Connecting with a Goddess

I call on Durga. She comes, riding her tiger. They gracefully sway towards me like synchronised dancers, perfectly in tune. She reaches her hand to take mine and swings my arm around to her neck, pulling me up onto the tiger behind her. The tiger begins padding slowly, languidly away.

Durga holds my hand over her right shoulder; connected, both of us looking in the same direction together. We sway in unison with the rolling gait of the tiger. Any tension, constriction or holding feels painful, resisting the motion of the tiger. I feel my body relax, soften, go with the flow of the tiger’s movements.

We stop, Durga satisfied we have reached our destination. I laugh.

There she is.

Durga has brought me to Kālī. Always back to Kālī.

Kālī stands, legs wide apart. Fearsome dark-skinned beauty. Warrior! Red tongue hanging out, eyes wide. She wears fur around her shoulders. A black or brown bear? Something with long shaggy fur. 

Kālī plants her feet. I go to her and kneel before her, touching her feet. The ground beneath us slips away and we are in space. Expansive beings! Beingness! I look up at her but she is formless. I am formless. Dissolved. We are present with each other. One!

I have no fear. No. A little fear! Of the immensity of it. The vastness of space. Of being her and I and all of time at once. Together.

I experience gods and goddesses as individual personalities who I speak to and form relationships with. Like Ascended Masters, I believe gods and goddesses were people who lived stellar lives and gave much wisdom and understanding to their people. The first was Kālī.

The image I had seen of Kālī does not inspire warm fuzzies. She is wrathful, looking over a prone figure, arms and tongue extended with wild eyes. She has been busy killing with a head garishly clutched in a hand and a bloody sword in another. She is frightening!

It was Kālī who called my back to India in 2017 (I had been there in 1997 for 9 months). She was insistent and persistent, practically chanting at me until I relented and signed up for a retreat called ‘Into the Heart of Durga’ even though I was not drawn to Durga. I heeded the call and went anyway.

After the very first welcome circle, I knelt in front of the little altar outside under a great tree. I closed my eyes and called to Durga. I thanked her for bringing me here, to this place, at this time. I thanked her for her persistence with me and I questioned whether I needed to stay for the full 21 days.

I was struck by the arrival of a larger-than-life presence. A new voice interrupted my thoughts and bellowed at me!! “You are mine! I called you here! Stay for 21 days!” This was not Durga. This came from the blue-black lips of a dancing Kālī! Kālī in all her glory!

The well known image of Kālī is full of power and symbolism. Looking at her she feels fierce, wild, out-of-control. But as she stands before me I can feel her energy is more mama bear – killing to protect and severe and all that does not serve. She uses her sword to cut away lies and illusions. Her image makes sense and stops being so frightening.

At the time I did not understand why Kālī was coming through Durga. I did not realise they were two aspects of the one goddess – the fierce formidable Kālī springing out of Durga’s forehead only when Durga’s diplomacy and tact had failed. I came face-to-face and toe to toe with the goddess Kālī. 

This was not a request. This was a command I must obey! In that moment I remembered I had always been hers – this call to India, to sit at the feet of Kālī was not new to me. She claimed me as her devotee from lifetime to lifetime, for millennia. This was not a gentle request. She doesn’t mince her words! There is no subtle subtext with Kālī. Kālī is straight forward, direct and must obey the letter!

Part of the retreat was direct communication with a goddess that you chose, but Kālī had already chosen me. Over the space of three years, Kālī came to me in many forms. Kālī showed me that, like all gods and goddesses, she cannot be contained and summarised in a few quick easy sentences. Kālī is so much more.

These great goddesses hold many subtleties that cannot be condensed into a simplistic concept. The goddess is never as clear-cut or as static as many are lead to believe. Closer investigation into any goddess find their sharply defined outer images begin to blur and merge until they fuse or take on other attributes, becoming further dualities or trinities. Each depiction of a god or goddess offer multiple interpretations and meanings.

The myths of the Hindu gods and goddesses are incredible spiritual maps for us to explore deep esoteric mysteries. They reach beyond our intellectual mind, bypass the rational part of ourselves, and access our inner wisdom that lies beyond the mind.

I’ll give you an example. This particular depiction represents Kālī with her foot of the body of a man. This is Shiva, her beloved. When Kālī enters the battle she becomes so deep in her bloodlust she looses consciousness and begins to kill indiscriminately. The gods and goddesses fear she will continue killing until none of them are left. They beg Shiva to intervene.

And so, Shiva surrenders into his love, placing himself physically in her path of destruction. When Kālī accidentally steps on Shiva, the shock of finding her beloved lying powerless and undefended beneath her is enough to shock her back into her senses. And the killing stops.

Just feel into what this means. Feel into the extraordinary love Shiva has for his beloved. They are depicted in a moment of immense vulnerability and trust. Shiva is willing to literally lie down and die to help his beloved to become fully conscious.

There are more meanings here also.

The name Shiva means auspicious, propitious, gracious, benign, kind, benevolent, friendly, and also connotes liberation, final emancipation. In the Shaivite tradition, Shiva is the Supreme Lord who creates, protects and transforms the universe. Shiva is known as The Destroyer within the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity. This Trimurti also includes Brahma (the Creator) and Vishnu (the Preserver). Shiva is regarded as the patron god of yoga, meditation and the arts.

The iconic form of Kālī standing on Shiva symbolises the principle of their unity. Kālī represents the vibration or Aum which is responsible for creation, preservation and liberation, while Shiva is the absolute. Kālī is Shakti, the energy that creates, preserves and liberates the Universe. She does all this on behalf of Shiva, who lies motionless and smiling in bliss. Shiva united with Shakti manifests. Shiva cannot create without Shakti (power). Shakti is the actuality of all potentiality in Shiva as pure consciousness. And since pure consciousness is unchanging, Shakti is eternally acting.

In ‘The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna’ Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa says:

“Whatever you perceive in the universe is the outcome of the union of Purusha and Prakriti. Take the image of Shiva and Kālī. Kālī stands on the bosom of Shiva; Shiva lies under Her feet like a corpse; Kālī looks at Shiva. All this denotes the union of Purusha and Prakriti. Purusha is inactive; therefore Shiva lies on the ground like a corpse. Prakriti performs all Her activities in conjunction with Purusha. Thus, She creates, preserves, and destroys.”

For me I see the intensity of emotion (the love and the rage) and the absolute trust in love.

Who Are Goddesses?

There is a funny meme that shows Krishna and Jesus sitting together on a cloud. Krishna says “Who is going down this time to explain them again; you or me?” They look like they are about to draw straws to see who’s turn it is to try to explain (again) that Buddha was not Buddhist, Jesus was not Christian, and Mohammed was not Muslim. They were all teachers who taught love. Love was their religion.

Consider how all religions idealise and mythologize real living saints after they have died. These saints or prophets or lamas or gurus are bodhisattvas or Ascended Masters who remain ready and available in the spirit realms to assist those who call upon them – regardless of cultural background or religious upbringing. Gods and goddesses can also incarnate to assist humanity. They act in a similar way to Ascended Masters, choosing to return to the earth plane to assist humanity to evolve time and time again.

I believe goddesses are assigned to us irrespective of our religion or culture. These spirit beings are not restricted by culture. That’s why so many westerners feel drawn to follow Hinduism or Buddhism despite their Christian upbringing. We have all had so many lives! We have all experienced so many different cultures and religions! So, we are so much more culturally diverse than we give ourselves credit!

Goddess is not a theory…this is a living high vibration being we can connect with and receive guidance from. She can be accessed through the portal of our physical body. I communicate with gods and goddesses as high vibration beings – souls who have often incarnated on earth. So ascended masters are teachers for humanity.

All goddesses are aspects of One. They are part of the spectrum of experience, the spectrum of energy we can explore. We are all on a spectrum – all aspects of Goddess. We are already home. They are all pointing in the same direction. I also feel that this means that you have no doubt worshipped the goddess in many forms in many lifetimes! And as I understand, one goddess and her religion spread to other parts of the world and changed form subtly to suit the local belief systems.

One goddess can have hundreds of names and different forms. So, when we have identified who the high vibration being is that has contacted us, stick with them and focus on getting to know them exclusively before calling in someone new.

Goddesses are such high vibration beings they can only drop their vibration so far. It is up to us to raise our vibration to meet them. This can feel exhausting! It can also mean we need an upgrade – both of our physical apparatus and our energetic field. The goddess might advise us on what we need to do or we may receive treatments, healings from them.

Returning to India back in 2017, I remembered I had always been a devotee of  Kālī. This call to India, to sit at the feet of  Kālī was not new to me. Kālī claimed me as her devotee for hundreds – if not thousands – of years. From lifetime to lifetime, for millennia, Kālī has called me home to her bosom.

When I was called to her I expected my life to be turned upside down. I waited for her to tear all that no longer served me away, all the lies and illusions I was holding onto. But she didn’t. Kālī has held me fiercely and with unwavering love.

By practicing with Kālī, I remembered, relearned, and reclaimed my inherent ability to navigate the challenges of life with creativity and grace. Kālī teaches me that I do not need to exile any part of myself in order to be free. Instead of dimming down or diluting my life force by trying to get rid of unwanted energy, I have learned to transform energy so that I can live wide awake in my body, rooted in my inner wisdom and power.

 

Image: Kālī by Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906)