Kali

[Guest guest]

Kali

 

 

This is taken from "Kali Puja" by Swami Satyananda Saraswati.

 

Swamji is one of the kindest souls I have ever met and He is like a

brother to me. He is the spiritual companion of Shree Maa, who we

believe to be Kali in the flesh.

 

Kala means Darkness; Kali takes away that Darkness. She takes

away the darkness from every individual who strives in the path of

perfection by performing the spiritual disciplines of purifying

austerities. Just as all the colors of the spectrum mix into black,

yet still black remains black, so too, Kali!, who is completely Dark,

Unknowable, takes away all the Darkness, yet She, Herself, remains

unchanged.

Kala means Time and i means the Cause; Kali!, the Cause of

Time or She Who is Beyond Time. All existence has its perception in

time, and therefore the Cause of Time, She Who is Beyond Time,

activates Consciousness to perception, allows Consciousness to

perceive.

She wears a garland of the heads of impure thoughts, which She

has severed from the personalities of Her devotees. She cuts down all

of the conflicting concepts which debate their various ideologies

within the arena of mind, silences the tumultuous roar of mental

conflict and the anguish of egotistical attachment, takes the

physical manifestations to Herself, and makes a garland of

perplexity. Thus She wears all karma as an ornament, while She stops

the chattering voices of the active mind, so that Her devotees can

experience the purity of inner peace in the absorption of

solitude.

As the Destroyer of Madhu and Khaitabha, Too Much and Too

Little, She puts Her devotees in the balance of divine

meditation.

She is called Chamunda, the Slayer of Anger and Passion, who

cuts down all the angry thoughts and impure passions along with their

tremendous armies. When Chanda and Munda, Anger and Passion, hurled

thousands of discuses at Her, She merely opened wide Her mouth, and

al I of those terrible opposing weapons entered the gateway to

infinity, absorbed into Her being without effect.

She took all the horses of the cavalry of thoughts, along with

their chariots and charioteers; elephants along with their drivers,

protectors and armor; and uncountable thousands of warriors of the

army of thoughts; She put them into Her mouth and hideously began to

chew. She took all the soldiers of the armies opposing divinity,

the entire army of thoughts, projections, speculations, and

immediately She digested them all.

Witnessing the destruction of confusion, the Gods experience

extreme joy! See how many contemplations, prejudices and attitudes

from which we have been freed! Having given up all the difficulties,

all the thoughts, the very ego itself, to Kali, the mind experiences

the utmost peace and delight!

Raktabi-ja, who performed great austerities, was awarded the

boon that whenever a drop of his blood would touch the ground, in

that very same place a new Raktabi-ja would be born with the same

vitality, courage and strength, the same capacity to captivate the

mind. Rakta means red, the color; it also means blood and passion;

most specifically, a passion for something - Desire. Bija means the

seed; Raktabija literally translates as the Seed of Desire.

See how he manifests in action. In order to accomplish his

desire, he multiplies into countless new desires with the same

intensity, the same capacity of captivating the mind, all of which

seek fulfillment as well. As we find desire for one thing, one drop

of blood has touched the ground, and immediately, automatically, a

new "something" is required in order to fulfill that desire. Another

drop.

This goes on indefinitely, causing a continual necessity to

act. Every time a Seed of Desire touches the ground, a new Seed of

Desire is born in that very same place. Ultimately the entire earth

has been filled with Seeds of Desire.

Seeing this and understanding fully well the tremendous

importance and significance of the all-pervasiveness of desire, the

Gods became extremely dejected. In great alarm we all called to the

Divine Mother for help. "Oh Compassionate Kali, stick out your

tongue and drink up all the desires of existence. Only your mouth

has sufficient capacity to consume all desire! And when you will have

digested all desire, then the Gods will be free from desire."

This is why She shows Her very lovely, red, protruding tongue -

in order to make all existence free from desire.

Kali is most often depicted as standing upon the corpse-like

form of Lord Shiva, dancing upon the stage of Consciousness. She is

the perceivable form of Consciousness. Consciousness is awareness.

Rather than the actor, Consciousness is the witness of all action.

That is why Lord Shiva is shown as a lifeless corpse: still,

immobile, his eyes are fixed, trained on the image of the Divine

Mother. All that Consciousness perceives is the dance of Nature.

She is dancing to infatuate Him, causing Him to direct His

attention to Her. But Shiva does not forget that it is Nature who is

dancing, not I; and He remains the silent Witness. This body is

Nature. I am Consciousness, the silent witness of the actions of

Nature. I am not the performer. This body acts according to its

nature, because that is its nature. Remembering this, I am free, one

among the audience in a theater watching the drama of life.

Kali is Nature personified - not necessarily the dark force of

Nature, but all of Nature: Mother Nature, as She dances upon the

stage of Consciousness. As all of the qualities reside together, the

three Gunas: Sattva, Rajas and Tamas; activity, desire and rest,

Kali embodies the Three. However, She is more frequently associated

with Tamas.

Tamas means darkness, but not necessarily in the sense of

ignorance. There is a darkness which obscures external perception.

And there is a darkness which exposes the light. Kali as the

personification of Tamas, is the Energy of Wisdom.

She spreads Her darkness over worldly desire, makes seekers

oblivious to the transient externals, totally self-contained within.

Pure Consciousness knows that the world of matter will continue to

revolve according to its nature, in a cyclical flow of creation,

preservation and transformation - the wheel of life. It goes on of

its own accord.

When one can reside within, without identification or

attachment to the ever-changing externals, then the supreme truth

can be realized.

Kali is jnanashakti, the energy of Wisdom, the intuitive

illumination within, as compared with the intellectual contemplation

of the external. Knowledge is conceived, wisdom is intuited. When

Kali takes away the darkness of the outside world, She grants

illumination of the inner world. Such is Her Grace.

With Kali's Love we become unattached, free from reaction, the

silent witness of the stimulus and response which action and

interaction brings. We cease to react emotionally to the

circumstances of life, and rather plan our actions for the optimum

efficiency; so that all the sooner we can complete our necessary

contributions to creation according to our karmas, and spend the

balance of our time delighting in Universal Consciousness. This is

the path that Kali shows.

 

Jai Maa

Love baba

[Guest guest]

Greetings to you baba

 

Thank you

 

 

Om ParaShaktiye Namaha

[Guest guest]

babaji, a million thanx for this post on kali tattwa by swami

satyanana saraswati.

 

when i saw swamiji performing the 'chandi yagna' in murugan temple

last summer in the presence of his guru and mentor sree maa , it was

a unique experience - i was simply amazed at the way in which he

performed the yagna with devotion , enthusiasm and divine energy. he

never even paused for one second and went through most of the 700

verses of the chandi path in less than 2 hours.....

 

it is at ths time i bought a copy of swamiji's chandi path and i

recite all the different verses from it as and when i find the time.

 

thanks for sharing this with all of us. may i also request you to

post this in our sister group bhraman.

 

let me dedicate this song to sree maa and swamiji's lotus feet! ...

 

" O Mother , make me mad with thy love

what need have I of knowledge and reason

make me drunk with THY love's wine

O THOU who stealest thy bhakta's hearts,

drown me deep in the SEA of thy love

here in this world this madness of THINE

SOME laugh, some weep, some dance for joy

jesus, buddha, moses , gauranga,

all are drunk with the wine of thy love.

O MOTHER, when shall i be blessed

by joining their blissful company? "

 

from the gospel of shri ramakrishna

 

 

in ever loving service

[Guest guest]

>when I use to bow before goddes kali (my family diety),it was more

>because of fear than reverance. Reason I guess was my ignorance; am

>still working on it.

 

Yes, Kali is so misunderstood. Her love side needs to be

reemphasized, which you can taste vividly in Ramprasad's poems, say,

or some of the sayings of Ramakrishna.

 

I painted Kali Mahavidya in a scroll of Wisdom Goddesses a few years

ago, and initially she came out with tongue lolling, the more

wrathful aspect that you usually see. But it didn't seem right for my

cultural context, or maybe for our times generally, where people so

often click into fear mode, and would react to her with dread. After

meditating on this for some time, and somewhat trepidatious about

painting over the image, I went ahead and changed her expression to a

compassionate smile. She is still however holding a sickle above her

head and a flaming skull bowl. But her kind expression shows that the

outcome she intends by cutting and burning away the dross is our

liberation into wisdom and bliss.

--

Max Dashu

Suppressed Histories Archives

Global Women's Studies

http://www.suppressedhistories.net

Paintings of bold and spirited women

http://www.maxdashu.net

 

 

[Guest guest]

Jay Gurudev,

 

I agree, She is misunderstood. As a matter of fact so is most

of "Dus Maha vidyas" (Ten Supreme Knowledge - transliteration).

People look at the image and preceive them as fearful. I wish they

spend some time knowing about each one of them.

 

I came across interesting explaination recently. Hope you all will

find it useful -

 

"Shakti has many manifestations. Durga being one of them. It is in

her role as Durga that she fights demons like Mahishasura, Shumba,

Nishumba and Raktabeejasura. These were demons who representend

different forms of ego and envy etc. Raktabeejasura (blood seed

demon - literal translation) would manisfest himself again every time

a drop of his blood fell on the ground. He represents envy and

jeasousy, a trait that multiplies. So Durga manifests herself as

Kaali, who with her long tongue drinks up the blood dripping from the

demon. The symbolism here indicates that one needs the grace of

Mother Shakti and a concerted effort of all our energies to overcome

ego." Binod, thread goddesses, community hinduism, orkut.com

 

Thank You.

 

Regards

 

Mithilesh