The Wisdom of Hindu Goddesses and The Path to Soul Liberation With Ananta Ripa Ajmera

Krati: What does spirituality mean to you?

And do you think it is for people who are non religious, like people who just want to have nothing to do with religion? Can they follow spirituality? Can they be spiritual?

Ananta: Sure. Well, spirituality to me means really living by what we call as dharma or the universal way and living according to some higher principles that guide each of our thoughts, words and actions and really pursuing the true self, which is beyond this body, beyond the mind, beyond the intellect that was, existing before we were born into this body and that will exist even after we leave this body.

The more we are really practicing spirituality, we’re actually practicing letting go of desires. for external things that take us away from the connection with our true self. And that doesn’t mean that we’re saying you have to leave the world and not, you know, get involved with people or relationships to be spiritual, but really what spirituality in the way that I’ve come to understand it through my studies of it is that it’s about.

Liberating yourself from all the false identifications that we have with people with objects with achievements with all of the outer world and connecting back to the essence of who we really are, which we call our Atma in Sanskrit or the soul in English. And I believe that anyone can follow this path, even if they don’t go with any religion, because ultimately I feel spirituality is about reconnecting with nature, the natural world, the natural rhythms and our own true nature.

And that anyone can do regardless of whether they have a religious affiliation or not.

Krati: That’s beautiful. I, I always say that whenever I am asked this question, I always limit my answer to anything that nurtures and nourishes your soul. That’s it. Uh, you know, so if you consider your soul to be very white in color or a pink in color, yellow in color, like how people associate colors of aura, uh, positive aura with soul, just keeping it in that pure, pure, pure form for as long as you live, whatever is necessary to do that.

Um, but I like your answer better. I think it, it covers, a lot of the basis that would give comfort to someone who is not religious, doesn’t believe in God even, uh, would be able to follow that line of thinking because I think ego, I don’t think, I don’t think it’s a practical goal for people like us who live in this material world to want to kill off our ego.

I don’t think that’s quite possible. Uh, but I think having mastery over your ego as much as you can achieve it, I think that is something that spirituality can help you with. And I think that element that that mastery over your ego can really help you live a very meaningful, very happy, fulfilling life.

Um, you know, something in India, we see a lot of youngsters going to places like Rishikesh and Kashi, leaving their normal life. And these are young people. These are like people in their twenties and thirties. And I don’t think they’re there seeking some higher truth. I think they’re tired of life and they end up in those places.

And this is something I think you are one amazing woman who can help us with this. You can tell us how you need not leave your normal material life and go into the mountains or sit by the river Ganga to be spiritual, to have this beauty and comfort in your life. There is a way to, you know, do your duties, fulfill your responsibilities, and if maybe then someday you have lived a full life and you want to leave then you fine do that. But don’t don’t go that path thinking you’re being spiritual, when really you are, you’re just tired and running scared.

Can you please tell us how spirituality can be this beautiful part of our daily life?

Ananta: Yeah. Yeah. So. Spirituality is not separate from life. Spirituality is about going deep into life and understanding from every situation that karmically unfolds for us, what is the lesson we are meant to learn from this. And that means not escaping whatever your reality is, whatever your situation is. Of course, it’s always wonderful to go on retreats or to go away and be closer to nature, to get closer to the silence and the stillness of the self.

But I have to say that I’ve had some very spiritual experiences living in New York City, just because I had the intention of connecting within and really walking that path, which is more about your intentionality than it is about your external surroundings. So if anyone is pursuing spirituality as a route of escape, then it’s only going to deepen your level of problems that you would have even started the journey with it’s only when we really take to spirituality as a way to face our problems that we’re really going to get empowered by it and to realize the full benefit of it.

That’s why even in the Vedic. scripture of the Bhagavad Gita, which is like the Bible of the yoga tradition. The whole discourse takes place on a battlefield and that battlefield is symbolic of our daily lives and our struggles and the challenges that we face in our daily lives within our own body and our own mind and how it’s ultimately, conquering those inner demons that allows us to conquer the challenges that come from other people and outside situations. There’s no retreating into nature or going away from the world in the middle of a battlefield. One has to face the battle and really conquer the internal forces in order to be able to do that.

Krati: And you know, I think if you can read any religious scripture without getting provoked, without getting your back up. With if you can sit through a political discussion without getting provoked without losing your temper I think that is spiritual progress Anytime i’m part of one of these discussions where everybody is like saying like the most Like shit that makes you think oh my god, you cannot possibly believe something like that, but I can respond like a rational Calm human being I feel like oh my god.

I’ve grown so much. I’m such a grown up now I think that is that is something you can only get from living life, like you said, anybody can be calm living in a mountain surrounded by no one, no disturbances whatsoever. In fact, I think there would be more power to it. If you can achieve some level of spirituality, some degree of peace, living your life, fulfilling whatever it is that you’re here to do.

I think there, there is a beauty that cannot be had anywhere else in any other way. And I think you’re helping. massively with that. Your book is amazing., there is another question that I had before, uh, going to that topic was What to you are the core tenets to spirituality what to you would be the core values that you observe on priority in your daily life?

Ananta: Yeah. I love that question. Nobody’s ever asked me a question like that. So I really appreciate it. It’s a great one. It’s something I reflect on a lot myself and I feel the number one value for me in terms of spirituality that I strive to live by all the time is sovereignty. Like really becoming independent in the highest sense of the word where we can be.

In relationship with others and benefiting from others and helping others, but from a place of knowing that anyone can leave at any time, anything can happen at any time. Am I really preparing myself to be okay, no matter what happens on the outside. And I feel that that is really the essence of spirituality, which is all about Mentally discerning the truth of each situation and letting go of all that is not us all that is not the truth, and it’s a really difficult one that sovereignty because it makes you look at all different aspects of your life.

And even in my business, I really look at that because we can get so attached to anything that we create in life, whether that’s a family or a business, uh, book, uh, you know, clothing line or whatever it may be that we are creating in our work, in our professions. It’s so easy to get identified with it and to believe that that’s who we are because we give up a part of ourselves.

feel fulfilled from that thing. And then if that thing gets taken away because someone passes away, or we suddenly are not able to work or our job gets taken, or the economy goes through a huge shift, then we feel, we can feel really broken as a result of that. So for me, it’s about how do I become independently, Fulfilled and happy, no matter what happens, no matter who comes or goes.

That’s a big anchor for me. I also feel that empathy is a very important value on the spiritual path and really trying to understand people, trying to put ourselves in their shoes and to really have compassion for everyone’s different journeys that are unfolding and where they’re at in their lives for me, it’s also about acceptance.

Unconditional acceptance of what is really opens the path for expansion because again, we’re not getting stuck or attached to any one thing or situation or person, but we’re open to life as it unfolds and not looking at it for how it should be or how we would want it to be, but simply accepting it for what it is.

And then I feel Integrity is an important value that there’s an alignment between what my values are, what I think, what I speak and what I do and what my habits are. Because if you look closely at a lot of the leaders and spirituality and religion and even yoga and so many different things, there’s a lot of misalignment there.

And so it’s a constant, gauge that we have to check in with and make sure does this feel right? Does this really fulfill what I believe? And another core value that I really do believe in is gratitude. And of the, what we call five yajnas in the Vedic spiritual tradition, it’s a really beautiful practice where, or perspective rather, where we look at this whole human existence that we’ve been gifted by the divine as a gift from the divine, and also as a blessing from humanity, people we’ve never known, even the fact that we can connect like this from different countries.

It’s not because of our, Efforts that this platform squad cast exists or that we’re able to connect through the internet. It’s because of many people we don’t know who have made this opportunity possible. And so we have a certain debt of gratitude to humanity. We have a debt of gratitude to our ancestors, to our direct parents and to their parents and all those who came before us, even if we don’t.

agree with everything that they’ve passed down. And even if we’re questioning things and looking to make things better for ourselves and for generations to come, we wouldn’t be here without their contributions, without their sacrifices of even their, their physical effort to bring us into this world.

And then we are in debt of nature itself because nature provides Nature is everything. Nature is our mother. Nature gives us oxygen. Nature gives us sunshine, gives us energy, gives us food, gives us vitality, gives us so many blessings and so many gifts and teachings. So much of Ayurveda and yoga is about Learning from nature, learning what does nature have to offer us.

And if we even just simply sit and observe nature, there’s so much to learn. Anytime we tune in deeply. And so that is something we have to really give back to. And then finally, um, the teachers who bestow us with higher wisdom and teachings are very important to pay our respects to and to give back to.

So a life that is filled with A feeling of gratitude and a feeling of giving back in whatever way we can to these five entities of life, and that will change depending on the situation that we’re in in our lives, but it’s more of an attitude of appreciation and and gratitude. And then I feel humility that nobody knows it all.

Nobody can do it all and have to understand that we. are the way we feel when we stand beside the ocean. We’re a small little peg in a huge picture of the cosmos. And we have to constantly be open to learning and open to understanding what we’re supposed to learn from each situation and person who we encounter.

So I would say these are the core values that shape my understanding of lived spirituality.

Krati: that’s beautiful. I have so many questions now and I will come back to some of what you’ve discussed here. We will, we will come back to this, but let’s, let me just ask you about the divine feminine, because I know from what I’ve read, um, for you, it is something that helps you go deeper into the values that you’ve just shared,

Ananta: sure. Yeah. Where should we start? I

Krati: Let’s, for the unversed, for someone who has not read your book for someone who is not familiar with the Some of the names that come up in your the names of the goddesses or any of this. Okay, let’s start with Let’s consider those people and help them understand What divine feminine is

Ananta: love to define divine feminine as that power, which gives us the ability to give birth to the most authentic version of ourselves, regardless of our gender, regardless of our religion, regardless of any belief system that we may have. It’s that divine creative power that gives us the ability to transform into the best version of who we can be.

Krati: and how do you think we can make this concept a part of our life and deepen those values and practice those values that are so crucial to living a purposeful successful life because in your book you this is the path you lay out for you know anyone seeking it to this is a path to a place of courage to get to a place of um, You Being open to all the feedback that the universe is sending you to taking that feedback and working to just being more open, more courageous, bolder, more empowered and understanding that there is a higher version of you that is within your reach and the Divine Feminine can take you down that path.

How does that work?

Ananta: Yeah. So the divine feminine journey of empowerment and the hero’s journey that my book, the way of the goddess. leads us on, and I say us because it’s very much the journey that I’m on, that I’m sharing with the world via my book, is rooted in the journey of the warrior mother goddess Durga from the ancient Vedic tradition.

We can think of all these goddesses like how we would think of Athena. Or Aphrodite or Artemis or Apollo from the Greek mythological tradition. They are basically archetypal stories. That are giving us a lot of insight into our inner workings and are giving us role models who we can follow in the footsteps of.

So this path that I share is actually the deeper journey of the Nine night Navratri Goddess festival that we Indians throughout the world celebrate with a lot of dancing and food and festivals and music. But what a lot of people don’t know is that this is actually meant to be a really profound, step-by-step spiritual journey through awakening each of your chakras, each of the physiological and psychological centers within us that are responsible for different, what we call spiritual superpowers. So the first step of the journey is to awaken the power of stability in the root chakra. By getting grounded. And then we have a teacher for that called Goddess Shailaputri who is the embodiment of Mother Nature, who is the mountain goddess and the mountains are so much a representative of that groundedness and of that stability.

And then once we have stability, we move into embodying creativity. And what that means is actually channeling our emotions into a higher ideal on the spiritual path. And we do that through the practice of what is called Brahmacharya which is not necessarily complete abstinence, but it’s definitely a mental discipline that allows us to really focus our energies, regardless of what we’re doing on the divine within us and within each being who is in our lives, and it really Empowers us to practice self control and having some discipline with our thoughts so that our thoughts are not just this crazy storm that leads us astray, but are actually moving in a divine direction that empowers us.

And then when we do that, it actually awakens the fire of transformation in the third chakra, which is the solar plexus. And that’s where the courage really comes from. It comes through digestion. And that’s the place where we’re digesting not only food, but we’re digesting information or just digesting emotions.

And we’re also digesting our life’s experiences. In the science of Ayurveda, we believe that digestion is considered the key to overall health, but it’s not just of food, it’s also of all these other things. And we really have to digest the traumas and the challenges, especially, that we go through in life, because that’s where the real nuggets of wisdom live.

That’s where our inner treasures reside. And that’s why, even in the Stories of the Vedas, we have characters like Lord Ganesha, who is considered the remover of obstacles, but he’s also the grantor of obstacles because it’s only in having those obstacles that we realize the truth of who we are and we can unlock that courageous, bold self within, which is very much a product of good digestion of teachings even. So there’s like a physiological digestion. And then in the Vedic spiritual tradition, there’s this idea of, uh, spiritual digestion of, uh, what is called like a. Digestion of spiritual knowledge, where we have to absorb it in a similar way that we absorb our food and really integrate it and use it to fuel our lives.

It doesn’t always make sense to us right away. You know, we have to actually process it and we have to integrate it and then it becomes. This amazing benefit to us. So the value of digestion is really, really important and it gets awakened in that third chakra with a very fiery goddess who represents that battle that we fight within to awaken that power of digestion and especially the power to transform those traumas in our lives into something really empowering that allows us to overcome fear and to You know, work with anger such that we pair it with wisdom, and then it really becomes true spiritual power and with that power awakened, we’ve then purified the first layer, which is the ego living in the first three chakras, and then we move into the heart chakra.

And this is where the power of love resides. And this is where the story of the goddess Durga is of her avatar, Kushmanda, where she is basically the mother of the whole universe. She gives birth to the whole universe through the power of her heartfelt laughter. And that’s meant to teach us that it’s when we’re laughing, when we’re smiling, When we’re not stressed out that we’re going to be our most creative selves, and that’s where we will also connect with our deeper courage.

So the courage that gets awakened through the fire of digestion gets strengthened through the heart because courage is actually a quality of the heart and having an open heart. And it takes a lot of courage to do that, especially when We live in a world where a lot of people don’t have that. And a lot of people, you know, are, are in fear and react and act in that state to really be open hearted, takes a certain kind of courage that comes from first loving yourself, you know, so that’s what we’re really meant to learn in the heart chakra.

And when we really love ourselves, and then we’re going to be able to express that love and compassion to others. in a really genuine way. And that expression comes through the throat chakra. And that’s where we are connecting with the power of voice, but also the power of speech that is connected with the root of silence.

Silence is a very powerful space in which to connect with our inner wisdom. And this is where we’re going to learn to also practice deep listening, listening to ourselves, listening to others, listening to the emotions underlying, whatever it is we’re speaking and whatever it is we’re listening to, because that will actually cue us into a much deeper level of communication.

That will allow for healing and allow for a transmutation of these lower emotions that we experience, right? Like guilt and shame and, uh, anger and frustration and, and all of these things that we go through as, as humans, there’s a lot around emotions that’s connected with speech and with the purification of our speech as a seat of karma, even where we’re.

you know, creating karma through the words that we speak. And so when we learn to connect with silence, we’re able to speak more of the truth. Right? And to really connect more with a space of wisdom and to reflect that wisdom in our speech. So this is also something that takes a certain kind of courage to really express ourselves, but we would have had to digest first. We would have had to, you know, love ourselves first, to then feel like we can actually do this. And the goddess archetype that’s connected with this process is the goddess Skandamata who is the biological mother. And the idea here is that, well, first of all, the goddess is a goddess because before she becomes a biological mother, she’s a mother to the whole universe.

And then she becomes a biological mother. But there’s a lesson in that too, that we each are actually responsible for mothering our own inner child. And so the baby Skanda is representing our inner child and how when we are in silence, we’re able to connect with those emotions of our inner child and really allow for the healing that needs to happen.

This is really important, especially for people who are parents. It’s because a lot of times we project our own childhood conditioning and whatever we’ve learned from our own parents onto our children and can repeat generational traumas that way unintentionally when we don’t digest them. So there’s so much around that.

And I’ve shared my own personal journey of healing some ancestral traumas and family, um, cycles through my own personal experiences that I’ve shared in the book that connect with these stories and how the practices have really helped me to stand up for myself in the face of even like domestic violence and then to be able to address the ways that I had been blamed for certain traumas that had happened in my life.

and how I internalized that and it became a whole battle that I had to fight within myself to then liberate the power of the speech that heals, the speech that unites, and that also liberates us from any feelings of guilt or shame that we may have taken on due to how we internalized situations when we didn’t have the knowledge of how to understand what life’s traumas and experiences actually have to teach us and to, you know, awaken within us because the wound that we have is never our fault, but healing it is our responsibility. And so that’s really what This chakra is about, it’s been a very powerful one for me. And I love the power of silence as a spiritual practice, because I really feel that that birthing process of the true self, it really happens a lot through the speech and through the stories that we tell about ourselves, about what we’ve gone through in our lives, about other people and about the world itself.

So this is a really powerful place. And when we’ve Connected with this, then we move up into the Ajna Chakra or the Third Eye Chakra. And this is about awakening the power of intuition, especially in the face of narcissism and gaslighting. It goes on a lot in life and in different, you know, communities, families, like schools.

All sorts of places. So we have to be really aware of when that’s happening, and we have to be able to really trust ourselves. And that can be so difficult to do if we’ve been manipulated and gaslit and made to believe that we are wrong, when actually we are just dating the reality as it is. So this is actually a power that a lot of people who are more empathic really have to work to develop because it’s usually the empathic souls that get caught into a cycle with narcissists because they both feed off of each other.

Narcissists have no empathy and empaths have lots of empathy. So there is this kind of trauma bonding that goes on and a lot of people who know that they are empath, empathetic people. often have at least one experience with a narcissist in their life. And so this is really an important battle to be able to trust your own inner voice, even if there’s no evidence for why you believe what you believe or why you feel what you feel.

That’s really, really important. And this is where the warrior goddess really gets into battle mode with the demon who comes to seduce her off of her spiritual path. And she really stands for truth and stands for, you know, the spiritual journey and not getting, uh, caught out of it or, you know, getting caught up in, in something else.

And so then, um, The battle continues as we go higher into the crown chakra, and that’s where we’re connecting with the power of truth. The truth that sets us free, the truth that allows us to look beyond the illusions in our lives, and the truth that also we have somewhere, if we’ve not processed our trauma in the earlier stages, played a role in any other traumas we’ve created in our lives as adults.

Once we’ve reached the state of adulthood, then whatever traumas occur at that stage, there’s some connection to unresolved wounds that we have that we are then needing to really look and see the truth of and see beyond our own naivete and our own kind of patterns and conditions, and it can be a little painful or very painful, I would say.

And that’s why in this stage of the journey, the goddess is really having a furious battle with the demon who keeps multiplying by shedding its blood and each blood drop becomes another demon. And so the goddess actually has to drink these blood drops in order to win. Well, which is super grotesque, but it’s very symbolic of how we have to take on this healing journey at times and really, like, deal with the unpleasantness of it and know that in battling it head on, we’re actually going to get liberated from our own illusions.

And when we’re liberated from our own illusions of our mind, that we need outside things, outside people, outside situations to make us happy, we will be truly liberated. So I always feel like Kaalaratri, the goddess who represents the dark night of the soul, is actually the most loving mother goddess of all.

And I’ve really come to love her over the years, although I didn’t understand her for a while when I started to first learn about this. Um, but then after that dark night of battling with these demonic forces, finally, after a lot of scarring and a lot of like, you know, turning to ashes with all the things that we have to do at the battle stage, the goddess transforms into an eight year old girl.

And that’s symbolic of the new beginning. And embracing the feelings that we experienced after we’ve gone through that dark night of the soul, and this is really like a new Way of life. And it’s about really a new kind of fun and inviting a sense of childlike play into life and really a new relationship with pleasure, even that is not so dependent on the source of pleasure as it is connecting with the pleasure that is our true nature, connecting with the joy that is our true nature.

So it’s a different kind of inner child healing work where we’re really having a lot of fun, but the fun that’s not dependent, the fun that’s not going to make us a slave of our five senses, the fun that is going to be truly fun. And once we’ve had this fun, which was a very important part of the journey at this evolved stage of the journey, then we move on to really giving back with gratitude to all the five entities of life, and that’s where we connect with the goddess called Siddhidhatri who represents the grantor of cities or supernatural healing powers and the responsibility that we have with whatever gifts or talents we’ve been given by the divine to offer them in service and with gratitude to all the five entities that have given us life and knowing that we are an instrument for these divine gifts to flow through and that we are not the one who does them, you know, like I’m not writer of my book, but rather that book was written through me.

And just understanding that with humility and then having the ability to really lead with integrity to lead from a space where there’s nothing else driving us, but a feeling of pure gratitude and a feeling of giving back motivated from that gratitude. That’s a very long answer to a question that you asked.

Krati: But there is so, like, this gives you a beautiful glimpse into what you cover in the book, The Way of the Goddess. And there is so much more in that book. You are so amazing. This answer that you just, yeah, it was a long answer, but it gives you, like, you just gave us the entire blueprint to soul liberation, to reaching that place in life where you can Like I would go a little maybe for some people too far and say where you can access the universal wisdom where your intuition is so sharp that you can predict your own reality that hasn’t happened yet or create your own reality rather.

Like I have. been reading my scriptures, uh, reading the Vedic scriptures. I’ve been talking to a lot of people on the spiritual path, not necessarily people from this particular, like people who follow the Vedic wisdom, some people who follow no scripture at all, but follow a certain type of wisdom.

And they all believe this. They all believe that when you can take your soul to that place of elevation, your reality is to some extent in your control, or at least, Or perhaps you just reach a place of such happy detachment, such happy acceptance that it just whatever comes your way, it’s just, it’s all good.

It’s all, it’s exactly what you want. Maybe, maybe that’s, that’s what it is. And that’s what you’ve done for us. You’ve just given us a step one, step two, step three of Getting to that place or at least getting close to that place because even if you could just get close to that place, it is such a beautiful, beautiful place to be in and the world will be so different for you because I, you know, it was the same for me.

I would celebrate Navratri. For me, Navratri meant, you know, Chana, halwa and poori. That’s it. And, and wearing nice clothes and getting like money from my parents. And, but in the past couple of years, I have been doing Navratri differently where, yes, you are focusing each evening, you’re focusing on one chakra.

Repeat chanting one particular mantra and embodying one particular principle or one particular value and those nine days at the end of it, the feeling doesn’t last because you stop practicing, but at the end of those nine days, you are a different person. You feel very different not just towards yourself, but towards everyone towards the challenges that you have in your life So thank you so much for all of that This is so amazing And I will also you know, it’s important to say that, you know, you don’t have to chant mantras You don’t have to pick up some a particular scripture to do this or follow any particular religion to do this You just gave us the values That’s all you have to practice.

You just practice the value, maybe find a point in your body to focus on. And that’s it.

And the other thing I do want to say, this is kind of funny, to my, to any of my friends who have not grown up around, um, these Indian temples or the Vedic scriptures or haven’t heard those stories.

Dude, when you see those statues looking Very scary and intimidating. Don’t make up your own story about it. I think there is one particular form of Mata Parvati that’s that, about, uh, material lust. It’s about honoring your feminine power. I forget, I forget the name of that particular Mata, that representation.

But there are such weird American interpretations of it. I’m not gonna go into it but don’t do that. Try and find out what’s actually, um, going on about that. What is the story behind that representation? And I would say that about pretty much every religion. I would say that about the Buddhist religion because there are, again, something about like even in the Jainism religion, Judaism, everywhere, there are some symbols, if not idols, and there are symbols.

Try and find out the story. Don’t. Come up with an interpretation is probably going to be wrong. And, but the, the true story is going to be so profound and beautiful that it just might stick with you and it just might change your life. So try and do that.

Ananta: Yeah, I totally agree because I was scared of the Indian statues in the temples. It made no sense to me growing up in Toledo, Ohio, why we had this. And I went to Catholic high school, so it was a lot more straightforward, like Jesus and Mary and the Holy Father. And, you know, like they were a lot more straightforward.

It was easier to connect with. And then we go to the Indian temples and it was like, Whoa, who are all these, you know, scary looking, not scary looking goddesses and gods. And what does it mean? And I don’t understand. I knew one day I would, but I didn’t. Growing up. And so I had to let go of it in order to just return to it with a lot more appreciation, you know, and, and daring to ask, what does this really mean?

And really searching to find that true answer. And I feel like that’s why I’m so excited. Passionate now about sharing these stories because they have transformed my life so much and I believe that they hold a lot of power when we can really go to the depth of them and understand their true significance.

Krati: Yeah. For anyone who is fascinated by, uh, these, this particular wisdom, form of wisdom, these scriptures, Vedic scriptures, just pick one, anyone, like idol, any one figure, any, like, there’s so many to pick from. So this is what we used to do when we were kids. Like, we’ll pick whichever one fascinated us the most.

Most of us would pick Hanumanji because Hanumanji is fierce and he’s a freaking warrior and he just defeats everyone. So like you would pick a superhero, you would pick Batman. So out of all the gods, you would pick Hanumanji. But then Hanumanji comes with so much wisdom. That then you read the stories and you can’t help, even as a kid, you can’t help but take in that wisdom.

So if you’re fascinated by it, pick one. It’s all good. They all lead to the same place, actually. So, it’s all, yeah. Let’s go a little bit deeper into all the teachings that you’ve laid out for us. I want to ask you, and if at any Like for any of these questions, if you can weave in any kind of practical strategies, any kind of rituals, that would be great.

We talked about loving yourself.

That is one concept I think a lot of people misunderstand. Today. Cause it’s been commercialized. It’s been over discussed and over analyzed. So I want to know what does it mean to you when you talk about loving yourself? Cause it’s something that you’ve talked a lot about in your content and it’s, and you’ve done it beautifully.

Ananta: thank you. Yeah. Loving yourself is really about. You have to first of all know who is yourself, right? Like, what, what is the self? Which is not just the self in me, but also the self in you, and the self that is in every living being. And when we study ancient spiritual philosophy, we get to really understand a lot more about what that true self is.

And so, once you know that self, and you know It’s the self that goes beyond existence, right? It goes beyond this body, beyond this mind, beyond this lifetime. Then when we’re saying to love that self, what it means is to really identify with that self, which is actually allowing us to give compassion to ourselves and to treat ourselves the way we would then treat other people.

It’s not like, you know, you treat others. better than yourself. It’s not that you treat yourself better than others. It’s that you learn to find that sameness within yourself as what’s there in others. And before you can truly give to someone else, you have to embody that gift that you’re giving because the best way to really give to another is to lead by example, right?

So really being honoring of your physical vessel, doing what you need to take care of your body, doing what you need to make your mind an elevated space of positive thoughts and a feeling of being able to overcome whatever challenges come along your way, whatever helps you to do that. That practice of doing it and the discipline that it takes to do it actually unlocks the key to love, true love. True love, I feel, is discipline. It is discipline. Being committed to whatever it is that may be difficult, but actually unlocks the nectar of peace and of true satisfaction and success and happiness and joy within yourself.

Because when you are in that space of happiness and joy and satisfaction that comes from knowing who you are as your true self, then you can naturally  transmit that to people. You can share that with people and just your presence becomes your present to others. And that then inspires them to go on their own journey or to look deeper into their own selves.

So that’s really my understanding of it. It’s really interesting that in the Bhagavad Gita, it says that of all the ways that you can help others and serve others and give back to others, sitting by yourself quietly in a room and studying the scriptures and reflecting on your own life and your own experiences is actually the greatest sacrifice that you can make.

Any effort that you take to become a better person is actually the greatest gift you give to another person. It’s even greater than money that you donate. It’s greater than time that you give to others or even like the feeling of empathy, but it’s actually, you know, you do this to become better, and then you show others what’s possible for them too.

And you know that path because you would have walked it, right? So it’s not like a hypothetical thing or a hypocritical thing or a, you know, theoretical thing. It’s actually like a true living embodiment. And we feel better when we’re in the presence of more elevated souls, right? And so whatever we can do to become that, that’s actually the best thing we can do, not only for ourselves, but for other people as well.

Krati: and I love how the way you’ve explained it, following this one particular value, embodying just this one value will make it easier for you to get to empathy, to get to courage, to get to bold self expression. I love that. Um, but I have to say here, because of how you explained everything, the stories that you mentioned here.

You know, uh, if, if somebody has read Bhagavad Gita, uh, there is, I, I don’t know. Yeah, these are, these stories are not a part of Bhagavad Gita, the popular version that I think Western, uh, the Western world has access to, but it’s part of Bhagavad Purana, I think. Mahabharata, it’s part of Mahabharata, uh, but if you Lord Krishna has imparted all of this wonderful wisdom, but if you read Mahabharata, you will find instances where Lord Krishna also instructed Arjun to attack and kill a man who was, um, who wasn’t armed, an unarmed man. Arjun killed Karan, he was unarmed at the time. Mahabharata is full of stories like that. Stories where you fight, stories of anger, of vengeance, of vanquishing your enemies, that’s what Mahabharata is about. And you can look at it from different perspectives.

And if you look at it from a different perspective, a lot of the stories suddenly have a very different meaning. That is something that not you have to read that. It’s a massive tome. Like it’s a massive book. Not everybody’s going to read it. But what I’m trying to get to here and you’ve helped Like with the, the parts that you laid out for us is there is a lot of people make self love all about positivity, constant optimism, constant happiness, and being upbeat,

and I think that if you follow that idea, you do a massive disservice to yourself and you end up hurting yourself even because there has to be room for all of the human emotions, including anger, bordering, sometimes. On hate bordering on sometimes self hatred. Also, you know, you can get pissed at yourself very, very badly where you’re calling yourself names.

And then the next day you try and come back to a place of sanity to a healthier place. But this is what I think I love about everything you’ve talked about so far that there is, there are aspects and dimensions to these concepts that are very, very human. It’s a very high, uh, like a very profound, everything you’ve talked about in one way sounds so deep and profound, but in another way, you are making it so much more accessible for all of us, all of us, very, very flawed human beings.

I love that. Anything you want to say about that?

Ananta: yeah, I feel it’s very important to prevent spiritual bypassing where we will positive think our way through things, you know, or just like come up with the lesson without feeling our way. through the embodied experience of something. And I know I’ve been guilty of doing this many times in the past, but I feel it’s important to have both the appreciation of the lesson and the appreciation of positive thinking, but at the same time to have a very realistic view of things as well, you know, that allows us to embrace our full humanity and our full spectrum of experiences without denying any of them, because again, it comes back to acceptance when you can radically accept what is just by that acceptance itself.

It opens up so much that we don’t have to stay in that state, right. of like anger, bordering on hatred, but we can observe it. When we can accept it and then we move through it and we come to deeper understanding and deeper connection with that unity within us. But we have to go through that journey. So I think just not skipping any step or any stage of the journey is very important. So if there’s a place that brings up resistance for you, like say, it’s really difficult to sit with yourself in silence. I think a lot of people struggle with that. And I did at first, too. Then it’s like, how do we push ourselves gently out of our comfort zone so that we can actually have these experiences of discomfort that give us a growing edge to really come to wisdom that’s hard earned and that is earned through going through all the experiences of life and seeing that we’re reacting less intensely for less time with less, feeling or less recovery time than we needed prior to that. Because I think transformation is not a straight line journey, but it’s more of a spiral journey, right? It’s a circular journey. So you come to the same issues and the same things, but you come with a different perspective or you come and you see that you’ve progressed because you’re back at square one.

But you’re not doing the same things you did. The first time you experience that same trigger, right? You’re actually having less of a reaction, less frequent of a reaction and less recovery time for your reactions. But even like enlightened beings have anger. It’s just what do we do with that, right? Like, do we suppress it?

Do we deny it? Do we just put positive thoughts over it and pretend that we don’t have it? If we do that, then we’ll have even physiological problems. That’s what Ayurveda teaches us. Ayurveda says if you even suppress your sadness or your tears and you don’t cry, then you can have problems like what I had with anorexia, where you don’t eat because you’re literally, like, consumed by your emotions.

So rather than doing that, when we practice unconditional acceptance of what is, we give ourselves a portal to be fully human, but also to channel those emotions into something more divine so that we’re not bypassing our way into the lesson or the wisdom, but we’re actually going in a very organic manner to be able to earn that wisdom through the whole journey of life, which we want to be a part of.

And that’s why I love that the teachings take place on a battlefield. It’s just that itself says so much, right? The teachings are not taking place high up in the Himalayas where you have to track in, go into nature and, you know, like be like the sages who, who learned these traditions by being in nature.

It’s a beautiful thing to do that. I’m not saying don’t do that. I would love to do that. But if we can’t do that, or if we’re very much on the battlefield, we have to realize that the battles of our lives are our divine portals. They are our opportunities to give birth to an empowered version of ourselves in the middle of that.

When we understand. spirituality, we’re just so much more equipped to handle everything that comes our way with less intensity, with more ease and a feeling of peace that comes from accepting whatever is outside and inside of us. And then we move through it, you know, we grow through it, but we don’t suppress it.

I think that’s very important.

Krati: that’s beautiful and I have to share this because a lot of the anthropologists, a lot of the scientists, a lot of the religious leaders are finding evidence of Mahabharata, like real evidence that, that tells you that Mahabharata happened.

Like I know to, for me, it has always been real. I’ve never looked at these stories as myths, as something made up. I’ve always considered them as, this is my history. I’m reading my history. So now they’re finding evidence. This is what I love about the teachings of Bhagavad Gita and Mahabharata. Even if you’re someone who’s thinking, Oh, this chick is crazy.

That’s fine. The thing about these teachings is they’re for human beings. They’re not for like sages who have risen above humanity. These are for flawed, damaged human beings with, you know, no, no pure empathy, some empathy with no pure love, some love, some hate. a lot of anger, people who want to seek justice, people who also get very unfair sometimes.

So it’s for, I love that you are basing so much of what you’re teaching on Bhagavad Gita, because it is one of the more accessible texts. There are others, I think. Um, but yeah, so I, I love that. I have to ask you a very juvenile question now, but I’m curious about this. You know, people who are on this path, uh, who are following these teachings every day, making time to observe rituals that bring them comfort that center them, anchor them, all that.

How frequently do you find yourself? Regressing to old habits. The only reason I ask this is because a lot of people would look at you and think you’re so far in that journey I will never get to that place because I was that person once upon a time I had anger issues, really really bad anger issues and so much self loathing that I would look at someone like you and I would think this is not for me because there’s no way I’m gonna make it to where this person is.

But I think this is why we need an answer to this so that if someone is in that place, I’m, I’m guessing you’re gonna, your answer is going to give comfort to them.

Ananta: Thank you. That’s a really interesting question. Um, yeah, no one’s ever asked me that before. How often do I fall back into old habits? In a way, it’s like we have to define what are the old habits.

So I know one habit that I had a lot was emotional eating and taking my feelings out on food. And I feel that that came from, suppressing emotions because I felt on the opposite side of the spectrum of you that when I had anger, it wasn’t acceptable.

And so instead of outwardly showing anger or getting upset or, you know, doing something with it, I just ate it. I internalized it. I didn’t express it. I didn’t allow myself to acknowledge it or really accept it. And so it just festered inside. And I feel that that can be a habit in a way. It’s not like something conscious that I would do.

It’s more like a conditioned response as a female Like, you know, like we’re conditioned a lot of times to not have this. It’s not an acceptable emotion for women to have. So I think like I’m developing. More of a healthy relationship with those flashes of anger, which are meant to come as clues of where our boundaries are getting violated, where you might be getting taken advantage of, right?

And if we’re not really aware of that, and if we’re not comfortable feeling that fire or that flash of anger within, then we can allow other people to do that. to take advantage of us. So I think for me, like the habit of suppressing the emotions and maybe like going into sugar, eating sugar later on, it was first it was not eating enough, right?

And then it became about numbing that emotion through eating sweets. And now, how often do I fall into that? I don’t know, because I’m actively working with it right now. Right. I’ve definitely overcome the sugar issue. I think that’s I’m, I didn’t realize that I was doing it, but it’s so addictive that when you start just to have a little bit each day, you want a little bit more.

And then I’m like, Oh, I need to completely remove this and know that I’m independent of sugar. I don’t depend on sugar for my feeling of satisfaction. So I, this year itself, I’ve given it up for long stretches, you know, like months at a time going sugar free and then I’ll restart it and then I’ll realize Oh, like maybe I shouldn’t have this much of it. And then I realized, okay. And then why did I do that though? Was there something that I’m not, that I’m avoiding that I’m not looking at. But recently knowing this about myself and knowing that this is kind of an unconscious habit, I actually have just made it more of a spiritual practice to really deal with the anger and just to invite myself to allow whatever I’m upset about to be experienced.

And I learned this new technique actually recently that whenever something hurts me or angers me or any of us, like it’s really a good practice to actually talk to it by yourself and just dialogue with it and get it out so that it’s not suppressed. But it’s also not hurting someone else. It’s not damaging a relationship that you might have with your unprocessed anger, but it’s processing it with yourself.

And it’s a really weird thing to do, but I’m starting to do it more and more and building a new habit, which I’m really liking because it’s not that spiritual bypassing anger girl that is going to pretend everything is okay. It’s like, Me being with myself and putting out what I really feel and even like I’ll throw my keys on the floor sometimes

like I’m like, let me just own it and let me just have this experience.

It feels so weird to me to do it. But like, it also feels so good to do it because that was my pattern, not owning it enough, you know, and I don’t really go to excess with it. I don’t like battle it out with other people or like to get into fights with other people. But sometimes we do need to assert ourselves from a place where we’ve Not put so much intensity around this situation, but we’ve digested it enough by dialoguing with it with ourselves, but out loud so that it’s still coming out, but then it de intensifies on its own.

And then you kind of like get to, I get to a point where I like laugh at it, like, okay, this is ridiculous, you know, like let go of this natural and not like, let me suppress and hold on to it and let it erupt as like a skin issue or, you know, something

like that.

Krati: yeah.

Ananta: So I don’t Is a good answer to your question, but this is the

Krati: I love that answer. I love that. My, one of my, like the very first takeaway that that is going to stick with me about this answer is that you are supporting your emotional and spiritual psychological work with some very practical steps. Like you are, your emotional issues related to food. So there are some very practical food related things you’re doing.

Your food, like your cleansing in a very practical way. I think that’s awesome. That’s not, that doesn’t get discussed often enough. Because if you can do that, then there is something tangible outside of yourself. something very positive to focus on. I think that’s great. I think that’s one of the reasons why people with a lot of anger issues are told to exercise and work out.

You get angry, don’t talk, just go run. I think that’s, that’s amazing. The other thing I think that, that you mentioned is that you let me just own it. Like, let me have my moment. I think that’s so important. That’s not really a relapse. You’re not regressing back. You’re having, you’re being human, be human.

Right? Because this is another thing that I love about, uh, the stories that I was raised on was that Lord Shiva, Lord Krishna, they all had moments where they really lost their control and did some very bad things that they really shouldn’t have been doing. And then they have to fix their mess. So you don’t think you don’t expect God to have those moments.

But if God is having those moments, then surely it’s okay for us humans to let our anger out, to let our passions flow. And I think you can, like, we can cut ourselves some slack. That’s so important. And I hate it when this beautiful journey becomes about perfection, because that’s really not what this is about.

And I love that you, you know, you really clarify that, that let’s, healing can look very different on certain days. I

Ananta: it’s it’s it’s an ever evolving experience, you know, and it’s very empowering, actually, after years of just letting things be because that’s the way they are and not daring to question it to actually just speaking my mind. But doing it to myself first, because I think a lot of the times people will have really bad conflicts with others who are like me, like, like, you know, suppress it so much that then, like, someone just says one small thing and you suddenly, like, explode because so much was suppressed inside.

And so I feel that what I’m doing now is, Just being real with it myself and having the dialogue in intensity with myself and learning to be comfortable with it is allowing me. To not be at risk of letting that out on other people in an unhealthy way that could then become an unnecessary conflict because I can often resolve the issue within myself and I find that when I am honest like this and I just let it out in whatever way while driving or in my apartment when I’m by myself or like just outside on the street, like just talking, not caring who’s listening to me, I find then after I’ve let it out that my creative problem solving comes up pretty quickly afterwards to be like, okay, let’s actually do this.

you know, and having connected with the anger actually empowers me to take that action to do something about what is upsetting me and to solve the problem rather than just letting it fester. So, I feel that this is a really good practice to prevent destroying things that actually are relationships or situations that actually matter to us by just being with it ourselves, battling with it ourselves.

And I think that’s what it means, right? Like the war within is something you do have to fight with yourself. And when you do that, then you can, ironically, live in more harmony with other people and also not get so triggered by other people’s anger. Because I think on the flip side of things, because I would bottle it up so much because I internalized it’s not okay for me as a woman to be angry.

I was very scared of other people’s anger explosions. I was very uncomfortable when other people would just let it all out, you know, because I never allowed myself to do that. So how could I accept it when someone else Right? So it’s all about the relationship that we have with ourselves and the more we accept everything in ourselves, the more we’re able to become more empathetic, become more compassionate, not by bypassing, but simply by observing and accepting. You know, so it all comes back to the relationship with ourselves. And I have also been exercising a lot and just, you know, like letting the fire be there through running literally and, and through Marshall. So I’m actually becoming an embodied warrior every day.

Krati: That’s awesome. Yeah. Me too. I work out. I think I learned to manage my anxiety through physical exercise. I couldn’t have done it without, but I will say though, I mean, you’re a better person than me. I just take days where I bail out on life completely, where I just, you know, it has been happening more. Uh for the past year because of all that is happening in the world Like october 7th what happened in israel was so jarring for me.

It was so jarring I for the for the longest time I was like let the world burn like just The sheer evilness of, I don’t, let’s not go down this road, but like, I’ll just bail out on life. I’ll be, I will like, let me indulge the vileness of my mood today. Let me like, revel in the evilness of my mood today.

Let me hate everyone. And I will take my time with it, cursing at everyone and everything, and be like let the world burn, who gives a shit at this point. But then, the next day, you find hope, you find people to love, you find all the beauty in the world. And you think, no, no, no, there’s work to be done, let me do it.

Whatever little I can do to, you know, contribute. But I, you’re a bigger person than me. I love your answer. Um, I might edit out mine, leave people with the more positive one. Okay. Let me, I have so many questions.

Let me Finish this with a funny question. When you see all the variations of yoga, I know yoga is an important part of your life, um, this is something that’s interesting to me. When you see goats and beer and dogs involved in yoga, how do you feel about it?

Ananta: I feel, you know, I, in a way, I feel like a parent who is watching their child misbehave and knowing that they’re only hurting themselves in doing that. And I just feel like, oh man, they’re missing the real benefit. They’re not getting the real nectar from the practice that they would if they truly understood it.

And I feel that those kind of things push me out of my comfort zone to really spread the knowledge that I’ve learned from the authentic source in the way that It was meant to be practiced from the tradition that it comes from. And that’s not always comfortable to do, to put yourself out there as a teacher and as a, a person who’s, you know, studied this knowledge because nobody knows everything, right?

So it’s never. Comfortable to put yourself in that position of sharing the knowledge. But when I see things like that, I feel it’s just a catalyst to be that brave warrior of truth, you know, on a mission to spread that light so that it. puts out some of this darkness that can come in on the path that gets expressed through these different, um, ways of misunderstanding or, or being misinformed, you know, it might not even be that they’re misunderstanding.

It could just be that they don’t really know, you know?

Krati: yeah, yeah. I always, um, I know that a lot of people get very, I love that answer and that answer is my offering to anyone who gets really angry and then uses words like cultural appropriation and whatnot. That is the attitude to have. Don’t get angry about it. It’s, it’s a nice thing that people around the world are exploring yoga.

I think it’s great. Yes, they are, as you said, missing the point, especially when you involve an alcoholic beverage. What is this supposed to be? Like the number one step to yoga is cleansing, dude. You’re now drinking beer while doing yoga. That’s so weird. I find it funny. I get why people get outraged, but don’t get outraged.

It’s fine that they’re exploring it in their own way. I love your answer. I think we have someone like you. We have a lot of people who are working in this direction where they’re educating everyone. Yoga in India is a form of worship, you know, it is what makes it easier to chant mantras.

It is what it makes it easier to for those who believe in God to connect with the divine so I can understand where the outrage comes from.

Before we sign off, is there any particular resource where you would want to redirect our audience to?

Ananta: Yeah, I would, encourage people who are interested or inspired by this to learn more to check out my book, The Way of the Goddess, which is available on Amazon and Barnes Noble and wherever books are sold. And I, um, Wish you the best on that journey and a lot of, you know, courage and strength because it’s not easy to embark on the spiritual journey, but those first steps that we take to do so are very, very powerful ones.

And so I, I really congratulate those souls who feel called to this, to, to embark on a journey of going within as your catalyst for being of service in the world.