The Third Night

When Bri. Maya Tiwari was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer at the age of 23, and at the height of an extraordinarily successful career as a fashion designer in New York, her doctor recommend that she die painlessly with "heavy doses of morphine." Instead, Maya went on a self-healing process using “the wisdom and healing practices of the Vedas”. She realized that not only was the source of all disease and healing within us, but also that disease was an opportunity to go inwards, to re-establish contact with our own forgotten powers to heal us physically, emotionally and spiritually.
And to share with the world this personal journey from sickness to health, she wrote The Path of Practice – A Woman’s Book of Ayurvedic Healing, a glorious celebration of being a woman and of feminine power.
"The Divine Mother endowed all females with two gifts: the power to nurture and the power to protect. Shakti is more than the energy of reproduction. It is the spirit of protecting the sacred, gathering food, worshipping the Divine and giving birth to children, to inspiration, to idea and to art."
The book contains this amazing anecdote about the Lalitha Sahasranama
“Not long ago, I met Anna, a fourteen year-old girl who had been diagnosed with anorexia.  Anna said that her reason for not eating was that voices in her head were ordering her not to touch a morsel of food or else she would be severely punished…..As I meditated one day, I realized that she needed to be bathed in sounds of Vedic chants. I recorded a powerful chant for her that evokes the Divine mother’s presence – Lalitha Sahasranama, a thousand names of the Mother. Anna’s parents later described to me her reaction the first time that they played the tape in her presence. She suddenly became very quiet and her ex-pression became fixed, almost as if she was in a trance. As soon as the tape ended, she saked her mother to play it again. “I love the voice. I love the music,” she said.

She listened to the tape repeatedly throughout the next week.  Then she announced, “The voices are gone. I don’t hear them anymore. All I hear is the voice of the chants.” Anna is now eating normally and on her way to recovery.”
She is the Mother who guides us to walk the right path.
Because She is Madanashini, who destroys all pride and ego because She herself is Nirahankara – without ego;
Lobhanashini, who destroys greed because She herself is Nirlobha (without greed), Samshayaghni, who obliterates suspicion and doubt because She is Nishamshaya (without suspicion).
She is Krodha-Samani, who smoothes away anger since She is eternally Nishkrodha or without anger.
She is the mother who empowers us because She is Iccha-shakti-Gyana-shakti-Kriya-shakti- Svarupini, the Power of will, knowledge and action.
In her presence, obstacles melt away because She is Vighna Nashini. In her purifying radiance, we are freed from sin because She is Parampaapanashini.
With her blessing, we earn the fruits of good deeds because She is Punyaphalprada.
And so, She is Vandaru jana Vatsala – who loves her devotees like a mother.
Or then, She is just simply – Mata.