Questioner: This question is from Siddharaj.
"Namaskaram Sadhguru, Devi is a manifestation of divine. And you said many Devi temples all over the world were destroyed.
I would like to know why was Devi not able to protect herself” (Laughter)?
Sadhguru: (Laughs) Well, yes it was...
It is a fact that the worship of the divine in the feminine form was hugely prevalent
in the present day Europe, Arabia, Central Asia – all these places,
but it has managed to live only in this part of Asia still. In other places it's been violently uprooted.
Well, maybe a better documented version of uprooting the divine feminine is, all of you have definitely heard of hmm,
you know, witch hunting, tha... that term is still being used today,
if something… unfairly somebody is being hunted we say witch hunt.
This comes from the term during the time of the crusades.
It is estimated they burnt over six million women alive over a period of probably hundred-and-fifty years
or two-hundred years, I'm not very sure about that.
But over a period of time, those crusade period,
when somebody was very ambitiously spreading their religion, this is what happened.
These women who were burned like this and many were simply burned for various other reasons,
but it was all... just label somebody a witch, that's it, people will burn them down.
Even today this practice is still there, unfortunately here and there.
So who is a witch?
In some way when a woman displays she's capable of doing something or knowing something
beyond childbearing and cooking, she's a witch. Yes,
that's how it was.
So generally the Devi temples always pawned women who are capable of other things.
Right now we're breeding a new culture of bairaginis and devisadhakas.
The idea is to not just have red devils walking around in the ashram (Laughter).
The idea is slowly divinity walks around. It might... they may take their time,
but gradually to produce what you considered as divine which you enshrine must live, with legs.
So, the divine feminine has been uprooted simply because the Abrahamic way of religious process is purely male-oriented,
it's completely masculine. There is no room for feminine to be anywhere there.
It's God and his Son.It's God and His messengers, all male messengers, never female, because they're not reliable,
they may say something else, because they may know something else, that's the problem.
So, because of this, in Arabia, in Europe, in Central Asia lot of destruction happened,
but there is not a single village in entire India without a Devi temple.
Tch, and when I went to Somnath temple, it was destroyed seventeen times over by a certain kind of warlord from Afghanistan.
Seventeen times he makes this trip, which is over probably fourteen – fifteen hundred kilometers.
He makes this trip just to destroy this temple.
First time I can understand, because there was wealth, there was gold and stuff.
All right, he looted it, destroyed it, burnt it down and went.
Why come second time? Maybe little more wealth.
But after that there was no wealth because people just put up small things.
But he came seventeen times and destroyed. So, I was inquiring, "What is it?"
The thing was those three goddesses that they talk about in Arabia, pre-Islamic era, one of those godded... goddesses,
one of the deities, some devotee carried it from there and established it in the Somnath temple as a consort of Shiva.
So they wanted to destroy that goddess.
So the guy makes a thirteen – fourteen hundred kilometer trip seventeen times on a horseback to destroy her.
That is how important it is to destroy a woman in this world. That's how important it is.
Because if you empower the feminine, then all the silly laws that you... all the silly ideologies,
laws of heaven and nonsense that you have create... created, all that will collapse.
I will not go into the mechanics of how it will collapse but think through this.
Suppose you accepted a woman as a God.
Suddenly, going somewhere and living well will go away, because that's not the nature of the feminine.
It is always masculine. He wants to go somewhere and then live well,
at least to another place in this country or another continent in this planet or another planet
or another galaxy or another dimension called heaven, paradise, whatever you want to call it.
This is a man's thing, he wants to go somewhere and then live well.
He can't live well here, this is his problem.
This is a huge masculine problem that he cannot live well here.
If you look at the male and female, you will see the feminine always wants to settle down
– wherever little comfort; settle down and live well.
Man wants to climb the mountain and settle down on the other side, this side of the mountain is not okay for him (Laughter).
So, if you made a male God and a female God and they were together like Shiva-Parvati something,
you will not want to go anywhere tch. Even Shiva settled down in Kashi because of Parvati (Few Laugh).
He is a wanderer but during the winter months after he got married he found
she was finding it very difficult to be in high altitude in Himalayas.
For her sake he came down to Kashi, but then he also started liking it so much.
For a long time he did not go back.
So, feminine always brings settling down; masculine wants to propel somewhere.
That propelling, too much propelling – we need some propelling of course –
too much propelling is causing enormous destruction in all levels of life.
Tch today a whole lot of people have started philosophizing –
only because we overdid our economy, virus has come to neutralize our economy. I'm not saying that.
This is not the way to balance our economy or our activity, there are more sensible ways to do this.
And one important way to do it is, empower the feminine.
You will see, in many ways this propulsion will come down a little bit.
Either you must be inward-oriented, then you can sit here or
you're in some way bound to a woman, then you will sit here.
Otherwise, single man (Laughter) can't control him, he is all the time on (Laughs).
If you are inward-oriented, very effortlessly you will sit, otherwise, a woman can tie you down tch.
In many ways the economy and the destruction of the planet has still not gone to that place
where it's not irreversible simply because most men still need a woman.
Very few men who can live without a woman.
They are either ascetics, so no problem, or they are super-ambitious tyrants, they are a problem.
Yes.
So, has Devi been destroyed? Well, I'm telling you she's all over this country, in every village.
There may be no temple for a male God in a village, but always there is a temple for a Devi.
No Tamil Nadu village is without Mari, Mariamman.
No Karnataka village is without Mari; here... there (Referring to Karnataka) she is Mari,
here (Referring to Tamil Nadu) she is Mariamman, somewhere else she is Kali.
She's good at taking on lots of names. So, why couldn't she take care of herself?
This is the nature of a woman, that if it's getting too ugly she won't be there.
She will go and settle where it's conducive. That's exactly what she has done.
We must take care of her (Applause).