How Thawe Bhavani, a Family's Kuldevi, Subdued a Tamasik Shakti Possessing Their Home — a Case Story

The speaker says that experience differs from person to person, and that he is presenting the experience of one sadhana after hearing which the listener's faith in the shaktis of their own kula — the family's principal chosen shakti, its principal deity — will become firmer still. It is well known, he says, that with all the powers that lie outside the family it may take us time to obtain their grace. But if we have correct knowledge about our own Kula ShaktiThe collective protective and generative energy of a family lineage, invoked and honored alongside the Kuldevi and Kula Bhairava. and we serve her, her kripa-drishti can reach us within a moment. He adds a qualification: even there, the PrarabdhaThe portion of destiny already set in motion by past actions — spiritual practice and good deeds can lessen its severity, but not eliminate it. built by our own karma does get in the way, and it has its effect somewhere or other.

The speaker says this is a true event, about a year and a half old, shared by a Delhi sadhak friend of his who has long been in the field of sadhana. The man at the centre of it was originally from Saran district in Bihar. As happens these days, after his studies he had to go to another state for work, and found a job among the big manufacturing plants along the Rajasthan–Delhi road. In time he bought a plot in a settlement there on which an old house stood, and built his own small house on it, thinking he would never change jobs and would live there for life. He was about a year into his marriage and lived there with his parents and wife. The speaker stresses that the family was not spiritual at all, though it was sattvik: ordinary people who light dhoop and deep at the puja place morning and evening, at most a regular Hanuman Chalisa or one on Tuesdays, and nothing beyond that. About seven or eight months after moving in, it was Sharadiya Navratri, the Shashthi tithi. Around 9 or 9:30 at night, after dinner, the wife got up from bed, went to the family's puja place, and began to sway and play the way a person does when a sawari comes on the body. It was entirely new for the family and they were frightened, not knowing what to say or do; some began to cry, because, the speaker notes, people who are not in these things at all do feel fear. After about half an hour she went quiet, was put to bed, and lay unconscious all night with no awareness of her body. Next morning her body ached; asked what had happened, she remembered nothing except that the body felt very heavy, as if she had woken from a very long sleep. The next evening, while the man was at office, his father called him home: the daughter-in-law was doing the same thing again and today was screaming too. At home a crowd had gathered and the wife stood at the gate speaking angrily in what sounded like the Jat dialect of the Haryana side, which the family could not follow — only that she was saying "I will not leave here, this is my place." Two or three people had to hold her and take her inside, and a neighbour said she should be shown to someone, since something was wrong with her.

The speaker says that in the days of Navratri all the knowledgeable people are themselves in sadhana and do not, as a rule, see or hear anyone's case. Wherever the family asked, whomever they approached, everyone was busy at that time, so no one saw her. The episodes went on every evening, he says, until NavamiThe ninth tithi of a fortnight, on which a navaratra anushthan is completed. tithi, when the mahant of a temple called them to bring her that day.

The speaker recounts that when the mahant did whatever kriya he knew, the woman's body became entirely light, but she said nothing — the shakti, the sawari that had come, gave nothing away. The mahant tied the BhasmaSacred ash, used as a substitute for milk in a Shivling's abhishekam when milk isn't available. of the Bhagavati hawan he had done in Navratri onto her hand and sent them back, saying that if it recurred he would come to the house, since nothing could be learned there. For two or three days nothing happened and everyone assumed it had been cured by the visit. Then on the night of Sharad Purnima she broke the entire Kavach that had been put on her, threw it away, and screamed. The speaker notes the strength: though she was thin and slight to look at, whoever went near her was grabbed and flung a good four or five feet away with a jerk. The mahant was informed at once and arrived after an hour or hour and a half with a knowledgeable friend; on seeing them she flared up further and screamed. That friend was from the same region and understood what she was saying; he said something, she sat down quietly, and only then could they begin to ask who she was, what she wanted and what the trouble was.

When asked who she was and what she wanted, the speaker says, the shakti answered that she had been worshipped at this place for a very long time and that the place was hers. There had been a tree there — a mango, but a very small, thin one that never grew big — and her sthan was at its foot; the old family used to do her puja right there. These new people had cut that tree down. And secondly: "I want my puja. I take Bali. I need bali." The whole family was distressed, since they knew nothing of this and the previous owners who sold the plot had never said that anything of the kind was there or had to be done. The previous family was contacted again and asked to pacify the shakti or take her away, since the new owners had no idea of the vidhi-vidhan. When the knowledgeable visitor asked her, she said she would not leave the place whatever the situation: "This place has not been mine since today; it is very old. I will stay here and take my puja, and if not, there will be ghaat on the family." The speaker draws the inference: she was not willing to be reasoned with, and on top of that she was demanding bali — meaning this was some tamasik shakti. In that situation no solution was in sight. The previous owners flatly refused any responsibility, saying they had given up the land, held no ownership, had no rights and no knowledge — they simply backed out.

When no way forward appeared, the speaker says, the knowledgeable friend went to his own Guru and laid out the whole matter, asking what could be done. He conveys the guru's reasoning: applying force here was not proper, because you have come and settled on her sthan and you have broken that sthan. However negative the thing may be, the trouble is that you did not remove her in the correct way. All of this happened unknowingly, and yet the doshi is you.

What, then, could be done? The speaker lays out the two routes as the guru gave them. Either the thing is removed forcibly through the vidhi-vidhan of the tantras, or a shanti vidhan is performed and she is pacified. But with a shanti vidhan, he says, she would have to be pacified again and again — such shaktis are not quieted permanently — which means puja itself would become the medium even for keeping her quiet. And there the real obstacle lay: this family was completely sattvik, so no tamasik puja of any kind could be done there. Both obvious routes were closed, which is what led the guru to ask a different question next.

When the guru asked the family who their kuldevi was, the speaker says, the father answered that they were originally from Bihar, from near Saran district, where the dham called Thawe is. The speaker adds for his listeners that Thawe is a principal dham, and tells its lore. Rahasu Bhagat, he says, is the most prominent figure there — in a manner of speaking a lok-devata. His story is that Bhagavati Kamakhya, from Kamarupa, entered his body directly and came out through his head. There is a whole story of Raja Manan Singh, who did not believe in Rahasu Bhagat. Bhagavati Kamakhya had given Rahasu Bhagat a kangan (bangle), and it was through that kangan that he used to serve people whenever famine struck. Out of envy over this the king had him imprisoned and said he did not accept that the Devi had given it — if you have the capacity, call her and show me. Rahasu Bhagat did the AvahanThe invocation that calls a deity to be present in the image or yantra before worship begins.. Bhagavati said that if she came, the king and the entire realm would be destroyed; the king would not listen and insisted. So she tested her devotee and came, and the palace and the whole kingdom were destroyed. Bhagavati split Rahasu Bhagat's head, and what emerged was his hand wearing that kangan — and that very form, the speaker says, is what is installed at Thawe.

Here the speaker pauses the story to have the listener take in two things. First, the shakti that had been worshipped in that house — the one whose sthan was there before — was a tamasik shakti belonging to the Valmiki samaj. Second, Rahasu Bhagat too is said to belong, in a way, to the Valmiki samaj, and he is worshipped as a lok-devata. From this he draws a doctrinal point: in Sanatan culture care has been taken over all such things everywhere. Never, on grounds of jaat-paat, has a shakti been denied great respect and honour, or been regarded as low according to its caste. It is a simple matter, he says — one on whom the supreme grace of Jagadamba"Mother of the World" — an epithet of the Devi. herself rests, how could anyone measure that person by caste?

The speaker says that when the direct routes were closed, the Guru turned to the family on whom the trouble had fallen and asked: whom do you worship, who is your Kuldevi or kuldevta? They answered that they did nothing of the kind, no special puja-path. So he asked again: then tell me who the deities of your kula are, or who they could be. The father answered that they were originally from near Saran district in Bihar, where Thawe Dham is. The family told the guru that yes — she has been worshipped as our kuldevi; in the village we used to do her puja, but here we have done nothing. On hearing this the guru gave his verdict: now the control of this shakti can be done by her alone. Only the shakti of the kula can do it. If we, on the other hand, attempt some prayog, the guru said, some Dosha will attach somewhere along the way. The thing could certainly be made to happen — but if there were the slightest slip, anything could go wrong. The speaker adds his own gloss: in tantra there is nothing that cannot be done; Bhagavati is such that what-becomes-what, who cannot be bound — and yet, even so, the kula shakti was the right authority here.

The speaker describes the remedy as it was done. The whole family, following the method by which a Kuldevi is invoked, went with the guru to Thawe Dham. There Bhagavati's AvahanThe invocation that calls a deity to be present in the image or yantra before worship begins. was performed — that is, she was given an invitation. A swarup of Bhagavati was established there, worshipped at Thawe Dham itself, and with that invitation she was brought to their own place. Then, inside the house itself, two small temples were built — two sthans within the home. In one, the family's kuldevi was given her seat. The other sthan was given to the shakti that had been worshipped on that plot — placed beneath Bhagavati, the Maharani of Thawe. All of these processes, the speaker says, were carried out by full TantroktaStated in the tantras, as against a vedokta form of the same rite or mantra. vidhi-vidhan; there are many things in it that he is not laying before the audience. The guru performed all those kriyas in the correct manner.

The speaker frames what followed as a lesson in how a shakti's nature — its prakriti — changes. Once all the kriyas were done and complete, the shakti was invoked once more: she was called onto the woman's body. And this time she herself said it. Her words, as he reports them: "Here I will now stay on the BhogThe food offering placed before a deity before anyone in the household eats. of milk, because the Mahashakti in whose sanidhya (presence) my installation has taken place — I am entirely under her control. As a sevika, close to that portion of Bhagavati which is seated here, I will remain present here every day." Think of it, the speaker says: the shakti that had been so prachand, so ferocious, was the one saying this.

The speaker then gives the back-story that surfaced only afterwards, once things were looked into fully. Some member of the Valmiki family that had earlier lived on that land had, long ago, gone to the shmashan, the cremation ground, and purified a shmashan shakti; he installed her at his home, gave her puja, and also did some works of bhakti through her. Even the people of his own family did not properly know this. They simply continued the daily dhoop-deep and whatever vidhi-vidhan there was, at the sthan under the tree — which was outside the house. Later the land was sold off to two or three people, and the portion this man bought was exactly the part where that sthan lay. No one had any knowledge of it, so the sellers were not wrong either. But because the information was never given, this family had to bear the suffering that followed. The speaker adds that no great calamity actually came to pass — by Bhagavati's grace they were saved in time.

The speaker sums up the outcome. Because that form of Jagadamba"Mother of the World" — an epithet of the Devi. came to sit above, the family received their kuldevi's grace — that much was certain. But because of that form, the shakti already there — a tamasik shakti of the bhagat region, the kind that runs on BhogThe food offering placed before a deity before anyone in the household eats. and such offerings — also became shanta and saumya. A stream of milk was poured for her; she bathed in milk alone, was pacified by milk alone, and the bhog offered to her was raw milk. Her food was offered within that — KheerRice cooked in milk, offered as naivedya in many vidhis. and the like — and with that she was satisfied, became gentle, and her very form changed.

The family told of one more thing, the speaker says. On the third day after the installation, the woman on whom the shakti used to come saw in a dream a woman of fully dark, entirely black colour, hair open, holding a mund (severed head) in one hand and a cup full of blood in the other, walking away toward the outside. That, the speaker says, was the form — call it the tattva or call it the guna — of the devi who had been seated there before, of that shakti; and it went away by the grace of Thawe-wali Maharani, by the grace of Jagadamba"Mother of the World" — an epithet of the Devi. Kamakhya. What remained there was her saumya swarup as an ansh (portion), who said she would keep coming daily as a sawari for this family.

The speaker closes with where the family stands now. In a manner of speaking they have entered the field of sadhana: husband and wife are both SadhakOne who undertakes a sadhana; the practitioner as distinct from the ordinary worshipper. and sadhika, and they practise quite well. By Bhagavati's grace they have received a great deal — they are full of wealth and grain, of sons and grandsons; there is no shortage of any kind and life is going very well. The episode was very negative for them, he says, yet it changed everything and carried them onto the spiritual path. That, he says, is the experience he wanted to lay before everyone: how the shakti of a place — where it was not her fault, and not the buyer's fault either — created circumstances in which the family was suffering. He has told it very briefly, but the suffering was considerable; Bhagavati's grace was simply that things were solved quickly, because the right people were found and matters came under control fast. His hope is that everyone will take a lesson from this true event, and by doing regular, correct, faith-filled seva and puja of their Kuldevi and Kula ShaktiThe collective protective and generative energy of a family lineage, invoked and honored alongside the Kuldevi and Kula Bhairava., will remove the troubles that come into their own lives.