Divine Love, my encounter with the crazy world of Bhaktas

Are you a bhakta? How far does your Bhakti go? Will you take the leap, close your eyes and trust me and let go?

"No" would most likely be the answer. How then do we go on this path of faith, ahem blind faith. Blind faith which is not so blind that you take anything that’s given but blind faith that is informed on whom you take it from and what they have to offer. And yes, you had better know your faith better, way better because whoever you go to, won’t teach you that. 

Faith is what you make of it, it is not what you see in a group of people as to what they make of it. It is not a war of symbolism, it is not a war of numbers, it is not a war of belief (whether my belief is greater than yours or not). It is a STATE OF MIND. It is yours for you to manage, like your home, your work, your kids... faith is all about managing the creature called you. Why, because guess what ... you spent your whole life managing everyone and everything else around you but yourself. 

I belong in that world, the world where we think managing ourselves is way more important that managing others. We manage ourselves and define what principles and virtues we want to live up to and define who we really want to be...in the divine world. I discovered a handful of others who have tried as much to do the same thing with themselves and succeeded. And we have a common goal, the goal is to seek the divine, the goal is to exploit what we have in abundance - sheer love. 

Love - not the chemistry between a man and a woman, not a spark that defines a human relationship - but love that is free of human definition. You and I are capable of it. I discovered a man, I read his poetry and now I am deeply in love with his ideology, deeply in love with his craving for the Goddess, deeply in love with his purity towards the divine. And every line in his poetry just makes my heart cry out for him. Oh where is he, the great lover of the Goddess, who looks so dejected because he can’t find me. 

Alas, we are born in two different eras...we are born never to have ever met before. And as I scroll through his divine verses to the Goddess... I feel the pain of what he feels. We are simple people, we don’t know the ways of the world, and we just know one thing, deep love, just love for the divine Mother. 

He writes:

A Country Fair (Excerpts) 

Drive me out of my mind, O Mother
What use is esoteric knowledge
or philosophical knowledge
Transport me totally with the burning wine
Of your all-embracing love
Mother of mystery, who imbues with mystery
The heart of those who love you
Immerse me irretrievably
In the stormy ocean without boundary
Pure love Pure love Pure love

The Poet Stammers, 
Overcome with longing:
When? When? When?
When will I be granted companionship 
with her intense lovers. 
Their holy company is heavenly
A country fair for those mad with love
Where every distinction between master and disciple disappears

 - Ramprasad Sen (Shakta Poet, 18th Century, West Bengal)

Yes it’s a mad world when one true bhakta meets another, it’s a mad world of freedom from the hypocrisy of men. Out here there is truth, there is pure love and deep faith that pulsates, binding us together. We sing each other’s praise, we view each other as an extension of ourselves. We realize just what we need beyond the world of earthly human love and existence. And the divine mother drives us, like horses tied to her chariot as we run in directions of our own choice, of our own freedom. The harness of love keeps us steady and doesn’t let us stray away.

He taught me well. He taught me to love the Goddess. He taught me to look into the mirror and see him as a reflection of me. 

That is truly when the divine illusion of the Great Mother falls and she sees herself face to face with herself. We are but a figment of her imagination. Ma Kali meets Ma Kali, I am you seen through her eyes and this illusion too shall fall. 

At last... I have realized the meaning of true love.

Ma Kali - Consciousness of Time and Change

The sad story of Indian faith is largely influenced by the mimicing of the great acts of devotion by some superior soul mechanically and not emoting the same intensity of Bhakti that goes with the action. 

Many lambs, tender and young and scared, meet their peril at the foot of the Goddess at numerous shrines across Bengal and other states. It is the thoughtless murder of innocent animals that have nothing to do with the deep meaning of the embodiment of Kali Ma. Mythology says the Mother wants blood and in our world we know no better as to how to offer it. 

The Mother asks for our blood, now this doesn't mean we literally need to offer it. Ma Kali is an integral part of Brahma Vidya and she signifies the deep realization that life and death are just transition points. Her nature and terrific outlook defines the jolting presence of time, of change, and that to reincarnate into another form to progress in our spiritual journey, we need to discard this body. She brings the realization that death is nothing to be feared and that we as mortals need to get over that ignorance and realize the beauty of it. 

To attain higher spiritual realization we need to discard our fears. We need to get over our bias and perception. The shamshan ghat should look no different from a glamorous resort simply because it is so temporary. It doesn't take too long to convert a gorgeous resort into a burning ghat. Where is its permanence and why are we so enamoured by the apparent beauty of the location or why do we consider the cremation ground as forbidden land?

Ma Kali's presence is to teach us to get over our fear of death, not to drag an unwilling innocent lamb to its end. Now the fact that this is so not clear to anyone, uneducated or scholars alike, shows how ignorant we are capable of being. Are we waiting for someone to come and drag us to the book to learn it, or are we just happy living in some fool's paradise assuming we are doing a great job by cutting off the neck of an innocent lamb. 

Well if Bhakti would have it, its really not the lamb that would be out there. The true love for Ma Kali denotes that we want to get over the fear of death, we want to merge with her and that being a hanging skull on her garland is possibly a way of attaining salvation. Offering our own head to the goddess, is a greater and more daring offering to make, one out of love, one out of bhakti, one out of fearlessness. Now isnt that the true sign of getting over the fear of death by facing it head on? 

Unfortunately our outlook and our laws consider that suicide, but it just saddens me that killing a lesser being simply because its helpless is an act of spiritualism. How pathetic is it to draw a knife across a lambs neck when the texts actually describe the act of selflessness and high devotion to be the ultimate end of cutting off one's own neck. I am not propagating the act of cutting off one's own neck though historically that has really been the case and we have sculptural evidences all over the country to deliver that message.

Is it right or wrong, I dont know, but certainly killing an innocent lamb is not right. Ma Kali can be attained without killing, without the shedding of blood, Ramakrishna did it, Ramprasad Sen also did it. Why can't we take their examples and stop this slaughter, I mean somewhere we also need to do some thinking instead of just following the crowd. 

Kali is the significance of time and change and the reality of death marks that change. All we need to do is accept it and get over our fear of dying one day. I can't understand how it is related to killing a lamb in big numbers on a Saturday at the Ma Kali temple? The idea of Kali is spiritual and intellectual and is not related to the ghastly act of bloodshed. 

Buddha taught Ahimsa, so did Shankara. How can we see love when there is so much pain and horror in the eyes of the lamb? 

A Lost Heart in the Land of Ma Kali

A hollow emptiness descended on my mind and heart as I stared at the setting sun over the sacred Ganges in the holy land of Dakshineswar. Pigeons fluttered around the temple roof that was a sad but modern attempt on copying ancient Bengal temple architecture. I was a little more prepared this time not just to visit the Kali Ma shrine there and look at her up close but to also go around and see the Panchavati and if my luck would have it, the sacred tantrik sadhana spot. 

Great men have walked this earth, Ramakrishna and Ram Prasad to name a few and they all felt the growing presence of Ma Kali in the air. Yet, as I closed my eyes and breathed in the air under the Panchavati and filled my lungs as best as I could, I still felt nothing. No Ramakrishna, no Kali Ma, no Tara Ma, no body. The place, the spot, the Divinity and the air is all the same and yet I don't even get a glimpse of the Goddess, not a shread of it, what am I really missing?

My immediate answer was potentially Bhakti, an emotion or a logical reasoning that I feel, a sense of familiarity with the Goddess and a budding relationship which I have not yet taken for granted. But is it Bhakti that I lacked or is it tantrik sadhana that I severely lacked that didn't allow me even near her door. I dont think Sadhana would have solved my problem entirely, end of the day just mechanical ritual doesn't get us spiritual bliss though when it is coupled with Bhakti, one can feel the rising spiritual heat in the body. 

Their world and our world are so different and the only visible connect between the two worlds are the idols of the blue skinned Goddess that dot the Kolkata landscape in brick walls or tiled rooms, in bright electrically lit chambers or in the dark. Shivji and Ma, both live here as Shamshan Bhairava or Shamshan Kali but when I step into their world, I just step into a land with air and people lost in a peculiar belief but I want to feel a part of it, there hangs a deep feeling of hollow emptiness inside me that says, I just have to try a lot harder.

Frustration takes me to the doors of Kalighat, where the Mother rises violently in her spark of mad fury stepping over the pale body of Shivji, or at least I would like to believe that He is there under all those sarees that drape her. Bright orange hue lights up her forehead and her blood red ferocious eyes look up closely at me. Lets not mention the lousy priests or the noise or the sickeningly dirty floors, but here in all the bright light, soot covered silver parasols and candid groups of cockroaches that crawl over her hibiscous covered shouders, she lashes out with a bright orange dripping silver sickle, dancing in vigorous madness yet all frozen in stone, in time, in belief.

The fire burns on, the arti of the day culminates and I still stare blankly at her wondering, Mother, did I even try hard enough to connect with you? I can only stare, I can only wait and hope that Ma will reveal herself to me... some day... some time... some place. 

Sacred Residence of Ma Kali

Disclaimer: You may not stomach a few facts in this article...

Who is this unique warrior woman?

Her terrifying war cry pervades the universal battleground.

Who is this incomparable feminine principle?

Contemplating her limitless nature,

The passion to possess and be gratified dissolves.

Who is this elusive wisdom woman?

Her smooth and fragrant body of intense awareness

is like the petal of a dark blue lotus.

A single eye of knowledge

Shines from her noble forehead

Like a moon so full its light engulfs the sun.

This mysterious Goddess, eternally sixteen,

Is naked brilliance, transparent in sight

Cascades of black hair stream down her back

To touch her dancing feet.

Perfect in the art of wisdom warfare

She is the treasury of every excellence,

The reservoir of all that is good.

Her poet sings with unshakable assurance:

"Anyone who lives consciously in the presence

of this resplendent savioress

can conquer Death with the drumbeat

Ma! Ma! Ma!"

Original Poetry: Ramprasad Sen

Translated by: Lex Hixon

The hunt for the sacred residence of the Goddess Kali has been on for a while now from reading about the mother who roams the Shamshan by night to her temples that dot the countryside mostly occupied by Saktha worshipers. It took me to the ancient city of Kolkata, Tarapith and Nalahati known primarily for their Shakti Peethas. This journey was not just about visiting these temples and having a darshan of the Mother, it turned out to be much more than that.

For the average passerby the darshan at the main Shakti Peetha seems to be the achievement, but when I came back home to study more on the Mother, the revelation was far more intense. Kali has made an appearance in my mind many times, not letting me sit relaxed with contentment that I have figured her out. My journey to discover her has just started. It has led me to set sail from the shores of standard Tantrik sadhana to the ocean of literature of great Tantrik Bengali Poets like Premik, Ramprasad Sen and Kamalkanta who have sung songs in her name. Kali Ma has turned mysterious with every new discovery I made dwelling deeper into the lives of her Sadhaks.

The first striking quest of the Mother is her association with Sati. Kali Ma is what appeared and destroyed Daksha when Sati rubbed her nose in anger over the disgrace of her husband. This is one reference from mythology, but the greater symbolism is the association of Sati with her death. Sati's corpse hung of Lord Shiva's shoulders as he roamed the worlds in sorrow and madness carrying her dead being with him. Sati's corpse is what falls on this blessed earth when Vishnu destroyed her. What echoes in this mythology is the anger of Sati in the form of Kali, and her corpse that adorns this earth at various places bring home the idea of death being closely association with the worship of the Mother.

Kali Ma is associated with all those who dwell around the shamshan; men in this world who take to worshiping her and beings from the other worlds who make similar contact. The inhabitants of these worlds are rakshasas, asuras, vetalas, yoginis, dakinis, gandharvas, kinnaras, siddhas, bhutas, pretas, pisachas and nagas apart from regular people who live in this world. There are good beings and weird beings - good defined by those who have a "soumya" disposition as compare to those who display "ghora" disposition. Interestingly the flavor of regular people is what catches our attention.

We would normally associate Tantriks, Aghoris and Kapalikas with the worship of the Mother and therefore conclude that Kali worship is not meant for the Grihasta. Strangely enough, even the grihastas have a strong inkling towards the mother. Ramakrishna, Ramprasad and Premik are great examples of Kali worshipers who transcended the grihasta role and took to serious Tantrik sadhana. And all of them had a few things in common.

The common aspects in their lives are that they were great Ma Kali bhaktas. They all married and couple of them even had offspring. They lived in the middle of society, a society that accepted the worship of Tantrik Sadhana in the cremation ground as part of regular life with no aversion or bias towards it... even today. Given this environment and the acceptance of sadhana in the middle of the night, all great Tantrik practitioners have made the shamshan ghat a part of their lives. Strange Tantrik rituals have been a part of their sadhana, and these include rituals that are very hard to stomach. While they have been admired for their bhakti and their literary prowess, I wonder how many have accepted them for their way of life.

The sacred residence of the Mother can be unearthed in the sadhana of the bhakta. Few common aspects of their sadhan include the worship of the mother in the darkness of the night, in a secluded place preferably the cremation ground. They have gone through the rituals of accepting the impure and pure as part of their life and have transcended all bias towards aversion. They have been associated with human corpses which not only echoed the symbolism of Sati's mutilated body but also dared them to give up their social inhibitions. They have spent a lot of time meditating seated under a tree on what is called the panchamundi asana. They have worshiped, offered food and prayer and eaten out of human skulls taken and cleaned from the shamshan ghat. They have finally won the Goddess's favor and blessing and entered samadhi with her.

The air in Bengal is thick with energy, the average man on the road accepts this way of life. Ma Kali resides here in this earth. Various accounts of great Tantrik and aghor babas, of great Bengali poets and most of all the great love of Ramakrishna reveals the mother inhabits this earth, she is rooted to the soil where her corpse fell. She roams the night with her army of spirits. She lives in the skulls that dot the cremation ground. The 5 impure skulls are her home and she grants any wish to those who meditate on the sacred ground that covers them. She finally resides in the heart, in the hrudaya kamal that is buried deep within us. Ramakrishna and Kalidasa outshine everyone and are the greatest bhaktas in whose heart Ma Kali resides.

She is the wild Goddess, the one who walks the night and awakens it with her presence. She is the blue hued lotus that blooms by night. She is the wrathful one who kills all evil, she is the terrific one who dances in my heart.

References:

Sacred spaces in the temples of West Bengal [June McDaniel, College of Charleston]

Prabuddha Bharata, a monthly journal of the Ramakrishna Order started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896

Tantric Vision of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas [David R. Kinsley]

Poetry of Ramprasad Sen 1718 - 1775

Tantra in Practice [David gordon White]

The dance of ecstasy in divine embrace

The average panditji performs puja as a part of their job, with offerings and mechanical movements that displays their years of practice into the ritualistic worship of the divine. Corruption has been seen far and wide and nothing gets done without a few notes into their plate of offerings. The lack of divine love is very visible at temples where priests do not allow devotees a closer view of the shrine until money does the talking. And hence faith tends to die its natural death because the keepers of the faith have now begun to sell the treasure they have preserved for so long.

All this changes when we visit the pandals of Kali puja. The thick air of corruption is pierced with the divine arrow of trance. This trance takes us back into the wild intriguing world of Ma Kali. The clay idols model her presence in her divine feminine form and the kalash with the coconut define her iconic presence. The curiosities that are offered along with it give a hint into a world beyond our imagination.

The crowd slowly gathered for the evening arti to the Goddess kali. There within the pandal she stood in her three forms, Kali Ma of kalighat, Kali Ma of Dakhineshwar and Kali Ma of Tarapith. I drifted into this beautiful world and took a seat at the feet of the Goddess, realizing suddenly that I had no plans to leave in a hurry.

The sun dipped behind the clouds to wake up the night sky and the stage where this celebration would soon commence. The priest lit up the divine light to the Goddess and started with the offerings. In the divine world, the smoke of chillum rose into the air and the sacred syllables of divine chant were slowly heard echo through the heavens. The Goddess is alive, her feet adorned with anklets gracefully descended to the floor as she stepped into this wild world to perform her dance. In rhythmic movement she moved herself, her disheveled hair dancing to her tunes as she raised the dust around herself. In the cremation ground she rules and the lights of the fires dot the floor where she dances and blesses the dead in their last journey home. Bhaktas give up their lives in divine love, sacred blood turns the bali peetha into red and fire forms the path to the world of eternal divinity. Ma Kali brings life to the night with her rhythm, her trance, her intoxicating presence.

Back in our world, the drum beats echoed through the floor as the priests alight their positions on the stage. The Dholak thundered through the pandaal and the drunken fervor raised the intensity of divine intoxication. The rhythm soared and with it the priests went into a trance. Ma Kali's arti began that evening with the joy of celebrating her presence and her victory over all evil. The rhythm thundered on and everyone present there danced to the beat, a wild dance of love and devotion as the priests proceeded with the arti. My feet tapped the floor as I clapped following the beats and my heart danced into the night with the three mothers.

It is the best Kali Ma arti ever! The beats grew stronger and faster and the priests held up the fire, dancing in divine trance as they showed the great mother the flame. Fire was followed by the fan, choury, shankha, mud pots with food offering, sindhur and divine beauty articles in a soop, sweets, bananas, and finally dhoop. The priest moved with the beat, in complete devotion making each offering with love. His steps followed that of the divine mother, his body turned into an expression of divine love and he could no longer contain himself. In divine trance he danced on with the mother culminating the arti into an art of love and divine intoxication.

The evening came to an end and the drumming subsided making us realizing how deafening this trance really was. Kali Ma worship came to a close as man and divinity slowly came out of their spiritual trance.

Manikarnika Ghat: Where life meets the world beyond

Varanasi, city of lights, city of color and city of spiritualism hosts the most ancient cremation grounds in the Indian subcontinent. Manikarnika Ghat and Harishchandra Ghat are the most ancient, of which the former is considered to have existed well before Bhagiratha went into penance to bring down the Ganges and have her flow over the cursed ashes of his ancestors. Since then, mere mortals have considered death and burning of their bodies sacred near these waters, a road to salvation.

Varanasi has 98 sacred water fronts, which are believed to form the cosmic frame linking 14 bhavana kosas of the human body. Among 84 ghats, 5 are considered to be supremely auspicious. These are Asi, Dashashwamedha, Manikarnika, Panchganga and Adikeshava. These are the Panchathirthas, and are believed to be symbols of the cosmic body of Lord Vishnu; Asi at the head, Dashashwamedha at the chest, Manikarnika at the navel, Panchganga at the thighs and Adikeshava at the feet. Manikarnika is considered to be at the center of the 5 thirthas, the navel of the universe from which blooms life.

According to mythology, Vishnu went into tapasya (penance) that generated heat and being the source of life he created this world. Vishnu is known to have dug a pit here at Manikarnika with his chakra (discus) and the resulting sweat due to his severe penance filled this pit with sacred water. It is also believed that Shiva’s earring fell into this pit due to which the name of this Ghat came to be known as Manikarnika (jeweled earring), and the pit is called Manikarnika Kund. What remains here is the foot print of Vishnu, Vishnu’s Charan Paduka, which is a pair of feet on a lotus pedestal carved into marble, at the very same place where he is believed to have performed tapasya.

This ghat brings death and release face to face with the creation of the universe. While the power of life was generated at the charan paduka of Vishnu, the actual cremation of bodies takes place at Jalsayin ghat, the whole of which is called the Manikarnika Ghat. Jalsayin, or “the sleeper of the water” reflects the beauty of Vishnu asleep on Sesha Naga, during the cosmic deluge consuming the ashes of the cosmos, symbolizing the endless cycle of time, the flame of which burns continuously at the Manikarnika Ghat, a flame that never dies. Sesha also means remainder; the ashes that remain that get washed away by the Ganges, and lose themselves into the cosmic ocean. Vishnu is the seed of life, a lotus from whose navel grows and brings alive Brahma who creates the world. Cremation takes place here, where life and death meet, where creation meets delusion.

This ghat symbolizes that which is real with time bringing Lord Shiva and Vishnu to the same sthal (place). Apart from Vishnu’s sacred charan paduka, that contains the power of life in his toe, the Manikarnika Ghat also hosts Manikarnika Devi’s shrine and Lord Shiva in the form of Tarakeshwar linga.

As the story of Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa also reveals, when he traveled in a boat down the Ganges advancing towards the Manikarnika Ghat, he had a vision of Annapurna Devi holding a corpse in her lap. Lord Shiva in shining brilliance, bends over the corpse, whispering the Taraka mantra into the ears of the dead carving the path for them and helping them cross into the after life. Maybe that is why a person is considered truly dead after his kabala (skull) cracks when the body is cremated. The silent spell of the Lord whispering the Taraka mantra was visible only to Paramahamsa, revealing the real beauty of life, of death and of the journey beyond in the hands of Lord Shiva, Lord Vishnu and Devi.

Such is the reality of life, of death, a reminder every day with every corpse that burns, that there is a world beyond and death is not the end. This reality of living echoes all over Manikarnika Ghat and reverberates at the Charan Paduka of Lord Vishnu.