S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 5 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 9 3 9 Barbara Le Pape 1 Introduction Six years ago, the Goddesses came into my life. Over the past six years I have painted and drawn them (Fig. 1). Certainly, they were already at the heart of the subject of my Yoga graduation thesis, but the scope of this work quickly expanded over this scholarly frame. About the author Barbara Le Pape is a painter and Yoga teacher associated with FIDHY and based in France. She received her master’s degree in French Language from the University of Poznan and D.E.A. in Modern Literature from Université Sorbonne Nouvelle. She studied painting at Anne Tostivin and Philippe Judlin, and obtained her qualification in Yoga from CEFYTO. Her email contact is basialp@outlook.fr. forms represents a special approach to spiritual awakening and Self-realization. However, the Mahāvidyās show us not only the way to knowledge, but they are knowledge, and wisdom themselves through the hidden messages of their bodies, their attributes, and appearances. Each Goddess embodies herself on one side in a mantra, her sound form, on the other side in a yantra, her geometrical form. For the devotees, these representations are the Goddess herself and are situated on a more subtle level than the anthropomorphic representation. However, the meditation or the pondering over the body of the Goddess and her attributes is one of the first ways to enter in connection with the deity. David Frawley remarks (1996, 90): “If we meditate upon strongly enough, the form will come alive and teach us, and reveal the deeper aspects of its reality.” Fig. 1. Kālī Clad in Space » mixed techniques I had to learn to recognize their presence, to feel their energy, to open myself to their meaning. It came to me rather spontaneously and effortlessly; gradually everything I engaged in was granted a new dimension. Kālī the Black was the first to come to me. I had barely begun the work on Kālī’s image, when Dhūmāvatī, Goddess of the smoke and the dissolution, stood out. Then, I returned to Kālī, before beginning the work on Shodashī, the everlasting sixteen-year-old beauty. In the tantric transmission and spirituality, Kālī, Dhūmāvatī and Shodashī are part of a group of ten Goddesses known as the Mahāvidyā, “Ten Great Knowledges”, who are manifestations of Mahādevī, the “Great Goddess”. Each of these ten
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzgxMzI=