Ritualising Life | 6 Born to be FREE with Sharada Devi

“I’m back in Switzerland after 22 years, and it’s a very special moment. It’s snowing, and I’m beginning this new season of the Born to Be Free podcast. I want to dedicate this season to the magic, the profound blessing, and the world of rituals.

Ritual has been a part of my life for a very long time, and it has changed me in every possible way. I’ve discovered that we can ritualize our life, recognizing that everything is a given. Everything here is grace, a gift from the Universe, from the Goddess, from God. When we see what we have, we can’t help but feel gratitude for what is given. We realize that everything is grace.

Meaning, we aren’t really in control of anything. We can have wishes, desires, dreams, but we never know what we’ll actually receive or if we’ll accomplish what we want to accomplish, fulfill our desires. And so, the outcome is given by the universe. Everything is given. We only have a say over our actions. I can choose to act, to refrain, or to act differently. We have free will. And in the Vedic tradition, it’s said that the most powerful way to use our free will is in prayer.

So, what are we praying to? What are we not praying to?

This Universe is an infinite, intelligent being. It’s alive, filled with infinite knowledge. The more we know, the more we realize how much we don’t know. We call this Universe Jagat, the world that comes and goes. In the Vedic tradition, we have many names for this world. We also refer to this world as the Goddess, Devi, or the God, Deva - from the Sanskrit root ‘Dev’, meaning to shine, to be self-luminous. Thus, the Goddess is she who shines, she who is self-existent; Deva is he who shines, he who exists.

God is God, needing nothing else for its existence. This whole universe is, as we call it, Devi or Deva.

This is how the Goddess, how God is, in the form of this magnificent universe, starting with space. Where is space not? Without space, nothing exists; it accommodates all beings. We have the air, especially here in Davos, where it’s so wonderful to breathe because the air is really fresh. So, we have the goddess in the form of air. We get to breathe, to feel the cold, the heat. We have fire, the Goddess, God in the form of fire, the heat, the sun, without which we cannot see anything. And we have water. Imagine life without water. Because of water, we can taste, and we have the earth. Because of the earth, we can smell. Thus, we’re constantly experiencing the Goddess, God through existing, hearing, speaking, feeling, seeing, smelling, tasting.

However, we’re often not aware of this because we’ve been told that the Goddess, God, or God is something else. Who talks about the Goddess? She’s been long forgotten but is now reemerging. We’ve mainly talked about the God that most people are introduced to as sitting up in the sky, judging us. Such a concept of God is not very trustworthy, leading many to dismiss God altogether because the image we’ve been given is not believable.

In the Vedic tradition, we don’t just believe in God or the Goddess; we seek to know, to understand, to discover God, Goddess in everything and everyone, including ourselves.

Discovering that God, Goddess is, that you are God, I am God, and all that is here is God, means recognizing that all is sacred, nothing is profane. We are in a constant state of prayer, of gratitude, grateful for waking up each morning, for our legs that carry us, for the water that cleanses us.

There’s consciousness in every action, a realization that nothing can be taken for granted. Ritualizing our life is a beautiful way to stay in touch with the reality that everything here is given, is grace, is sacred. It makes life meaningful, purposeful, and allows us to enter the magic that always is. I learned from my teacher and lineage to ritualize my life, from waking until bedtime, maintaining a state of prayer because we cannot take anything for granted. When we are in pray