ver since I was a little girl, I have heard in bits and pieces Emythological stories surroun- From Curiousity to Devotion ding the goddess Kali Ma. My mother is a Kali devoteed. She has graceful, as The Many Meanings of Kali well as grotesque images of the goddess in her home shrine. She also visits a Madhu Bazaz Wangu neighbourhood Kali temple. Once a year, my mother hosts a day-long, religious discourse given by her long- Durga, Shiva, and Sita? I realised that word ‘understand’ and continued. time teacher, Guru Maharajji, who often she was their personified rage, but what “Understanding is good, but, lectures on Kali and other Hindu did that mean to a devotee? And why eventually, it is only through feelings goddesses. did she dance a frantic dance of death and experience that we understand My early memories of the goddess after destroying demons? them.” Kali are those of wonder combined with One winter, Guru Maharaj ji spend a Kali’s Essence curiosity. Her gruesome appearance day giving a discourse about the Great “How do you ‘feel’ a goddess?” I and dreadful paraphernalia have kept Goddess Devi and her manifestations. asked. “When you have devoted me at bay. Kali did not pull me toward The segment about the goddess Kali yourself to the worship, adoration, and her, as did other goddesses. I wondered was stimulating to me. The following meditation of a deity for years, one day day after breakfast, he was sitting why a goddess would look so fearful. you get yoked to her essence. You quietly on a wooden chair looking When I was much older, I put this don’t even know — suddenly, you feel relaxed in his saffron-coloured, cotton question to my mother. In answer, my her power residing within you,” said dhoti, loose shirt, and a shawl. I sat mother narrated Kali’s sacred stories to Guru Maharajji, while continuously cross-legged on the ground next to him, me, telling me about the destruction of turning his rosary behind the cotton and he blessed me by putting his hand Chanda and Munda; her drinking of shawl wrapped around his shoulders. on my head. He asked me how I was Raktabija’s blood and of her dreadful “What is Kali’s essence?” I asked. doing at my college. “Fine,” I replied, defeat of him; her slaying of the demon- looking up at him. I asked, “What is the “Her essence is her power. Her king, Nisumbha, and of the demoness, meaning of all this dreadful imagery in myths and images represent her power Daruka. My mother also discussed the myths of the goddess Kali?” feebly. It is not until you feel her Kali’s frantic dances after the killings. “Child, it is not easy to experience presence that you know what she is. Gruesome killings? Frantic dances? spiritual matters when we try to Her essence is her.” Although the myths were engrossing, understand them,” he emphasised the “How does a devotee feel her they did not make any sense to me at power?” I felt a tinge of excitement in the time. my solar plexus. Whenever I confronted a Kali “Such holy occurrences cannot be image, I carefully studied it to see which put into words, child. But, as I have said myth was being represented. Some of before, if you begin to worship, adore, her images did not resemble a myth, and and focus on a deity of your choice — they were unattached to any sacred in your case, I would think it is Kali — stories I had heard. I started listening you should be able to feel her. After to Guru Maharaj ji’s discourses about venerating her for a few years, thus, Kali with exceptional attention. I had focusing on her Yantra may accelerate envisioned, read about, and listened to your spiritual progress.” He picked up Kali’s deeds for years. The goddess his jhola- from the floor and pulled out had touched me at some deeper level a colourful, geometric diagram from it. of understanding, the extent of which I Pointing to the diagram he said, could not comprehend. “This is Kali’s Yantra. The Yantra is I was intrigued at the puzzle: Why considered to guide a devotee’s did Kali keep on emerging from the enlightenment. By focusing on this bodies of auspicious deities — from geometric form, you can be led to a state 14 MANUSHI in which you will experience her understand the meaning of delusion, seven spiritual wheels of energy in my invisible power. It not only contains which is created by samsaric cycles, body. It seems to me that goddess is Kali’s immense cosmic power, but it and you will be able to comprehend gradually disclosing herself to me. also symbolises the inherent forces the psychological states. Those will In my early twenties, when I within your mind as the goddess’ become the stages of your spiritual inquired about Kali’s presence from devotee. Her potent imagery is ascent. Finally, when you reach the Guru Maharajji for the first time, I was a condensed in her yantra as her bindu, you will make a link with the spiritual infant. After more than two inherent energy.” goddess Kali and, at the same time, decades of continuous adoration and Pointing toward the centre of the with your innermost self.” dedication to the goddess Kali, I have yantra, Guru Maharaj ji continued. Guru Maharaj ji gave me the started to feel her presence. I was in the “What I am going to explain is Yantra. I thanked him for his gift and stages of ‘between and betwixt.’ symbolic. It represents the cosmos in looked at it for a few moments. I had Recently, I have been feeling that the a geometric diagram. Kali, in union understood all the separate words he goddess has picked me up and is with her male partner, Shiva, forms the spoke, but their meaning, as a whole, caressing me. I believe I need to central dot, or bindu, as the source or eluded me. I started performing Kali understand her essence more keenly womb of the world. Here, she is the puja each morning. Over the next before I can feel the intensity of her cosmic movement and he is her potent power. I understand that her foundation. Without her movement, three eyes represent the powers of the the whole of existence is inert, like a sun, moon, and fire. Her dishevelled hair corpse. The fifteen corners of the five suggests her uncontrollable nature. Her concentric, inverted triangles lolling tongue expresses her defiant represent the psychological states: attitude. Typically, her four arms the five senses, their receptive represent samsara, the cycle of birth, functions, and the five organs of death, sacrifice, and release. In some action. The circle of the Yantra images, she brandishes a sword represents samsara, the cycle of life, (khadga), which expresses the and Maya, the great delusion. As destruction of ignorance. At times, she Maya, she leads one to believe that holds a severed and bloodied head the fleeting and shifting appearances (munda), depicting the dawning of of the world is its Reality. Thus, the insight. The hand in the gesture ‘fear circle of the Kali Yantra indicates that not’ (abhaya) suggests one who is the veil of Maya, which confines an unafraid, and, lastly, the gesture of individual to the circle of life, needs to ‘boon-giving’ (varada) offers the be disclosed in order for her to see beholder a doorway to spiritual Reality as it is. The eight lotus petals twenty years, while I graduated, got transformation. of the Yantra denote the earth married, and had children, I enshrined Kali’s nude and unadorned images elements of prakriti—earth, water, Kali’s images and her Yantra in my and her audacious behaviour mock at fire, air, ether, mind (manas), home shrine, as had my mother. I the passivity of the individual: a demure intellect (buddhi), and ego sense focused my mind on her image, read daughter; a suffering, yet yielding, wife; (ahamkara). The Kali Yantra can also her myths, and listened to discourses a timid woman; or those faint-hearted be seen as a psychological about her. In short, I became a genuine members of the society who do not fight arrangement. The gates drawn outside Kali devotee, and her imagery kept me for their rights and freedom. Through the lotus petals represent the doorways intrigued. her imagery, Kali stimulates submissive to your own unconscious mind. Once A Devotee’s Encounter women and men to move beyond the you have been able to focus on your Over and over again, I have looked status quo of social norms. The fragility mind, you will be able to penetrate at the images of the goddess Kali. I of the human body is conveyed through through the eight lotus petals, and that have been meditating on her yantra. I the depiction of dismembered bodies. will indicate your envelopment with the have been listening to discourses about These sinister accessories scoff at those spiritual essence. When you cross over her and reading about her legends and who do not see the fragility and the circle and the triangles, you will myths. I have become aware of the impermanence of life. No.134 15 I understand that Kali’s dance cremation grounds. They are symbols In conclusion, Kali’s presence symbolizes aggressive movement. of the spaces or thresholds that reminds me that opposites are linked Unless an individual activates his/her function as doorways from life to death together, and that although the world mind through movement, no change is or from death to life, where spiritual may seem fragmented into malevolent possible.