Remembering A Few Good Men

I intended to continue blogging on the Dasa Maha Vidhyas, but this is a small post to remember JC Joshi and Raja Deekshitar who have been a part of this blog and helped me continue with my contributions. I would like to pay homage to both of them, honor them and cherish their presence in my life.

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We bank our entire existence n human relationships and the acceptance and approval we derive from them. We have a name for just about all the relationships we associate people with. Yet there is one other relationship which is yet to be defined.

This is a strange relationship, one where we don't know each other's past, future or present. One where we do not know their caste, language or family line. One where we do not know their standing in society, their profession or their presence on Facebook and Twitter. All these pieces of information or definitions that make up their earthly existence is not a key to build the relationship. In fact such information is better done without. What matters is their understanding of the faith, their understanding of the scriptures, their intellect and their level of realization of the supreme.

These relationships once set don't ever die for they are not fed by the human ego, instead they last longer because its mutual bhakti towards a single goal that binds the relationship together. I have had the luck to build such a relationship with a few people and am fortunate that I could relate to them in this way. The platform that brought us close is this blog and these thoughts that they agreed and disagreed with. It was also the base to help them think and write out their ideas of the supreme as well as their experiences.

J.C.Joshi [Joshi Uncle]

J. C. Joshi, as many would know him on this blog was a great writer and had a thought to add to almost all my posts. He has been a loyalist for the last 10+ years, and has religiously kept the blog alive even when i didnt post regularly. There have been occasions in the past where younger people have asked him to start his own blog, and have sometimes been rude to him and his comments. I realized at that point, how much Joshi uncle meant to me. He took the abuses with a smile though it left me mad with chilling anger. I have blocked such users, clearly indicating to them that they need to respect the elder folk on the site or they are not invited here. Joshi uncle attracted the likes of researchers from various American universities who was impressed with his knowledge on our faith. While his comments bloomed on the site blogs, I received several requests from lecturers wanting to touch base with him. A very endearing man, with simple love for his faith, Joshi uncle rode along this journey of making my blog worthwhile to other readers. I have had the good fortune to have been a part of his life in some form, affected his thought process and given a platform for him to display and share his intellect. Joshi uncle succumbed to cancer a few months back. We will never get to read more posts from him but his wealth of informaton in his comments on my blog will always be few good lessons that I shall cherish.

Raja Deekshitar

Raja Deekshitar chanced upon my blog and we got talking on email. A man, very well versed in scriptures and also part of the Deekshitar community that runs the Chidambaram temple, he has done a lot of research on the temple architecture and sculptural iconography. I have had the pleasure of visiting Chidambaram temple in his presence, and trust me it made a whole lot of difference. We were treated like family, allowed to view the Lord for as long as we wanted, the priests spoke to us like we knew them for years and darshan was fulfilling. What was even more fun was the conversations and discussions we had on the sculptures displaying Shiva iconography in the temple niches. Raja Deekshitar brought Chidambaram temple alive, giving a story and a purpose to every little carving on the wall and painting episodes from that past that now lie frozen in stone across the temple. A versatile man with a mind that wouldn't rest till it told the world that the concept of the Sphinx was as much a reality in Indian sculpture as it was in the Egyptian world. He took the trouble to educate people in the west and back home doing all he could to research, document and keep the faith alive. We lost Raja Deekshitar a year ago, but to say the least, his love for the temple and for Lord Shiva is everlasting.

I have wanted to share their achievements as people, to the world at large, to the world of intellects. I miss their presence on my blog.

The Ten Sacred Brahma Vidhyas

Hinduism believes in a world of devatas who live in various strata of the visible atmosphere, the lower Kshudra devatas who reside closer to earth to the Uccha Devatas who live in higher planes. The vedas tell us how to live right and well so that we can ascend this ladder and move to higher levels in our own spirital progress post death if we are lucky. 

While leading our earthly existance these lower deities bless us with cheap wishes and so called benefits that we may look for but then we miss the real matter, the cardinal deities who are of higher spiritual discipline who actually help us in our progress and are not just mere wish fulfilling lower deities. 

In order to get the right direction, move towards the supreme higher deities and achieve Brahman as described in the Upanishads one must take the help of the Brahma Vidhyas, a spiritual discipline that leads up to this superior existance. Brahma Vidhyas are better known as Siddha vidhyas or Dasamahavidhyas are ten great disciplines that enable a person to progress spiritually. They are represented pictorially as ten great Goddesses/mothers whose worship and realization takes the aspirant to the next level. 

As an introduction, they are ten outstanding personalities of the divine mother and are represented in the following forms:

Kali
Tara
Tripurasundari
Bhuvaneshwari
Tripura Bhairavi
Chinnamasta
Dhumavati
Bagalamukhi
Matangi
Kamalatmika

Each of these Goddess describes a principle of life that we need to know, digest, accept, realize and fulfill in order to move on in our spiritual progress. 

Now the big question maybe what do each of these great mothers represent. This moved into the sphere of abstraction where we define a few things for our own understanding. The supreme energy is all enveloping, all encompassing and stitched into the process of creation. With this is born the idea of time and space. Space is vast and can be understood by bringing in divisions. 

Hence as an entity, as a sadhaka we need to understand and realize that the space is defined by the 8 directions that surround us - North, North East, East, South East, South, South West, West, North West, above and below. Time is defined by every breath we take during our life time. In order to understand and realize this knowledge we have been given ten senses to realize the true potential with our consciousness - Skin, eyes, ears, tongue, nose, mouth, foot, hands, anus and genitals. 

Its this combination of time, space, sense that we attribute to the dasa mahavidhyas at the beginning of our spiritual progress. All of these attributes that we are familiar with bring us closer to our own consciousness and sharpen it ten fold to reach a higher realm. 

While our initial journey may not be in the direction of attain supreme salvation and our sadhana may be tuned towards just one of the ten mahavidhyas, as we progress in this path, it opens our mind to the other great Vidhyas in this path. As the sadhaka keeps worshipping the great Mother and leaves all his worldly problems in her hands, this relationship between the aspirant and the divine mother grows, so much so that the aspirant depends and believes in the Divine Mother for solutions to every one of their problems, even the trivial ones. This leads to an intimate relationship between the seeker and the Goddess so much so that they forget the goal they originally started off with.  

The seeker realizes the presence of the Goddess, their attitude changes and its visible to everyone around them. This journey leads us to higher realms that the mind understands and digests. And the real truth lies in the fact that it cannot be explained to anyone, it can only be realized by one self. This is the fun in spiritualism, the real intoxication that keeps us going disconnecting us from our present birth and all its attractions. All the mind starts working on is how to go from one strata to the next and progress to reach the supreme with the blessings of the divine mother and not about how to get petty wishes coming true during our earthly life. 

Photo cortesy:
http://kamakhyamandir.org

Ma Kali - Keeper of My Soul

A garland of skulls
A horror to the ignorant
An echo that death is the only truth
How do I find love in this gory picture

In the darkness of the night
She roams in a blue hue
Her anklets breath sweet music
The shaky skulls roar the rhythm of the damaru

Her cackling laughter
Spelling out my doom
I give up my last breath in love
I am hers to consume 

She holds my soul
Protects it from all evil
Guides me through the darkness of death
To the land of immortals

I leave behind my head
On the bed of smokey ashes
In a picture on your wall
In a memory forgotten

A skull cap with sacred letters
A capsule of the primordial seed sound
A garland she proudly wears
To teach you bliss unknown 

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. 

The Power of the Spoken Word

"Tat tvam asi"

That thou art, or who we are, is possibly the most mysterious line ever. Our knowledge about the world, the universe, the people around definitely supersedes the knowledge we have about ourselves. Yes we know who we are on paper, our definition arises from how we have imagined ourselves to be, a part of a lineage, a caste/creed, a language/state, an occupation, by our achievements if any of credibility, or by a scandal. Today, this is how we define ourselves reducing the meaning of "Tat tvam asi" to just a profound noise which has no meaning in our lives, leave alone an impact. 

So who am I really? Does the phrase "Tat tvam asi" have more meaning than what I am as a definition? Can the thought of "Tat tvam asi" transform my existing character into something more tangible and capable if i attempt to contemplate on it long hours to really figure out? The closest proximity we can feel with aatman is when we are able to hear the primordial sound OM within ourselves. If we block our ears and close all the other orifices, we come in touch with a faint vibration within ourselves. In fact while swimming when the ears are below water, its the perfect way to sense it. It mutes out all the other sounds and what remains is just a resonating sound within us. Its similar to the sound we can hear in a shell picked up from the sea shore. It just drives home the point that we have a source of sound within us and its not our vocal cords. 

Here is the irony of the story. The scriptures, the sacred texts, the spiritual path, all of them indicate oneness with this sound. All indicate that we need to silence ourselves and try to listen to the powers within us and channelize them. In the earlier yugas, the external noise was far less, and communication was a profound levels. People didn’t need to talk much, the power of the word was so strong that once uttered it couldn't be taken back. Elitist languages like Sanskrit had multifold natures, its nature is not just to communicate but more to empower. They were single sentences but their value was tenfold purely for the limited usage. 

And since communication was so limited, the need to communicate [like we do today] was not over used, the power of the word grew. Sound has been given a lot of value in Hinduism, from the sweetness of words falling into reality and being heard and imbibed as an experience of Ma Saraswati being seated on one's tongue purifying words as they roll out of a devotee's mouth to the pain being felt when one is rolled over the double edged sword of an angry rishi's curse. There was so much meaning to praises and curses in the previous yugas. 

I just look at a day go by, with social media and television yelling out, there is enough noise to deafen our minds with the atrocities around us. The biggest difference between kali yuga and earlier yugas possibly was the lack of noise in earlier eras. Lack of noise directly translates to the power of sound. The unfortunate reality of these times is that there is so much noise that it has lost its value. But in our land of noise and din, where a moment's silence is hard to get, where a said word or promise doesn’t mean anything and can easily be broken, where responsible people take the path or lies and mislead people, where we have a crumbling society that stands on the grounds of deceit and indecency, where respect is defined by money power and not intellect... who am I now? 

How can we explain the profound meaning of Tat Tvam Asi to our children in this age of madness, in this living hell? 

The sure result of the damage excessive sound has made to the environment is in the reduced effect of it. Great mantras, once said delivered on the powers assigned to them, but in today's word, mere recital 108 times fetches no results. In the ancient times, bhava mattered, love and pure bhakti were easy to identify with and the resultant mantras bloomed within the person making them super human and God like, but today, with a lot of bhakti thrown in, and severe repetitions yields results, but it is slow, and leaves us wondering about the effects of its powers. People don’t have the patience to wait that long, and in an era of immediate results, we are destroying what was once a great faith that had the endurance to fight the effects of time. Today, that same belief is questioned and without a miracle, nothing will work anymore. 

Dreaming of the Divine

I have wished several times that the Lord appears in my dreams and blesses me, that He teaches me divine lessons in my hours of deep slumber when my body lies dead in the state of shavasana and my consciousness fades into oblivion. I attempted helping myself by either reciting sacred mantras before going to bed or just thinking and dreaming of the various temples I have visited. 

Out of several attempts few of them proved to be really fruitful. No, am not boasting of any divine activity within my mind's limits, none really. But yes, some dreams stuck on like droplets of marit in my otherwise crowded head bursting with noisy thoughts. I still love to live in that limbo, repeat those vision I saw and feel a little better that maybe the Lord actually heard my wishes. 

Am one for temples, as this very blog speaks. Any temple, anywhere is of great interest. But there is a difference between the way I view and read temples in reality verses those that tend to appear in my dreams. Lets leave the noise, people and corruption out. There is a feeling of bliss every time I visit a Shiva temple, to see the various forms that the Shiva Linga can adorn. The Linga decorated at Ukhimath, with a mustache is similar to the Linga decorated at the entrance of Lingaraja temple in Bhuvaneshwar, and yet the ambiance of the two temples were starkly different. That of Lingaraja was in a shrine much smaller in dimensions, and there was a chill within the chamber. That at Ukhimath was within a room with painted walls and covered in silks and flowers lending a much warmer look in a way more colder location. That at Rudraprayag was chilling cold and wet but it gave me the best experience in bleak winter, as I was allowed to sit right next to it and do abhishekam right in the middle of the day - I must add, the priest was being very kind. The Linga at Rameshwaram was a little too far, and the jyothir linga was barely visible and I must add, that the Linga at Thiruvannamalai's Virupaksha cave near Skandashram is made of pure ash. It is a beautiful cave with a dome like cieling and seats for anyone who chooses to meditate in sync with the samadhi of Virupaksha Deva. 

In all these temples or shrines the heart looks for the divine, and the anticipation is quenched at the glimpse of the shrine and as the eyes soak in the view, this image is embedded in the mind for good. The feeling is shortlived and the overpowering presence of "time" in our lives governs exactly how long this experience is going to last. The other aspect of a new place gives various images for the mind to absorb sometimes diluting the purpose of the visit. 

In the dream state, the temple hopping is a different experience. There is no concept of time, but the mind is anyway playing a game with us. The visions I have had are not out of the world, I just feel transported to another location which the mind chooses to give a geographical name or leaves it as a nameless shrine. Somehow, in these experiences, the name and geography of the temple doesnt seem to matter, there is no concept of time except for the waking state when ever it strikes and wipes these visions away. And the shrines appear with a deep sense of mystery, that there is something more to look for. Interestingly they break all the rules of temple architecture. In a recent dream, I found myself in a dark chamber, more like a hall so to speak which had pillars and was dark. I could barely move but from where I stood I could clearly count five Shiva lingas though small and barely making it to a foot off the ground. Yet they were bright, the three lines of ash, the chandan and the kumkum looked bright to the minds eye. There was a sense of wetness though I never saw the floor. There were small flames though I never saw the lamps, and I was alone standing there still searching trying to get a better view. This shrine seemed to break all the rules, all the rules that I had read up and expected my mind to exercise within the dreams views. But here in this picture, all the rules I have learned were broken, all the theories didnt apply and I had no connection with anyone. All there was in this level of consciousness was the Lord in His many forms and my vision of His being.

Sitting back in reality, and while I negotiate with my mind watching every thought as they go by and wondering whether they should be entertained, these visions of the divine just help feel better that there are some visions we just dont have to worry about but feel glad we even got a sight of them, that the mind is capable of imagining the Lord in forms that I have not yet discovered. 

All said and done, I value these dreams for the experience of mystery, for the spiritual tease it offers me, for the hope that I am being blessed with a vision of the Lord and of course for every new shrine I get to see, real or imaginary. It is so strange that something as static as the Shiva Linga can make a seeker so interested over such a long period of time. Its the emotion that matters, the need to want to know and the need to discover the core of the Lord. And somewhere along that line, the rules of ritual slowly begin to fade away.  

The Beauty of Idol Worship

I have heard it too often; way too often as to why do Hindu's have a concept called idol worship that governs the fundamental principle of their faith. Frankly, I have been questioned and mocked at by people of other faiths and nationalities who simply don’t understand the basics of idol worship. 

We fall into this trap very often simply because we don’t have an answer to give them, one that will shut them up for good. I have been contemplating this thought for a very long time and what shows up as answers are realizations over a period of time. Idol worship means different things at different points in our lives based on our spiritual maturity. And as this rises, idol worship starts to look way more interesting that it was. 

Our introduction to our Gods is through pictures; we relate to them and believe in their existence through these pictures. Unlike all other faiths which originated or finally got established by a successful seeker like Buddha, Mahavira, Prophet Muhammad or Christ, ours is one of a kind where the Gods existed and lived way before we even showed up. Hence, the question arises about whether our Gods really exist. And our answer is doubtlessly "Of course they do". That picture is currently our only proof that they do... but seriously, are we looking for proof at all? 

The first rule we need to learn, which may not be explicitly taught is, don’t look for proof. Just believe, and it will come by. And so we all believe. While on one side almost all of us are inducted into the western system of education which basically states that we should believe only that which we can sense [touch/taste/see/hear/feel] our hearts still yell out in love for that cute elephant God Ganesha, who is not just a God, he is hybrid as well and mostly none of us have experienced him yet. That makes our case a little tougher to the outside world to digest. No worries. 

In our search, and if our search is strong enough the outside world that questions us slowly starts to fade away. We graduate as well, from pictures of Gods and Goddesses in costumes that we don’t wear anymore to energies that have certain characteristics. Our growth curve starts from pictures and as our worship intensifies it moves towards idols/statues which graduates towards yantras and transcends into sacred emblems of worship till finally we don’t need any of it and we just reach a state where the mind itself has been tamed well to be the idol of our worship. [Note, all these elements are available to us and we are aware of them all the time, but when it comes to understanding their presence consciously, its a different ball game]

How does this work? It is the mastery of our consciousness that helps us grow up and ascend this ladder of faith. It would have taken us at least 20 years to get to looking at that picture carefully and ask why that God or Goddess is depicted that way. This is the first sign of curiosity and awareness that we develop in this field. We want to know, we seriously want to know. If we have asked that question there is a good chance, we didn’t get the answer simply because, in most cases, mom and dad didnt ask the question themselves and they now don’t have an answer. At this point the decision is either to give up or hunt. Almost all of us give up and very few take to hunting. The next question is about where we look. This is when we want the Guru, and we are given the line, "Oh the Guru will come to you when you are ready" How are we ever going to be ready when we don’t even know where to start? The point is the fact that we are curious enough is a sign of readiness. 

Realizing very quickly that the [human] Guru is not going to make it to our door step in a hurry, and that curious God/Goddess still hangs within the frame staring at us every day, the next logical step is to pick up a book and get reading and all the associated mythologies, mantras and stories come flowing down to us like a reservoir just broke open. This is the next stage which when complete possibly takes us in the direction of the idols. Idols, the default location to get to see them with the new acquired Bhakti is at the temple, the one single location where they are treated as real, given a bath, dressed, anointed, and offered food and offering from devotees. The temple march is the next possible solution. Tanked up with mythology in the mind, the temple next door suddenly starts to make a lot of sense. We identify with all the being in there, with the many forms of Shiva and Vishnu, with the ganas, gandharvas, kinnaras flying about the sky in the paintings hanging in the temple hallways. We get into the mad hunt for the Holy One, visiting temple after temple, looking at the same God, in a new avatar. This journey is fun, total and complete fun. I still have not gotten out of it. Despite the corruption of the priests and the dirty maintenance and long queues and loud noise the temple is still good fun. 

They say, dont look for God outside, because he is within us. Yes, He/She truly is inside of us, but to realize that we do need to go outside. The temple visits give us new emotional experiences and the various forms we have seen begin to raise new questions. What is this deity all about? Now we come to a new set of book, the actual shlokas, the actual bija mantras the root logic of their existence. Here is a mix of Tantra, Mantra and yantra. This is a level of abstraction, one that is slightly hard to understand but fantastic to realize. This science shakes the apple cart. It makes us realize a few things, like Ravana was not so evil as he is painted out to be, like Kali drinks the blood of evil souls after death, like Shiva canbe discovered in the cremation ground, like death is another state, not something to be scared of. That things happen to us in life might not be something we judge as good, but they are good because they teach us something more about ourselves. And then of course... tat tvam asi...  

This stage is long and might take more than a life time to figure out. This stage can also be coupled with the emblems of worship namely, banalingas, and/or shalagramas. This is stepping into the complex zone, its the zone of Panchayatna puja. By this time we are in sync with most of the philosophies, we understand where we stand in the hierarchy of beings and we know where we need to go. But are we equipped - possibly no. On the face of it, the banalingas and shalagramas look like stones, but no, they are not just stones, they are sacred emblems, energy rich naturally and pure. They need stricter rules in the homes that they reside in. Stricter rules are the definition of a disciplined life alias orthodox. These are self energized stones as opposed to the stone idols in the temple which are manually energized through elaborate ritual. This is why they are stronger, more potent and require that much more care and love. 

Till now our worship has visibly been external but our maturity has been completely internal. We reach a stage where we follow no one [human avatar of sorts, Gurus] but we cave into ourselves and detach from the world outside and get into dialog with our spiritual Guru. Now its all about ourselves, our mind and our heart towards our Guru. With the combination of logic and emotion and sustained practice we reach the doors of spiritual experience. Idol worship is a catalyst to reach this state and once we are there, we get the divine vision to see the real form of the same deity in the picture frame, in the temple idol.   

This is the state we all aspire to reach, where we can get a glimpse of the deity as we had seen in the temple, and in the pictures. With Divya Dristi, and acquired spiritualism, we now reach the gates of heaven and now a trip to the temple reinforces the same form, the same love, the same bhakti that we have matured and grown into appreciating. What we see there is no longer an Idol; it is the very presence of the divine. Ganesha and Hanuman appear in orange red skin, Bhairava appears with yellow flames surrounding him, and Kali appears with deep blue hue to bless us. Our idols only re-created this truth, to reinforce this concept, this belief that if we try hard enough we can be blessed with the divine vision to set eyes on them in real consciousness. 

The Life of an Honest Priest

Twilight set in, leaving behind its orange residue across the horizon and the chirping was slowly fading away. The night sounds had started to take over the quiet landscape. The temple bell could be heard in the distance and the swirling waters tossed gently along the banks of the river.

He looked out of the window of his hut, it was almost dark. He walked across to the corner of his home and threw in a few things into his bag. Tossing a dark shawl over his shoulders he collected his Rudraksha beads and hung them around his neck. He quietly stepped out of his house and waving a sign of acknowledgement to the people around he walked down the street to the steps leading to the river. The ferry man was waiting, he was his only passenger to cut across the river to the other side that evening.

As darkness set in, he stared across the river. He could here the rumbling waters under the row as it tossed repeatedly into the waters. He watched the village lights light up like lamps in the darkness. He stared on to the other side. The cremation ground was active that night. There were two burning and the reflection of the pyres shimmered in the water. In the distance he could hear the temple bell echoing through the trees. As he neared the banks, he watched the wailing relatives as they bid goodbye to their departed beloved. He collected his things, and covering himself with his shawl, he got off the boat. He handed a few coins over to the ferry man and looking up at the flight of steps leading to the temple and started to walk.

He walked through the street leading up to the temple and bought a few hibiscus garlands along the way. Smearing red powder on his forehead he marched into the temple. People moved giving him way and stared long at him as he passed by. He almost owned the temple. He stepped into the sanctum and hung his bag behind the door. He slowly took off his shawl and kept it safely behind. And like lightning hits, from the silent world he had woken out of he took the arathi lamp and lit its wicks and like a man in trance he held up the flame to the Goddess and danced showing the light to her Divine presence, to her feet, to her sickle and to the corpse head hanging from her arm, he brought the light back close to her face, envisioning her waking up in those three red eyes that stared back at him.    

Sacred syllables awakening the divine Goddess Ma Kalika resonated through the walls. Showers of fresh hibiscus adorned her shoulders. Pure water flowed down her thick black hair and a fresh red saree draped her otherwise naked self. She glistened in the light as he moved with his music, the fire getting brighter with every swirl threw shadows on the wall almost making it appear like she came to life and danced with him. The air was tense, the singing got louder, the drums resounded, the temple bell rang furiously and he danced with her shadow and almost embraced her with love. With every lamp he picked, she came back from the shadowy darkness of the room to bless the folk with this divine spectacle of terrific love, divine dance in blissful intoxication. 

He laid down the last of the lamps, took in the warmth of the flame and turned to his audience showing them the light of divine love as he slowly walked out of the door. A couple of hours passed by and he has repeated his dance of love with the Goddess for the local folk to witness. It was the end of the evening, the crowd had trickled out of the temple and he silently bowed down to the Mother and whispered a few words in her ears. Then collecting his shawl and carefully taking his bag he closed the sanctum door leaving a single lamp lit in her chamber for the night.   

The streets had gone dark, the people had retired for the night as he walked down to the river. But as he neared the flight of steps he took a dramatic turn to the right instead of heading for the ferry. In the darkness among the trees he walked sure footed into the shadows and waited near the small temple watching the last of the pyres burn. The shamshan ghat was silent, except for the crackling flames that ate into the corpses that lay lifeless covered in flames. The relatives were gone, the aimless onlookers were gone, it was just him and his garden in the night. He walked up to the pyre that had died out, dusting the ashes and looked through the remains and picked up the popped skull. He walked down to the river and washed it clean and came back carefully taking it with him. He headed straight for the Ashwattha tree that stood behind a small temple. He lit a lamp at the temple and touched the feet of the mother and taking his skull in his hand he walked to the other side. 

He slowly unpacked his back, taking out a pouch of vermilion and some water, he made a paste and smeared it on the white head of the skull. He took out his lamp and wicks and lit a small light next to it. He undressed himself and folded his cloths to a side and clearing the ground, he sat in the middle and placed the decorated skull in front of him. Eyes closed he recited the sacred mula mantra to awaken the Goddess. He offered food and prayed to the Goddess. He closed his eyes and swung into japa, forgetting his world, forgetting his surroundings. The darkness came back to rule and in the silence, he slowly became conscious to the chill in the air, to the breeze in the leaves and as he went deeper into meditation he became aware of the power in the air, of the presence of the great Mother who had promised to visit him again. He spent the night in intoxicated dance, in intense sadhana as she visited him in his consciousness. Together they roamed the earth, in a different world, in a different realm locked in divine embrace. 

In the early hours of the morning, he woke out of his trance, bowed to the Mother and got up from his seat. He walked down his silent garden to the river and took his sacred dip. Turning to the temple, he walked up and opened the Sanctum doors. He bowed to the Mother and started his routine of worship for the day as people slowly trickled back into the temple. 

The disaster called Immortals of Meluha

In the writer's own words: 
"What the bloody hell, which joker wrote this bullshit!"

This book or rather the series of books is the slaughter of the cult of Shiva with utter disrespect and irresponsibility, its the death of a very deep rooted faith.

I respect Christians and Muslims for one thing, which our Hindu followers severely lack - awareness towards one's own faith. If this irresponsible writer had even tried to twist the story of their Gods or even attempted to reduce their God to a mere barbarian, they would have vehemently rejected this book. But what do our people do! They made this bullshit a freaking best seller. 

This is when I envy Christians and Muslims, we need to learn from them on how we need to first be aware of our faith and realize it, and then protect it and fight back when some ignorant writer tries to abuse it. We don't take informed decisions, we are a gullible bunch of people with little knowledge on the depth of our faith and that's when writers of this kind flourish in our society. 

What is wrong with that book! Well I wish I had the opportunity to edit that manuscript, I would have simply thrown it into the bin and asked the author to do proper research before he even started to attempt writing on Lord Shiva. He may have a decent plot, but he has no business to infuse the Shiva cult into his fictitious story and distort the core of this faith. When we write books, we don't change facts, we don't distort the truth as written in the scriptures into something else because we run the responsibility of publishing this work and the distortion of faith through such publications is completely unacceptable  I would love to know where this author did his research from and how much of the cult of Shiva he really understood leave alone realize! 

For one, we are talking about ancient faith, deep rooted tradition and we need to maintain a certain decorum before we mix it with modernity of the current times. When we get into serious research there are rules to follow like any other science and that cannot be trampled with or broken, it has to be respected. Clearly the author has shown complete lack of research in his books and the audience who made it a best seller show complete lack of awareness towards the faith when they praised the book. 

The rules of Shiva faith are strong and any follower of this cult will know how true they are. Shiva is not an inferior barbarian who is illiterate or ignorant. Shiva is a concept, one that speaks of truth, wisdom, profound knowledge, freedom and fearlessness. If the author remotely understood this, he wouldn't even start to write this book.

Mount Kailash and Mansarovar are sacred to the cult of Shiva, sacred to the faith called Shaivism. Hence twisting the story to say that he was forced out of there is a completely wrong thing to do. Just as Vaikuntam is sacred to Lord Vishnu, Kailash is sacred to Lord Shiva and no one should even attempt to change this. And readers of such books should not tolerate an author attempting to twist facts specially when he has no idea about the core of this religion and is a complete ignoramus himself. 

If the author of this book didn't know dance, here are a few tips on how he could have bettered the chapter on Sati's dance class. For one, when we explain dance, we don't talk the language of left and right hand, we use jargon like mudras. Also, the starting prayer in dance IS NOT the Nataraja pose, it is Namaskar done in a different way. I wonder if this author even knows how the Nataraja form came about in Shiva Mythology.... or whether he even knows the meaning of Nataraja pose. The meaning of Nataraja is the dance that depicts Lord Shiva expressing to the devotee, to surrender to Him, by discarding Apasmarapurusha [the small dwarf at his foot] and merge into Him, to attain enlightenment. If the author knew this, he wouldn't even attempt to call Lord Shiva a barbarian who was ignorant at the same time!!! God! 

And since when did Lord Ram make an appearance into any Shiva Mythology? And since when were Daksha and Shiva in good terms? When did Nandi start eating meat? And please, since when did Lord Ram become superior to Lord Shiva? Lord Ram is the epitome of goodness within ordered society caked with its rules of diplomacy and social decorum. Shiva is the fearlessness and the freedom of life outside of ordered society. Shaivism doesn't care a damn for social rules, it just cares for the real truth. How can we even compare the two? And of course, since when did Daksha become the keeper of Somaras, and where is Indra? 

What really makes me laugh is the fact that the author goes about writing a line that says that Shiva doesn't even know why he is called Neelkanth!  The author must be out of his mind to pen down a line like that...Anyone who is a Shiva follower knows why he is called Neelkanth, the author of this book certainly does not and has not cared to even find out. How the hell did he even go about writing this bullshit!!

What really baffles me is the level of ignorance in our readers who made this book a best seller and that no one has a problem with the way our faith has been distorted or with the pathetic way this book has been scripted? 

Yes, very clearly, I am a Shiva devotee and I am offended by the way this author has written about Shaivism. I am offended by the way he has disrespected our faith, I am offended by the way he has published this manuscript and the distortion of belief its going to cause all the young impressionable minds who read it. I am offended by the way he has abused such a deep rooted and respectable faith. 

I have just one advice to give you - If you want to know about Shaivism, this book is not the place you should look for it.

The sacred seat for perfect meditation.

I haven't quite seen anything like this, anything as intriguing, or secretive and yet so open. When we get down to discipline and discover the deeper roots of our faith, I speak only for Hinduism, and in this case more pointedly towards the cult of Shiva and Shakti, it appears to be a treasure hunt, difficult to find and exhilarating when discovered and yet it leaves a hint of something more that lies beyond. 

Its very easy to get surpassed by presumption to perform ritual and follow religion like a herd of sheep with little knowledge of why we are doing it. In India there are plenty of rules to follow ritually and no one really know why, but no one seems to care enough to find out beyond the reasons they have been given. We feel we have done our bit but have we really? There are many ways to discover Hinduism; I, for now, have chosen the path of ritual more for its structure, its intrigue and its apparent magic that is stitched in with the deities. 

And this hunt has taken me all over the place, to the most sacred sthalas and to the weirdest rituals that are still being performed even today ["am being judgmental with the general non acceptance that anything beyond the rules of our society are basically absurd"]. And the best place to visit for such intriguing rituals is Bengal. I love Bengal for its openness, for its broad minded society, for their belief system and social acceptance of it and the hint of mystery that dots the land. After much reading and stomach churning discoveries, I came upon a few common areas of interest in the lives of few Bengali saints, of whom I would like to concentrate on Ramakrishna and Ramprasad Sen, both of whom were Brahmin priests of the Tantrik order. 

My focus is not to generalize a few facts common to their lives but to zero in on one strange and yet mysterious element that brought them both to the state of divine consciousness that they both experienced. All roads lead to Rome, yes, but this particular road has a twist. Circumstances presented them with the right teachers, perfect rituals and right attitude to go through with it. One thing that I found of great interest was their seat of meditation. While there are no written texts available to elaborate the significance and the reasons why [at least on the internet] what really strikes me is the combination of elements that make up the perfect ground for meditation. 

The great seat of dualism, the meeting of the highest of the pure with the lowest of the impure, the confluence of truth where the human mind dwells to reach higher zones of existence, of bliss, of spiritual intoxication. This is at the seat of meditation, a seat that both Ramakrishna and Ramprasad Sen spent a lot of their time in meditation. At the head of this seat was the Panchavati, the 5 sacred trees of purity namely the Banyan, Vilva, Aamla, Ashoka, and the Peepal which make the air sacred and pure and bring in life into the environment. At the foot of the seat is the altar of the impure, the panchamundi asan, the burial place of 5 skulls belonging to a snake, frog, rabbit, fox and human, the seat of death that houses the very power of the Goddess. And between these two worlds of dualism, sits the seeker in mindful contemplation in love with the Gods and in a state of pure consciousness. Both elements of life and death are arranged in the sacred order of the number 5, seeking the highest realm of divinity. Yet the mystery of the highest form of dualism leading to the gates of super consciousness remains a mystery to lesser mortals like us. 

Now to the common man's mind, the presence of skulls, the association of death and impurity itself is a question from the ritualistic perspective of why this peculiar combination is required at all. While we accept Panchavati without batting an eyelid, we find it hard to accept the panchamunda asan [though its very acceptable in Bengal]. And hence the combination brings in the an eerie feeling of what else we might have to go through and whether we are really cut out for this path of spiritualism. That is really the whole point. Its the bias we have to kill, the mind set that we are stuck with, the upbringing that is so one sided. And to kill this bias we have great saints who have performed it, Ramakrishna and Ramprasad Sen were lucky enough to own these seats and no one came in their way. They were aided by gurus who presented them with the required material to get them going. They have proven that with rigorous sadhana, no matter what the seat on which they sit is, no matter what kind of food they are asked to eat, no matter what they are told to perform in terms of core ritual, no matter what kind of trees cover their roof, all that matters is serious consciousness towards the supreme. 

So this just leaves me with one question, is the great seat of dualism a catalyst to higher consciousness, or is the seat meant to just kill the aversion the seeker may have in their path of performing sadhana. Its possible that the aversion is killed once the seeker sits on the aasan and figures there is nothing wrong with it :). The other reason for the skulls could also be associated with the presence of Shakti residing within them in the form of Ma Kali. And when the seeker sits on this holy throne, the closest body part associated with this seat is the muladhara chakra forming a direct path through the seeker to reach Sahasrara which is the seat of purity and life alias the trees. Maybe there is more to this which can only be discovered through experience. For now, we know that this seat promises results and is hard to come by. 

Encounter with Yama

Yama - This is not a word we would like to associate with very often in the Hindu way of life. The most prominent meaning of Yama as we have been taught is with the association of death. Yama, in the realm of mythology is the God of death.

In Patanjali's Yoga sutra, dating back to 200 AD, Yama has a different meaning. It is defined by the attitude/behavior we have towards everything and every person OUTSIDE of ourselves. Yama also indicatively means reining in, or discipline. Yama is the opposite of Niyama, and Niyama means contemplation, observing the self, looking inwards into the being.

Coming back to the core of this thought, what is life and how are we spending it? Life is defined by the state that exists between being created and being destroyed, and is subjected to time and maya [illusion]. The only truth that exists in this state is breath that gives us the only hint of an existence in transition. The rest is illusion or more realistically it is perception.

Most of the activities of a day are driven towards everything that is required to keep the peace outside of us as we perceive it. And this list is endless leaving us no time to look inwards. By the time we have lived 1 man life, its over. We have largely wasted our time running behind and hoarding wealth, diving deep into everything materialistic and entertaining every sensual pleasure we could possibly have. This truth is far more evident on the death bed when we realize a few screaming truths.

Time is up, the fear of death is looming on us and the fear of its unfamiliarity is killing us inside. The folks outside have no idea of this intense fear. This fear is compounded by the endless physical suffering we go through during the transition into death. Added to it is the forced detachment from our loved ones, our familiar world. The only truth that yells at us is that we wasted this life, spending our time in things that just didn’t matter and are of no use to us now.

And doubtlessly, most of us will go down this path and therefore require another life to set this right... and we just may not want to even sign up for it.

Yama, commonly known as the Lord of Death, is probably the Lord of discipline and he reins us back into our original path, with a verdict on what the next life would probably be based on the evidence recorded by Chitragupta, whose name "the secret picture" stems from the workings of Brahma mind during meditation.

Yama, is not the Lord of Death, but he is the killer of our illusion. He hits the reality of our existence back into us and in most cases, this is not pleasant. This hit is complex, its takes 13 man days to decide our fate as described in the Garuda Purana. After 13 days, we are floating souls in a different realm and the only hope for decent survival through this suffering is the frequent food supply we hope to get through our offspring who are still alive in the mortal world. And if they dont feed the birds and leave food for us, the suffering is apparently that much more intense.

This is probably why death doesn’t sound or look good. This is probably why that fateful judgment day will be the worst we faced. And this is also why Yama is a forbidden name or even an association.

This reminds me of the dream Sudama went into when Lord Krishna asked him to get some water. Sudama dissolved himself into an illusion where he went through the path of samsara, had a wife and child and almost lost his family to heavy downpour and floods when he screamed out to Lord Krishna in intense fear.

When he woke up from his illusion, he was next to Lord Krishna, who reminded him about his request. Sudama's illusion lasted a life time in man years. We seem to be living in a similar illusion and the only difference is, we just don’t realize that we might have Krishna next to us telling us what it’s about. Our mind is too loud to even pay heed to his soft whisper.

Spiritualism is the most difficult path to follow, it requires knowledge that has to transition into wisdom, and it requires discipline that has to transition into a way of life. It requires courage that has to look at death and believe its freedom.

The perfect art of meditation.

The noise just kills, the list of things to do is ever increasing, and the number of people we would love to please doesn’t seem to reduce. This is the joy of living in the middle of society, Maya as the great ancient masters call it. And in this din I am trying to look for my peace.

Peace, as they say is acquired by constant meditation and meditation is one of the most difficult exercises to do. While we look for the silence and the stillness, its presence brings in a strange restlessness. The mind is jumping from one thought to the next forming a wall of a million thoughts.

The great masters have recommended Japa as a stepping stone in this direction. The need of the hour is to do something and yet, not to do anything and Japa solves this problem remarkably. Japa is the art of reciting a given sacred verse like a parrot initially, bringing discipline into our lives to set the rhythm. As the mantra grows on us, the mind dwells on the meaning of the sacred syllables and from here starts the journey towards the occult.

The world of ancient scriptures coupled with the constant awareness of the Japa brings advancements to the mind of a fascinating nature. The mystic world grows larger in size, turning more real as the mind journeys through the deeper aspects of our faith. Meditation takes on various meanings, various forms, various practices which are stomach churning to the common folk out there, but when divine understanding sets in, in the form of a capsule, the belief in the occult turns that much more real.

The great books have sacred wisdom, wisdom that is read by all but understood by only a few. It shakes the apple cart; it turns mindless rituals into a living science and opens the doors to the unthinkable. Spiritualism is a journey; the travel is the fulcrum while the goal is the hunger that keeps us balanced all the time.

Spiritualism hits us at some point; it’s tougher than holding a rotten job or having a nagging wife. It shakes our thoughts and mind and forces us to contemplate and think. And if we have to move forward, it is a path that makes us face our fears, adjust with the unfamiliarity and accept the uncertainty of life beyond with comfort. It brings us face to face with our irrational bias, with our thoughts that have been influenced through childhood, and with our lack of understanding of simple philosophy.

When we have shown signs of getting over fear, where bias has no room, when we don’t make a choice of what is good and bad just because we have been taught to do so, the mind is now ready to delve into the faith with more readiness and acceptance, the mind is now ready to meditate on the self and detach from the world around us. There is room for emptiness, the quality of thought has improved with constant Japa, and now the stillness has more meaning.

While the inner self is ready to go the Great ancients have devised a way to make the environment just as conducive. The most powerful and sacred spot where the air is purer and the ambience is much more powerful is the area [sthala] beneath a cluster of 5 trees like Banyan, Vilva, Peepal, Amla, and Fig trees known as the Panchavati, which works like a pranashala and capture the energy and houses it within the shade of this cluster. With a combination of a clearer mind, the need to contemplate and the purer air surrounding the aspirant, these are greater chances of reaching supreme bliss.

Clearly, Lord Rama lived in the perfect environment in the forest; the land where he stayed is now called Panchavati, while the original area is just the cluster of trees near his dwelling.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa took this a step further in terms of the perfect location for worship. Deep within the grove of Dakshineswar, near the Kali temple, Ramakrishna not only found himself a Panchavati, but was instructed by Bhairavi Brahmani to be seated on the sacred panchmundi aasan made of 5 skulls, following the practices of Tantra.

Meditation is not just the practice of being seated in silence, it is the art of contemplation and stilling the mind with deep and stable breathing to convert the physical body into a pranashala, a house of life.

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 divine celestial from the Holy Land

Srinivasan sat back in bed, trying hard not to let go of the dream he had just woken out of. It was divine in its pulse for his emotions were raging high even after his mind has sunk back into the real world. Who was that he wondered? Who was that person, so charming and angelic with a smile so sweet that he could stay intoxicated with it forever. His dream had been very strange and his emotions were uncontrollable. He had never wanted someone so much. This person he saw in the dream looked monk like, fair and rounded like a baby extremely active with a spark of life that overwhelmed him. What stood in front of him was a celestial, whose smile and twinkling eyes just gave him more presence than just another human being. He appeared to be God sent, from the realm of the supreme and the energy he displayed was overwhelmingly powerful.

Srinivasan had no intentions to let go of his divine imagination. That dream was too precious. He pondered over his emotions, this celestial being belonged to him. Who ever he was and where ever he came from... he looked unreachable and the same time he was right there. His face spoke a million words, as if he was from the world of the wise. He looked enlightened; he looked as if he knew, as if he knew a lot. He looked as if he mocked the ignorance of Srinivasan as he stared at him and played with his emotions. He was there in front of him, and suddenly he disappeared only to reappear with the most charming smile, beaming life in his eyes, with a divine glow that enveloped him. He was so full of Tejas, Srinivasan could barely hold himself together.

Srinivasan felt a surge of divine love. It was not compassionate as much as it was possessive. He wanted that celestial being to be with him, he wanted to keep observing him, he was completely fascinated, completely enchanted by this ray of spiritual presence that draped his mind this morning. At the same time, Srinivasan felt fear, fear of his celestial friend being discovered. Fear that others would notice this spark of divinity and wish it away or destroy it with their evil glance. This was Srinivasan's moment in reality, his moment of being blessed by the supreme. And he couldn't share this joy with anyone... no one should ever know such a celestial came by. Srinivasan felt that the Gods had sent a messenger of some sort who was there to be with him for a while, protecting him and at the same time enticing him towards the realm of divine truth.

Srinivasan was ready to give up everything and go where ever the celestial being took him. It was no woman, there was no lust, no sensuous attraction, no hunger for flesh but there was supreme presence, it was beyond words to explain. Srinivasan felt blessed as if he was granted that strange wish of being protected and at the same time, he felt he was given ultimate freedom to leave this world we live in. Nothing about this world mattered. No money, no human, no happiness in the world, no woman could grant him this kind of a joy that he had felt suddenly. And he felt fear, fear to guard it, fear to hide the presence of this blessed being in his realm, so worried that someone else would notice and chase this celestial being away.

The dream faded with time, the emotions subsided and Srinivasan soon forgot the presence of the celestial being in his dream... it was a distant thought, one that he would love to entertain but as the thick weeds of ignorance grew over his spiritual realm Srinivasan very quickly got back into the mad noisy world of people.

Years later Srinivasan mulled over his life, his thoughts and his experiences. He was married now, and waiting for his first child to arrive. How would he be as a father, was he capable at all? As the day of his transformation approached Srinivasan's time and mind was long lost in getting himself and his home ready for the new arrival. The emotions of being a father were quickly smothered by the many people who took active interest in how the little one had to be brought up. Srinivasan barely got time to sit back and feel the joy in silence. Months flew by and it hardly took time for his child to grow into a beautiful baby. It was time for a trip to the holy land of Tirupati and Srinivasan and his wife decided to ceremoniously do away with the long jatas of their little one. Srinivasan was convinced that this had to be done soon and the long trek to the holy land brought him to this sacred earth for another round of darshan. This time he wondered whether his little one could sustain the overwhelming mass of people through the dingy passage ways. He would brave it anyway and he only hoped his little one would manage to take it all in with little trouble.

In the queue, the wait was endless. Srinivasan sat watching the crowds, some sleeping, others chatting over a coffee and few others yelling out loud "Govinda Govinda" occasionally with the sound of whining children in the background. The gates opened and the crowd raced almost causing a stampede. Srinivasan and his wife waded in the crowd, letting the flow of human beings carry them with its tide. Sticking close was all he could think of holding his little one up occasionally as he slept peacefully in his arms. The crowd swayed into the temple gates, the river of people now turning into rough rapids with no sensitivity towards anyone. Srinivasan's mind was a mixture of emotions, on one side he felt strange and blessed to be back on this earth, on the other side, his mind was on his little one who had just woken up in a daze staring at the river of strange people all around him, and he was leading the way for his family to stick together and make it safe for a minute longer in front of the sacred shrine of Lord Venkateshwara.   

The crowd surged in madly, meandering through the pillared passage way within the chamber of gold, and Srinivasan caught the glimpse of the Lord as he maneuvered through the maze. He was now heading straight for the spot, the one spot in front of the Lord before he got pushed away, where the Lord quickly fades of out sight. Srinivasan held up his little one to face the Lord, and looked at him. There in the background of all the chaos and in the thick of the human river, Srinivasan looked at the form of the Lord and then at his little one, only to be baffled by the play of life and time. What smiled in his arms was a little fair child, tonsured and smeared with sandalwood, monk like, with a glowing twinkle in his eyes, smiling a beaming smile at him, alive with a presence and energy he had not caught all these days. Srinivasan succumbed to the emotion as it came charging back into his mind, his eyes overjoyed with tears bursting with emotions as he stared at his little one... he held his own, his little divine celestial in his arms, the Lord had blessed him well at last.