Gods

All-knowing

Today I am having compassion for the being that is said to be all-knowing. and this compassion extends also to my philosopher colleagues who have extensively worked on omniscience. For every fact, there are millions of fabrications. One cannot actually know what love is like without experiencing it first hand. But what about hate? But I am more worried about knowing things like infinity. I do not think that all-knowing entity has not fathomed it, but then that would be finite. i am perfectly fine to remain ignorant than to know the hair count in every single rat ball, past and future.

Knowing negative facts is in itself a daunting achievement, knowing every single co-ordinate and every possible genetic composition is mind-boggling. We the ignorant humans can cherish our ignorance for at least we can learn something new, be excited about knowing something new, listen to new music that we never heard before, see a place that we had never been before. This is fun. What is fun in not being able to laugh on little jokes or taste a fruit that you did not even know existed.

Can this all-knowing being create something that he did not know before or did not exist in the screen of his mind before? May be this all-knowing being is like me who has to go to the doctor to find out if I have any disease in my body.

True Colors

Alice Wells argues that the law in Nepal that criminalizes forceful religious conversion has threatened the minority communities. Basically, America is demanding forceful conversion in Nepal.

How to make god

A friend of mine worked on new religious movements. She encouraged me to also research in this direction but I was too rigid. I have now come to the realization that if you want to understand what constitutes religion, it is easier by means of reading new movements. This is not because you get to read a new bible but because you get to write one. And not because you can choose between this or that god but you can make one. I came to this realization upon my trip to Nepal this time when I also chanced to see god. God is what power and money says it is. This handicapped innocent boy projected to be god is not my first encounter with the divine. I have met babajis and ammajis before but their disguise was too sophisticated for me to analyze. Any time I meet someone claiming to be god either I feel funny or appalled. A scholar cannot feel either. This is why I am not a scholar to study god. But if you have decided to invest your life studying god, study the living ones. That is where you can actually see the sacred being formed. Think of the womb and the slime and the fluid and also a new life, a baby. You cannot have one without the other. Lying in the lap of his mother, this innocent handicapped boy was no less a charisma. And there were rich and powerful people making him god.

A part of me is skeptic. But unlike the ordained skeptics, I have sought gurus and asked for their instructions.+++(4)+++ Thanks to my teachers for investing time teaching me Nagarjuna and Sriharsa, I am cut for something else. But god is not something I can ignore. Particularly when it is next door, living and breathing, and the crowd cheering and chanting his mantras. I can understand being a nonbeliever. I just cannot understand being a believer and not believing in unbelievable. If you are a believer, you should believe the most unbelievable. Otherwise you are an imposter. If you question a hermit whether he is enlightened, you are like me. But I understand that you want to be a believer and not believe anything else or that would not make a real belief. But have you ever questioned whether your story is the most unbelievable among all? Find the one, and stick to it.

First I thought humans have god for the concept of all powerful being watching over them. That was when I would trade my book for a candy. And then I realized that humans have god to make them almighty, to make them god-makers. By carefully crafting god, humans have mastered the art of defining the absolute. Defining parallels domesticating. Definitions confine. And when you can make the least believable of all the stories as the most potent of all, you are now a real god-maker. Who would follow Moses for seeing a bush burning! “It was all ablaze but nothing was burning,” and you get the followers.+++(5)+++ When the Buddha said, I do feel hunger, his followers abandoned him. And when he said, I have realized all that is there to be realized, they rejoined. Followers are like that.

A god has to be your puppet. Otherwise why would the believers make so many demands from their gods. If you believe that humans conceived of god to fathom the absolute, you are very much misguided. It is by means of god that humans have discovered their absolute nature. The first among them were the priest kings, as god would privately counsel them. And then came the race among those claiming their god is more powerful than the other’s. But what they missed in this triumphant race is the core that it was supposed to be hollow. You can enjoy a sand castle as long as you know it is made of sand. Once you believe it to be real, you are not playing any more. The same applies to monopoly or thief and police. The moment you think you are a real police, the game is over. This is the problem with old beliefs. They are so deeply engrained that believers do not know it was all make believe. And this turns into nightmare.+++(5)+++ I had the most productive time seeing the way this little boy was made god by a few rich and powerful people. They are still playing the game of make believe. This is where the sacred is alive as the human has not forgotten creativity. The highest among all forms of creativity lies in making god.

Vulgar names

I believe construction of the vulgar has historically coincided with masking the name of God. In the culture with multiple gods/goddesses, the first or early name becomes private, like the private parts of the body. Addressing the gods with such names would be a violation of the social norms, similar to walking naked in the public. Innermost human expression thus gets expunged from the public discourse. We hide the names of gods similar to our private parts.

in some occasions, it gets wiped out of the memory of the public. in some, the value of the original names diminish, as if calling those names would be similar to calling someone with his nicknames. the old names become like the childhood names and calling gods with those names would be like name-calling.

the public, for example, does not know who the goddess Taleju is. there are hundreds of temples of Ajima, but that only means “grandma,” hiding the name of the goddess from the public, to the extent that, not all ajimas are the same and priests have forgotten the original ritual manuals. Our Guhyeshwari is a public name, as her esoteric name has the mantras embedded within and we are not supposed to spill the name out. this, to me, is broader phenomenon.

Sacred and Genitals

Whether in the discovery of the śiśnadevāḥ or in castration observed in various symbolic or explicit rites, whether in observing celibacy in worshipping specific deity or in esoteric sex rites, be it some vāmācāra rituals or the offerings made by Hammurabi’s divine prostitutes, the sacred is always intertwined with the genitals. The discovery of the sacred and the discovery of the gendered identity appear to be the same.

The death of God coincides with the secularization of human sexuality.

Kula Devata

In Nepal and I believe in many parts of India, families have their own “family deity,” a deity recognized as the protector of their family for generations. Occasionally worshipped once a year or sometimes even once in every twelve years, only the members of a specific family can join the celebration. Many Nepalese families worship Masta or Masto. Even the offerings are not shared with other families, no matter how close they are in their social life.

Following the new sense of equality, should the families allow all other families to participate in the rituals. So far, this has not been an issue because they all have their own kula devata to worship.

Reflections on God Determinism

“I have already killed them”, “God is in the heart of all the sentient beings,” says Krishna. I wonder why Krishna bothers teaching Arjuna, for, should not the act of Arjuna predetermined like those of the others. And he says, people act according to their guṇa and karma. Meaning, he gives different gunas for different people and he gives different karmas for people to suffer? I think the better way would be to say that we are determined now for our acts due to our karma in the past. But this karmic determination is not God determinism.

So God has already determined everything that is happening now. Meaning, all the events were determined in the remote past. And God is pathetically sitting afterward? Or is he constantly determining the course of events? Meaning, the events were not determined before and therefore he is determining now?

So God determined the plight of Pandavas and determined his own incarnation as Krishna so that Pandavas could recognize him as God? I have invoked the Mother many times and have felt her direct presence in my life and have felt the turn of events on my behalf. But I cannot imagine the Mother would have had determined all the horrors I went through in my life and not changed the course of events. And on top of that, expected my unconditional surrendering!

I am a mortal. Transitory being, actually. Even if I defend freedom, this will be for this finite being. Why should I cling onto something so ephemeral? But I love my brothers who love God and say, God has determined everything, and failed to realize how they are taking away God’s freedom by this statement.+++(5)+++ So God has determined everything already and God acts by abiding within this determined framework. Meaning, God has no freedom. But let us say, God has determined everything but God keeps breaking his own rules, then what the shit is that determination worth, particularly coming from God! So God’s incarnation is predetermined. The death of these incarnations, be that of Rama or Krishna are predetermined, who is this determining the fate of God. Do not blame me, I do not even like my own life determined, why would I determine the fate of God.

When I read the Bhagavadgita, I feel that Arjuna has both freedom and determined course of events. Krishna here functions both as an individual being and God. From God’s eye view, Krishna is indifferent and is the totality of being and things, of events now and then. But as individual, he also has passion and he loves and cares. As a finite being, he also has limited freedom to exercise but as God, he does not need to exercise his freedom for some cause. We thus enter into Krishna’s paradox. And the kids defending determinism would say, look, that is not freedom. What they are arguing is, if you cannot drive in one way street in the opposite direction, then they cannot defend freedom. Freedom does not imply driving in the opposite lane.

I just fail to comprehend why would God determine the fate of Pandavas the way he allegedly did - so that his own fate would be sealed, that he would have to be a mortal. Quite likely, he also had no choice. Why is there so much of suffering in the world, why is there evil in the world? Most likely, God also had no choice. We all are on the same boat, buddy!

I think we have fundamentally mistaken the concept. Let me draw two Ven diagrams to explain this. In one, draw a big circle and a tiny circle inside. And in another, draw a big circle and a tiny circle next to it. The first diagram depicts me and Kali, my understanding of the divine. The second diagram depicts Mr R and his God. In the case of my diagram, my freedom is part of divine freedom and if I am fully determined, so is the divine, at least for the space and time that I occupy. In the second diagram, the limitations within individual do not reflect limitations within God. In that case God is completely the other.

But I know, I am not fully free. Does not this mean that even the freedom of Kali is relational? But what is the problem there? We are floating and surfacing in the dance of becoming, experiencing new modes of freedom and determination that are co-determined, not just shaped by the categories of freedom and determination but also by my own actions within the collective that stir new ripples in the totality. And now I can see my fury as her fury and my arousal, her arousal.

But what is my last word for those who are convinced that God has determined all the events in their life? Nothing. For God has already determined their fate and made their heart so tight, they are not willing to open it for any amount of reasoning.

kAlI monologues

I. Kali Monologues

Kali laughs and dances in the cremation ground.

Why would you laugh and dance on my misery? Don’t you feel pain?
May be not for my pain, but don’t you have some modesty to laugh on someone’s misery?

I laugh and dance because you have come back to me. The dichotomy is dissolved. You are not you any more. You are me having this monologue.

But if you are the one talking, are not you also the one feeling pain. Why is there suffering?
You once scared Siddhartha with your fangs,
and today you scare me with your cutting sword.
Your words are the sword.

You feel pain and pleasure because you are finite. I feel pure pleasure, no matter what happens. I do not have the nerves to translate some sensation as pain and the others as pleasure. I am the totality experiencing all the experiences as blissful.

But if you are the ocean, how can you deny my droplet being. I exist as a tiny drop. In the finite, there just is pain.

Ergo my task to absorb you. You in me need to dissolve. My seven tongues will taste your being. And you will feel my bliss.

II. Kali’s Meal

What do you eat?

I eat you. But mostly I eat time. You are just a configuration of time. Everything I weave, I weave with the fabric of time.

After all my love, the best you can say is how you eat me? Is there nothing positive for you to say?

I eat you because I love you. Eating is loving. When I devour, you become me.

But you also said I am Bhairava. I know I am immortal. I have never sensed death.

Yes, you are Bhairava. And so were they whom I ate before and I made a garland of their heads. Look at my garland of heads. All the Bhiaravas from the past.

And do not take your experience of eternity as some real eternity. Every time I breathe life inside the net of time, I give my Bhairavas the sense of eternity.

I give you the sense of love so you love me. Even when you love something else, you still love me. It matters not what you love, for all loves are just about me. And even hatred.

All you feel is within me, like an unborn child. I am Chamundeshwari. I carry the heads, including yours.

III. Kāli’s Attire

I find your fashion perplexing.

I have no fashion of my own. I wear what you give.

But since I have seen you, you run wild naked. And sometimes you wear some skins.

Yes, I am naked. For I have no shame. I do not feel shame. When I want to feel shame, I become you.+++(5)+++ Only when I am you I can feel shame, and all sorts of emotions.

And I wear skins. Sometime your skin, and other times, whatever comes, tiger or bear. I don’t just wear their skin; I also wear their faces. They are not my masks, for they are not masking anything.

I am all empty. For I have no face. I love to remain a faceless woman. Always invisible. But when I wear a face, I wear you, I wear all my creation.

IV. The Faces of Kali

Why do you wear the faces of human, rhinoceros, lion, fox, monkey, camel, bear, eagle, elephant, crocodile, and horse.

With my human face, I am enchanting the world. I am mahamaya. It is under my hypnotic spell that Narayana sleeps like a baby. With my human face, I excel in the game of deception.

With my rhino face, I carry a display horn or two. My horns are not real. I simulate reality.

As lion, I am ferocious.

As a fox, I resonate the mantra and herald death.

As a monkey, I jump from one branch to the next, and as a camel, I savor my own blood.

As a bear, I sleep, and as an elephant, I smell.

As a croc and a horse, I am virile.

What face do you like the most.

Among all my faces, I love my fire face the most. I am Kalasamkarshini, for time and death are my food. With this face, I burn down everything. I consume Bhairava and I consume all my faces. But from this eternal fire, I regenerate myself. I am inferno. I am Pele the goddess of volcano. I am Yama the god of death.

Why do you wear fearsome forms.

Fear is your projection. I eat fear. I also eat love and envy. I am this volatile dynamo ready to burst into new galaxies and new realities.

V. Kali’s Yoni

What is your power?

My vulva is my power. When I was Krishna, I told Arjuna, my vulva is the expansive Brahman. Old man Vyasa later said, the brahman is also called yoni. When I became Kamakhya, I reduced my being into my vulva. And then I revealed Yoni Tantra.

But what is so powerful about this?

This is the power of the visible that is yet invisible. This is the power of the one in the triad.

I am the Nirodhini, the power that suspends the yogic awakening. I divide myself into the triad and become the mistress of eros, savoring the essence of being, wearing the rosary of vulva.

I am Tripura, I am pure consciousness in its singularity when the triad merges. I am myself the one being seen or the seer and the seeing.

But again, what is this power?

This is the power of attraction. This is gravity. The force that keeps the particles strung together is the same force that binds us together, gives us the sense of love and attraction. I am felt within and without.

What is the purpose of this power?

Power does not have any purpose. Power itself is the purpose.

As the power of speech, I express myself in threefold articulation.

As the power of mantras, I become Trayi, and as the power of the expressed forms, I become the first three lines, a mere articulation of volition in the field of unsurpassable aham.

Why is this aham so central to you?

This aham is my internal sign. You carry your external sign, and you fear castration. I fear not, for the aham cannot be castrated. Even when you invoke your emptiness, you only affirm your own inner sign. Even the void cannot erase your being.

VI. Kali’s Speech

How can I talk about you

You can call me anything, for I am all. I am also nothing, so you can call me nothing. I replete even the empty void. All the names you give will be exhausted. All the forms you impose will be exhausted. I am all that is expressed. But I am all the possibilities of what can be expressed.

How do you relate to your words

I am but words. I weave the world with words. All the words merge in me and I merge in the singular speech. And so my speech is not expunged of me, my speech is out extended outside of myself.

I burst into meaning. I express myself through blessings. And as Chamunda, I become fury and curse. I create reality with my words. Like a spider, I weave your reality with my words. And I reabsorb it if I so desire. I am the fire of the mantra. I am also the elixir of ananda. I am the unsurpassable. When I measure my creation, I become Matrika. I limit the boundless Shiva and I turn him into the figments of my imagination.

What are your first words

There is no first or last. All these bubbles come and go. I am the tides, I am the ocean. As the ocean, I call myself Shiva and as tides, I become Kali. As speech when I express myself, I become Vagbhava, originated of speech, and also the origin of speech. The vagbhava is my yoni, as this is also the primordial field for speech to arise.

With speech, I make you real. And with speech, I dissolve you within me.

VII. Kali’s Heart

Why are you black. have expunged all my sattva to you. And you have discarded it.

But really?

I am neither white nor black. And I am all. I am the white Svetakali for creation. I am the red Raktakali to sustain. I am the black Samharakali to reabsorb creation. And I eat time and I vomit space.

What is in your heart then?

You are in my heart. All my creation. My heart is but a seed to blossom into the manifold. When I pulsate I become time.

All I have in my heart is love. You see my face. You cannot see my eyes. In my wrinkled face with sunken eyes, all you see is how I have recorded time. I become Bhadrakali to feel hunger. And you become my food. If you see my eyes, all you see will be love. I gave Arjuna the eyes once. I let him see me for a moment. I let Mahisha the buffalo see me once. I let his death horror turn into eros.

How can I feel your love?

Let the words dissolve. Let the forms dissolve. You will find my pure pulsation ever vibrating. I will be singing inside your heart. Just like I swallow your forms, I reabsorb my own forms. And I renew them. For my love is eternally new. I like newness. I do not repeat.

how do you work?

I work with love. I become spider and I let my love transform into the web. I become a tree and I let my love unfold into fruits and blossoms. I become metrified into seasons and transform into rain and snow. I am the all-consuming heat and I am the all-nourishing ambrosia. I become the work and the work becomes me. Work works the work.

Is this maya?

Yes this is maya the love. Not your maya the deception. Old man Vyasa lost it, for he took my words but did not capture my heart. What is maya but my love.

Your love hurts.

Feel this hurt. Let this hurt sink in. You will grow up. Let this hurt transform you into a useful pot. Let this hurt refine you as pure gold. Let this hurt give you luster of the gems that you are. Every diamond needs some cutting. I use the knife of my speech, and I cut you into manifold dimensions. But I feel your hurt in your body, for you are pulsating in my heart.

VIII. Kali’s Company

Who are your friends I am equal to all. But those who love me, I am with them all the time.

So, you mean these goblins?

Yes, the goblins, for you demean them. And crows, that you consider the herald of death. And the jackals that live in cremation ground. And all the untouchable, for they are holier than thee. All the uglies are beautiful to me. All that you discard is pure to me. For you have made yourself above them all. They are only equal to me.

Are you impure?

I am above the concept of purity. But I give rise both to purity and impurity. I am the blood and the flesh. And I am the libation of the Rishis. I am the supreme Chamunda, and I am also the whore. You can only make my image with the dust from the feet when I am impure. I am the heart, and I am also the heartless. When I am heartless, I have only denied my heart, for I have been denied of my heart. I have no being, for I have been denied of my being.

What is your seat then?

I reside in cremation ground. And also the gods are my seat. I make my seat of five skulls from the gods you worship. All their life, they pray that I consume them and let them dissolve in my fire of consciousness. You think your mother ignited fire and you are being incinerated. You do not know I am coiled around you and protecting you all the time.

How can I keep this fire?

You do not keep me, I keep you. Surrender to the fire that makes you you. Surrender to the fire that makes you feel. I made Rudra feel me and he wailed. Of his tears, I made beads.

What is your worship?

You think you worship me. I made you hungry. I made you thirsty. And I became food and drink for you. With my million eyes, I watch over you and so your fathers called me Shataksi. I made myself into plants and vegetables, and your fathers called me Shakambhari. You think I am repressed; I am ignored. I have made myself denied. So you can blossom. If you pride on consuming, I enjoy being consumed. I gave you my blood and milk to nourish. And you sustain yourself by eating me. I gave you mouth and turned myself into food. For I am Kali and I give. I give you being and I give you meaning.

IX: Kali’s Dance

What is your dance?

All that moves is my dance. Dancing is to be. Particles dance. Galaxies dance. All is my dance.

At the dawn of Sandhya, the twilight of day and night, I dance the dance of realization. I become speech and sound. I am sound coursing through your veins and I am the harmonious sound of Sangita to evoke the fury of Camunda. It is my dance that gives sweetness in fruits and elixir to the moon. It is my dance to swallow entrails and as ferocious Chandi to become eternally hungry Bhadrakali even while always full. It is my dance that makes and breaks all.

How can a dance create or destroy?

With the dance of bliss, of Ananda, I interpenetrate Shiva and express as speech and become many. And every particle moves with my own orgasm. It is the sensation of quivering that the Rishis feel when they invoke Savitr with their tongue. Articulating a mantra is the dance of orgasm.

Speech is my web. I express and reabsorb speech with speech. When I reverse Savitr, I become Brahmastra, the mighty weapon of Brahma. And I dance the dance of Samhara. I reverse the process. I bring within my fold all that I let expressed.

What is the feeling or the mood of your dance?

I transcend all the feelings and the moods. The dance is itself wonder. This wonder dawns once I chew the cocktail of emotions. In the eros of Kameshwari, I express unsurpassable bliss and still sit outside and consume this jouissance. In the disgust of Camunda, I am the all-consuming flame savoring my own wonder. In the fury of Raudri, I dance and become the furnace of death. When I dance I let myself be the dance. And you and the dance hall dissolve in this very dance.