself well I have to admit that when I was around 11 12 years old I was very chanchal I was very bad in studies barely passing and uh one person whom my mother knew came to my house he saw my palm and he saw my channel he said all she has to do is this job okay said my this daughter she doesn't concentrate at all she's always playful she never studies for her exams and all this that and the other so he said tell her to do this and he wrote it down on a piece of paper the Mantra and I have kept that to this day with me and I do it when I want to feel empowered and I'm never no it's actually not a Shiva Mantra but I also do a Shiva Mantra and I actually have never said this publicly but I'm saying it today because I


this publicly but I'm saying it today because I actually through this podcast also want to help people that all this is not mumbo jumbo here is a person who's from Dell University who teaches in a college I'm so much older you know look at my age I'm going to retire in some years know that there is something in all this don't just dismiss it all the japa which I was saying the Mala is a wonderful thing get the good right Mantra because what it gives you and what you need in life is concentration you will get that concentration right whether you want to associate it with the deity whether you want to associate with the religion whether you want to associate it with psychology I don't care it has helped me in my lifetime I don't do it every day no I do it when I want to feel empowered okay but maybe if you are living this life where you're chasing this knowledge constantly you're also attracting these elements into your life that's why people are


these elements into your life that's why people are feeling that Devi energy in you so what one person told me I was there's this beautiful text called sonday I cannot tell you how beautiful it is by Adi shankaracharya and I was uh going to give a talk in Oxford University that you you flow in the wave of the beauty of the Goddess it's such a beautiful book I can't tell you scriptures it's scriptures so uh I had to I wanted to interview some men then what do they get out of it because it's a completely head to toe description physical description of the goddess in a very explicit way almost embarrassing way the way they describe it so I've interviewed women and I interviewed men so one man was in Chennai I called him up I got this number from someone that he decided to search on the real Harry almost every week or whatever it's a long hundred hundred verses book scripture so first he told me what he gets out of it how


he told me what he gets out of it how he feels good how he feels empowered how he can visualize the Devi because it's you know from the head to toe is you know from the case to the path description of the Kumaris and then he said he said you know up you know he was speaking in English your ancestors said somebody has their hand on your head even now so I said why he said do you know of anyone who's worked so much on gods and goddesses I said no there's nobody in my ancestry so he said but there is somebody because all my life I'm an 80 year old man all my life I would have loved doing what you're doing today how is it that you're getting to do it and I didn't get to do it I tried my best and you're doing it look at you how do you look at this new generation consuming this content while they're in college and teenagers is there an Awakening happening there is definitely a


there an Awakening happening there is definitely a pride in being of a certain religion there's no doubt we see that in that it can have its extreme right-wing thing which also we don't like and approve of there is definitely a desire to know more about one's own culture there's no doubt about that and also I think because it's helping their peers they are going towards it because if parents tell you to do it no one's going to listen to you mostly people teenagers will not listen to their parents so their heart mama jumbo whatever but when their own peers have experienced something like if you say that I went to that Temple and I experienced an energy then they will want to experience it too and then they start experiencing it and I think that's what's happening that's it's just leading you know it has that effect yeah um one last question we want to show I feel uh darker entities are also associated with shaktism in some form yeah so whether it is


shaktism in some form yeah so whether it is theoretical knowledge you have or practical experience I'd love to hear what you have to say and so with the audience that I can whether I've had a darker experience yes considering the fact that your intuition is also where it is like do you ever enter a room or a place and feel like okay it's just some wrong energy yes and I've been proven right the man has died within a few weeks terribly just unexpectedly I went into a house once and I started and it sometimes shows itself physically like I start getting a stomachache for no reason and I had to leave I told my husband let's go from here something's happening to me I get up I get that and he was not only was he very nasty to me he's very nasty to me for no reason who this person's house who I went to they invited me for dinner and he was nasty when and how he was nasty was and I can even tell you


he was nasty was and I can even tell you that he took out a book written by some foreign scholar not scholar writer in which he's writing very ugly things about Shiva and nandi I don't want the ACT you can well imagine that nandi does this to Shiva something something and all the dinner people all the people who were invited were sitting there and he started reading that out and he said you you write about this they got Shiva look at what's being said about him so I told the man I said is this the place to discuss this right now I mean I can intellectually discuss this with you what is being said but not at this dinner party and I started before that itself I was having a uneasiness in the stomach and all that and it didn't take much time he there was something wrong in that house it was Darkness like I told you what happened with the student and he passed away shortly after that just just out of the blue so yes sometimes


that just just out of the blue so yes sometimes one can sense it and it is scary I'm not saying it's it doesn't Empower me I don't feel empowered by this kind of intuition I mean sometimes intuition is nice somebody said they've left me a gift and I was able to say exactly what it was it was a particular perfume and I knew that that would be it and I said gosh how does one know there's those are funny things you know maybe it was just a coincidence but uh and sometimes it can help you like somebody was going to give me some bad news and I already knew while I was doing yoga what that news would be so I was ready with my answer I didn't cry I didn't weep I didn't anything I just gave my answer to that person right then and there because I had got the intuition this is why he wants to meet me he wants to give me this bad news so yes um you know I'll tell you what throughout


yes um you know I'll tell you what throughout my 20s I've always visualized what will happen three years later four years later and everything's come true and I've just I'm going down 30 this year yeah wow and I've hit a point where for some reason the image is related to visualization are not forming in my head for my late 30s and 40s and 50s and that makes me think that one I don't want to die early and two uh maybe I'm not supposed to think that far yeah which is why I'm just in the moment now trying to absorb things from the people I think that's wonderful a very nice way to look at it just move with the floor like this the cliches just let it go and whatever you feel like doing do it you wanted to bring the Smoothie here today you brought it I mean you wanted to have this talk we're having this talk just do what you feel like doing and you're doing so well my God you're on the right path and if so many


God you're on the right path and if so many people are learning things through your podcast I mean that's that's the beauty sharing I mean I mean I said empathy in my empathy and compassion it means also sharing what you know don't hold I tried my best not to hold back today just share so people can learn or people people may like it they may not like it that's up to that yeah there's a lot more conversations in you maybe even I'm a little bit older okay a little bit older could even mean like six months from now okay but I need I need some time to think grow more and then come back to you so sorry and thank you at the same time thank you very much thank you so that was the episode for today don't have too much to say in this outro all I want to say is that it's a blessing for me to talk to blessed Souls like Dr chidgo and it's an even bigger blessing to extract the wisdom that these great


blessing to extract the wisdom that these great Souls have accumulated over the years this was a very heartfelt conversation from my end because at this stage of life I'm trying to understand the divine feminine much more deeply not just to balance out my own inner world also because the divine feminine if you truly understand it in its spiritual sense contains so much power that it has the capability to protect you from anything that has the capability of elevating you up to any point and it has the capability of giving you absolutely what you need from this lifetime and occasionally it has the capability of giving you what you want from this lifetime what I will say is that all these processes become faster through the process of meditation make sure you download our meditation app level super mind especially if you want to begin your meditation process it's now live on the apps from the Play Store you'll earn yourself a one week free trial and what I will also say is keep following TRS for more every episode


also say is keep following TRS for more every episode of TRS is available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world because we're a Spotify exclusive the runway show will be back very soon thanks for your support keep learning along with me [Music]


and you'll be surprised to know that because the Russians have lost a lot of their scriptures because of the vagaries of time we took the help of Sanskrit to rebuild the avasta grama in daily zoration prayer what we call the kasthi prayer in the prayers they say [Music] if I translate all sorts of negativities including Black magicians Sorcerers witches even in the present times that the evil forces a demonic forces are there but your values your virtues your prayers your rituals Your Divine institutions your mindset all these are very very powerful tools to fight against them we've covered a lot of Indian history on the runway show we've covered Indian culture Hindu culture on the runway show but 2023 is all about inter-religious studies we're going to be doing multiple episodes on multiple religions and I feel it's very important as Indians for us to know about zorastrian history as well of course I know the parsies the iranis the zoroastrians will be watching


the iranis the zoroastrians will be watching this episode please share it as far and as wide as is possible but whether they are a Hindu a Muslim a Christian a sick a Buddhist a jam person please watch this episode till the end I feel your understanding of your own religion and your own history as a human being can be better understood when you get historical perspective cultural perspective from another religion very very fresh episode with this PhD scholar he is Dr ramiyar karanjia one of the foremost spokespeople on Zoroastrianism and he's given us the story the historical story of the Pharisees along with the origins of Zoroastrianism in this epic episode trust me you're not ready for some of this for example let me talk about the younger driest impact Theory very briefly brought it up in a bunch of our episodes with abhiji chawla so they say that about 12 000 years ago there was a cosmic event which destroyed most of human civilization and


cosmic event which destroyed most of human civilization and that is a very key part of the zorastrian story as well this is the true beauty of religion that if you truly study it you'll get to know some aspects of geological history as well in recent times the younger rise impact theory has been proved thanks to the work of people like Randall Carlson I am excited to bring you this episode because it was extremely enlightening for me for more episodes just like this make sure you follow us on Spotify where Spotify exclusive every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world this is Ramya Kar ranjia teaching us about zoroastrians and Zoroastrianism on the ranveer show [Music] thank you so this whole year for us is about inter-religious studies on the runway show so welcome firstly and you're going to teach us about zorrastrianism today uh where do we even begin this conversation let's just begin with how are you I am very good


just begin with how are you I am very good and thanks a lot for having me at your show it would be a pleasure talking with you I have been following your podcast and they are really very interesting and I hope to contribute somewhere some uh regarding the zorashian religion in the same line I'm glad so I grew up in uh near the other party colonies or grown up with a lot of Parsi friends I have some uh inputs ons or astronism I've understood certain aspects of it there's two things that stand out for me uh the first is um the fact that it's a classical religion of this Earth and I believe along with the Indian religions you know the religions that originated out of India zoracionism is probably one of the only classical religions of this Earth that's still existing today so any religion that's carried on for so long always contains nuggets of actual human history the second element that really stands out to me because I'm a podcaster is


stands out to me because I'm a podcaster is the supernatural element there's Angels there's demons there's Supernatural stories uh there's magic and Zoroastrianism so these are the two domains we're going to tackle today uh am I right in saying these things perfectly right uh more than classical I would say that yes of course it is classical but it has been internationally recognized as the world's oldest religion okay and it's not just me being a zorashian saying it because you generally feel that yeah because somebody belongs to a religion they would say something good only about the religion it's not so International Scholars have accepted that it is the oldest revealed religion in the world and other abrahamic religions like Krishna vanity Judaism and Islam have taken a lot from zoroastian religion that is point number one another thing about angels and demons of course russianism has a plethora of angels and of course wherever there are angels there will be demons so there are


are angels there will be demons so there are plethora of them and in fact the very definition of zorashian religion like if you ask a zoroastrian what is the definition of your religion uh so most people 99 percent may say good thoughts good words Good Deeds I am sure you also must have come across that definition and a very strong sense of God like there's a very strong sense of a higher power like I've seen this with every Parsi I know the Parsi if you know a lot of parsis and iranis very strong sense of ethics and strong sense of God this is an outsider's perspective yes yes because in russianism beautifully God and ethics Divine beings and virtues have been Blended together so if you take care of a creation you are also taking care of a virtue and an angel presiding over that creation so we also say that so Russian religion is the first ecologically conscious religion because every creation has a Divine being presiding over it so one has to take


being presiding over it so one has to take care of the creation to see that the uh Divine being presiding over it is does not is not afferented in any way yeah um so this whole Deep dive into the world's ancient religions began with a conversation I had with someone called mohsan Raza Khan and he spoke about geography having a big role to play on where religions originate so let's actually go into the story of zoroastanism where exactly did it originate and from what did it originate because before a religion begins there has to be some source so is that a source of beliefs etc etc and please correct me if I'm wrong but the one thing I've understood about jurassicism from all my parsley friends honestly is that it is in many many many many many ways like a sister religion to Hinduism also like they're both sister religions very similar especially when you look at the old uh Vedic beliefs there was too many parallels my reading here is


there was too many parallels my reading here is because it's sort of geographically similar locations it's this whole subcontinent and Central Asia stretch uh do you have anything to say about that yes a lot uh I would say that uh even before the word religion may have come about in the Holy past we are talking of Indo uh Aryans uh we all studied I remember I studied it in the my fifth standard that there was a group of people called the Aryans much before any religion came about and according to our religious tradition it says that they were saying very much in the north almost near to the North Pole and this group of people whom we call Aryans in the avasta language it is called iriana literally means belonging to a noble race so this group had three types of people geographically three types of people the Europeans the Indians and the Iranians and they were all living together peacefully uh even perhaps before the great Deluge came along the great Deluge yeah which happened


came along the great Deluge yeah which happened 12 000 years ago oh okay okay I've got you're stopping you in two places here okay the first place is this whole Aryan Invasion Theory it's uh greeted with a lot of anger online nowadays like a lot of Indians get very offended with like the Aryan Invasion Theory so we've had archaeologists on the show where have asked them about the RNA Invasion Theory and uh this is a very reputed Indian archaeologist she said that now it's proven that India like from Punjab till Tamil Nadu was not invaded by the Aryans this is archaeologically proven so I think when you're talking about Aryans you're talking about another kind of story I'm just saying that for the audience here yeah you're talking much more about Zoroastrianism and uh the region near Iran there was some element of a group of people called the Aryans day maybe the British actually used that theory and pasted this RN Invasion Theory upon the


theory and pasted this RN Invasion Theory upon the Indus Valley Civilization I don't know that's my conjecture but I want to know more secondly this 12 000 year uh thing uh this has also been brought up on the show apparently around 10 000 BC which is about 12 000 years ago there was a very big Cosmic event uh almost apocalyptic it's called the younger driest impact uh and this has been brought up a lot on American podcasts again a lot of international archaeologists are not completely convinced about it I totally am convinced I believe that the younger rise impact happened and it destroyed human civilization as we know it and we had to rebuild from there now I'll let you continue so I'm sorry it's very important for me as a podcaster to give this context to the listeners yeah now go on a very true c as an academician I know one thing the two theories can coexist and I am not of the opinion that if my theory is there the other


the opinion that if my theory is there the other cannot coexist so I am very open to it and I know that this second school of thought is there but there are so much there's so much evidence about the first school of thought also and the moment you said that there are similarities between the zoroastians and the Hindus one of the main reason people believe that it is because Russians came to India from Iran that is why the similarities are there and I say no sir that's not true because zorationism what we call today zorashians and what we today call the Hindus they have been together since 12 000 and more than 12 000 years they've never been separated in a way if you go to see yeah I saw it on a Netflix documentary about this uh what you just mentioned about this apocalyptic event and I just want to draw your attention to the fact that in that uh documentary even the avastan concept is mentioned the person who was present from a zorashian Viewpoint from


who was present from a zorashian Viewpoint from an avastin Viewpoint what is avastin okay so avasta is the language in which all the text of the zorashians are written so avasta goes back before zoroastian religion even started it was the language as you rightly pointed out the sister language to Sanskrit okay so the name of that language is avasta what's the script like the script is totally different you may not have seen it anywhere because for thousands of years this language did not have a script the script developed only about a thousand five hundred years back and of course one similarity to Persian Etc is that it is written from right to left but apart from that it is quite different because there are 50 letters in the alphabet and each letter is written separately it's not conjoined as in Arabic and Persian or even pallavi palavis another Iranian language so that's why we call Sanskrit and avasta sister languages and you'll be surprised to know that because


languages and you'll be surprised to know that because the Russians have lost a lot of their scriptures because of the vagaries of time we took the help of Sanskrit to rebuild the avasta grama how like as in how did this work uh because uh a western texts were there manuscripts were there but the grammar had been lost the text about grammar had been lost now when European scholars came to India about 300 years ago they realized that these two languages are very similar Sanskrit and avasta so they learned the avasta in that traditional manner not the scientific phyllological manner but a traditional manner took many manuscripts with them back to France and there constructed the avastan grammar with the help of Sanskrit grammar so today if somebody studies avasta grammar there are many Sanskrit uh terminologies in this like Guna riddhi sandhi antargata and people might be thinking that what is this Sanskrit terminology doing in avasta grama but it is because avasta grammar has been reconstructed from Sanskrit


because avasta grammar has been reconstructed from Sanskrit so close they are I'll just give you an example like our one of our sacred chants is called the yata which is also known as it is like our Gayatri Mantra so you want to say it I don't mind chanting is go for it but uh just before I chant it I'll tell you that in avasta it is if you translate that in Sanskrit just to show you how close it is foreign so close these two languages are now I'll let you carry on to the story sir uh where do zoroastrians believe that zoroastanism began like uh do you want to start at the Deluge like that's that's one thing you mentioned do you want to start at that 12 000 year mark or do you want to go further back it's up further back okay let's do it yeah but I'll want to hear about the Deluge as well yeah so our ancient Iranian history you know I've always maintained that to understand religion you have


always maintained that to understand religion you have to know the history because ancient history in ancient religion are always conjoined so you have to go together so our ancient Iranian history is for a convenient sake has been divided into five groups of five dynasties what we call and we are going to the first dynasty which is called pesh dad now the very word pesh that means the first law givers pesh means first and that means law here we are starting with the beginning of civilization when there was nothing agriculture was not there how to wear clothes was not their skills and trades were not there we are going right from at the beginning when people were in a nomadic stage hunting Hunters gatherers so at that time we are told in our uh in our epic let me tell you about this we zorashians have our own epic like the ramayan and Mahabharata we have it we call it the shaname and the shanami is a complete um history and um some part