Kali...

Ok, three times this week I've been asked about my posting so much stuff on Kali and/or the Goddess lately. I actually was just asked again at lunch so I'm going to write about that, no idea how this will come out, but here it goes...

When I began yoga I started hearing about Shiva all the time because in the Hindu cosmology he is who gave yoga to us humans. He was teaching the lessons to his wife and was overheard and that overhearing was delivered to us.

Coming to yoga I was a young, gay man who partied a lot, maybe I should even write a LOT. And when I first came out in my late teens I had been a somewhat effeminate young man but when I came out I was "trained" to be very effeminate. Now whether I came across as that to others I don't know, but to myself I was putting on more than I really felt was actually me. But I did it because it was how I was supposed to be as a gay man in the Midwest.

Then yoga came into my life and it started awakening the more masculine part of my self. I started getting bulkier, feeling more but in a more controlled way and I even think my voice got deeper haha. But it gave me a bit of a crisis of faith and I was wondering how I was "supposed" to be, this nelly man, or the more masculine me that was emerging. Or was I somewhere in between?!? Who knew at that point.

As I started to get to know myself more and more I realised that I can be very in touch with my feminine side, but I can also be a guy still, and I liked being whomever I was in each moment. Then I left Ashtanga and found Kundalini Yoga, where I felt a bit more pressure to be a more masculine sort of archetype, a leader of sorts who was boisterous and knew what he was talking about. So I pushed down the more feminine side of myself, and again was feeling less balanced.

As I came back to Ashtanga and decided to come to India I noticed in the Indian men that they are very in touch with both aspects of themselves and don't judge themselves for it at all, they just are who they are. Now, I know this a general, sweeping statement and is not true for each and every one but in general this is what I noticed. So it made me take notice of me again and wonder who I was being.

So I started just allowing myself more, meaning whatever came out, came out and sometimes it would be one, sometimes another but it was me either way. My yoga deepened, my sense of self deepened.

I was getting away from the overtly masculine Sikh persona and embracing a more Hindu version of myself and studying the Gods again, going to temples, researching and learning about all of it. Then I met this young local fellow who upon my leaving gave me a parting gift of the book Yogic Secrets of the Dark Goddess, and this changed my whole life.

I read all the stories over and over again and even still I carry the book in my traveling and read a random chapter here and there. It also gave me a less scary depiction of Kali. I had seen the goddesses all in my original studies but remember I was working on allowing myself to be more masculine, so I kind of pushed that stuff down so I didn't have to admit it was there. Until this book anyway. It made me rethink everything I'd thought about that divine feminine energy before and started opening me up to the idea of it in a different way.

I'd always had a good relationship with my mother for the most part and any friends or anyone I'd dated, their mothers always loved me and we got along well. So embracing Kali as symbolic of my mother was weird, but it seemed to make more sense. So when I decided to get into her more and more I talked to some people who I knew was in full worship of her and found a pooja to do daily for 108 days and did it, properly actually, which was intense but it really made the things come to the surface.

Kali first and foremost is a demon killer. She is the fullest, rawest potential of the Shakti which is the power behind the universe. So that she became as I did this pooja daily, as my inner demons came out while I was invoking her names I always was allowing her to slay them and send those things no longer serving me on their way. All was good, I've written many times about those experiences. But after all the demons are slaughtered, do you still need a champion? Not really.

Not to say all my demons are gone, but I've resolved some things and feel pretty good most of the time now. But after that I got away from her and again she came back when I got back to Mysore, then again I left, now she's back.

She's back mostly after two experiences I had, one in Varanasi and one in Uttarkashi, both with Kali murthys which I've also written about so I'll spare those details again. But now I have to approach her not as the slayer of ego (demons) anymore, but as the mother. The mother is the scariest thing on the planet when her children are in peril, so she has a fierce countenance. But the mother is soft and will hold you in her arms if you need it as well, both are forms of protection. But both are also things one can invoke within themselves Which is what I try to do.

This is a little bit of why Kali and all her different manifestations, some of which are more scary like Chinnamasta and some of which are more soft and seemingly benign like Kamala, but all are embodiments of the Shakti that births the universe. All are mothers in that sense, to the universe, but to us as well and will protect us beyond any idea we have of needing protection. And all are powerful, so tread lightly when inviting these energies into your life, but never doubt that they will help you!