Why we must worship Goddess Kali

Ma Kali is the most misunderstood of all Hindu Goddesses, though she is often regarded as the most powerful. Ma Kali’s dark and fierce form is certainly intimidating and hard to fathom, unless one is willing to look with discernment behind the veil of the many sensational images about her.

Ma Kali was first introduced to the modern world by Ramakrishna Paramahansa as the Supreme Mother of the Universe. Through Ramakrishna – an avatar for many – the inspiration of Ma Kali awoke India to its ancient spiritual heritage and brought the unifying message of yoga to the world through his disciple Swami Vivekananda.

This was at a time in which the world was dominated by cruel colonial powers and the idea of the Universal Mother was not accepted – much less a World Mother who was dark in colour and fierce in demeanour from a backward country such as India was viewed to be!

Yet instead of following Ramakrishna’s yogic teachings about Ma Kali as the transcendent Mother, scholars today still look at Kali in an alien and diminished light as a force of darkness, destruction or wrath. What modern psychologists tell us about Kali often reveals more about their own fascinations with the subconscious mind and its emotional traumas, rather than the Great Goddess who looks over all of us with wisdom and compassion.

Yogic deities are best understood according to meditation practices and the realities of the subtle lokas they reflect. They relate to energies of higher consciousness beyond the vexing dualities of the mind and the primal urges of the body. As such, their appearances are dramatic and paradoxical – mind-blowing as it were, and intentionally so. Only when we go beyond the mind can we directly experience the reality of consciousness and our true cosmic bering.

Nature of Ma Kali

Ma Kali is kala shakti or the power of time and eternity. She indicates the impermanence of all things, which is why she wears a garland of skulls. Yet she is also the ultimate transforming power of time, which is to take us from death to immortality. Along with endless time, Kali is boundless space, the limitless void, indicated by her dark blue colour. Her magical dance of transformation is all existence. Her face is infinite space.

Kali holds the vidyut shakti, the lightning or electrical force of consciousness that is the supreme power. All the Goddesses and the entire universe manifests from her indomitable will. Kali’s seed mantra is “kreem,” which is the kriya shakti or power of transformation behind the vast movement of life.

Kali is not the Goddess of death and destruction as some see her but, on the contrary, represents the complete victory of the Divine over all death and destruction. Her warrior Goddess form removes all the illusions of the mind and reveals the undying presence of our inmost Self that is one with all.

Ma Kali as the Yoga Shakti

Ma Kali is the inner power of yoga or Yoga Shakti. Yoga in the true sense is a practice of mergence and return to the Divine source of existence from the peripheral realm of multiplicty. Yoga rests upon nirodha, the full concentration of the mind and dissolution of the ego. Kali is the nirodha shakti, the power of negation, neti-neti, not this, not that, of the Upanishads.

Kundalini Shakti, the secret yogic power of transformation within the subtle body, works through Kali’s grace and motivation. Kundalini ascends and dissolves all the chakras, or energy centres within us, back into the state of pure unity consciousness that is Ma Kali’s ultimate abode in the beyond.

Kali is the Shakti inherent in Shiva as Mahakala, the great lord of eternity. She dances on Shiva in a prone form, showing the Divine life and joy that manifests out of absolute stillness and transcendence that cannot be intimidated by anything.