Interview With Maa Gyaan Suveera
By Erica Bassani, Rishikesh
During my research on female masters to interview for the Women Awakening Project, I visited the international community of Auroville, in Tamil Nadu, for the third time. Constantly inspired by reading Mirra Alfassa (“The Mother”) and Sri Aurobindo, I felt I might find some new leads by going there on a special occasion. It was February 2024, and a nine-day festival called Shaktikumbh was taking place. This event was a congregation of women spiritual leaders meeting to revitalize the Indic knowledge system of shakti for future generations. Maa Gyaan Suveera was one of these gifted women, and I arranged a private meeting with her. A Vedanta teacher, healer, life coach and mentor, Maa Gyaan Suveera lives by the banks of Mother Ganga on the outskirts of Rishikesh. Her presence immediately struck me as she sat close to me in the beautiful garden of the Unity Pavilion, wearing a simple black tee shirt and a long orange skirt. I could see a peacock feather tattooed on her left arm and some Sanskrit syllables on her right wrist. She had a big, dark red dot on the third eye. Pouring down from her neck was a rosary of very big beads of the rudraksha tree. The qualities that I immediately recognized in her were a practical strength and determination, a very grounded spirituality and self-confidence. I was ready for a conversation that goes straight to the point.
Maa Gyaan Suveera, where and how do you live?
I live in an ashram in Rishikesh. It’s my home. It is called Kirti Hermitage because I live alone there, with some helpers. We have a very balanced ecology there and a temple established with a very old form of Tantric Ganesha. I am a Ganesha Upasak (devotee). We organize satsang for yoga groups and traveling groups. I teach Vedanta and I focus on healing modalities; this is what I do for a living. But the seva, the service I feel called to do, is to interact with anyone that comes across my path. Every day, from 3 pm to 5 pm, I hold a space for people who need to come and talk, or enroll for our courses and teachings. I don’t keep myself aloof.
I’m researching the Divine Feminine. Would you please share with us insights on the nature of Siva and Shakti according to Vedanta?
In the Vedanta philosophy, we say that consciousness is akin to the qualities of the masculine, Siva. He’s a huge source of energy with fathomless possibilities and infinite potential. However, He cannot produce anything or do anything without the moving energy of the shakti. So, shakti is an essential part of the whole completion process in this universe. Whether in a man or in a woman, if the shakti is not in a balanced proportion, then he or she is not a complete human being. More so it is evident in women: they often don’t recognize their own power. The creation, sustenance and the whole cycle of the universe completes with her, through her energy. She complements the potential energy of the masculine. The masculine is potential energy. She is kinetic energy. The kinetic energy is an essential aspect of the entire process of creation. If it is not invoked in us, then we are like machines, whether we are a woman or a man. And that’s why there is a lopsided development in the society, because the men do not acknowledge the feminine in them and the women have forgotten the divine feminine inside them. So, they are like machines at the mercy of their individual egos, and at the mercy of the social, societal, familiar conditioning. Their behavior and the interaction with each other and the society is completely against spiritual living.
We are primarily spiritual in nature. Externally we are material, we belong to a gender and everything else, but at the core we are spiritual beings. When you say “beings,” it means that this life has to be guided by the spirit, not by the ego-system or by the logical system. So, invoking the Divine Feminine is one of the most important needs in today’s society, both for men and women. For men, to become more loving, sensitive and lovable. Otherwise, you are obsessed by a man, scared by a man or dependent on a man. Being in love with a man who has a certain balance of the feminine and masculine within himself is a great gift and opportunity for a woman and vice versa.
How can we move more into the light and revere the Divine Feminine inside of us?
I think it’s important to understand the science of consciousness and energy. All human beings function through mind and intellect. The mind can go crazy with its imaginations and everything, while the intellect is the storehouse of logical data and can be a guarding monitor. So, when your intellect is fed with the right knowledge, right information, and the science of how life is, the science of what spirituality is, then it functions not under the guidance of the ego but is guided by the light. Our life has to be guided by the light and not by the power of the ego. The ego can be subservient to the light and it will behave. It has to go along with the law of the universe and nature. Otherwise, the ego can be the biggest demon living in us. So, coming back to your question: to revere Shakti, you have to understand the creation process, the yogic psychology and be in a very surrendered, gentle mode. I cannot love someone that I’m not truly understanding. So we need to experience Her, in order to love Her.
Maa Gyaan Suveera
Which ways do you suggest to get in contact with Her?
In India we have no lack of facilities: there are stotras, mantras, meditations and teachers that can bring you on the path of bhakti or on the path of meditation. There is so much of jnana yoga here. We have many means. Even for people who are not educated, or for people who don’t want to engage in more studying, there is the bhakti marga, where they can sit and sing the glory of the Lord and She awakens inside. It’s enough to approach Her in the mode of surrender.
Can you share more about the qualities of this surrender?
Yes, what do we surrender? We surrender our ego. We surrender our personality at the feet of the Lord, at the feet of the Divine, of Shakti. You surrender and say, ‘Please, come and stay in me. Come and live in me. Let me know Your presence in me. I want to experience You.’ When you surrender your ego and have conversations with the Divine, then the activation of the energy happens. The Divine is not a human, someone sitting somewhere with a long dress. The Divine is energy, so it can be invoked. A conversation with a genuine attention and seeking in the heart.
In Hinduism we see infinite forms of Devi. Can you tell us something about this?
It’s like clothing. Someone likes red, someone likes blue, someone likes white, so…the spiritual masters are so kind and generous that they have offered us an array of paths, whatever appeals to you. You like to sing, then you go towards the bhakti marga; you like to study, then you go the jnana marga; if you are more into action, you do karma marga. The different forms and facets of Goddesses are facets of the human ego and human personalities. There are millions of us in different forms and there are millions of them in different forms. Whatever we feel connected to, we call it Ishta, Ishta-devata, which means “what my heart connects to.” I make Her my representative for the entire power of this universe. And I start a communication, a conversation with an attitude of surrender and invocation to Her. That’s the basis of worship here in India. We make one icon that represents Paramatman (Absolute Self)—the whole fathomless power of the universe—and you start your journey with Him or Her. That’s the way. And then what happens is a cause-and-effect kind of process. The more I connect, the more I receive. The more I understand, the more I experience. So, the path opens up and eventually you realize the presence of that Goddess that you are worshiping, inside of you. You realize Her inside of you and you understand. Knowledge comes automatically. Knowledge is not in pills. Knowledge has to come from the akasha, from somewhere. It has to land in your intellect so that you can then understand it and realize it in the heart. It happens automatically. There are ways and means that the masters have given us: we follow them, that’s it.
So, we can also say that the potential that is already within, awakens?
Yes, it awakens and we realize it. What is realization? Realization is not just understanding on the intellectual level, but actually feeling it in the heart.
One last question, how did you come to be on this path?
I studied in the Mother’s International School. My inner journey and self-exploration started then, around 1978. I could say that I felt initiated in silence by the Divine Mother in the Aurobindo Ashram. But the truth is that I don’t know. The Divine pulled me.
The Author: Erica Bassani is a copywriter, author and spiritual seeker since her early twenties. She’s combined her highest passion with her deepest love by founding the Women Awakening Project (www.womenawakeningproject.com), a space to gather interviews with female masters of all spiritual traditions.