Mother Kali - 3

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She is full- breasted; her motherhood is a

ceaseless creation. Her disheveled hair forms a curtain of

illusion, the fabric of space- time which organizes matter

out of the chaotic sea of quantum-foam. Her garland

of fifty human heads, each representing one of the

fifty letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizes the

repository of knowledge and wisdom. She wears a girdle of

severed human hands- hands that are the principal

instruments of work and so signify the action of karma. Thus

the binding effects of this karma have been overcome,

severed, as it were, by devotion to Kali. She has blessed

the devotee by cutting him free from the cycle of

karma. Her white teeth are symbolic of purity (Sans.

Sattva), and her lolling tongue which is red dramatically

depicts the fact that she consumes all things and denotes

the act of tasting or enjoying what society regards

as forbidden, i.e. her indiscriminate enjoyment of

all the world's "flavors". <br><br>Kali's four arms

represent the complete circle of creation and destruction,

which is contained within her. She represents the

inherent creative and destructive rhythms of the cosmos.

Her right hands, making the mudras of "fear not" and

conferring boons, represent the creative aspect of Kali,

while the left hands, holding a bloodied sword and a

severed head represent her destructive aspect. The

bloodied sword and severed head symbolize the destruction

of ignorance and the dawning of knowledge. The sword

is the sword of knowledge, that cuts the knots of

ignorance and destroys false consciousness (the severed

head). Kali opens the gates of freedom with this sword,

having cut the eight bonds that bind human beings.

Finally her three eyes represent the sun, moon, and fire,

with which she is able to observe the three modes of

time: past, present and future. This attribute is also

the origin of the name Kali, which is the feminine

form of 'Kala', the Sanskrit term for Time.

<br><br><br><br>..............to be contd.