RE: How do we grow? Letting go of Attachments..one way.

[Guest guest]

>>"Please bear with me and help me keep the bhav of Kali alive, by

sharing other stories of Kali... Anyone know other stories of Kali ?

(Sadhvi ? Kalia ?)"<<<

 

this is a story of Kali..a personal story and it is very strong..a

story of Kali's power to take her sword and, in one swipe, cut off

attachments without "mercy". Three years ago, I was living in a rented

house built directly on the sea-wall in a small New England town. I

had taken the front room on the second floor for my own. It was a

large, light-filled room that looked directly out onto the ocean. The

sun rose on one side of the huge windows and set on the other side. In

this room, I placed everything I loved: firstly, my studio with 15 of

my "best" paintings (that I had brought to contemplate and see where

they might lead me), my library (of Hindu texts, tapes from the Kumbha

Mela, research books, rare art books, etc...collected over a period of

30 years) and my puja: an enlivened murti of my baba, murtis of

Hanuman and a huge Kali murti made of Ganga clay plus many very

beautiful puja implements.On the very first day I began to paint in

this room, a huge storm approached the coast. There were warnings of a

fierce N'orEaster and, all up and down the street, people were

preparing..all except our landlord. The house we rented was

unprotected.Not knowing any better, my husband and I settled in to

ride out the storm. Sometime in the middle of the night, I heard a

groaning sound coming from the front room. I walked in and turned on

the light....my Kali murti was swaying back and forth, emitting a

strange humming sound; there was an odd sense of "pressure" in the

room and I noticed that water was leaking in through the window. As I

looked out into the darkness, I could see waves coming towards the

house....they seemed impossibly huge...there was a pause, almost as

though the world was standing still and a dropping away of all sound

and movement. A dark void opened up in the night sky and, standing in

it, I saw Kali Ma and my baba! Just then, my husband came running in

saying, "Get Out of here!". The windows blew out, sending shards of

glass shooting 20 feet down the hall. We were not touched! The ocean

waves (30 feet tall at this point) came crashing in through the upper

windows, drowning everything: my paintings, library,

puja...everything! We rescued what we could in a frantic rush, grabbed

our two cats and escaped off the peninsula. Two days later, when we

were able to return, I found Kali murti, lying on her side; She was

intact...only her "blessing hand", in abhaya mudra, had been broken

off. I remember sitting in the middle of all of that ruin, of

everything that meant "everything" to me, holding onto Kali's

tiny "blessing hand" and feeling, in addition to the shock, a

tremenous sense of total liberation and complete freedom...that it

really WAS all "dust". Since that time, everything has been "returned"

to me...I am creating paintings and books again, I have (of course)

cleaned and refurbished my puja and replaced some of the books but my

relationship to these things has been totally transformed. Before what

I call the "Kali Storm", I talked about being a "caretaker" for my

talents and possessions but secretly, in my heart, I did not know what

I would do if I ever lost my ability to create or the support of my

puja and studies and had to just live an "ordinary" life in the world.

Kali taught me a very important lesson about the ephemeral nature of

all "things" (no matter how precious and important)...The "things" are

just stand-ins for the True Reality that can never be destroyed by any

storm or ocean wave.

J'ai Kali Ma! She who embodies Fierce Compassion!!

sadhvi