Kali - The Black Goddess
As children, we are taught to fear the dark. The bad guys wear black hats; we should stay away from dark places; the enemy of Christianity is the "Prince of Darkness." All our lives we are taught that the way to goodness is to strive towards the light, away from the dark which is bad..
But is the dark bad? Isn't it more likely that the dark is something that we need? There can be no light without the darkness; each day has a night in which we rest to refuel ourselves, to regain our energy. As such, the dark is represented as a place and time for renewal. Surely it would stand to reason, then, that we need the dark side of ourselves; but if that is the case, why do so many of us strive to rid ourselves of this aspect, to deny it and put it away? And in so doing, might we not be causing inner turmoil in ourselves as we deny something that is really needed by our souls, minds, and hearts? Repression of a thing is almost never good, and can perhaps lead to an eruption of our emotions and feelings, perhaps violently, as time goes by. Our Judeo-Christian society has tried to teach us to repress anger, not to be demonstrative in our sexuality, and not to show too many emotions; we need to be calm, cool and collected, and mold ourselves into a person that is accepted in today's society. But in so doing, have we not tried to push away aspects of ourselves that we need to express? Perhaps this is one reason why psychiatry is a booming business..
Any of us that really look inward at our spirits, our souls, know that we are not all goodness and light. We each have dark aspects and things that we hide from the world, since we have been taught that these things are bad. They are pushed away into the dark; death is considered the ultimate dark and bad circumstance. Yet many cultures do not look at death that way. They simply see death as a gateway to another life, a part of the natural cycle, the circle that never stops turning..
In recent years, however, more and more books on exploring the "Dark Goddess" aspect of ourselves have appeared. The Dark Goddess aspect is recognized as a product of ancient civilizations that acknowledged death and darkness as being part of the whole..
The dark goddess lives in us all; suppressed and denied she will at some point leak out as hostility and sarcasm, nagging and put downs. Suppressed too far, she can manifest herself by turning her destructive energy inwards, creating depression and disease..
To bring dark into the light and light into the dark of our psyches can be a frightening experience. To acknowledge intense emotions such as anger, despair, grief and fear, especially if we relate this to mothering, can be earth-shattering. But if you remember your own mother, was she all sweetness and light? It can be terribly burdensome trying to live up to the expectations our society puts upon us as parents, to be perfect and raise the perfect well-behaved child. There is nothing really in our culture that validates the more intense emotions.
Some cultures, though, are not saddled with the uncertainty and feelings of failure that fall upon our shoulders when we cannot live up to our own and other's expectations. For example, the Hindu societies worship and adore Kali, who is a triple Mother Goddess of creation, preservation, and destruction. She is the ultimate example of the terrible mother as she gives life, but also takes it away..
'Kal' means darkness, which Kali takes away. As all colors of the spectrum mix into black, black still remains black. Kali, the Dark and Unknowable, takes darkness away, yet she herself remains unchanged..
She symbolizes the eternal night of death, a night that is free of illusion. She is formless void, yet full of potential. Her paramount place of worship is the cremation ground, usually in the dead of night during the waning moon. For those adept at her worship, the entire earth becomes the cremation ground, Kali the pyre.
"Kal" means time and "i" the cause; therefore, Kali is the Cause of Time and is beyond time; she activates our consciousness so that it may perceive. Her garland which is made up of human skulls is seen as the heads of impure thoughts which she has severed from her worshippers. She slices away conflicting thoughts and silences the loud roar of mental conflict; she cuts away the sorrow of egotistical attachments; she takes the things to herself and makes of them a garland. She wears all karma as an ornament, therefore, while ending the ceaseless myriad voices of the active mind, leaving her devotees to experience inner peace in the absorption of solitude. She places her worshipers in the balance of divine meditation. Giving up all their difficulties, their petty disagreements, their attitudes, even the ego itself to Kali, her devotees experience divine peace and delight..
Kali is most often depicted standing or dancing upon the corpse of Lord Shiva. She is the recognizable form of awareness or consciousness. However, consciousness is the observer of all action; this is why Lord Shiva is shown as a lifeless corpse, still, with fixed eyes, trained on the image of the Divine Mother. That Consciousness (Shiva) witnesses the dance of Nature (Kali)..
She dances to get Lord Shiva's attention, to attract him. However, Shiva does not forget that it is Nature that is dancing, and he remains the silent observer. Kali is nature personified; she is all of Nature, not just of the dark forces. As Mother Nature she dances upon the form of Consciousness. She is often associated with the Tamas, which means darkness, but not in the sense of ignorance. There is a darkness which exposes the light, and as personification of Tamas, Kali is the Energy of Wisdom. Her darkness spreads over the world to make seekers oblivious to the transient externals, to cover worldly desire. Pure Consciousness knows that the world continues according to its nature in a cyclical flow--the wheel of life continues to go on of its own accord. When one can reside within, and without attachment to the changing externals, then the supreme truth may be realized. When Kali takes away the darkness of the outside world, she helps to illumine the inner world. This is her Grace. With Kali's love we can become unattached and free...
