Kali

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December 4, 2017, Monday Night Class: “Not-knowing is true knowledge. Presuming to know is a disease…”

SuperMoonBlue

March 11, 2018.  A week ago, it seemed like Spring. And then a wild crazy nor’easter blew in. The Mother of All Storms. Thick heavy snow coming down a mile a minute. Thunder and lightning adding to the show. Trees down, power out, and the time that rules the dance of daily life stood still. Truth be told, I rather like these times that are, in their way, outside of time. In the space between…

Years ago I was in a meditation retreat with Baba Muktananda. He was teaching the ham-sa mantra. Part of the practice was to focus our awareness on the space between the breaths. To remain in that spaciousness for as long as we could, Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, maybe ten seconds. He showed us how in that space between the breaths, we touch eternity, poised outside the limiting constructs of time…

One of the curious experiences I had during that weekend retreat was excruciating pain in my left hip. Which began in the Saturday morning session and continued through the closing on Sunday night. Ardent yogini that I was, I soldiered through. And here’s the thing. At the end of the retreat, the pain was gone. Gone. And has never returned…

Was the pain — and I am talking about 48 hours of non-stop physical agony — a kriya, an illusion, something burning up? I will never know. But it did teach me that what I perceive and what is actually happening are not necessarily the same. That when I think I know, or as the Tao Te Ching verse quoted above says, when I presume to know, the odds are, knowledge is not happening….

It’s a tricky business, this knowing and not-knowing, this “I” with all its presumptions, agendas, associations, projections, and attachments. It really does close up the space. And I won’t say I know this. But I sure do feel it in my bones. The spaciousness of that space between the breaths, that’s where it’s all happening. Or not-happening. That is where I want to live.

Here’s my dharma talk from Monday, December 4th. It could be called, What we are is so much more interesting than what we think we should be…. This is a rather freewheeling talk with a handful of LOL moments.

AUDIO OF DECEMBER 4, 2017 DHARMA TALK

AUDIO OF ON TARA TUTTARE TURE SWAHA OPENING OF CLASS

AUDIO OF NAVARNA AND OM NAMAH SHIVAYA MANTRAS

THE TEXTS 

We were reading this text back-to-front but this verse called for a front-to-back context so I also read the two preceding verses. I’m copying them here in that order…

72.
When they lose their sense of awe,
people turn to religion.
When they no longer trust themselves,
they begin to depend upon authority.

Therefore the Master steps back
so that people won’t be confused.
He teaches without teaching,
so that people will have nothing to learn.

70.
My teachings are easy to understand
and easy to put into practice.
Yet your intellect will never grasp them,
and if you try to practice them, you’ll fail.

My teachings are older than the world.
How can you grasp their meaning?

If you want to know me,
look inside your heart.

71.
Not-knowing is true knowledge.
Presuming to know is a disease.
First realize that you are sick;
then you can move towards health.

The Master is her own physician.
She has healed herself of all knowing.
Thus she is truly whole.

Prepping for this class which happened to fall on a Super Moon evening, this poem from Lex Hixon’s Mother of the Universe, jumped out off the page.  This book used to be my go-to text. As I’ve grown simpler with age however, Lex’s versions of Ramprasad strike me as being a bit too thick. I want everything pared down to its essence. Reading this poem over and over though and typing it out just now, well, let me say that myriad adjectives not withstanding, it’s a rather potent map. And quite soaring.

I am a child reaching out to catch the moon
Ramprasad/Lex Hixon 

Who in the world can know what Mother Kali really is?
She is beyond the reach of every scripture,
every system of philosophy.

As the radiant blackness of divine mystery,
she plays through the lotus wilderness of the sacred human body.
The practitioner of meditation encounters her power
deep in the blossom of primordial awareness
and within the thousand-petal lotus
that floats far above the mind.

Kali is the conscious core,
shining through every awakened sage
who delights in oneness.
This has been demonstrated by countless realized beings.
Ma Tara is the queen of freedom within all hears.
She reigns timelessly and tenderly.
Planes and dimensions of being
more vast and subtle than anyone can imagine
are found within her womb of encompassing wisdom.
The Goddess alone knows the extent of her power.
Who else could possibly know?

Laments the singer of this mystic hymn:
“Everyone will laugh at my attempt to swim
the shoreless sea of her reality,
but my soul belongs to her
and my heart delights in longing.
I am a child reaching out to catch the moon.”

As usual, the final word goes to Mary Oliver. This poem is vast. We can read it over and over again, and always discover something new…

The Mockingbird
Mary Oliver

All summer
the mocking bird
in his pearl-gray coat
and his white-windowed wings

flies
from the hedge to the top of the pine
and begins to sing, but it’s neither
lilting nor lovely,

for he is the thief of other sounds–
whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges
plus all the songs
of other birds in his neighborhood;

mimicking and elaborating,
he sings with humor and bravado
so I have to wait a long time
for the softer voice of his own life

to come through. He begins
by giving up all his usual flutter
and setting down on the pine’s forelock
then looking around

as though to make sure he’s alone;
then he slaps each wing against his breast,
where his heart is,
and, copying nothing, begins

easing into it
as though it was not half so easy
as rollicking,
as though his subject now

was his true self,
which of course was as dark and secret,
as anyone else’s
and it was too hard—
perhaps you understand—
to speak or to sing it
to anything or anyone
but the sky.

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October 13, 2014: Unveil the Self-Radiant Diamond of Your Essence

We’re moving into a cycle of wisdom teachings of the Devi tradition, expressed so beautifully in Lex Hixon’s version of this poem from Ramprasad:

 

Unveil the self-radiant diamond of your essence
Ramprasad/Hixon
 

O distracted mind,

why are you indulging in anxiety?
Be still for just the space of Kali, Kali, Kali
and concentrate your gaze on her reality.
Those who worship the Goddess with splendid ceremony
become imbued with pride.
Much better is the inward path of secret devotion,
invisible to the curious state of the world.

Why construct static images of Mother Reality
from metal, stone, straw, clay?
Allow pure mind to compose her form
from consciousness alone.
Place this living image on the heart lotys
and wait for her to come.

Why bother to gather ripe plantains
to present with ritual gestures at her feet?
She delights only in the nectar of selfless love,
offered directly and abundantly,
breath by breath.

Why worship with such profusion of jewels and lamps?
Unveil the self-radiant diamond of your essence,
O mind, and allow it alone to illuminate
the heart’s secret shrine day and night.

What sense is there to sacrifice animals
as worship of Goddess Kali,
when she desires only the death of egocentricity?
Cut through these childish dreams of separation
with her sword of nondual wisdom,
crying: “Victory to Kali! Jai Ma Kali!
May your truth of oneness triumph endlessly!”

The singer of this hymn has no need for flute or drum
but calls ecstatically to everyone:
“Clap your hands and proclaim melodiously
Ma Kali’s universal victory,
until the mind dissolves completely
into her inconceivable reality.”

The poem says it so exquisitely:

“Until the mind dissolves completely into her inconceivable reality” — i.e., the self-radiant diamond of our essential nature…

And that my friends is the path and the goal. Experiencing that, knowing that, moving into that…. That’s the practice. That’s why we practice. That, quite simply, is it.  Or as Keats put it, “that is all we need to know…”

 

* * * * * * *

Here’s the opening chant from last week’s class. I’ve been personally obsessing with this version of Durga, Durga, Durga. I posted words and free translation on last week’s post. Here they are again:

Durga Durga Durga, Jai Jai Ma
Karuna Sagari Ma
Kali Kapalini Ma Jagododharini Ma
Jai Jagadambe Jai Jai Ma

Glory to the Ocean of Knowledge, Compassion, and Truth that carries me across the ocean of the world.

Think of the ocean of the world as the sense of limitation and separateness that wreaks havoc in the ways we conduct ourselves in our inner and outer lives…  (aka “O distracted mind, why are you indulging in anxiety…’)

 

Here’s my 10.6 Dharma Talk. This clip also contains class chanting of Hymn to Devi and my reading of  the Ramprasad poem:

 

Finally, here’s class chanting of Navarna mantra and closing dharana:

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The Fire of Love: Dharma Talk, Dharanas, and Chanting from 10.15.12

It’s been nearly three months since I’ve written here. Coming back this evening I discovered content that’s been sitting since October, waiting to be fleshed out and published.

This is a talk I gave on 10.15. While the Path of Heart was still my principal focus, I was beginning to weave the Kali Work back into the tapestry. For the last few years, I’ve moved away from metaphors of the Sacred Feminine. This talk on the fire of love marks a shift back into that perceptual framework and articulates where we find ourselves when Kali awakens on the Path of Heart…

Here’s the Mary Oliver poem I read as a dharana at the end of my talk:

Maybe
 -Mary Oliver
 
Sweet Jesus, talking
his melancholy madness,
stood up in the boat
and the sea lay down,
silky and sorry.
So everybody was saved
that night.
But you know how it is
 
when something
different crosses
the threshold — the uncles
mutter together,
 
the women walk away,
the young brother begins
to sharpen his knife.
Nobody knows what the soul is.
 
It comes and goes
like the wind over the water —
sometimes, for days,
you don’t think of it.
 
Maybe, after the sermon,
after the multitude was fed,
one or two of them felt
the soul slip forth
like a tremor of pure sunlight
before exhaustion,
that wants to swallow everything,
gripped their bones and left them
 
miserable and sleepy,
as they are now, forgetting
how the wind tore at the sails
before he rose and talked to it —
 
tender and luminous and demanding
as he always was —
a thousand times more frightening
than the killer storm.

Here are mantras [om namah shivaya and navarna] with a short dharana at the end of the clip:

And the last word goes to Mirabai/Bly.  If you’re still wondering how to walk the Fire Path of Heart, here are operating instructions…

The Heat of Midnight Tears

-Mirabai
English version by Robert Bly
 
Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.
 
If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water,
I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.
If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts,
Then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb!
If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves,
Then the goats would surely go to the Holy One before us!
 
If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,
I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.
 
Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God.
 

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Monday, September 17, 2012

This week’s class fell on Rosh Hashonah, the first day of the Jewish New Year. In Jewish tradition, the first ten days of the year are considered the High Holy Days, the Days of Awe. There’s a sense that over these first ten days we lay the blueprint for the rest of the year. So the suggestion is to spend this time in quiet contemplation, taking stock of how we’ve moved towards the light, and how we’ve moved away. Along with this intensive self-inquiry, it’s traditional to eat apples dipped in honey, a symbolic act for bringing sweetness into our lives.

So I thought it only right to offer this class to sweetness and light…

Hence, I added srim, the Laksmi bija mantra, to last week’s mix of Gayatri and Om Namah Shivaya — and brought in a group of Hafiz/Landinsky poems and a reading from Lawrence Kushner’s kabbalistic musings, Honey From the Rock.

For visitors unfamiliar with the Laksmi bija mantra, let me say a few things about srim — which I can’t properly transliterate here — fyi, it’s pronounced “shreem.” Srim is a seed mantra meaning it contains the full potency of the deity field. In this case, Laksmi, aka the power of splendor, magnificence, expansiveness, abundance… you get the idea.  So the teachings go that whatever Laksmi touches grows into its most magnificent form.  And sweetness is one of the attributes of Laksmi. This is a perfect sweetness. Not so sweet as to be cloying or just plain too sweet. This is the perfection of sweetness. The sweetness that makes us feel, well, let me say it like it is, positively delicious. We might say we experience the sweetness of Laksmi as a kind of effervescent grace. When all is right with our lives and infinity is possible…

Before I go on, let me also say a few things about Monday Night Class. There is much I love about this class. Its longevity. The people who find their way there. The depth and power of the teachings and practice. The sense of welcome, safety, and community. Sometimes though, I think what I love best is the sweetness of the laughter. Here’s a clip from this week’s class:

https://mondaynight.blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/9-17-laughter1.mp3

Here’s this week’s dharma talk. Which  begins with the below posted Hafiz. This small group of poems offers an excellent teaching on what gets in the way of our ability/intention to live in and of our sweetness and light [and delight!] I’ll post the Kushner quote which I also read in this talk, below Hafiz. Kushner is writing specifically about Light. The two together make an excellent counterpoint on the topic of sweetness and light. Add in the mantras and we have a fugue for the heart…

Here are the Hafiz poems, from Daniel Landinsky’s book, The Gift. 

THE SAD GAME,

Blame
Keeps the sad game going.
It keeps stealing all your wealth –
Giving it to an imbecile with
No financial skills.
Dear one,
Wise
Up.

 

TIRED OF SPEAKING SWEETLY

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.
If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.
Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth.
That make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,
Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.
God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And  practice His dropkick.
The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:
Hold  us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.
But when we hear
He is in such a “playful drunken mood”
Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.

 

DROPPING KEYS

The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.

  

FIND A BETTER JOB

Now
That
All your worry
Has proved such an
Unlucrative
Business,
Why
Not
Find a better
Job.

 

I WISH I COULD SPEAK LIKE MUSIC

I wish I could speak like music.
I wish I could put the swaying splendor
of the fields into words
so that you could hold Truth
Against your body
And dance.
I am trying the best I can
With this crude brush, the tongue,
To cover you with light.
I wish I could speak like divine music.
I want to give you the sublime rhythms
Of this earth and the sky’s limbs
As they joyously spin and surrender,
Surrender
Against God’s luminous breath.
Hafiz wants you to hold me
Against your precious
Body
And dance,
Dance.

Here’s the quote from Lawrence Kushner’s Honey from the Rock:

It is no accident that all the great creation tales begin with light. Of all the things that the Creator might have first formed – mountains, waterfalls, stars, flowers, fruited plains, lions and lambs, leviathans and whirlwinds, single-celled creatures and man – He made light. First of all the Holy One fashioned consciousness.

Let us retell the story of this light which is a metaphor for spiritual awareness:
A light with which the Holy One began the creation. Let there be light and there was light.
In the Zohar we read further of creation. Some kind of dark flame – blinding flash – issued forth from the innermost hiddenness – from the mystery of the Ayn-Sof, the Infinite One….
 
A light that was so dazzling that by it…man could gaze from one end of the universe to the other. A light so powerful that is shattered earthly vessels. A light that if it fell into the hands of the wicked could return creation itself back to primordial chaos. A light that therefore had to be hidden away. And God made a separation.
 
A light that was set aside for the Tsadikim [the righteous ones].
Light is sown for the righteous…
 
A light whose appearance initiates creation. But it is a creation only able to withstand a tiny bit of light. Therefore the light had to be concealed. And so it is that darkness and incompletion and separation are the price of this world. While light initiates existence, existence conceals light.
 
For with the appearance of the light being began,
But with the concealment of the light
all manner of individuated existence was created…
Just this is the mystery of the work of creation;
And one who is able to understand will understand.
 
A light imprisoned in the shards of this created world, waiting for us to free it. Returning itself and us to the Creator.
 
A light so awesome that even a fraction of its splendor – just so much as a ray the thinness of a needle is all any of us need for unimaginable illumination.

Here’s a clip of this week’s chanting. I tried a different microphone placement, hoping to pick up less harmonium, more voices. Alas, I ended up with more harmonium. The call is quite clear, but I’m sorry to say the response is barely audible.

Finally, here’s a clip of the dharana I gave before gliding into silent meditation:

And when the topic is light, the last word goes to Devi, the Shining. This quote is found in the frontpiece of Ajit Mookerjee’s book, Kali, the Feminine Force. He cites Bhairava Yamala as the source text.  I’ve never been able to find this text or any verse resembling the quote. A google search brings up nothing definitive. So I’m going to assume that Mookerjee had access to an unpublished text fragment and made this very beautiful translation. Wherever it comes from, whatever its source, it pulsates with sweetness, luminosity, and supreme bliss:

 She is Light itself and transcendent.

Emanating from Her body are rays in thousands —
two thousand, a hundred thousand, tens of millions,
a hundred million —
there is no counting their numbers.
 
It is by and through Her that all things moving
and motionless shine.  It is by the light of this
Devi that all things become manifest.    

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October 31, 2011

 

Since this week’s class fell on Halloween, I was moved to acknowledge Samhain, the ancient Celtic holiday from which our modern celebration springs.

Here are Samhain blessings I read at class:

May wonder ever illumine your souls as the candle does a room on a long, winter night, may joy blow through your heart with the intensity of the north wind in a blizzard, may peace cover your lives like a blanket of fresh fallen snow.

May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far…

May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, may you be held in the hands of Grace.

Harry Potter notwithstanding, Samhain’s special connection to the Dark Goddess has been distorted in our Halloween iconography of witches on broomsticks. It is however, a night to honor the Dark Mother, so I opened class with a medley of Kali chants. Here’s the dharma talk that followed that soaring flight of luminosity…

 

 

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September 26, 2011

We will return to Patanjali, I promise. For the time being though, we’re luxuriating in mantra practice inspired by the fall season. This cycle of practice/teachings constellates around a family of mantras beloved to long-time Monday Nighters: Gayatri, Navarna, and Tarika Bija. I’ll likely add a handful of others to the mix, but want to underline the potency and power of these three as catalysts for illuminating and strengthening the inner being (Gayatri and Navarna) and infusing that interior essence with majesty, generosity, and grace (Tarika Bija).

Here’s a sound clip from the Navarna class on 9/26. I tried using a microphone I thought would give a better recording. Unfortunately, the opposite happened. You’ll have to listen carefully to hear DanJ’s tabla. And while I was able to salvage the dharana I gave at the end of class, the volumeof my commentary is too low. So, that bit of dharma talk  remains only in the memories of those who were there. If you want to chant or listen to the Navarna mantra however, this clip will be just fine…

In closing, here are the excerpts from the Ramprasad poem I read at the end of class. This is from Lex Hixon’s book, Mother of the Universe, his ecstatic collection of Ramprasad’s poetry. This one’s on page 180:

Kali is naked reality.
She is the feminine principle, unifying wisdom.
This simpleminded lover of truth
calls her my mother, my mother,
because she is the inexhaustible affection
who never neglects her children….

This poet urges every human heart:
“If you wish to be liberated from oppression,
abandon whatever limits you cling to
and meditate on the limitless one
who wears limitation as a garland of heads
severed by her sword of nondual wisdom.”

For readers who’ve found this blog online and may not be familiar with the Navarna mantra or Goddess Kali, let me simply suggest you can think of Kali an an archetype of Truth–and think of the Navarna mantra as the lifeblood of that truth. So chanting this mantra nourishes, strengthens, and vitalizes your connection to, you guessed it, your innate sense of truth.