Bhagavadgita Pages, Chapters 1 to 18
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Kali
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Siva is Mahākāla (Great Time); Kāli devours Mahakala; Time is in her; She is beyond Time. Her raiment is space (Digambara); Since she is clad in space, she is naked. Since she devours Mahakala, She is the Supreme Reality. Everything disappears in her by involution; it is like the Black Hole into which all fall in and nothing can escape from it, unless Kali wills it. When She wills it, the Tattvas (building blocks) proceed from her (the White Hole) building the universe and beings. All colors disappear in black. No wonder our 1st ancestors, Adam and Eve were black. The point of condensation in a Black Hole is non-rotating uncharged Singularity with zero length, width and height. This is what Hindus call Avyakta (Unmanifest)*. The present conjecture is that there is a Worm Hole connecting the Black Hole and a single (or ramified) White Hole, which is the origin of the new world of matter and beings. *Woodroffe (1865-1936) says, "the universe is withdrawn into the Sakti which projected it. It collapses, so to speak, into a mathematical point without any magnitude whatever." The Serpent Power page 34-35.
Judaism is also of the belief that the world came into existence out of nothing (Singularity of science, Avyakta of Hindus).
Here is what Woodroffe says about Kali, and the attitudes of people and nations towards Kali in the context of western imageries.
Extract from The Necklace of Kali, page 234, Garland of Letters by Sir John Woodroffe.
THE world has never been altogether without the Wisdom-the Mula Veda nor its Teachers. The degree and manner in which it has been imparted have, however, necessarily varied according to the capacities of men to receive it. So also have the symbols by which it has been conveyed. These symbols further have varying significance according to the spiritual advancement of the worshipper. This question of degree and variety of presentation has led to the superficial view that difference in beliefs negatives the existence of any commonly established Truth. But if the matter be regarded more deeply, it will be seen that whilst there is one essential Wisdom, its revelation has been more or less complete according to symbols evolved by, and, therefore, fitting to, particular racial temperaments and characters. Symbols are naturally misunderstood by those to whom the beliefs they typify are unfamiliar, and who differ in temperament from those who have evolved them. To the ordinary Western mind the symbols of Hinduism are often repulsive and absurd. It must not, however, be forgotten that some of the symbols of Western Faiths have the same effect on the Hindu. From the picture of the "Slain Lamb," and other symbols in terms of blood and death, he naturally shrinks in disgust. End--Woodroffe
Below you see the sacred, near-sacred and not-nearly-sacred phallic symbols of the present and the past in different cultures. Tourists of many nations move up the mound as if drawn by an inexorable pheromonal magnet, draw inspiration by visiting the open air Sanctum of the Temple-monument of President Washington, express awe at the colossus, invoke God (O my God), and go up the central passage way to the top. It is well anchored to Mother Earth. Maypole is or was celebrated in the whole of Europe in one form or another. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maypole. Its phallic symbolism is undeniable and well-known. The earliest use of Maypole in America was in 1628. There was drinking, dancing and frisking going on for days. The west is fascinated with the symbolism of Linga of Hindus. It is a symbol of creation of the world by Father God and Mother Goddess. I bet it sounds familiar and brings to memory some Biblical passages. Hindus call them Siva and Parvati (Kali is an aspect of Parvati.) In Bible, creation takes place without Mother Goddess. Father God alone does it as if he cloned himself. It is not so in Hindu thinking. When we visit the Washington Monument and the Temple of Siva and view them, we do not think of its symbolism. We only think of how great President Washington was and how supreme Siva is. The prurience of symbolism gives way to appreciation and reverence. To all of us Washington Monument is as sacred as the Lingam is sacred to the Hindus. One is a towering man and the other is the Towering God. He was towering, alright. The legend says Siva stood once as a fiery column of fire scraping the firmament and digging deep into the netherworld. Linga literally means a sign, so Washington Monument is a sign of Washington, and Lingam is a sign of Siva.
Woodroffe: The same effect on the other hand is not seldom produced in the Western at the sight of the terrible forms in which India has embodied Her vision of the undoubted Terrors which exist in and around us. All is not smiling in this world. Even amongst persons of the same race and indeed of the same faith we may observe such differences. Before the Catholic Cultus of the "Sacred Heart" had overcome the opposition which it at first encountered, and for a considerable time after, its imagery was regarded with aversion by some who spoke of it in terms which would be to-day counted as shocking irreverence. These differences are likely to exist so long as men vary in mental attitude and temperament, and until they reach the stage in which, having discovered the essential truths, they become indifferent to the mode in which they are presented. We must also in such matters distinguish between what a symbol may have meant and what it now means. Until quite recent times the English peasant folk and others danced around the flower-wreathed Maypole. That the pole originally (like other similar forms) represented the great Linga (Phallic symbol) admits of as little doubt as that these folk, who in recent ages danced around it, were ignorant of that fact. The Bishop's mitre is said to be head of a fish worn by ancient near-eastern hierophants. But what of that? It has no such associations now. --Woodroffe
To see, study, and worship Kali is a metatheistic exercise; her anima belies her persona. A superficial tinker will be repulsed and a deep thinker will become a devotee of Kali. Such a person is Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
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1.Kali standing on evil man 2.Kali standing on Siva 3.Virtus standing on evil man
Here are the pictures of Mother Goddess (Magna Mater) Kali, and Virtus standing on evil man. Mother Goddess shows the liberating stance (of Kali) in the 2nd picture by standing on supine Siva, her consort whose eyes are wide open and bright looking at his consort.
The English words father, mother, brother and sister are (derived from) cognate with Sanskrit: pitar, mātar, bhrātr, and svasar. Sanskrit was the First Spoken and Written Language in this world. The universe of alphabets, words and languages originated from Mother Goddess, Kali.
Jesus uses the word abba (father) 170 times to describe God's relationship to humans and his very nature. In Tamil we call father APPA («ôÀ¡) mother Amma («õÁ¡). ABBA and APPA are cognate with Pitar, Patar or pater. In Tamil, it is common to address Father God as Appan (= «ôÀý).
Viparita Mithuna of Kali (Female Superior position) is symbolic of creative fervor, while standing on top of Siva as in image is symbolic of liberating stance of the Mother Goddess. Creative fervor is that of beings and matter; Liberating stance is taking the universe and beings back into Her (by liberating or emancipating the souls). Siva is portrayed in many forms, of which one is an ithyphallic Yogi.
Triangle in many cultures indicates the gender of human or Deity, based primarily on Escutcheon. Up triangle = Male; Down triangle = Female. If you see the pattern of distribution of pubic hair (Escutcheon), the female escutcheon is a Down Triangle with apex pointing down on the Mons Veneris (Mound of Venus), while the mature male escutcheon tapers upwards towards the navel as in Up Triangle. Interlocking triangles in Judaism has many explanations. One such explanation is the layout of directions by the points and the center.
The conventional fecundating position goes by several names: Angelic Position, Manner of Serpents, Mama-Papa Position. English-American Position and the Male Superior Position. The published literature states that missionary position is a religiously prescribed prone male-superior position and thus the name came about. Now you know how the humanity all over the world was obliged to follow sacerdotal injunctions when it came to pheromonal impulsions; fecundation becomes a religious ritual act; this is especially true in Hinduism which asserts every act of a human is dedicated to the Lord.
Bible says that Adam had two wives, the first one, Lilith and the second one, Eve. Lilith in her wisdom thought that Adam and she are equal and thus refused to sleep with or serve 'under him' in their consortium. Adam insisted on male-superior position, which upset Lilith and so she flew away from Eden and consorted with demons, conceiving by the hundreds every day. (No wonder the demons of today are her progeny.) God could not persuade Lilith to come back to Adam and so made Eve from Adam's rib to be his second wife. Lilith was upset at being branded an ogre. Lilith morphed into a serpent and slithered into the Garden of Eden and tricked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. That moment on humanity was going downhill. Hindus call this era, Kaliyuga. The erstwhile wise Biblical serpent of wisdom and rebirth was downgraded because of its trickery on Eve and Adam and thus on mankind. Adam, to begin with, was a strict fruitarian as the ancient Seers, Rishis and Ascetics of India, who picked and ate only fallen fruits. God created Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, causing him to become a living soul. Hindus call it Prana, the breath or the vital airs that drive every organ in the body. God created Adam on October 20, 4004 BC at 9.00 AM; he lived for 930 years and died in the year 3074 BC.
In Christianity, Judaism and Islam, belief in goddess is heresy. Some Christian mystics believe in Virgin Goddess Sophia. Jane Leade a mystic had visions and dialogues with Sophia.
In ancient times, God Priapus was sat on by nubile virgins as a sacrifice to Priapus and a sign of initiation into marital bliss and surety of progeny. Wealthy Romans of yore had phallus-shaped cudgels in their gardens to ensure fertility and prevent stealing of the vegetables. Cult of Isis, Venus, Bacchus and Priapus existed in the past. Roman worship of Priapus came from the Egyptians, to whom the Apis, the Sacred Bull was the object of adoration for its generative prowess. In Hinduism the sacred Bull is Nandi, the mount of Siva, and the theriomorphic form of Siva according to the students of Siva in the West. The phallus is the sign of creation and a marker for god Bacchus, Priapus, Hercules, Baal, Asher, Osiris and Siva. Inspiration for this piece is drawn from http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/priap/prpc.htm
Mutinus was a god with a sanctum in
old Rome, where he sat in His ithyphallic splendor with an adoring erstwhile nubile bride-virgins on his lap, who attained the bliss of deflowering, initiation, and fore-taste by Mutinus before their husbands had the after-taste. All this was done to guarantee fertility by Mutinus or Priapus.It was the custom in olden days to adorn children with a phallus-pendant
s around the neck. Sanskrit Phal (cleave open or asunder), German Pfahl, English Pole, Greek Palo... are words which essentially mean penetration, a staff, brandishing, to burst forth, to cleave... Remember the Pole Dancers in the nightclubs. The tradition lives on. The Legend lives on. Those Poles are the god Priapus or Mutinus. From Sanskrit Phal comes the Sanskrit word Phala for fruit, which naturally means progeny. Sanskrit Phāla also means ploughshare, a common euphemism for phallus.
In ancient Greece, Membrum Virile (Phallus
, Mèdhra in Sanskrit) was taken in a procession to the Temple of Bacchus and elite corpulent matrons of the city dutifully and reverentially hung floral decorations on Priapus. Sacrosanct phallus was consecrated in the Temple of Liber (Temple of Bacchus)Liber is an ancient Italian god of wine and vineyards, in later times identified with Bacchus. What Liber is for phallus is Liberia for the female genitals, which were consecrated in the Temple of Liberia. These two deities were the Father and the Mother (Lingam in its pedestal in Hindu temples). From time immemorial in India, the Goddess was represented by the down triangle and the God by the up triangle. The superimposition is Mithuna.
God Priapus was the much celebrated god of fertility among the ancient Greek poets. An Athenian Oracle was the first to recommend the installation, consecration and worship of god Pri
apus. As the Hindus offer flowers, milk, fruits and other victuals to gods, the ancient Greeks did the same to god Priapus.
Some suggest Maypole, Steeple, the ecclesiastical cross (and in Hinduism Linga and the Gopura, the tower) may represent the ithyphallic god, whose member soars into the heavens. Other souls described as unimaginative detumescent flaccid dysfunctional nerds think that these structures are built tall more as a beacon to beckon the flock.
Priapus was anointed as the Triphallus to portray the immense size, splendor and effulgence of his fecund principle. Roman Ladies from the elite upper crest of bygone days sat on the gigantic member of Priapus in veneration and adulation pleading with Priapus to accept the first offering of modesty, so that they would be fecund as long as possible
with their husbands.God Priapus was so popular among the woman, the jealous husbands banished him from the city of Lampascus. Lo and behold, the curse of god Priapus descended on the male members. The curse in the form of
'a fell disease' hit them hard on the most precious landmark of the body: genitalia, groin and inner thighs. What was that? Pediculosis Pubis, commonly known as Pubic Louse. That is a bad place to have a louse (lice) meandering through a hirsute forest and having sanguine supper, breakfast, and lunch. Or was it Jock itch (tinea cruris)? It is the infection of the superficial layers of the skin with mold-like fungus (dermatophytes). Or was it Eczema? This form affects the genitals, inner upper thighs and buttocks. No one knows. The result is the same: an annoying urge to alleviate pruritic spasms and compulsions. The wives rejected their husbands outright with disgust and alarm at the sight of their husbands scratching the crotch before invited elite guests and senators. Every time the louse took a leap from one pilose strand to the next for a bite, the wives saw their husbands do cha-cha-cha. The guests couldn't figure out the spasmodic seizures coming in waves on their host. The men's ego deflation was fast and furious. The women's love for Priapus grew by rhythmic leaps and bounds. The Oracle in chief was consulted by deprived husbands and frustrated wives and gave them a prescient advice to invite god Priapus back in their midst. Every garden in the landscape had the god Priapus installed, consecrated, decorated, and worshipped. They painted him red and called him Ruber or Rubicundus. If you are reminded of Rudra, the red god of Hindus, you are right. Rudra is red and no other that Siva Himself, who sports the form of Lingam. Sacrifices were made throughout the land with vegetables, fruits, dairy products and animals. So do the Hindus make offering to Siva.The future of Priapus was doomed, as the god was blamed for the ills and orgies of the society. His statue stands in the orchards as a scarecrow to scare off the thieves, children and birds. What degradation to Priapus who stood tall among mortals! The deflowering god became the lowly village deity relegated to flower-beds, gardens and fields. The god-son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, Priapus, because of his connection to fertility, was represented by the carvings of fig-tree, oak, cypress, marble or wheat-dough. These are some of the common materials (wood, mushy cooked rice, sand, clay, metal, marble, crystal, stone...) used to create Lingam of Hindu God. Lord Siva stands tall in the universe from time immemorial, while demiurge Priapus suffered detumescent lolling degradation in the modern times; even mega-doses of the likes of Cialis and Viagra fail to restore the once-glorious resplendent towering ego of Priapus, who prided himself as the first and foremost fore-taster of the pudenda of the world.
Kali is Infinite, Formless and Whole (Aparicchinna, Arupa, Purna), out of which come the finites, the forms and the not-wholes (Paricchinna, Rupa, Apurna). It is Her Maya Sakti that renders Her original into limited and finite beings and objects. Her Consciousness (along with Sentience) sleeps in stone, feels in flora, senses in fauna and thinks in man, but is always truncated, veiled or obliterated in objects and beings--differential endowment of Her Consciousness. Man in his ignorance (Avidya) entertains and sees dissociation between man and man, man and animal, man and objects and animals and objects. This is called Bheda Buddhi, dissociative thinking or dichotomic perception. Man does not understand the oneness of all and oneness with Her; all proceed from Her. You, I, he, she, it and that are one Self. This whole universe is one organism. This is Monism and there is no diremption. A single Supreme Consciousness percolates down the Suddha, Suddha-Asuddha and Asuddha Tattvas, endows some of them with varying degrees of consciousness and yet does not diminish in its original splendor. TATTVAS-36
Lucius Apuleius writes in The Golden Ass (AD160) about Goddess, "I am nature, the universal Mother, mistress of all elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead....Though I am worshipped in many aspects, known by countless names, propitiated with all manner of different rites, yet the whole round earth venerates me." Translation by Robert Graves.
The above statement could have been made by Kali; the only difference is that Kali swallows Time meaning that Time is in her and that She is not the Child of Time, rather She is the Mother of Time and transcends Time. She is the queen of the living and the dead.
Siva, when he is in the company of Mahavidyas, always plays a lesser role: Tara and Kali stand on supine Siva, while Tripura Sundari sits on him. This is subordinationism where Kali is the First; Siva, Brahma and Vishnu come in second; all else come third.
1.On your left is Kali standing on a demon with her left foot on his chest. (Demons are Passion, Anger, Greed...)
2. Goddess Kali standing on her consort Siva.
Goddess Kali shows her defiance to her consort, and her independence. Here defiance means that She offers liberation to the souls (Her Children).
3.Goddess Virtus standing on Mr. Tyranny (The great seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia).
CODE OF VIRGINIA official description:
Section 7.1-26. The great seal.
The great seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia
shall consist of two metallic discs, two and one-fourth inches in diameter, with
an ornamental border one fourth of an inch wide, with such words and figures
engraved thereon as will, when used, produce impressions to be described as
follows:
On the obverse,
Virtus, the genius of the
Commonwealth, dressed as an Amazon, resting on a spear in her right hand, point
downward, touching the earth; and holding in her left hand, a sheathed
sword, or parazonium, pointing
upward; her head erect and face upturned;
her left foot on the form of
Tyranny represented by the
prostrate body of a man, with his
head to her left, his fallen crown nearby, a broken chain in his left hand, and
a scourge in his right. Above the group and within the border conforming
therewith, shall be the word "Virginia," and, in the space below, on a curved
line, shall be the motto, "Sic Semper
Tyrannis--Thus
Always to Tyrants."
On the reverse,
shall be placed a group consisting of Libertas, holding a wand and pileus in her
right hand; on her right, Aeternitas, with a globe and phoenix in her right
hand; on the left of Libertas, Ceres, with a cornucopia in her left hand, and an
ear of wheat in her right; over this device, in a curved line, the word "Perseverando."
David Kingsley in book Mahavidyas (page 83) says the following:
Kali's gaping mouth and lolling tongue, her appearance and habits generally, are unquestionably repulsive to our ordinary sensibilities. In Tantra, this is probably precisely the point. What we experience as disgusting, polluted, forbidden, and gruesome is grounded in limited human (or cultural) consciousness, which has ordered, regimented, and divided reality into categories that serve limited, ego-centered, selfish conceptions of how the world should be. Kali, in her rude way, deconstructs these categories, inviting those who would learn from her to be open to the whole world in all of its aspects. She invites her devotees, like Ramakrishna, to dare to taste the world in its most disgusting and sacrality, which is the Great Goddess herself. End of David Kingsley quote.
In the Dakshinesvar temple, black Kali stands on supine white Siva with wide-open eyes with her right foot planted over his chest, where the heart is and the left foot on his right thigh. Siva's eyes are transfixed on his consort. Her right side is all goodness and motherly love and her left side is all destruction. Kali comes in many forms of which two are mentioned here. One is the benign kind and the other is the fierce kind. Benign Kali (Dakshina) keeps the right foot forward planted on the chest of Siva with her left hand holding the sword; fierce Smasāna (cremation ground) Kali holds the left foot forward with the sword on the right hand. Kali is the Creatrix-Victrix-Genetrix.
The View from the West.
(Old Western cultures depict some Venus figures (Venus-Aphrodite-Victrix-Genetrix) as the corpulent matriarch who is a goddess of fertility and pregnancy, houses the fetus (creative, sheltering, nourishing and protective), begets, and nurtures the infants. That is the good side of the Goddess. Victrix = Bringer of Victory; Genetrix = Begetting Mother. The Greek Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and fertility, was the cynosure and love of all gods. Greek Aphrodite became the Roman Venus. She emerged from the foam of the sea as the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi emerged from the churning sea and later married Vishnu. Upper Paleolithic culture spanning from Siberia to France depicts an ivory figure with exaggerated breasts (that rival and excel today's silicon implants), protuberant belly and callipygian hemispheres: this is the fertility goddess. Aphrodite-Venus is said to have caused the Trojan War. Venus is associated with the Mesopotamian Ishtar. The Mother Goddess is often in many cultures depicted as Virgin, Mother and Crone. Kali in the form of Sodasi is the virgin. Kali is the Mother from whom the whole creation proceeds; Dhumavati is the crone. She is all in One. The western authors say that the mystic and myth of woman being goddess waned when the hunter-gatherer transitioned to agrarian and cognized his mite in the reproductive physiology while observing the breeding of his livestock. Father God took precedence to Mother Goddess who eventually waned into oblivion in the west.
Before the oblivion and rendition of goddess into extinction in the west, the west says that the western goddess was the Feral Hunter (think of tigress) and so was much feared. She doled out love to those who worshipped her. Celtic goddess of Martial Arts and War Brigid was the patroness of Druids, a metallurgist (taught mankind to forge metal), a repository of inspiration, and a protector of maidens, young brides and parturient women. Christian patriarchy has destroyed the goddess for good. The female Trinity of Maiden, Mother and Crone underwent a spiritual masculinizing genitoplasty into Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. This spiritual gender reassignment has had its repercussions in the dichotomized civilizational role of male (dominance) and female (subservience) until recently when the women were liberated, enfranchised and admitted into the work force. And yet there are no goddesses in the West but plenty of Divas, who are not really goddesses. Diva: a distinguished female singer; prima donna. Diva is derived from Deva, a divine being in Sanskrit. Diva is no match to Devi (goddess in Sanskrit). In the world, You have anion and cation; you have yin and yang; you have lunar woman and solar man, you have Anima and Animus; you have god; but where is the goddess? There is no symmetry or perfection without goddess.
Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth (page 171-173) says the following, " Of course, in biblical times, when the Hebrews came in, they really wiped out the Goddess. The term for the Canaanite goddess that is used in the Old Testament is " the Abomination." ...Many of the Hebrew kings are condemned in the Old Testament for having worshipped on the mountaintops. Those mountains were symbols of the Goddess. (Think of Wyoming's The Grand Tetons. Teton = Breast) And there was a very strong accent against the Goddess in the Hebrew, which you do not find in the Indo-European mythologies. ....our own western subjugation of the female is a function of biblical thinking.... In the Old Testament you have a God who creates a world without a goddess."
Clare Gibson says: The veneration of the Goddess was virtually universal by around 3000 BC; between 1800 and 1500 BC Judaism had begun to demonize her.
In Christian tradition, the concept of virgin birth is beautifully explained by Joseph Campbell. When a man awakens at the level of the heart (Anahata Chakra of Kundalini), a point of compassion, he takes a virgin birth: it is the god who emerges. The previous physical birth is not virgin birth. The lower centers of the Pelvic Basin and abdomen (Muladhara, Svadhisthana, and Manipura Chakras) are not refuted but transcended; they become subject to and servant to the heart. That is in essence Virgin Birth.
That you take a virgin birth when you awaken at the level of the heart and that the god emerges in you are an echo of what Ramakrishna Parmahamsa said as follows. Man asks himself the question: who am I? The answer is, "I am Brahman. I am not the body." The meaning is I am the spirit (soul) and not the body that houses the spirit. The imprinting of this theme in one's mind and awakening at Anahata Chakra is virgin birth.
Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.
Mother Goddess worship is still strong in India. So transition to agriculture and animal husbandry alone could not account for the waning of Goddess worship, as advanced by the western students. People in India keep the Goddesses on par with Gods. The pre-Islamic Arabs had goddesses who went into oblivion with the advent of Islam; so also was the fate of the goddesses after the advent of Christ. Virgin Mary, not part of the Holy Trinity, is still regarded to have some vestiges of the Mother Goddess. Consider Mary Magdalene, the allegedly reformed prostitute, who became the disciple of Jesus Christ. Lately her standing is revitalized and given a make-over. Her depiction with cascading knee-length blond or red hair, soft lily-white skin, perfectly delightful corpulence, a sliding, slipping and revealing diaphanous veil over her well-endowed virginal torso, and mournful eyes turned towards heaven indicates a northern-European woman of impeccable virtue rather than a woman of ease from Magdala, a fishing village in Northern Galilee. Her painted depiction of nobility, nubility, modesty is in contrast to the pronouncement of Pope Gregory 1 in 591 C.E. and characterization of Mary Magdalene as peccatrix, a sinful woman and NOT as meretrix, a prostitute. PeccAtum = sin.
meretrix = merre + trix = Earning female. meretr
cius of, pertaining to prostitutes, der. of meretrx prostitute = mere-, s. of merre to earn + -trx -TRIX; see -OUS]. trix is used in English to form feminine nouns (aviatrix; executrix). trix is old English for female. Meretrix is an ugly word in my opinion; it means an earning woman or a working woman, euphemism for prostitution.The Eastern Orthodox Church asserts that Mary Magdalene was a woman of virtue all her life. There are many books which say that Magdalene was the wife of Jesus. Catholic Church and other Christians denounce such a claim. There are others who say that Magdalene was pregnant with the baby of Jesus at the time of his crucifixion. Some claim today's Merovingian lineage wears the genes of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Some claim Holy Grail is a misnomer and the Real Holy Grail is Mary Magdalene, the receptacle of Jesus' bloodline.
Once Kali appeared before Ramakrishna Paramahamsa as a local prostitute in the sanctum of her own temple. The founder of the Kali Temple Ms. Kumari regarded Kali as a Virgin. Some people recognize only two colors, two sides on everything; there are no shades and colors between the white and the black, the red and the blue, the good and the bad. In like manner, the woman is dichotomized: Virgin and prostitute; it is like two sides of the coin or anything: head and tail; red and blue; black and white. The Hindu idea of a woman, a person, a god, a goddess or a thing is that he, she or it comes from time to time with many shades, colors, sides and qualities, which do not have to be in a perfect fit as in a jigsaw puzzle.
In Mohenjodaro, archeological digs showed female clay figurines with exaggerated female organs. They are the ritual icons of Mother Goddess. Siva appears as ithyphallic Yogi surrounded by deer, buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros and tiger. The reason why He is surrounded by animals is that He is Pasupathi. Pasu + Pathi = Animal + Lord = Lord of animals. In Sanskrit Pasu also refers to Individual soul. Thus He is the Universal Soul of all individual souls or Lord of souls. In Christian Tradition, the souls about to be redeemed are collectively called the flock; that is Pasu. We are all Pasus of the flock. John 10:16 of Bible says: So there will be one flock, one Shepherd. If you delve further, you notice that the animals live in peace around Him. (We should all live in peace.) The tiger does not devour the deer. If all individual souls flock around Him, there is peace. Peace radiates from Him because Siva is Yogi whose nature transcends Sattva, Rajas and Tamas (Goodness, motion and passion, and darkness). Tantrics say there are three kinds of people: Pasu, Vira and Divya (Animal, Hero-man and Divine man). TANTRA. Remember the English word Diva came from Sanskrit Deva. Vira is cognate with Vir or Wer for man.
Eventually the bull became his Vahana (transport) and the theriomorphic form of Siva, according to western authors. His Sakti or power is the Mother Goddess. Together they portray Siva-Sakti, the equivalence of 1 and 0, from which the whole universe proceeds.
That 1 and 0 are represented in Lingam on its base. Siva is the first ONE who said, I (Aham). That is Divine Ego, from which all individual egos came later via Sakti. Upon telling Sakti that He is One (Numero Uno), she accepted Her position, Zero (0) initially. Here zero does not mean She is a non-entity. That is when the unitary Siva-Sakti (two cotyledons in a seed-Ardhanarisvara or Androgynous Siva) became polarized, gendered and created the Universe and beings. NAda-Sakti looked at Him (Pum Rupa = male form, the One) with longing eyes (Sivon Mukhi = turning towards Bindu-Siva). This is called Mithah Samavaya of Bindu and NAda, mutual agreement or obligation to begin creation. Siva is Consciousness and Bindu, and Sakti is Nada and matter (Prakrti). Being ONE (1) is being lonely. One is no more than ONE without the zero (0). From this union of One and Zero comes all numbers, alphabets, combinations, permutations, fractions, beings, matter, souls, and endless possibilities. Now you know why Sakti (Kali) wears a garland of 51 heads representing the 51 Sanskrit alphabets. Why heads: that is where vocal speech (Vikhari speech, the spoken word, articulated speech) originates. If you were repulsed by the garland of heads, now you know the symbolism behind it.
To know about the story of 1 (the origin and dissemination of 0 and numbers) click on the link below (PBS)
http://www.pbs.org/previews/storyof1/
Excerpt:
The Indian numbers were a smash hit across the Islamic world before they were finally brought to Europe, where they met fierce resistance. It took 500 years for the battle between Roman and Indian numbers to play out, but by the 16th century, the Indian figures, now commonly called Arabic numerals (Read Indian numerals- my input), finally triumphed - perhaps because Florentine mathematician Fibonacci showed Christian merchants how useful Indian numerals could be, for instance, for calculating profits.
But the story doesn't end there. Within a hundred years, German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz invented a binary system, using the Adam and Eve of mathematics, One and Zero. Since then, as the language of computers, this two-digit binary system has come to dominate every part of modern life.
The story of the number one is the story of Western civilization. Terry Jones ("Monty Python's Flying Circus") goes on a humor-filled journey to recount the amazing tale behind the world's simplest number. Using computer graphics, "One" is brought to life, in all his various guises, in STORY OF 1, airing on PBS Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET. One's story reveals how celebrated civilizations in history were achieved, where our modern numbers came from and how the invention of zero changed the world forever - and saved us from having to use Roman numerals today.
Siva's and Sakti's mutual desire gave rise to three things in the universe: He, She, and It; everything in the universe is covered by these three.
The Indus seals were found in Sumerian Ur attesting to the fact that people of Sumeria and Mohenjodaro and Harappa in India were trading partners between 2300 to 2000 B.C.
The following piece is written by me. It is waiting for approval from Maureen Dowd!
Saktas believe that male descended from the First Female and this is the learned view of the geneticists too. This information may fluster Adam because he believes that Eve came from him. Adam's presumed and unproven donation to male of the species is the Y chromosome which is not as robust as it once was, and shrinking and wasting away. Consider the gene-poor Y chromosome equal to a cash-poor wallet.
The Meiotic Chaos
Compare the robust size
of X chromosome with its counterpart, a runt (the Y) lined up by its side. There
is an element of nurture in X so an embryo with YO (absent X) does not go to
term; an XO can go to term, though not normal. The
Y is a loner; the Y rejects the advances of X to exchange genes except at the
ends (PAR- PseudoAutosomal Region,
5% of Y and yet containing 72% of genes for recombination), when they do the dance of "give and take."
The rest of DNA on the Y belongs to "boys-only-club,"
also known as
NRY
(non-recombining region of Y constituting 95% of
the Y chromosome), which does not participate in recombination of exchange.
There are 20 genes here, some of which doing the
housekeeping functions and being copies of genes on the X and the other genes enhancing male fertility and having many copies in Y. The
housekeeping genes are found elsewhere in other organs. The Y has been an
immigrant haven for new genes. Copies of DAZ fertility genes from chromosome 3
found their way to live in the Y chromosome. DAZ genes find expression only in
testis. (DAZ =
Deleted in
AZoospermia. Azoospermia = no
sperms in the fluid) Some males with infertility lack the
The immigrant genes kept it alive (like the immigrants to America kept it progressive); otherwise the Y would have attained extinction. Over ages, the immigrant genes die off. There is no new "real blood" coming into Y. Will Y waste away and come to a naught? The laconic Y is short, dense and wasting way; it will take 10 million years for the Y to become a shell of its former self. Just like before, an event will take place in the chromosomes and the SRY (Sex-Determining Region Y) gene will come into being.
SRY gene codes for Testis Determining Factor (TDF) or SRY protein. Mutations in SRY leads to XY females (Gonadal Dysgenesis or Swyer Syndrome). Translocation of part of the Y chromosome containing SRY gene to the X chromosome casuses XX male Syndrome. SRY gene, if damaged in male fetus, results in Genotype males, and phenotype females.
Its (Y) size does not match Its hyperbole, haughtiness, hubris, and bombast. The house of Y is mostly junk (respectfully called non-coding DNA). They (sperm) march by millions to assault one ovum with hardy accouterment, loaded with nourishment, so a lonely sperm can enter the premises for companionship and progeny. All the other prospective suitors die in battle, as one princely critter enters the once impregnable fortress and makes a mark with an X or Y. The little runt has a big ego; it has the ability to morph the primary default state of femaleness of the embryo into a male, if the critter carries the Y (SRY). The critter says in effect, "I am the greatest; I punched a hole and broke through the formidable fortress; it is me who decides whether the progeny is male or not." SRY gene has some very Extraordinarily Primitive Qualities: SRY is Intronless gene. Most of the human genes have introns--non-coding regions. SRY is all Exons. Bacterial and Fungal genes have no introns. Now you see how primitive SRY is. SRY Exon gene is the cause of Hastiness in males. SRY gene is all business, neither a prologue nor an epilogue nor a nicety; it does not waste time but cuts to the chase. It is impatient and efficient to its cause :*)
By the way scientists discovered the female chromosome first and called it X; yes it looks like an X and it is big in metaphase (153 million base pairs--2000 genes). They could not find the Male Critter Chromosome because it was tiny. When they discovered it, it was named Y (60 million base pairs--78 genes).
Genetically speaking,
Y came into being from X
about 300 million years ago.
Adam can draw little comfort from that notion. Even worse, the X and Y
were not sex chromosomes to begin with; they were autosomes before they became
sexy. The future Y chromosome was a copy of X chromosome. Where is the male
pride here? And a mere copy at that. Some call the Y, X-degenerate. What would Adam say to this?
The males don't draw any comfort from that scientific fact. The scientists
traced the X and the Y chromosome backwards and found them not sexy but very unsexy autosomes.
The X is a repository of thousands of genes, while the Y
is the poor - but proud- owner of a few dozen. A dozen or so of the genes
(27) shared by the X and Y look like fossils from which scientists reconstructed the
evolutionary story of the X and the Y. The fossil genes are neatly arranged at
the tips of the X chromosome, which speaks of good housekeeping. The Y
chromosome fossil genes in a typical fashion are strewn up and down the length
of the Y chromosome; this may explain why bachelor's dormitory rooms are in
disarray.
Anagram: Dormitory = Dirty Room. It is an evolutionary curse. Normal chromosomes exchange genes, when
they line up during sperm or egg formation, just like children exchange baseball
cards. By doing this mutual reciprocal exchange, the pairs know that they belong
to each other; if they do not recombine, the two may go their own separate ways and
take other forms. This exchange or recombination was suppressed in the distant
past during evolution. The blame goes to Y because Y moved the genes by taking
chunks of DNA and flipping them upside down: inversion. Inversion event is
the way Y frustrates X. This is the temper tantrum of Y which flings the genes
into places where the X cannot find and make reciprocal exchange. It is no
wonder that Israelite men were wandering in the desert for forty years without a
clue of their destination. They could have taken a hint from their spouses. They
could have asked
Three hundred million years ago--give or take a few million years-- one of the unsexy autosomal pair (the future sex chromosome) underwent mutation and became the sex chromosome which looked identical at first and later one started sporting SRY gene--Sex-determining Region Y. The original partner without the SRY gene stayed the X chromosome. Then the chromosomes did not determine the sex of the progeny. Environmental stimulus like temperature determined the sex of the progeny. Turtles and crocodile still follow the old-fashioned ways.
First the mammal chromosomes parted company with the birds 240-320 million years ago; autosomes became the sex chromosomes and Y acquired the SRY gene and X was deficient in SRY; we parted company with duck bill platypus 130-170 million years ago; for the third time we parted company with kangaroos 80-130 million years ago; for the fourth and the last time X and Y differentiated and parted company with lemurs 30-50 million years ago.
Once it incorporated the SRY gene, it started losing genes. It is said that the Y is losing 5 genes every million years. The SRY gene is the switch that is turned on in male fetus bearing Y chromosome. To begin with the X and the Y had approximately 1000 (1098) genes and now the Y has only 80 (78) genes. They exist as palindromes. The scientists say when the Y chromosome undergoes mutation, damage, slippage and loss, it makes up and recoups the loss by copying from its palindromes. In females there are two X (XX) chromosomes; if one X chromosome gene is diseased the other X chromosome makes up, and the disease is not manifest. In case of males, a similar situation is catastrophic because there is no balancing counterpart for the male and so Y suffers from X-linked diseases like hemophilia, autism, muscular dystrophy, fragile-X and so on. Now you know why the males are unbalanced.
Since 95% of Y (NRY= Non-recombining Region of Y) does not recombine with the X (the genes are all turned upside down in Y), it is isolated from X and starts accumulating mutations. 98% of Y chromosome is junk and the male passes on the accumulated junk to his sons and along the male line. (Genes undergoing mutation need recombination to repair the damage; if not they accumulate as junk. Kangaroo has the most junk in its Y chromosome. (That is why it jumps on its springy hind legs carrying all that junk instead of walking!; the weighty junk needs a spring to get it off the ground; O yes, I am stretching the truth! ) Scientists scavenge the garbage dump (study the junk) and identify paternity; junk has value; Y junkyard is research and commercial paradise: Y carries $ signs. David Page says Y is not really a landfill but a National Park, much like Yosemite or Yellowstone, (O Yea, tell me about it) though he admits that hairy earlobes (I keep trimming it; I still don't know why I need hair on my earlobes.) and porcupine skin are its(Y's) manifestations.
Y Chromosome is known to invite and harbor immigrant genes from other chromosomes that favor maleness like fertility genes.
When Kali says
that she is the origin of gods, men, women and matter, who is going to refute that
claim? Remember that the original Y is a copy of X. The male genes hijacked (took residence in) the autosome which
would become Y. That is why most of the hijackers are male. If you
(squatter) stay long enough in a place, you eventually own it. That is how the autosome became the Y chromosome,
when the sex genes claimed ownership;
there was a transfer of deed of ownership of the house to Y chromosome. The
colonizer becomes the owner. To begin with the new X
and Y looked alike; they did their dance like all other autosomes and exchanged
genes from each other. Then the Y became a loner and a lone ranger and stopped
nuclear exchange with X except at the ends; simply put, Y was not talking much
with X; there was no exchange of ideas (genes); this may be the primordial beginning of marital discord between X and Y. Y also has a lot of
palindromes of enormous lengths which forwards and backwards read the same like
MADAM. There are palindromes within palindromes which are compared to hall of
mirrors.
The copying of a single man's Y and fathering many children are called Male Intrasexual Selection. Genghis Khan's and his male relatives' Y spread widely and wildly because of conscripting large number of concubines on their victory march over a swath of land. Manchu and Mongol chromosomes left genetic imprints of large size in the populations of East Asia. This male Intrasexual Selection is not uncommon in the Middle East noted for harems in the past.
Y says to X, "I am not going to take this nonsense coming from you anymore. Your womb, your womb is the cause of your hysteria (hyster = uterus, womb), raving and ranting." X without missing a beat says, "Aren't we testy today like everyday. Listen, you goofball; I had enough with you; put up or shut up. Be a YY and never see the light of day."
Females are diploid (XX) and put together in a balanced way, while males are haploid (XY) and unbalanced.
The hubris of Y took new dimensions. Only Y could testify in the court because Y has the testis. The X for lack of testis, though a reliable map reader, observer, and witness could not testify. Thanks, things have changed.
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Medical
information: Normal genotype for male is XY
and for female XX.
One has to understand two terms:
Genotype and
Phenotype. Genotype is
the genetic makeup of an organism, while phenotype is observable constitution of
an organism (WYSIWYG = what you see is what you get). No one can change the
Genotype but Phenotype can be changed. In modern times when a male undergoes
sex-change operation, the person's genotype is still XY but the
Karyotype: the chromosomes of a cell, usually displayed as a systematized arrangement of chromosome pairs in descending order of size.
When there is no Male-Determining Gene (Normal Y), the fetus takes the default route and develops along the female line.
Here you can read about sex chromosomal mishaps or accidents during fertilization and embryo formation.
Metafemales or triple-X females, inherit three X chromosomes--their genotype is XXX or more rarely XXXX or XXXXX. As adults, these "super-females" are usually an inch or so taller than average with unusually long legs and slender torsos, but otherwise appear normal. They have normal development of sexual characteristics and are fertile. They may have slight learning difficulties and are usually in the low range of normal intelligence (especially the XXXX and XXXXX individuals). They tend to be emotionally immature for their size during childhood. This sometimes results in teachers and other adults labeling them as troublemakers. None of these traits prevent them from being socially accepted as ordinary adult women. This type of chromosomal abnormality is less rare than Turner syndrome, but little is known about it. The frequency is approximately 1 in 1,000 female infants and it occurs more commonly when the mother is older.
Klinefelter syndrome
males inherit one or more extra X
chromosomes--their genotype is XXY
or more rarely
XX male syndrome (also called de la Chapelle syndrome) is a rare sex chromosomal disorder in men. Usually it is caused by unequal crossing over between X and Y chromosomes during meiosis. Symptoms include small testes, gynecomastia (breast development) and sterility. Many males with this condition also have effeminate characteristics.
Men typically have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each diploid cell of their bodies. Women typically have two X chromosomes. XX males have two X chromosomes, but otherwise appear to be male. Diploid = two chromosomal pair in the cell)
Swyer syndrome, or XY gonadal dysgenesis, is a type of female
hypogonadism in which no functional gonads are present to induce puberty in an
otherwise normal
girl whose karyotype is then found to be
There are androgynous babies and grown-up adults with XX/XY genotype (Chimera).
Turner Syndrome with genotype 45,X. or XO. There is only one X in the female phenotype. There are other variations in the sex chromosome analysis.
Testicular Feminization.
Phenotype: Appearance, girl or Adult female. Genotype and Karyotype: Male,
Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) is when a person who is genetically male (has one X and one Y chromosome) is resistant to male hormones called androgens. As a result, the person has some or all of the physical characteristics of a woman, despite having the genetic makeup of a man.
The syndrome is divided into two main categories: complete and incomplete. Complete AIS results in someone who looks female. In the incomplete AIS syndrome, the degree of sexual ambiguity varies widely from individual to individual.
Causes
The syndrome is caused by various genetic mutations on the X chromosome. The mutations make a developing male baby unable to respond to androgens. (Androgens are responsible for male physical characteristics.)
Androgen = any substance, as testosterone or androsterone, that promotes male characteristics.
If the androgen insensitivity is complete, this prevents the development of the penis and other male body parts. The child is born appearing to be a girl. The complete form of the syndrome occurs in as many as 1 in 20,000 live births.
Different degrees of androgen resistance can result in a wide variety of outward symptoms. Incomplete AIS can include other disorders, such as Reifenstein's syndrome (also known as Gilbert-Dreyfus syndrome or Lubs syndrome), which is associated with hypospadias (where the opening of the urethra is on the underside, rather than at the tip, of the penis), gynecomastia (breast development in men), and cryptorchidism (when one or both testes fail to descend into the scrotum after birth).
Also included in the broad category of incomplete AIS is infertile male syndrome, which is sometimes due to an androgen receptor disorder.
In its classic form (complete androgen resistance), the person appears to be female but has no uterus, and has sparse armpit and pubic hair. At puberty, female secondary sex characteristics (e.g., breasts) develop, but menstruation and fertility do not.
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Kali's divine aliases: Bhowani Devi, Sati, Rudrani, Parvati, Chinnamastika, Kamakshi, Uma, Menakshi, Himavati, Kumari. She has names that start with the letter K: KAli, KarAli, Kalyani, KalAvati, KamalA, Kalidarpaghni, KaparddIsakripanvitA...
100 names of Kali starting with K (modified from Woodroffe--Hymns to Kali and Mahanirvana Tantra):
Notes: 28. Kumari-pUjanapritA Pleased by the Worship of Virgins. Worship of KumAri by men and of married woman by other women is common in Bengal. Here Kumari is Devi --Woodroffe, page 46 Hymns to the Goddess.
Notes: 38.
Notes: 40.
Notes: 47:
Notes 51:
Notes 53:
Notes 58:
Notes 79:
Notes 80:
Notes 95:
The other names are:
A Guru who knows his origin.
With the onset of Puranic times,
goddess worship underwent revival and reformation. Anti-Buddhist movement was
strengthened by Mother worshippers. Vedic age kept the goddesses within
the confines of divine household of gods; they were mere shadows; the
divine wives reflected the subordinate, dependent status of women in the Aryan's
social customs. The goddesses of Dawn (Usha) and Night (Ratri) were sisters,
more as a concept in the recess of the mind of poetic Indo-Aryans. Vedic age
regarded Mother Earth Prithvi as a cow; Water goddess (VAruni) had more
prominence. Could it be because VAruni was also a goddess of wine and
intoxication? Vedic belief was that man was the original and the woman was a
later discovery. Take Adam for example; he was purportedly the origin of Eve. The gods
appeared first; their mothers came later. Adityas came first and Aditi, their
mother was a later introduction. Indra came first and his mother came later.
This male dominance was prevalent in other cultures too. There were many water
goddesses and spirits like Sarasvati (
Saktas (Mother-Goddess worshippers) do not believe in the idea of First Male. They are of the belief that the first Being was Mother goddess and the gods and goddesses were Her sons and daughters. They believe that Kali is the Mother of Vishnu, Siva and Brahma. This idea coincides with the scientific fact that woman came first and man came later. XX first and XY later. Srimad Devi Bhagavatam (Chapter 11) blames Kali Yuga, the attenuation of Sattva Guna and the clever pundits for the worship of Hari and Hara and other Devatas instead of Mother Goddess. It further states that 100% Sattvic Pundits of Kaliyuga worship only Mother Goddess and not anybody else and therefore "do not have to suffer any pains in their mother's womb." No male power worth its name can work, enjoy and move in this world without the help of Mother Goddess. This universe and twenty-four Tattvas are Her creation. She is the ONLY repository of Cit Sakti without which no creation is possible.
Mahakali is the one who swallows Time, and the Mother of all beings and gods. Daksina means "south, gift, right." Yama is the Lord of death and lives in the south. He is afraid of taking Kali's devotees to Yama Loka, the abode of death, so she is called by the name Daksina Kali. The other explanation says that she offers the gift that guarantees liberation. The third explanation says that she is Daksina Kali because she plants her benign right foot on Siva over his chest where the heart is. She places her dangerous left foot on the demons and the wicked who succumb to her wrath. Kali in the cremation grounds (Smasana Kali) has her left foot forward in the company of ghosts, ghouls, jackals, and fearsome companion Mothers. (Mothers: Think of Charlie's Angels.) Another plausible explanation suggests that south-facing Daksina-Siva or -Bhairava adulates and worships Kali. The town where there is a Kali temple is called Daksinesvar. When you ask devotees which Kali they prefer, the informed ones prefer Kali with left foot forward (Vama Kali), because a devotee rises above the good and the bad, renounces the world and achieves liberation quickly. Her third eye strikes terror to the demons and the wicked. The three eyes represent triads: the sun, moon and fire; the past, present, and future. Third eye stands also for eternal wisdom.
Siva, Vishnu and Brahma come up like bubbles from ocean and disappear, while she lives for ever. It appears that ancient seers of India saw the escape of gases from the undersea volcanoes at bottom of the ocean. She is the ocean, while Brahma, Vishnu and Siva amount to quantity of water contained in the hoof-print of a cow. She is formless but takes many forms by her Maya. She is the real creator, preserver and destroyer, while Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are her children, and perform those functions at her behest. (She is Tryambaki meaning she is the Mother of the three.) She ebbs and flows with the phase of moon. She is bright during the waxing bright fortnight of the moon and dark in the waning dark fortnight, becoming dark and fierce at moonless night. (In the west, crescent moon was an icon of fertility.) In the dark of moonless night (Pralaya / dissolution) she is hideous and emaciated, flails her four arms, bares her fangs and devours all beings. What she gives in life, she takes back in death; she spins the wheel of death and renewal in an endless fashion. There is no birth or life without her; there is no death without her. She is Sakti (Power) of Siva; Siva is Sava (dead) without Sakti. She roams under polyonymous names: Sati, Parvati, Durga, Uma, Bhairavi, Bhavani, Tripura-Sunadari. She is Time: life and death, which are part of Time, are resident in her; she wields her Sakti on life and death. She has the noose, the staff and the sword and to prove that no one can escape the tyranny of Time, she carries a severed head. The blood-dripping sword (of knowledge) and the severed head represent fall of Avidya (ignorance) and rise of Vidya (knowledge). Head is the seat of human consciousness, which is not transcendent or superconscious, and always mired in mundane affairs and in apara vidya (not supreme knowledge). Severing of the head is also symbolic of severing of false human consciousness and opening of superconsciousness necessary for Para Vidya (Supreme knowledge). The sword symbolizes the cutting the knots of Pasa (impurities, bonds) of the soul, which prevent the soul from attaining moksa. Blood dripping from the head is removal of Raja Guna (motion and passion) and ascent of Sattva (virtue and goodness). Death and darkness are preludes to life and light: That is Kali in those aspects. There is no way one can explain all these qualities of Kali without painting a picture as seen elsewhere.
She wears or sports a kilt of severed arms dangling from her waist as a skirt, a necklace of 51 severed heads representing 51 letters of Sanskrit alphabet, earrings dangling in the form dead children, serpents as bracelets, spear, club, discus, conch, bow and arrows, sling and mace, a sword dripping blood, a lolling tongue, a pair of scissors, fierce fangs with blood-dripping lips, a flower on one hand, and a cascade of flowing hair streaming from her head. Is there a sight with more gore than blood? Are there pain and anguish more than a child's death? Death is a predictable reality which no one can escape. All these realities of life one has to face before one takes leave of life. That is the role Kali plays by bringing reality to one's life. Her lolling tongue, the insatiable thirst for blood, a skirt made of amputated hands, dangling dead children, wriggling snakes and bodiless head dripping blood depict the ever-present violence and terror in the world in many of its forms. Aren't you reminded of the war? She wears the devastation of war on her body. If you see her you see the nakedness of war in its full spectrum. That is Reality. Since she is the Supreme Goddess and has the power of all gods concentrated in her, she on her body, wears, as it were, creation, maintenance, destruction, veiling and grace. Some sources say that she was embarrassed by stepping on Siva in the battleground and as a sign of shame and modesty, she lolled her tongue out. Others say that red tongue is Raja Guna overcome by white teeth, Sattva Guna.
Another explanation: The heads Kali wears as a garland of heads are those of Demons, whom Kali has vanquished, and she established righteousness. The Demons are Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, Mada, Matsarya (desire, anger, greed, delusion, pride, and envy. This is the Garland of Letters (VarnaMAlA = letter + garland). In Hinduism and Christianity, the word is the origin of the universe.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." John 1:1-5 Think of Logos, the Divine Word.
The letters represent the universe of names and forms; without letters there is no name or no form. At pralaya or cosmic dissolution, she withdraws all letters, meaning the universe. With reference to Kundalini Yoga, the Body Centers contain all letters of the Sanskrit alphabet on the petals of the Lotuses. We (our body, mind, soul) are the Universe, the microcosm of the macrocosm that is the larger Universe.
Letters of alphabet: Revelation 1.8: "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Her lolling red tongue is also symptomatic of Raja Guna, which indicates the creative power in her; her Raja guna (motion, passion, creation) is constructive in Kali, while it is destructive in humans; it is a reminder that men should control their Raja Guna (motion, passion and destruction).
Karma is thought, word and deed; hand is the end organ for the performance of a deed or action. A skirt of severed arms is symbolic of expunction of Karma; thus, Kali cuts the devotees free from the hand of karma.
Kali's votaries unload all their Karma by their devotion.
She appears in front of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (RKPH) as a real-life gracious goddess accepting food and submitting herself to his test to see whether she is really a breathing and living goddess, RKPH feeling of her breath under her nose; she also appears as Ramani a known seductress and prostitute in front of RKPH within the sanctum in an act of play with her disciple. RKPH addressed the Mother Kali, saying She chose to appear as Ramani for his worship of Her in that form. Kali is divine, though she represents (but transcends) goodness, virtue, vile, wickedness, and all human weaknesses. We are of course reminded of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.
She sits on supine Siva in Viparita Mithuna (reverse coition) stance in the cremation ground. In the Dakshinesvar temple, black Kali stands on supine white Siva with wide-open eyes with her right foot planted over his chest, where the heart is and the left foot on his right thigh. Siva's eyes are transfixed on his consort; that is living Siva looking at her, while Sava Siva looks away from her purporting that He has absorbed both Siva and Sakti into Him. Her right side is all goodness and motherly love and Her left side is all destruction. What right hand gives, left hand takes away; here the meaning is that She gives Dharma (righteousness), Artha (wealth), and Kama (love) during life and moksa (liberation) at death. That is a fact of life, good and bad, birth and death, benign and malignant. Joseph Campbell says, "In the West, we tend to make our beneficent divinities beneficent, and our malignant ones malignant. The main point in these Eastern images is that both terms are present in the same image, as they are in life. In his wonderful Tristan, Gottfried von Strassburg says, 'They tell me there are those who seek only happiness and peace. Let God give them peace. I seek the life that has both bitterness and sweetness simultaneously'."
Kali comes in many forms of which two are mentioned here. One is the benign kind and the other is fierce kind. Benign Kali (Dakshina) keeps the right foot forward planted on the chest of Siva with her left hand holding the sword; fierce Smasāna (cremation ground) Kali holds the left foot forward with the sword on the right hand. Mahakali is the one who swallows Time, and the Mother of all beings and gods. Kali says to every one in and out of sight that She is life and death, the dance of life and death, the broad-step Dancer of the wide universe and a nimble Dancer on the point of a diamond. Shyama Kali is black Kali who as Sati was dancing in a frenzy and the world was terrified. Siva, her dear consort, laid himself flat on the ground, hoping that she would step on him, take pity and remorse and stop the wild dance. She stepped on her husband by mistake, realized her mistake, lolled her tongue out in remorse, and stopped the wild dance. Gunas (modes) carry color codes; Sattva, virtue, is white; Rajas, motion and passion, is red; Tamas, lethargy and indolence, is black. Black is the all-consuming color where all colors drown and disappear. Black color like the black hole draws everything in its consuming spiral and all substances and qualities disappear. That is Nirguna Brahman (Kali) without qualities. Lolling tongue is passion and activity, while the white teeth holding the tongue in check is virtue. Lolling red tongue is a reminder to the devotee that one should control his Rajas guna with his Sattva guna. What the right hands confer in the form of protection from fear and boons are countered by the left hand holding the severed head and the blood-stained sword; she is a protector of the devotee on one hand and a destroyer of the enemy and evil on the other hand. The destruction may sometimes be unmitigative, superabundant, unchecked and indiscriminate. Tejas of gods coalesced to form goddess Kali, who received all their collective strength and weapons; the gods did not impose any restriction on donated strength and weapons. When the gods realized their mistake, they sent Siva to lie down in a supplicant fashion on the battlefield and her many paths, so that she feels embarrassed (Faux Pas) upon stepping on him, and thereby mitigate her inordinate power. She creates Maya but is free of its effects. Maya is the progenitor of the universe and beings. Clothing is covering the body; likewise covering is hiding the Truth; nudity is uncovering the Truth. Smasana Kali loves to stay in cremation grounds, where the Kosas (sheaths) of the body dissolve and return to their respective sources, earth, water, air, fire, and ether. Likewise, the Tattvas involute starting from earth backwards and upwards to Superconsciousness of Devi. Once the Mahabhutas and impurities disappear for ever by the fire of knowledge, what is left is pure soul with knowledge, (saktinipatam). Saktinipatam is descent of Supreme Spiritual knowledge into the soul, when all the impurities are burnt off.
Sakti (wife) always stood by Siva on his left side in this process of Pravrtti (evolution, creation and multiplication). Evolution (Pravrtti) is a centrifugal movement of the soul away from Goddess. She chooses to bump (demote) the fecund father, rejects amorous advances from Divine Father, takes his place and stands him on her left side (role reversal); this process is the beginning of Nivrtti (cessation, retrograde involution). Nivrtti is centripetal movement of the soul towards Goddess. She is in possession of three qualities: Iccha, Jnana and Kriya (Will, Knowledge, and Action). She exercises her Will because she has the necessary Knowledge, which gave her the name Mahavidya (Great Knower). She destroys all the devilish qualities of her sons, holds them by her right hand, and takes them back on Nivrtti Marga (path). The fecundating Father who