Thursday, October 27, 2016

Kālī Sisters

The Divine Mother, the essense of all gods and all begins, Mahashakti, is the creator, preserver and destroyer of our nama-rupa world. When there were neither the creation, nor the sun, the moon, the planets, and the earth, when the darkness was enveloped in darkness, then the Mother, the Formless One, Maha Kālī, the Great Power, is one with the Maha Kala, the Absolute. Divine game of "separation" has led to that the Absolute Zero re-united with the One and becomes the dynamic Ten whose forms vary according to the different proportions of the three gunas. Now She expresses their divine union transcendentally as well as phenomenally through three aspects of iccha (will), jnana (knowledge) and kriya (action). So, we have a huge variety of her forms, and the long list of her names reflects their endless movement flowing into each other. For example, the Mahavidyas, is a wonderful enigmatic group of contrasting deities that clearly indicates their special meaning and hidden symbolic content, not only as elements and principles in nature but Ten Great or Transcendent Wisdoms. 
Their qualities, formed by tattvas, are really endless combinations. We can choose at any time the most general definition: Kālī is Time overcoming; Bhuvaneshwari is Space; the piercing word is Tara; the flaming word is Bhairavi; and expressed word is Matangi, Chinnamasta combines light and sound in her thunderclap; Bhagalmukhi stuns and stifles the flow free flow of things; the luminous desire is Sundari; and the delightful beauty is Kamala. Experiencing the all-pervasive essence of Kali in these Goddesses one by one, She is there in one of Her energetic forms. Of course, there is no separation and these Kālī sisters are just a glimpse of her raging glow in the minds because Her true nature is beyond mind and matter.
She is a source of light,
She removes darkness, and leads
Away from the blinding darkness
( Astasähasrikä Prajñäpäramitä
Yes, some early Buddhists identified Kalika with their Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Wisdom, conceived of as a multi-armed goddess/female wisdom energy. Caused by a pollution of ignorance.They viewed Her as the saviouress Tara, the Compassionate One. As the dark four-armed Ugra Tara, with the dark blue Dhyani-Buddha Aksobhya on her crown, she became the Wrathful Saviouress, externally fierce to ward-off enemies and unbelievers, but internally compassionate, the Embodiment of Compassion.
She is all-pervading, leaving, and in her Kālī aspect, no measure for Time. She is always one but appears in differents forms in differents times. All races and cultures are like these multiple severed heads of her garland.
Aztec Divine Mother Coatlicue who gave birth to the moon and the stars, is represented with a severed head replaced by two snake heads, wearing a necklace of severed hands and human hearts with a skull pendant, and a dress of entwined snakes. She as well as Kālī  represents the embodiment of the cosmic-dynamic power which bestows life and death in the struggle of opposites.
Rhea, the Aegean Universal Mother or Great Goddess, was the mother of the gods, and goddess of female fertility, motherhood, and generation. As the wife of Kronos (Time), She represented the eternal flow of time and generations.
Cailleach, an old Celtic name for the Great Goddess in her Destroyer aspect. Like Kālī, She was a black Mother who founded many races of people and created the world, building mountain ranges of stones that dropped from her apron. Scotland name came from Scotia, the same goddess, known to Romans as a "dark Aphrodite". Ireland and Scotland are covered with natural shrines associated with the Cailleach. Scots call her the Old Wife of Thunder.
…Her face was blue-black of the lustre of coal
And her bone-tufted tooth was like red rust.
In her head was one pool-like eye,
Swifter than a star in a winter sky. (MacKenzie, ScFL2)
Incidentally, the state California  of North America was named  by Spanish explorers after the mythical Black Queen Califia.
Nowadays, the Black Goddess worshipped by the gypsies was named Sara-Kali, Queen Kali, the Black Mother.
The Black Goddess was even carried into Christianity as a mother figure, and one can find all over the world images of black Madonnas (details here ). These examples are multiple but it is not necessarily to look similar names or similar external forms. Because whatever is their names or their diversity, all represent the nature of one and the same reality. In her benign or terrific aspect, Mother's essence is the all-pervasive in all her prismatic forms. She is Maya, she is Mahashakti - at once both the unknowable Divine Essence, and every veil that simultaneously hides and reveals this Essence, with absolutely no distinction between them. To the degree that we try to hold on to our life in the face of Kālī, she takes that life. To the degree that we let go of our life in the face of Kālī, She is that life.
Jai Ma Kali!



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