An Interview with author Devadatta Kali

[Guest guest]

Interview with Devadatta Kali

Author of In Praise of the Goddess and

The Veiling Brilliance

 

Devadatta Kali [...] is a lecturer, teacher, and author,

and wrote the popular book, In Praise of the Goddess. A

Vedantist, he has been writing about Vedanta since the

1990s. Devadatta, it is a pleasure to visit with you to

discuss the Goddess Kali and your life in Vedanta.

 

Q: Tell me, when did David Nelson become Devadatta

Kali, and why?

 

Devadatta Kali: My association with the

Vedanta Society of Southern California began in

September 1966, when I attended my first lecture in the

Hollywood temple. I knew from that moment that I had

found my spiritual home. Many of the devotees there

had Indian " spiritual " names that they had been given by

the guru, Swami Prabhavananda. He explained that a

spiritual name is an ideal to live up to. Although he

initiated me in March 1969, for some reason I didn't ask

for a name until three and a half years later. About two

months after my request (it must have been in December

1972), he named me Devadatta. It means " given to

God, " and it's a wonderful reminder of how I should

live my life.

 

In 1994 I met my second spiritual teacher, or upaguru, in

the person of Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati. You may have

heard of her. She's the spiritual head of Kashi Ashram in

Florida, an interfaith group with strong ties to Kali, or

God the Mother. In April 2000 Ma added the Mother's

name to mine, saying that I am a son of Kali.

 

So, Devadatta Kali reflects two spiritual lineages. On

my guru's side there is the lineage from Sri

Ramakrishna, who was a priest of Kali at the

Dakshineswar Temple near Calcutta, and on my guru

Ma's side there is another lineage also connected to

Kali.

 

Q: Tell us about your first book, In Praise of the

Goddess.

 

In Praise of the Goddess is the actual translation of a

sacred text, the Devimahatmya, which is about 1600

years old. Since it is a holy book, I made the language

eloquent and inspiring, as sacred literature should be.

Just translating the text wasn't enough, though. It

needed explanation to point out its depths and hidden

meanings, so I wrote an introduction and then a verse-

by-verse commentary. Some people say the book is

" scholarly, " but I don't want to frighten people off with

the " s " word. Admittedly the book is based on careful

scholarship, but that is necessary to make this ancient

text come alive -- and it really comes alive in a way that

few translations from Sanskrit do. I think the excitement

of discovery that I felt throughout the process comes

through in the book.

 

Q: Could you share your personal feelings on what is

Goddess?

 

The Goddess exists on every level. Tantra teaches that

she is the power that creates this universe. She is that

same power residing in each of us as the strength of

inconceivable silence, peace, and joy. She is the divine

presence that makes everything alive and wonderful,

shining with light -- not light in a physical sense but

something I can't put into words. It's vibrant, and its

nature is joy -- not joy in the ordinary sense but a self-

contained joy of freedom and beauty. We get a taste of

this when we are moved by something inspiring --

maybe a piece of music, a work of art, the magnificence

of nature. In any of these experiences I think we sense

the presence of something greater than ourselves.

" Standing outside " -- that is the literal meaning of the

word ecstasy. For a moment we stand outside of our

ordinary limitations of ego and touch something far

greater. Psychologists call this awareness " the unitive

dimension of being. " It can't be described, not really,

but anyone who has had this sort of glimpse into a

greater reality will know exactly what I am talking

about. This mystical insight need not come necessarily

through anything we call religion, although customarily

we slap the religious label on it. The divine reality is

greater than any or all religions. As I like to say, the

experience is primary, and all religions and philosophies

are only the afterthoughts. So, to return to your question,

to me the Goddess is many things -- the universal

creative principle; the countless personifications of that

principle, such as Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Sarasvati, the

Virgin Mary, Yemaya, and so on; and ultimately she is

the pure infinite consciousness which is the true Self of

every being.

 

Q: What is the role of Goddess in life?

 

Since the Goddess is everything, her roles are without

number. She (or he or it, if you prefer) is the source,

sustenance, and ultimate goal of all creation, and

everything that exists is nothing but her own self-

expression. If we can remember that and strive

consciously to make the divine presence central to our

individual lives -- in whatever way we choose to do this

-- then we live in harmony with the entire universe.

There are many ways to do this. The Hindu tradition has

the well-known four yogas or spiritual paths: devotion,

knowledge, meditation, and selfless action. Each of

them or, better, any combination of them that best suits

us, is a way back to the center. The Goddess -- whatever

or however you choose to think of her, him, or it -- is the

center, where everything comes together, first in

harmony, then in unity, then in enlightenment.

 

Q: What is the role of Goddess in religion?

 

Here in the Western world, we're living in very exciting

times. This is a period of rediscovery of the sacred

feminine. There is a deep archetypal need in the human

psyche to have a mother, and for far too long the

motherhood of God has been suppressed by the

monotheistic religions. They have promoted an

imbalance in our world that has led to our present global

crises. If what present-day researchers and scholars, not

to mention India's Tantric tradition, tell us is true, the

Goddess was humankind's earliest conception of

divinity. The Willendorf Venus, for example, is 28,000

years old. Cybele, the ancient Anatolian goddess from

around 8000 years ago, is a direct ancestor to Durga,

who has been worshiped in India without a break

(although under various names, such as Aditi, Vak, and

Sarasvati) for as far back as we have evidence.

 

[....]

 

Q: What do you see as the most important aspects of the

Hindu Goddess, Durga?

 

Durga is called the Mahadevi, the Great Goddess, and

she is the form of the Mother who gives rise to all other

forms. She is the subject of the Devimahatmya, which is

also known as Sri Durga Saptashati, or Seven-Hundred

Verses on Sri Durga. Relating this to what I said earlier,

I'd like to mention that at the same time as the Goddess

was being suppressed in the Western world, her

devotees in India were busy collecting and preserving all

the ancient knowledge about her, which was compiled as

the Devimahatmya.

 

Durga is portrayed in sculptures and paintings as a

beautiful woman with ten arms to represent that she is

present everywhere. Her ten hands hold various

weapons and other objects to symbolize that she is all-

powerful. She has three eyes to show that she is all-

knowing. She rides the lion of dharma, meaning that

holy action is virtuous action. Durga is both warrior and

mother at the same time. You have to ask yourself, who

is more fiercely protective than a mother toward her

child? I remember hearing once about an incident at a

zoo. Somehow a lion got loose, pounced on a child and

had the child's head in its mouth. The mother was so

focused on saving her child that she rushed forward with

no thought of her own safety and miraculously pried

open the lion's jaws with her bare hands. Now and then

a story comes along about a mother who does something

almost physically impossible, like lifting up a car to save

the child trapped beneath it. That is the power of a

mother's love, and that's what we revere in Durga.

Durga is a fierce warrior, and she goes after all the

personal demons that assail us. So, even though she has

this awesome destructive power, what she destroys is

anything that threatens our well-being.

 

Q: What do you see as the most important aspects of the

Hindu Goddess, Kali?

 

In the Devimahatyma, Kali emerges from Durga's brow

as the embodiment of divine wrath in order to take on a

growing army of demonic forces. It's a chilling scene,

and in The Veiling Brilliance I recreated it in widescreen

technicolor.

 

Kali is terribly misunderstood, except by her devotees.

Yes, she has her horrific side, as she appears in the

Devimahatmya, but over the centuries the understanding

changed. The most wonderful portrayals of Kali are the

18th-century devotional songs of Ramprasad and

Kamalakanta, which show her in many aspects,

everything from a naked mad woman on the battlefield

devouring demons between her gnashing teeth to the

epitome of feminine beauty and gentle motherhood. The

beauty of Kali is that she reconciles all the pairs of

opposites that bedevil our human experience. She has

her benevolent side on the right and her fierce side on

the left.

 

The first Westerners who saw her images were aghast

and misinterpreted everything as devilish, but Kali is in

fact pure divinity in all its raw power. The symbolism is

strong, no doubt -- a garland of severed heads around

her neck, severed arms forming her girdle, blood oozing

from the corners of her mouth -- but every feature, no

matter how horrific, means something absolutely

sublime.

 

Let's just take her four hands, for example. The lower

right hand is extended in a gesture of boon-giving. We

can ask the Mother for whatever we want; she'll give it

all -- worldly enjoyment (bhukti) or spiritual liberation

(mukti). Her upper right hand forms the abhayamudra, a

gesture that means, " Be not afraid. " How's that for a

gift? Fearlessness is a condition for success in our

worldly affairs, of course, but it's also essential for

spiritual life. If we let anything hold us back, how can

we move forward? OK, that's the benevolent side. What

about the other half? Kali's upper left hand wields a

curving sword, smeared with the blood and fat of the

demons she's slain. Pretty scary, huh? Actually, no. The

demons are all the enemies of our own mental and

spiritual happiness and well-being. The sword is called

jnanakadga, the " sword of knowledge, " because it is our

own empowerment to cut away from our awareness all

the mistaken ideas that cause so much trouble. Those

ideas arise in the ego-sense, the thought that I am an

individual being -- separate, limited, small, alienated.

When there is this restrictive idea of " I, " everything that

is " not-I " becomes the other, and that's where the

problems arise -- everything from individual grievances

to nations at war. So, we look at Kali's lower left hand

and find it dangling the freshly severed head of a demon.

That is the demon of ego. We are not that small, separate

self we mistook ourselves to be; we are the infinite Self

that is one with the Mother. Her power of knowledge

sets us free. Kali's power is the power of transformation

that brings us to enlightenment.

 

Q: You lived in California during the 1960s and came

into contact with many important writers involved in the

Vedanta movement. How did you become attracted to

the Vedanta Society?

 

Even as a small child I had strong spiritual leanings, and

maybe that is why I did not fit into the mainstream

religious culture of northern Minnesota, where I grew

up. I attended Sunday school (usually under protest) for

about eight years, and at the age of fourteen I stopped

going because of doctrines that I just couldn't accept. I

began reading about other religions. I was eighteen

when I came to California, and for the next four years

experienced a few different religions at first hand. In the

summer of 1966, while vacationing at home in

Minnesota, I borrowed a book from the library, A

Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy by Radhakrishnan.

When I got to the chapter of Vedanta, there it was --

what I had vaguely intuited all along but had never been

able to put into words. I couldn't wait to get back to

Hollywood, because I knew about the Vedanta Society.

As I said earlier, that was when I found my spiritual

home.

 

Q: What are your most cherished memories of Swami

Prabhavananda?

 

How can I even begin? When you were with him you

were in the presence of greatness. To give a more

worldly analogy, I can remember going to see

Stravinsky conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic on

two different occasions, and when he stepped onto the

podium, there was that presence of greatness. It was

tangible. Swami Prabhavananda had that aura, but in a

spiritual sense. He had an unassailable dignity, but at the

same time he was unassuming. He was a man who lived

and breathed what he taught, and I think it was his total

integrity that commanded such enormous respect. So

many people, including myself, were in awe of him and

loved him dearly at the same time. He lived immersed in

love for God and in love for his own revered guru,

Swami Brahmananda, who was Sri Ramakrishna's

spiritual son. So, being in Swami Prabhavananda's

presence was being in the aura of that great spiritual

tradition. I have many cherished memories, but most of

them are too personal to share. At least one important

incident found its way into The Veiling Brilliance, but I

won't say which one it is.

 

Q: Of Christopher Isherwood?

 

I have fond memories of Chris and the Wednesday

evening readings from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

that took place in the Vedanta Society's living room

back in the late 1960s and early '70s. Swami

Prabhavananda would sit in an upholstered chair on the

left side of the fireplace, and Chris would sit in a similar

chair on the right and read from M.'s eyewitness account

of conversations with Sri Ramakrishna. He had an

uncanny ability to bring it to life. The associates and

devotees of Ramakrishna took on flesh and blood when

he read about them.

 

On a more personal note, I'm grateful to Chris for

something he was never aware of. He taught me the

meaning of humility. Here he was, a world-famous

author, but he had an ability always to make the person

he was talking to feel like the important one. I noticed

that not only in my own conversations with him, but in

his conversations with other people, no matter who they

were or what their background. He had a lively way of

engaging with people, as if they were all very

interesting. The lesson I gained from his demeanor is

that true humility is not about self-abasement but about

making the other person feel valued. I value this lesson

so highly that I incorporated it into Medhas's teaching in

The Veiling Brilliance.

 

Q: Of Aldous Huxley?

 

I never met him. By the time I came to the Vedanta

Society, Aldous belonged to an earlier chapter in the

society's history.

 

Q: Of Swami Chetanananda of the Vedanta Society of

St. Louis, Missouri?

 

I'll start at the beginning. When Swami Chetanananda

first arrived in Los Angeles in 1971, I was fortunate

enough to be among the twenty or so devotees who met

his plane at LAX. We were all expectant about the new

assistant to Swami Prabhavananda, and the moment he

stepped off the plane, it was collective love at first sight.

What a gentle, innocent, and utterly charming man.

When I think of that quality of his, I am reminded of

how Sri Ramakrishna valued guilelessness in his young

disciples. Over the years Swami Chetanananda has

matured into a venerable figure, but he still has that

boyish quality that endears him to so many people. I

hope he won't mind my saying this!

 

At the same time I have to mention his reputation as a

scholar and historian. He has written many books about

the Ramakrishna movement and has applied meticulous

scholarship to collecting and sifting out the data. He told

me once that some of the stories about Ramakrishna's

disciples exist in as many as half a dozen different

versions. At the time he told me this he said there were

still very aged people alive in India with whom he could

consult in order to determine the most authentic version

of these memories. His books, which are written in

excellent English, contain a lot of material taken from

previously untranslated Bengali sources. In a way, he

has been racing against time to preserve for future

generations much knowledge that is otherwise in danger

of being lost.

 

Q: What do you feel is the message of Vedanta for

contemporary times?

 

Two answers. One is that Vedanta is also called

sanatana dharma, the eternal truth or the perennial

philosophy. Its core teaching is particular to no one

religion and to all religions. I have to stress that in order

to bring out that Vedanta is strongly nonsectarian and

undogmatic. Spiritual truth is spiritual truth -- what else

can be said of it? -- and it is available at all times and

places to everyone, because in the end it is the truth of

our own being.

 

The second answer applies more to present-day

circumstances. A little over a hundred years ago Sri

Ramakrishna himself practiced the disciplines of various

Hindu sects as well as Christianity and Islam, and in

every case he found that they led to the same experience

of the divine reality. " Truth is one, " as the ancient

Rigveda proclaimed thousands of years ago. We speak

of Ramakrishna teaching the harmony of religions, but

in fact his real intention was to demonstrate through his

own experience that all are true and valid, not just to

have us say they are. In that respect he is very much a

teacher for the present age. Nowadays, in an era of

unprecedented mobility, people from all over the world

are living and working together side by side, people of

all different nationalities, ethnicities, and religions. It is

the weaker part of human nature that makes us uneasy in

the presence of difference, and it is all too easy for

someone of different beliefs to be branded " the other. "

Ramakrishna's message is the universality of religion.

All paths, he taught, lead to the same goal.

 

Q: Is there a special message from Vedanta for

Americans?

 

Yes, in fact two come to mind immediately. Swami

Vivekananda, Ramakrishna's disciple, brought Vedanta

to America in 1893, at a time when we were making

enormous technological advances. There was great

optimism in the air, and America seemed to lead the

world toward a better material existence than it had ever

known before. Vivekananda loved this country for its

innovativeness. At the same time he recognized a

spiritual poverty. He believed that the cooperation of

East and West could be of enormous mutual benefit.

American scientific know-how and ingenuity could

work in tandem with the profound spiritual knowledge

of India to build better societies in both countries.

 

Another message is that Hinduism has a long history of

accepting and assimilating everything that reached

India's shores. Throughout the millennia it has

constantly been enriched and has grown through the

contact with other religions and cultures. In the same

way America is a nation of immigrants, and each group

that comes here and is absorbed brings something of

value that we can all benefit from. This is what accounts

for the vibrancy of our culture and our ability to

embrace the future with confidence. It's a strategy that

has served us well. In that respect Vedanta and the

American experience have a great deal in common.

 

Q: Is this a time of spiritual hope for humankind?

 

Well, yes and no. That's a good Vedantic answer to a lot

of questions, because the world is a complicated place.

You may know the analogy of the dog's curly tail. The

minute you straighten it out, it curls right back up. The

world is like that. We can talk about reform and progress

all we like, and if we are idealistic, our ideals should

guide our actions. But let's be realistic. The pendulum

swings back and forth, and it will always do so. There

are times and places where a constructive spirit reigns

and great strides are made; and there are times and

places where a destructive spirit takes hold, and all that

progress is crushed. I don't to the Western

concept of linear progress, but rather to the Eastern

understanding of cyclical nature. It's just the way the

world works.

 

Real progress, which is spiritual progress, occurs at the

individual level -- in human hearts and minds. My guru

used to say that if you want to reform something, reform

yourself. Some of us will want to, some of us will feel

compelled to, and others will want no part of it. One

verse of the Devimahatmya praises the Goddess as

abiding in all beings in the form of error. Wow! This

after lauding her as compassion, forgiveness, peace,

loveliness, intelligence, and other good qualities. " Error "

comes at the very end of this litany, almost like a slap in

the face. What's that all about? Well, I'll tell you. This

cosmic error is the Mother's maya, her power to create

this world of appearances, where nothing is exactly as it

seems to be. It's what makes the world go 'round. It's

all her divine play. So, is this a time of spiritual hope for

humankind? For the world at large, I'd say as much as

any other time; there will be good periods and bad, and

we seem to be going through a particularly dark phase

just now. But for the individual, every moment is a time

of spiritual hope, because the Mother empowers us with

choice. Shakti -- Sanskrit for " power " -- comes from a

root that means " to be able. " If we can connect with the

Mother in our hearts, we connect with infinite

possibility.

 

Q: What do you see as the role of Vedanta and the

Vedanta Society in the future?

 

Vedanta has formally been in America since 1893, even

though the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita were known

in intellectual circles in New England, for example,

somewhat earlier. Its growth has been slow, because we

do not proselytize. There is a saying in India that when

the flower blooms, the bees come of their own accord.

When I discovered Vedanta in 1966, it was still rather

exotic and off the radar screen. The cultural shift of the

late '60s brought Eastern thought fully into the public

consciousness. It was a mixed bag at first with one guru

after another appearing on the scene. Some were real

holy men and women; others weren't. Today Eastern

thought is widely disseminated in America. The Vedanta

Societies have been here all along, for more than a

hundred years, working quietly in the background. The

Vedanta Society of Southern California, for example,

besides operating its temples, monasteries, and

convents, is active in the interfaith movement and has

forged strong ties to other religious communities. So has

the St. Louis Vedanta Society.

 

At present something very exciting is taking place along

the lines of grass-roots expansion. Vedanta groups are

springing up in cities around the country as satellites to

the established Vedanta Societies. After a period of slow

growth, Vedanta in America seems to be undergoing a

spontaneous revitalization.

 

Because we do not proselytize, I would say that the role

of the Vedanta Societies in the future is what it has been

since the beginning: to make the timeless wisdom of

India available to those who seek it. And I would add

that Vedanta has something even for those who would

never be drawn to it as their chosen path. That is its

message of respect for all other religions. In that sense

Vedanta can be a model for a world presently torn by

religious strife.

 

Q: Devadatta, it has been a pleasure interviewing you. I

appreciate your sharing your thoughts with the readers,

and thank you. In closing, is there something you would

wish to share with the readers?

 

Yes. I hope what comes across to the readers is that

spiritual life is a joy. Over the years I've been blessed to

know several holy people -- extraordinary men and

women from many different religious traditions. In

every one of them what I have seen is serenity,

fearlessness, compassion, and joy. All of them have left

their mark on [Devadatta Kali's book] The Veiling

Brilliance, and I hope that through this book each reader

will be touched by them. Thank you, and to everyone

the brightest of blessings.

 

http://www.ghostvillage.com/library/2006/lib_kali.shtml

Ghostvillage.com

June, 2006