Tag: deities

The Dalai Lama Chants the Om Trayambakam

One of our important chants in yoga is the Om Trayambakam, officially the Maha Mrtyunjaya Mantra. It is a Siva mantra and gives you long life, health, happiness, prosperity and liberation.

Recently the Dalai Lama chanted the Om Tryambakam. You can listen to the mp3 file from the previous link or here.

Dalai Lama

From the website:

The story behind the recording: A beloved friend of the Dalai Lama, another monk, was making his transition from this life to the next.  Not, it might be said, as a trauma or a lost cause, but as a joyful journey at the correct time and with understanding of life beyond earth life. The Dalai Lama sat at his friend’s bedside and chanted this chant for hours until the monk,with joy and peace, made his crossing. Those who were present begged the Dalai Lama to record the chant so that it might be shared with the world. He agreed to do so only if it was stated that the recording could never be sold, but only given away. This MP3 is the result. It is not for sale but is meant to be copied and shared.


This is one of the most sacred and powerful mantras used for healing. It has truly wondrous therapeutic power when chanted or listened to regularly. Mrityunjaya mantra will help you to know the divinity within. It is chanted to know eternity. The mrityunjaya mantra is considered one of the maha mantras or great Sanskrit mantras because of its potency to give protection and manifold blessings. Maha mrityunjaya literally means the great victory over death. It is associated with Shiva, the destroyer of ignorance, and the liberator from the cycle of death and rebirth. It is therefore a life giving mantra that not only protects the physical body and gives health, but purifies the mind at a deep level.

Lord Siva

Feel free to share the links and recording.

Prana Shakti Calendar Design

Recently I created a design of a Hindu goddess called Prana Shakti. Today this design was posted over at Smashing Magazine as a June entry in their monthly calendar contest. It is also available as a desktop wallpaper and comes in several sizes.

Prana Shakti is symbolized as a beautiful Hindu goddess who holds weapons in each of her hands representing victory over different negative aspects of human existence and the unfoldment of our divine nature.

Here is a mini picture of the calendar version of the Prana Shakti:

prana-shakti-small

If you want to see it along with the other calendars for the month, and/or get your own free download go to Smashing Magazine and scroll down. Exciting news as they currently have almost 115,000 subscribers.

Navaratri

During this week and into next week is the Hindu festival of Navaratri. It means “nine nights” and it is a worship of the divine mother in several forms. The goddess represents the active principal of creation, or Shakti. Each night a puja is held celebrating one of the forms of Shakti.

The first 3 nights of Navaratri are to ask the goddess Durga for help in eradicating all the negative tendencies of the mind. She also helps you to protect your spiritual practice from the distractions and pitfalls that you encounter regularly in worldly life.  Here is a picture of Durga:

She has 10 arms, which each hold the weapons from the different gods, which she uses to destroy the negative tendencies.

The next 3 nights of the festival are in worship of goddess Lakshmi. She is the wealth-giving aspect of God, including not just material blessings but spiritual blessings as well. Once you have removed your negative tendencies through worship of Durga, Lakshmi will fill you with purity, and help you develop auspicious qualities. Here is what Lakshmi looks like:

The last 3 nights of the festival are in honor of the goddess Saraswati. She represents knowledge, wisdom and the arts. After removing your negative qualities and filling yourself with purity and divine qualities during the first 6 nights of the festival, Saraswati is worshipped in order to receive the full knowledge of the Self. She bestows the light of wisdom on the aspirants. Here is Saraswati, always pictured in pure white garments:

After the 9 nights are over comes Vijaya Dasami. This is a day of celebration and a special puja is held with objects related to your main karmas in addition to the above forms of the goddess.

For more information you can read a nice description on the Divine Life Society website.

Siva Calendar Design

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had started doing some website designs in addition to my yoga teaching. Today one of my designs was posted over on a design website which has more than 100,000 subscribers as of today. I entered it as a desktop wallpaper calendar for October, 2008, available in several sizes.

Here is a mini picture of the calendar version of the Siva:

Also there are wallpaper versions available of the same print, but without the calendar. If you want to see it along with the other calendars for the month, and/or get your own free download go to Smashing Magazine and scroll down.

Hinduism, Deities and Yoga

It happens very often that people think yoga is part of the Hindu religion, or that because I practice traditional Sivananda yoga which is based somewhat on the Hindu religious deities and other philosophies, that I am a Hindu.

While traditional yoga practices are spiritual (not religious) in nature, they are often associated with the Hindu religious deities because yoga originated in India where Hinduism is prevalent. Yoga practitioners can practice any religion, or none at all.

The quote above is from the AYA (Advaita Yoga Ashrama) website. They recently started a section on the Hindu deities which explains all this, and puts to rest some of the misguided notions about all the deities. If you want to know more about this, I recommend checking it out.

Pictured here is the Hindu God Ganesha, remover of obstacles.