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Kali

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From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.kali.astarte.inanna,alt.pagan,alt.magick.tyagi
Subject: Kali (Mandir:Satyananda)
Date: 29 Mar 1995 17:40:36 -0800
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Summary: This is an excerpt from a Devi Mandir Publication about Kali.
Keywords: Kali Light Time Ascetic
Xref: shell.portal.com alt.fan.kali.astarte.inanna:254 alt.pagan:96767 alt.magick.tyagi:2683

Kali Yuga 49950329

The following text was taken from a Devi Mandir Publication without
change.  It is presented here in devotion to Kali Ma, Destroyer of
All Things.

nagasiva, tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com
-------------------------------------

Kali

'Kal' means Darkness; Kali takes away that Darkness.  She takes away the
darkness from every individual who strives in the path of perfection
by performing the spiritual disciplines of purifying austerities.  Just
as all the colors of the spectrum mix into black, yet still black remains
black, so too, Kali, who is completely Dark, Unknowable, takes away all
the Darkness, yet Shee, Herself, remains unchanged.

'Kal' means Time and 'i' means the Cause; Kali, the Cause of Time or She
Who is Beyond Time, activates Consciousness to perception, allows 
Consciousness to perceive.

She wears a garland of heads of impure thoughts, which She has severed
from the personalities of Her devotees.  She cuts down all the conflicting
concepts which debate their various ideologies within the arena of mind,
silences the tumultuous roar of mental conflict and the anguish of
egotistical attachment, takes the physical manifestations to Herself,
and makes a garland of perplexity.  Thus She wears all karma as an
ornament, while She stops the chattering voices of the active mind, so
that Her devotees can experience the purity of inner peace in the
absorption of solitude.

As the Destroyer of Madhu and Khaitabha, Too Much and Too Little, She
puts Her devotees in the balance of divine meditation.

She is called Camunda, the Slayer of Anger and Passion, who cuts down
all the angry thoughts and impure passions along with their tremendous
armies.  When Canda and Munda, Anger and Passion, hurled thousands of
discuses at Her, She merely opened wide Her mouth, and all of those
terrible opposing weapons entered the gateway to infinity, absorbed into
Her being without effect.

She took all the horses of the calvary of thoughts, along with their
chariots and charioteers; elephants along with their drivers, protectors
and armor; and uncountable thousands of warriors of the army of thoughts;
She put them into Her mouth and hideously began to chew.  She took all
the soldiers of the armies opposing divinity, the entire army of thoughts,
projections, speculations, and immediately She digested them all.

Witnessing the destruction of confusion, the Gods experience extreme joy!
See how many contemplations, prejudices and attitudes from which we have
been freed!  Having given up all the difficulties, all the thoughts, the
very ego itself, to Kali, the mind experiences the utmost peace and delight!

Raktabija, who performed great austerities, was awarded the boon that
whenever a drop of his blood would touch  the ground, in that very same
place a new Raktabija would be born with the same vitality, courage and
strength, the same capacity to captivate the mind.  Rakta means red, the
color; it also means blood and passion; most specifically, a passion for
something - Desire.  Bija means the seed; Raktabija literally translates
as the Seed of Desire.

See how he manifests in action.  In order to accomplish his desire, he
multiplies into countless new desires with the same intensity, the same
capacity of captivating the mind, all of which seek fulfillment as well.
As we find desire for one thing, one drop of blood has touched the ground,
and immediately, automatically, a new 'something' is required in order to
fulfill that desire.  Another drop.

This goes on indefinitely, causing a continual necessity to act.  Every
time a Seed of Desire touches the ground, a new Seed of Desire is born
that very same place.  Ultimately the entire earth has been filled with
Seeds of Desire.

Seeing this and understanding fully well the trendous import and
significance of the all-pervasiveness of desire, the Gods became
extremely dejected.  In great alarm we all caled to the Divine Mother
for help.  'Oh Compassionate Kali, stick out your tongue and drink
up all the desires of existence.  Only your mouth has sufficient
capacity to consume all desire!  And when you will have digested all
desire, then the Gods will be _free_ from desire.'

This is why She shows Her very lovely, red, protruding tongue -- in
order to make all existence free from desire.

Kali is most often depicted as standing upon the corpse-like form of
Lord Siva, dancing upon the stage of Consciousness.  She is the
perceivable form of Consciousness.  Consciousness is awareness.  Rather
than the actor, Consciousness is the witness of all action.  That is
why Lord Siva is shown as a lifeless corpse: still, immobile, his eyes
are fixed, trained on the image of the Divine Mother.  All that
Consciousness perceives is the dance of Nature.

She is dancing to infatuate Him, causing Him to direct His attention
to Her.  But Siva does not forget that it is Nature who is dancing,
not I; and He remains the silent Witness.  This body is Nature.  I am
Consciousness, the silent witness of the actions of Nature.  I am not
the performer.  This body acts according to its nature, because that
is its nature.  Remembering this, I am _free_, one among the audience
in a theater watching the drama of life.

Kali is Nature personified -- not necessarily the dark force of Nature,
but all of Nature: Mother Nature, as She dances upon the stage of
Consciousness.  As all the qualities reside together, the three Gunas:
Sattva, Raja and Tamas; activity, desire and rest, Kali embodies the
Three.  However, She is more frequently associated with Tamas.  Tamas
means darkness, but not necessarily in the sense of ignorance.  There
is a darkness which exposes the light.  Kali as the personification
of Tamas, is the Energy of Wisdom.

She spreads Her darkness over worldly desire, makes seekers oblivious
to the transient externals, totally self-contained within.  Pure
Consciousness knows that the world of matter will continue to revolve
according to its nature, in a cyclical flow of creation, preservation
and transformation - the wheel of life.  It goes on of its own accord.

When one can reside within, without identification or attachment to the
ever-changing externals, then the supreme truth can be realized.

Kali is jnana sakti, the energy of Wisdom, the intuitive illumination
within, as compared with the intellectual contemplation of the external.
Knowledge is conceived, wisdom is intuited.  When Kali takes away the
darkness of the outside world, She grants illumination of the inner
world.  Such is Her Grace.

With Kali's Love we become unattached, free from reaction, the silent
witness of the stimulus and response which action and interaction brings.
We cease to react emotionally to the circumstances of life, and rather
plan our actions for the optimum efficiency; so that all the sooner we
can complete our necessary contributions to creation according to our
karmas, and spend the balance of our time delighting in Universal
Consciousness.  This is the path that Kali shows.

[some omitted]

Swami Satya Nanda
Devi Mandir, 1989

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