Daily Signet

Continuing Contemplations on the Mahavidyas…

The Might of Kali…who personifies the mighty dance of Time; she is Death that devours.  Shown with ferocious fangs, Kali holds a garland string of skulls and derisively laughs, her tongue lolling as she stands mounted on a dead body. In two of her four hands, she holds a sword and severed head; the other two hold boons that allay fear.  She is the might of the Supreme; her act of destruction is a right action, not a clumsy execution. She is a skilled performer and all of her destruction is in preparation of the ground for the new. She destroys in order to create; she is time as transformer. Kali cooks everything in the cauldron of Time and the successive death she brings are the thousand gates that open out to Eternity. Her darkness is the preparatory time of the night before the dawn. 

Of Kali, Sri Aurobindo wrote: “The fear of death is what keeps man mortal…to liberate oneself death must be faced and so the tantra lays down the adoration of Kali, the time force as the first and foremost of all disciplines of knowledge.”                                                      

Teri H Martin

From the August High Service:

Of dancing Kali:
The ticking clock that devours me
All here is a mystery of contraries;
Minute by minute, day by day
Darkness a magic of self-hidden light,
Within your hands, the appalling grace
Suffering some secret rapture’s tragic mask
That taught my heart to fear;
And death an instrument of perpetual life. —Sri Aurobindo
And transforming grace, my fear relieved. —Teri H Martin