“There can really be as many Hindu Gods as there are devotees to suit the moods, feelings, emotions & social background of the devotees.” ~Sri Rama Krishna

If you’re a Yoga teacher or Yoga student and enthusiast, you’ve likely come across some of the mantras or depictions of some of the popular Hindu Gods and Goddesses, and be wondering why it’s important for you to know who or what they are!  

Incorporating myth and mantra into your practice – whether teaching or simply deepening as a student, can help bring you into powerful depths of clarity, heart-opening, support and insight for your journey.

Yoga as we’ve come to know it in modern times, is a syncretic and living spiritual practice and awakening system that draws from a wide range of inspirations including religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, and also western science and psychology.

The Pantheon of Hindu Gods is vast. There are said to be anywhere from 33, 000, 000 to 330,000,000 Hindu deities, each associated with a variety of stories, parables,  iconographies and mantras that teach about the values and aims of human life and the path to awakening. 

In India, you can find worshippers decorating shrines to the different deities with offerings including mantra, prayer, incense, flowers or other precious items.

While Yoga has borrowed powerful mantras and depictions of Gods & Goddesses to help us invoke, embody, realise ad benefit from the beauty and power they represent, deity meditation or chanting, does not mean that we have subscribe to any religious belief in order to tap into the immense beauty and power of the this practice. Modafinil

Each Hindu God is one tiny aspect of Supreme Being. Deities are simply archetypes that are used to represent patterns of thoughts and behavior that are universally present in individual psyches.  By en-chanting and embodying these qualities in sound and form, we can better identify, honour, and invoke these characteristics and qualities within ourselves, and welcome ourselves into the skirt of their protection.

In short, learning to work with mantras and deity meditation in your Yoga practice can not only help you to connect to the ancient traditions upon which Yoga draws, but also help you to take yourself and your students on a deepening journey towards awakening,

Trinity of Supreme Gods in Hinduism:

Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva

Gurubrahma Guruvishnu Gurudevo Maheswarah,

Guru saakshaat Param Brahma Tasmai shri guravey Namah.

2) Vishnu    

The glorious Vishnu is the sole refuge of mortals. He is Infinite Light, Love and Wisdom.” – Swami Sivananda 

• God of Preservation and Sustaining. Some of his avatars are Narayana, Vasudeva and Hare

• Symbolises Justice, Moral order. He is omnipotent, omniscient and encourages kindness

• Divine Consort: Lakshmi – Goddess of wealth and happiness

• Iconography: Vishnu is often depicted as having dark blue, blue-grey or black skin, holding a conch shell – spiral symbolism of all interconnected cyclic experience, , a chakra – war disk symbolising that which restorces dharma and cosmic equilibrium with war if necessary, a club – symbolising authority and power of knowledge, and a lotus flower which symbolizes purity and transcendence

• Mantra: We invoke Vishnu and his avatars for help with patience, liberation, compassion, prosperity and when you need help remaining at peace in the face of fear or worry:

Om Namah Shivaya

Jaya Shiva Shankara Bom Bom Hara Hara!

Trinity of Supreme Goddesses in Hinduism:

Saraswati, Lakshmi, Kali

The Goddesses Durga, Lakshmi, and Kali are all manifestations of Shakti, Shiva’s consort. These representations of Ma, the Divine Feminine, govern the world of forms, and each gives us tools to navigate the here and now of our daily lives

4) Saraswati

Only ‘knowledge’ can help us to know the universe, which is vast like an ocean. It enlightens all minds.”— The Rig Veda       

• Saraswati means “The Flowing One”.  She is the Goddess of language, knowledge, wisdom, flow, the arts

• Divine Consort of Brahman, Daughter of shiva and durga

• Iconography & Symbolism: Saraswati is represented as a beautiful woman, wearing a white dress and riding a swan, playing a lute upon a pure white lotus – the symbol of the 7th chakra correlated with ultimate bliss and enlightenment.

• Saraswati is depicted with four hands representing four aspects of human personality in learning: mind, intellect, alertness and ego.   She is depicted holding sacred scriptures in one hand and a lotus in the second. With her other two hands she plays the music of love and life on a string instrument called the veena.

• Mantra: We invoke Saraswati to help us with our creative flow, expression and communication, to help support our studies and to help us cultivate discernment – that which takes us away from enlightenment and that which takes us towards.

Om Shreem Maha Lakshmiyei Namaha

6) Kali

Whether Kali seems terrifying, fascinating, or loving depends on our state of consciousness and our level of both emotional and spiritual development. But she always invites us to a radical form of ego-transcendence.”

― Sally Kempton,

• Goddess of death,  time, change, destruction

• Symbolises: Kali symbolizes the death of ego and reminds worshippers that the human body is a temporary condition only.

• Family: Kali is the Divine Consort of Shiva

• Iconography Kali is often depicted as a terrifying force, with blood dripping from her mouth, a protruding tongue, garland of skulls, a skirt of bones, and a sword that cuts away fear, ignorance, and greed – the delusions that keep us from finding peace and joy within our lives

• Mantra: We invoke Kali for protection, and to help us cut-away what no longer serves us.

Om Dum Durgaye Namaha

8) Ganesha

“Remember, Yoga practice is like an obstacle race; many obstructions are purposely put on the way for us to pass through. They are there to make us understand and express our own capacities. We all have that strength, but we don’t seem to know it. We seem to need to be challenged and tested in order to understand our own capacities. In fact, that is the natural law. If a river flows easily, the water in the river does not express its power. But once you put an obstacle to the flow by constructing a dam, then you can see its strength in the form of tremendous power.”

 – Swami Satchitananda

• Ganesha is the beloved elephant-headed God who is famous for being the remover of obstacles. 

• Symbolism: Ganesha represents wisdom, good fortune and is also emblematic as being the both the remover and placer of obstacles– both those outside of us, those we place within our own paths. Ganesha rules the earth element and sits at the root chakra – muladhara,  reminding us to stay connected and rooted to the earth even when we are striving for divinity.

• Family – Son of Shiva and Parvati

• Iconography: Ganesha is represented as having an elephant’s head, riding or being attended to by his vehicle the mouse or shrewd.

• Mantra: We invoke Ganesha at the beginning of anything – a practice, a day, a new journey to clear the way for new beginnings and to remove obstacles:  

Om Hanumanate Namah

Jai Sita Ram Jai Jai Hanuman

10) Krishna  

“Just as a lamp in a windless place does not flicker, so the disciplined mind of a yogi remains steady in meditation on the self.” –  Krishna, The Bhagavad Gita    

• God of Ecstatic devotion (bhakta), embodied love & divine joy and the destroyer of pain 

• Symbolism –  Krishna is the beloved main hero of the Bhagavad Gita. He is leader, teacher, and friend who represents the descent of the infinite to the finite material world

• Family: Avatar of Vishnu, amongst many other avataras, Krishna is also popularly known as Govinda and Gopala

• Iconography: Krishna is depicted as being blue to represent the color of the infinite which symbolizes the immeasurable and all pervading Reality, such as the sky or ocean can appear to the mortal eye as color blue.

• Mantra: We invoke Krishna for purification, solace and bliss. It is often said that Krshna is the saviour of the humanity and the remover of all sufferings

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