Devadatta Kali, author of In Praise of the Goddess and The Veiling Brilliance

[Guest guest]

The sage Medhas said:

 

The Devi appears in many forms. [....] There is no end

to the ways in which she reveals herself. And for now

she is both the auspicious Ambika and the terrible Kali.

[....] Kali appears here [in the Devimahatmya] in a

particularly frightening form to embody the Devi's wrath.

The Devi, in her lovely form as Ambika, projected the

horrific Kali from her own scowling brow.

 

This form of Kali bears the imagery of death and

destruction: the emaciated flesh hanging loose upon the

bones, the skull-topped staff, the all-devouring mouth.

Kali is the relentless power of time, which in the end

swallows up everything. But there is more to Kali than

this. Her flesh is black, her tongue is red, her teeth are

gleaming white. Black, red, and white represent the

three gunas - tamas, rajas, and sattva. Kali embodies all

the energy of the universe. She is Shakti personified.

Hers is the power to create, sustain, and destroy. She is

indeed supreme. [....]

 

She is the Mother [...] You must go beyond your fear

and come to her in love.

 

[....] What you love, you cannot fear, [.....] And Kali

takes us beyond all fear. She has many forms. This

wrathful form is called Chamunda. When she appears on

the battlefield with bloody mouth and glowing eyes, she

is the night of death who laughs derisively and binds

men and horses and elephants in her terrible snare.

When she haunts the cremation ground, she is

Shmashanakali, the embodiment of destructive power

who reduces all created things to ash. [...]

Shmashanakali presides over the dissolution of matter

back into spirit. When [Kali] is pleased, she is the

benevolent Bhadrakali. As Shyama, she is worshiped in

household shrines as the tender dispeller of fear and the

granter of boons. She is also called Bhavabhayaharini,

'she who removes the fear of worldly existence.'

 

[...] ehind every detail of her appearance lies a

sublime truth. [....] For example, [consider] the

auspicious Dakshinakali. Her untamed hair hints at

unrestrained power and boundless freedom. Some say it

represents the veil of illusion, woven from the strands of

space and time. Her three eyes represent omniscience,

for she sees past, present, and future. Nothing is

unknown to the all-knowing Mother. The garland of

skulls around her neck is not a symbol of death, as you

might think, but of creative power. [....] Each of the

fifty skulls stands for a sound of the alphabet, and from

these sounds, these vibrating energies, the Mother brings

forth the entire universe. So this garland of skulls is, in

fact, the alphabet of creation! Kali's full breasts show

how she nurtures us. The girdle of severed arms around

her waist betokens her power to sever the bonds of

karma - to free us from the accumulated deeds that keep

us in bondage. Her nakedness represents freedom from

illusion, and her blacker-than-black skin, like the endless

blackness of the night sky, tells us that she is infinite.

[Kali's paradoxical mixture of maternal tenderness and

destructive terror appears polarized on her right and

left.] She often appears with four hands. Her lower right

hand extends itself in the offering of a boon, as if to say,

Ask of me what you will.' [....] One of Kali's greatest

boons is fearlessness, which she signals with her upper

right hand, the palm held outward. 'Be not afraid!' this

gesture proclaims.

[....] Consider the Mother's upper left hand, which

wields the bloodied sword of knowledge. This is a

strong image. It represents the power of discernment -

the ability to separate what is transitory and fleeting

from what is real and abiding. This power cuts through

appearances and reveals things as they really are. [....]

In her lower left hand the Mother dangles the freshly

severed head of a demon. This represents the limiting

sense of ignorance that she slays. Taken together, Kali's

four hands say, 'Take refuge in me, let go of your fear,

let me slay your illusion of smallness and separation,

and you will merge into my infinite bliss.'

Devadatta Kali, The Veiling Brilliance,

Pages 138-140

June 30, 2006

Interview with author Devadatta Kali

Author of In Praise of the Goddess and The Veiling Brilliance

Interview by Lee Prosser - leep

Ghostvillage.com author interview

Devadatta Kali is a highly respected writer and author of the

forthcoming novel The Veiling Brilliance. He 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When we read the historical sections of the Jewish Bible in the light

of recent scholarship and archeological findings, it becomes clear

that the Asherah, YHWH's female consort, played a very important role

in the religious lives of the Jewish people. Look at what happened

with the establishment of patriarchal " reforms " under King Josiah.

During his reign a fifth book of Moses, Deuteronomy, was " discovered "

after lying forgotten for centuries in the Jerusalem temple! It

denounced the Asherah, and Josiah had her image removed from the

temple and destroyed. Officialdom forced the Goddess underground. She

survived, of course, variously disguised -- as Hokhmah (Sophia) in

the Jewish Wisdom tradition and later as Shekhinah in Kabbalah. The

brand of Christianity that won out as orthodox by the late fourth

century had a similar distaste for the divine feminine. The Goddess

in all her forms was forcibly repressed -- especially Isis, whose

religion was one of Christianity's most serious rivals. I like to say

that Isis and her son Horus were forced into the witness-protection

program and emerged with new identities as the Virgin Mary and her

son Jesus. For Isis it was also a demotion, of course. She had to

give up her job descriptions, such as " Queen of Heaven " and " Stella

Maris, " which were reassigned to Mary, whose cult then became a

thriving one throughout the Middle Ages.

Why? Because she presented the gentle, compassionate face of the

divine. People wanted that and needed that, especially in view of the

harsh, punitive measures taken by the male-dominated church to

preserve its hold on power. The role of the Goddess fulfills a

profound human need -- to have a mother who is near and dear, who is

always approachable, and who loves us unconditionally. This is all

very general, of course, but in Indian tradition the Goddess takes on

many different forms to fulfill different needs, and if you asked me

about them, I could be more specific.

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.

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.

Devadatta Kali, In Praise of the Goddess and The Veiling Brilliance