When I’m disgusted, fed up with the world, I always turn to my Mother. She comes to me in any form I request, and we play that way. Sometimes She comes as my Mother, sometimes as my wife, sometimes as my child. She’s always with me; She’ll never go away. Long ago we promised each other to stay together always. If She ever leaves me I will not live even an instant longer. Who is She? My ego, the Shakti which self-identifies with my body. If She leaves me I have to die. Most people don’t know the true value of the ego, and they misuse Her. But I think I am the luckiest man in the world, because my Smashan Tara has taught me all about my own ego, and how to realize Her as Adya, the Original Shakti. She is the being to be realized.
MAYA SHAKTI
Ma is the source of all knowledge, the source of both delusion and release from delusion. She is the foundation and supporter of this universe and of all possible universes. She is called Adya because Adya means “that which is first and which is therefore eternal, which has no beginning and no end, which is ever-existent.” This is the only way She can form the base of the cosmos. If She too were subject to creation and destruction, what sort of foundation would She be? No. She is beyond everything, and She is the source of everything.
Though She is without beginning and without end, She may exist in either the manifested or the unmanifested state. When manifested She acts as the source of the universe in Her kinetic form; when the universe dissolves She becomes quiescent, She ceases to exist. Energy is equally energetic whether it is kinetic or potential; only its form differs.
And remember, you may eventually learn a few things if you work hard enough, but you will never be able to discover the origin of the Universal Mother, Adya. You should not even try to find out about it, because it is not to be known. It is just not knowable. But when you become Ma Herself, then there is no question of any distinction between the knower and the known.
How can there be any knowledge of Ma when you have become Ma Herself?
Ma, Shakti, Maya: These three words describe Her. But each emphasizes a different attribute. Maya is Her delusive aspect, Her capacity to bind one to limited forms. Shakti is Her aspect of power and energy. And Ma? Ma indicates Her maternal aspect, the Motherhood of God.
Everyone is afraid of Maya because her job is to entice, entrap, enthrall, to prevent people from escaping the cycle of birth and death. Why should they be afraid of Her unless they are not confident that they can resist Her blandishments? It is not as if She feels hatred or envy or any other selfish emotion for the beings She enslaves; how can She? She is just doing Her job.
All these so-called swamis who say that Maya is evil are absolutely wrong. How can She be evil? She is the Mother of all worlds. I shouldn’t even call these charlatans swamis, because swami means “owner” or “master.” A real swami is the owner or master of himself, and if you are really master of your self, Maya cannot have any effect on you and you would have no reason to fear or hate Her. These cheats make such a mess of a thing that it becomes difficult to untangle the mess and explain the reality.
You must try to understand that Maya can exist only where there is duality. The universe is full of pairs of basic principles: male and female, positive and negative, active and passive. Our philosophy maintains that the Soul is only one, indivisible, in the state of Sat-Chit-Ananda (existence-consciousness-bliss). But the Soul cannot enjoy itself unless there is some observer, someone who can perceive the Reality. Observers cannot exist when the whole universe is in a state of nonduality because all is one; no distinction between observer and observed would be possible. To satisfy this urge for an observer, Shakti projects Herself. This Shakti is Adya, the undifferentiated form, the totality of all universes. She is as unbounded and absolute as is the Universal Soul or Atman, and the only difference between them is that She feels Herself to be separated from Him, the male principle, the unchanging Atman, and this gives Her the impetus to try to locate Him and reunite with Him.
Adya is Herself unaware of how She projects. The whole projection is spontaneous because of joy, the overwhelming joy of existence or Sat-Chit-Ananda. Because the process of this projection is unknown to everyone it is called Maya.
Eventually Adya Herself begins to become individualized. Within Her, separate egos develop and become individuals. At some point these proliferated forms begin to grope for the Ultimate; at this point the Universal Soul gets the observers He had yearned for. Every individual begins this quest hesitantly, but every individual will one day or another reunite with the Unmanifest. Separately the Soul and Adya are impotent; together they create a beautiful play. When the play is over the projection is reabsorbed into the “projector” until the next cycle of creation. Isn’t it wonderful?
People still ask me, “Why does Maya entice us if She is supposed to be part and parcel of the Divine Motherhood of God?” It is not so difficult to understand. Each man and woman are part of the Cosmic Male and Female Principles. In each human, buried down deep inside, is the remembrance of the indescribable bliss of Unity, of the joy which caused the projection in the first place. However, this originally pure impulse of joy must pass through the causal, subtle, and gross physical bodies, which are like sheaths surrounding the indwelling Soul. As the impulse passes through each sheath on its way to our waking consciousness, it is slightly refracted or perverted by our limitations. The purity is deflected slightly in each passage so that by the time the impulse becomes conscious it is more or less impure, depending on the individual. That is the true Maya: a pure impulse filtered down into our limited conscious minds which incites us to perform karmas which, in turn, tighten our bondage to the samsara.
The individual personality, when it is overcome by joy, creates multiple thought waves which project for their own fulfillment. It is like the cosmic projection, but, because of impurities, it is limited. These thought waves are projected from the causal body as a result of past karmas and are therefore imperfect. Most people forget that these thoughts are simply temporary manifestations and they try to cling to them, or avoid them altogether should they be uncomfortable. But if you know something about them you can choose the way that they are destroyed. That is why my mentor taught me that complete gratification of desire is the only way to become free of Maya. When all the imperfect projections are eliminated then only can you see the real thing.
Maya is very terrifying, it is true. In fact, to frighten is really the function of Maya. Maya will always frighten you, or try to, but She will never hit you if you try to come near. People are afraid they’ll be finished if they leave off whatever they are doing in their lives: “If I lose all my money, what will become of me?” But everyone is going to be finished sooner or later. If you tell Maya, “I came into the world naked and I will go out naked. Do whatever you please, I don’t care,” then you can succeed at sadhana. A spiritual aspirant must be fearless, because then no harm can come to him; all danger arises from his own fear. This is especially true in Aghora. The spirits in the smashan will try to terrify you, and believe me they know how to do it. As long as you keep your wits about you they can’t do anything to you. One little doubt, though, and you are very likely to make a mistake in your sadhana, and even the slightest error may mean excruciating death, and then perennial membership in the fraternity of spirits.
Maya is the external garb of the universe. When a lady is well-dressed, ornamented, and made-up she may appear to be beautiful, but if you strip her naked you will be able to count all her flaws, scars, marks, excess hair, or whatever. When you see Maya, you must look underneath to find out Her real nature.
A green mango is very pleasing to the eye but quite sour to the tongue. However, with a little discrimination you realize the green mango is just a stage in its development. And when you see the golden ripe mango you know it must be sweet. You must become aware of the impermanence of the green state and not rely on it to remain.
The projection is dynamic; thus it is called Shakti. Shakti is energy. It emanates spontaneously and is then controlled. Shakti must always be controlled, otherwise it is worthless or dangerous, just like uncontrolled electricity. Shakti is of value only when it has been conditioned. Lord Shiva is the conditioner, the male aspect of the Universal Soul. He is always depicted with three eyes. As long as his third eye is closed Maya can exist because then Shiva has but two eyes, duality; and Maya is the essence of duality. But when the third eye (the eye of Jnana — transcendent wisdom) opens, He sees only unity. That third eye cannot differentiate in any way and so the cosmos, which can exist only through duality, must be dissolved. As long as Lord Shiva’s third eye is open, nothing can exist but the undifferentiated condition. When it again closes then Shiva becomes subject to duality, and the cosmos can again arise.
And this is why Smashan Tara has three eyes. She is both the manifestation of duality and the possessor of Jnana, so loving Her will never bring you grief. That is why She is called Tara: She makes you cross over the sea of duality and reach Unity. Tara will never fail you — far from it! But if you love Maya, who is pure duality, you will become trapped in the manifested world for millions of births to come. You have the choice of loving Maya or Ma, the superficial or the deep. You can’t do both. Ma is never cruel; She always gives you what you desire.
If you want Maya, Ma’s skin, you get it. And Ma will see that you get it until you are satiated with it.
Ma believes in giving you what you want. She gives it directly from Her own being, because She is a Mother. A mother feeds her own essence to her child in the form of milk. When you ask Ma for gratification of your mundane desires, that is just what you will get. She will keep you in the mundane world drinking the milk of Maya as long as you ask to remain there.
If you dream of sex daily throughout your life it is likely that you’ll be craving sex at the moment of death too, so Ma will say, “All right, my child, if you want sex take as much as you can.” And She will help you enjoy plenty of sex by seeing that you are born as a pigeon or a cock or a sparrow. And when you have had enough, when you are thoroughly satisfied, when you cry, “Stop it! Please stop it!” then Ma will make you move on to new things.
Ma wants you to learn your lesson. That is why you find a meat-eater reborn either as a predator or prey or as both in succession. Human beings cry a lot at funerals of their own kind but they have absolutely no thought for the sufferings of the animals they slaughter. They never hesitate to kill and eat. Just think, first they kill the chicken. Often they will cut its throat and let it bleed to death, which is a most painful way to die. Then it will be cleaned, cooked, and eaten, and if it happens to be tough everyone will curse it for not satisfying their palates. How many humans would give beautiful tender lean meat if they were slaughtered, dressed, prepared, and served?
Meat-eaters conveniently forget that animal mothers too love their children. Do they ever think of the agony a hen goes through when her chicks are slain in front of her eyes? Or a cow, the embodiment of motherliness, do they consider how much she suffers when she sees the slaughter of her beloved calf whom she has grown in her own body and nourished with her milk, whom she loves more than her own life? Do these so-called humans ever think of the terrible pain they cause to the mother cow? Could they endure their own children being murdered before their own eyes?
How is Ma to teach such donkeys? They are not humans, whose intellect is subtle enough to self-identify with another being of a different species and experience its personal joys and sorrows. Ma has no alternative but to make them suffer as they have made other beings suffer, allowing the animals they have tortured to torture them in return. Fair’s fair, after all. If I cut your throat in this birth you have every right to cut mine in the next or in some succeeding birth. Experience is the best teacher, and a fool will learn from no other.
Actually Ma is not enticing us at all; we are enticing ourselves. We look at Ma and see what we want to see. All these deities are our own projections, and our existences are our own projections. If we project the desire for flesh onto Ma, She will provide us with flesh, whether it’s for eating or copulation. That’s why I say about most so-called humans today, that their entire cultural refinement consists of eating flesh and putting flesh into flesh. I believe in going beyond the skin, beyond the flesh, the bone, the marrow, and everything else, and getting to the essence.
If you want to progress spiritually you must forget everything except the face of the Mother. She will offer you the entire cosmos to make sure you have no desires left. But when you arrive at the stage where you can pass up all temptations, when you succeed and She accepts you as Her own child, then you never again have anything to worry about. Once when Ma came to me She told me, “I’ll make you ruler of the world!” I laughed and said, “Ma, thanks to Thy grace I know some of my previous births, and I know I’ve already attained the most the world can offer. I don’t need to do it again. All I want is Thee.” And She smiled and accepted me.
KALI AND KALIDASA
Ma taught me well. She let me know about some of my previous births, the ones that mattered most to my present existence. But she didn’t want me to learn everything at once. For a play to be well acted sometimes it is better that the actors have no idea of what they are doing. In this way they act out their parts with greater spontaneity and feeling. When you know who you are, it changes everything.
Kalidasa’s poetry is taught in schools and colleges all over India, but only a few people know the story of his life, even though he was India’s greatest classical poet. He was a great devotee of Ma, as his name suggests: “servant (dasa) of Kali.” For nine incarnations he worshipped Ma, and he ended each life by sacrificing himself. He would cut off his own head and let the blood spill over Ma’s feet out of his intense love for Her.
In his tenth birth he was born amazingly stupid and horribly ugly. He couldn’t even take proper care of himself, much less worship the Goddess Kali. He was a woodcutter, and since everyone knew what a dud he was they would take advantage of him by buying his wood for two rupees when the other woodcutters would sell the same quantity for ten. But he was happy to have plenty of customers, and he had enough to eat, so he was satisfied.
Now, the king of the country had a daughter who was as clever as she was beautiful, and when the time came for her to marry she announced that she would only marry the man who could defeat her at debate. Anyone who tried and failed would be executed. Many princes saw her face and fell in love with her, and all of them were beheaded when they failed to outargue her.
The king lost his temper one day and called for his minister and told him to find for him the stupidest man in the kingdom. Just to teach her a lesson he announced, “I am going to marry my daughter to him.”
The minister knew better than to protest, so off he went in search of the stupidest man in the kingdom. It did not take him long to locate Kalidasa, who was busily chopping off the branch on which he was sitting when the minister walked by.
He told Kalidasa that the king wanted to meet him.
Kalidasa said, “Why? I haven’t done anything wrong. Why should I meet the king?” This is the way he used to talk; he was something like a fakir, always in his own mood.
The minister said, “No, no. The king wants to meet you to present you with something.” When Kalidasa replied, “If the king is so anxious to meet me, he can come here,” the minister ordered the two soldiers who had accompanied him to grab Kalidasa and drag him to the palace.
When the king saw Kalidasa, he was amazed that such a stupid man could exist. He told him, “I want you to marry my daughter.”
Kalidasa said, “Why should I marry your daughter? There are plenty of other girls in the kingdom to choose from.”
The king was not amused and said, “If you don’t agree to marry my daughter your head will be chopped off.” Kalidasa shrugged his shoulders.
During the wedding ceremony the princess was veiled so she couldn’t see her husband properly. Afterward she went to the bedroom which had been prepared for the honeymoon. It was a beautiful rainy night, with a light drizzle falling as she looked out the open window. It was the rutting season and many of the forest animals were giving full throat to their mating calls. She saw her husband sitting quietly nearby, and thinking him to be shy she considered how to awaken in him the urge for love play. Just then a camel delivered his peculiar rasping mating call, and she coyly asked her husband, “Who is calling for his mate?” Her idea was that he should realize she wanted him to come to her like the animals do, for sex.
The Sanskrit word for camel is ushtra, but even that singleword was beyond the ability of poor Kalidasa to pronounce and he replied, “Utru, utru.” His wife lost all her erotic intoxication in that instant and thought to herself, “Can my father have really done this to me?” Then she said to Kalidasa, “You can’t speak Sanskrit; you can converse only in degraded language. And you couldn’t even comprehend the reason for my question. Get out, you’re not fit for me.” For the first time in his life Kalidasa felt hurt and insulted. It was all Ma’s doing, of course; She was calling him. He was so disgusted with his condition that he left his house and wandered into a Kali temple. He started beating his head against the feet of the image — remember the influence of his nine previous births — until a few drops of blood fell onto the Goddess’s feet. That was enough; the Goddess Kali Herself appeared outside the temple and banged on the door. “Let me in,” She cried, “I am Kali! Ask for anything!”
Kalidasa got up and stood behind the door so She wouldn’t be able to open it and shouted, “I don’t trust you!” He had suddenly become vaguely aware of his previous births, and now he was afraid that Kali would again refuse to save him.
Kali said, “No, you don’t understand! Trust me!”
Kalidasa said in a hurt voice. “No, why should I trust you? I trusted you nine times before and look at me now!”
Ma said sweetly, “Trust me. Just open the door a crack and see that it is really your Kali.”
Kalidasa said, “I will stick my tongue out the door, that’s all.” And when he did, Ma struck his tongue and immediately he received divine speech. Not only that; but he became tall and handsome. You may not believe that; I don’t care. But it’s true. From that time forward Ma was with him twenty-four hours a day. Spontaneously, a beautiful verse in praise of Ma fell from his lips.
When Kalidasa returned to the palace, no one recognized him. But it was easy enough to gain entry to the king by reciting a poem. Back then kings loved poetry. So Kalidasa recited a poem praising the great beauty of the princess. He described the wrinkles in her hips when she turned, her high projecting breasts, the curvature of her waist, her navel. Kalidasa is famous for his similes and metaphors, so he compared each part of her body to an appropriate image from nature. And during the recitation itself the king’s daughter happened to come onto the women’s balcony behind the throne, and when she beheld Kalidasa she instantly fell in love with him.
When Kalidasa lifted his eyes and saw the princess, he didn’t bother to speak; he expressed his emotions with a look and a smile. What subtlety there is in the old ways of expression! When the princess saw this, she could no longer control herself and she said to her father, “I must marry this man; he is the only man in the world who is fit for me!”
The king indignantly replied, “Do you realize what you are saying? You are already married.”
The princess said, “I don’t care, I must have this man.”
Imagine the surprise in the court when Kalidasa said quietly, “I am your husband.” Kalidasa thanked the king for giving him his daughter in marriage. The king in tum offered Kalidasa vast lands, which were politely declined. Then the princess came down to her father’s throne and in front of the entire assembly kissed her father and said, “I thank you, father, for having given me a husband worthy of my qualities.” And the king, heaving a sigh of relief, was vindicated for marrying his daughter off to that poor “idiot” Kalidasa.
Kalidasa left that kingdom and went to Ujjain, where he embellished the court of King Vikramaditya. Do you know his poem Meghaduta in which a lonely Yaksha (angel) pines for the wife who has been separated from him? Kalidasa based that poem on the experience of his wedding night. In his previous condition he had been unable to express all the misery of his rejection. But thanks to the grace of Ma he took his unfortunate experience and converted it into sublime verse. If he had not been ignorant in the beginning he would never have been selected to marry the princess, he would never have been driven by desperation to pound his head on the rock, and he might never have been saved by Ma so he could win the princess back.
Ma wanted him to live for a while in the world and provide us with his sublime poetry. Suppose he had realized Her right away; would he have had the idea to get married and live a householder’s life? Never. The bliss of living with Ma is billions of times greater than all mundane pleasures. She wanted to entangle him partially in Her Maya and then to save him, so that while he was working out his entanglements he would amaze the world as Her tongue, Her mouthpiece. At other times Ma will let someone worship Her for years until circumstances force that person to relinquish the bondage of Maya, and then She comes to him. It is all Her play.
VIDYARANYA
About 600 years ago, in the time of the Vijayanagara empire in South India, the prime minister of one of the kings was named Vidyaranya, who was a great devotee of Ma. It came to pass that in the course of time Vidyaranya was ruined. He lost his position and was reduced to almost nothing. All his power and most of his wealth were taken away, and as a result his family began to hate and abuse him. He became so fed up with everything that he decided to renounce the world and become a hermit.
He went out into the forest and made a pledge to this effect. Then he worshipped Ma one last time. At the height of his power, the zenith of his glory, he worshipped with the best items available. Solid gold dishes were set aside for Ma’s use, priceless jewels adorned Her, She was offered only the choicest foods. Now, reduced to poverty, he could do nothing but prepare unleavened bread out of mud and offer it to Her saying, “I’m sorry, Ma. Now I have nothing, and I can no longer worship you as I did before.”
Suddenly Ma stood before him, and said, “Speak your wish.”
He looked at Her quizzically and said, “Ma, what are You talking about? If You had really wanted to give me something, You should have arrived five minutes ago. Then I could have accepted something. Now I have vowed to renounce worldly things, so I don’t want anything, not even You. I want only God.”
Ma smiled at him and said, “Don’t you understand yet? Close your eyes.” When he did, he saw mountains and mountains of ashes-and a small pile of something that was still emitting smoke. He still couldn’t understand, so Ma explained it to him: “You have been worshipping me for many years,” She said, “and by my grace all the karmas of your previous births have been burned to ashes except that little pile, which is all that remains. If you had not lost your position you would never have renounced life, so it was essential for you to be ruined. Do you see?”
Vidyaranya did full prostration to Her, and immediately went into a state of divine intoxication. Afterward, he wrote a famous Sanskrit treatise called Jivanmuktiviveka. That is what grace can do for you.
You see, when you have learned your lesson and have only the desire for Ma remaining in your heart, She will come to you. Then you have a chance to achieve. But when Ma does come to you, don’t ask for grace. Grace is Hers to give, according to Her own sweet will. You can’t get it on your own. Ask for compassion, learning, Jnana, and when you get Jnana you will know how to obtain grace.
SARVANANDA AND PURNANANDA
In the entire world so far only two people, when Ma came to them, asked for Sarvavidya, the knowledge of each and every aspect of Shakti. One was Sarvananda Thakur of Bengal. I can’t tell you about the other. Sarvananda was a Brahmin, the son of the court astrologer of the king of Tripura. The astrologer was able to get a son only after long years of penance of Shiva, and the boy was actually something like Shiva incarnate, but he didn’t realize it until later.
One day when Sarvananda was still a young boy, his father took him to the court to show him off to the king, in hopes of some largess because of his precocity. There was an assemblage of astrologers there in the court, debating on the lunar day. Actually it was the new-moon day, but when Sarvananda was asked he opined that it was the full-moon day. This drew guffaws from the conclave of astrologers, and a slap from the embarrassed father, who was concerned about his position and how to save his face. He forgot that his son was the gift of Lord Shiva; would he have dared to slap Shiva?
The boy became angry and ran home. His old servant, Purnananda, saw the condition of his young master and, wiping his tears, consoled him a bit. Then Purnananda sent the boy out into the jungle with a knife to gather palm leaves onto which he would copy part of some astrological texts and teach the boy himself. At that time all writing was done on palm leaves.
Sarvananda climbed a palm tree, carrying the knife, and let his anger boil over by slashing at the palm leaves. Meanwhile, Nature had sent an ethereal being of a very high order to look after Sarvananda. This Siddha took a physical body and then created an illusory cobra and sent it up into the tree in which Sarvananda was sitting.
When the boy saw the snake, all his anger focused on it: “So you want to bite me,” he said to the snake. “OK, but I’m going to cut you first. How do you like that?” And saying these words he hacked the snake in two by rubbing it against a sharp palm leaf. He then threw the pieces down at the base of the tree.
Now, the Siddha was sitting there, and when he felt the blood and flesh of the dead cobra fall onto his matted locks he said,
“Hm-mmm! What’s this? Come down here!” The boy descended, expecting the worst, but the Siddha merely stroked his head and said, “I know all about it, my boy, and I want to help you out.” Using the snake’s blood he wrote the details of the type of Shava Sadhana which would please Ma if properly performed.
Then Sarvananda returned to Purnananda and told him the whole story. Purnananda read the details and then told him, “This must be performed on a new-moon night, which is tonight. Let’s do this: we’ll go together to the smashan. You kill me and then sit on my corpse and do as I tell you. Then Ma will come and ask you what you want. Tell Her, ‘Please revive Purnananda and do as he says.’ That way Ma will appear to us both.”
That night they went to the smashan and the boy cut the old man’s throat and sat on his body, repeating the mantra given to him. After a few repetitions Ma appeared and asked the boy what he desired. He told Her as Purnananda had instructed him. She revived Purnananda and he too saw Her. Then She again asked, “What do you want?” Purnananda replied, “All the so-called great astrologers ridiculed my boy for saying tonight was the full-moon night. Preserve my boy’s honor.”
Ma smiled, and from the nail of Her little finger a ball of light emerged which was so bright that for miles around it seemed a full moon. All the astrologers back at the court were wonderstruck.
Sarvananda was just a child, innocent of the ways of sadhanas, but he was so overcome with love for Tara that he told Her, “Ma, You have been so kind to show me Your form, but I want to see You in all Your forms, all Your manifestations, because I want to know You completely so I can love You properly.” Tara smiled at him again, and agreed. Sarvananda had no idea of the meaning of Sarvavidya, but by asking for all the forms of Ma, Sarvavidya was what he received. If Nature wants you to succeed at something a situation will be created whereby you will request the right thing, knowingly or not. Purnananda actually became Sarvananda’s disciple and became himself a great pandit and scholar. It was in fact Purnananda’s works that inspired the late Justice Sir John Woodroffe of the Calcutta High Court to introduce the subject of Kundalini to the West under the pen name of Arthur Avalon.
And Sarvananda? He became a householder and then one day he disappeared. No one knows what became of him.
Normally you will not even think to ask for Sarvavidya; that is part of Ma’s play. But even so when She gives you knowledge you become the expert, the gem in your own field.
THE MOTHERHOOD OF THE GODDESS
Sarvananda was very lucky. Ma came to him while he was still a boy so he automatically treated Her like a mother. Only one person out of millions develops a desire to experience the Motherhood of God. There is nothing higher than the worship of the Mother because only the Mother can show the child the face of its Father. Just as a child is taught by its physical mother the identity of its father, grandparents, and other relatives, even so the Divine Mother shows Her child the face of its Father: Shiva, the Universal Soul. That is why you should try to succeed at the worship of God with attributes first, and your chosen deity will then lead you on to the attributeless Ultimate Reality. Who is the source of all attributes, after all? Ma.
Not all Aghoris treat Ma as Mother, you understand. But I think it is wisest to do so. Always remember, to control any Shakti properly is not easy, and to control Cosmic Shaktis is almost impossibly difficult. To catch hold of Kali by the hair and tell Her, “Come to me right now!” is rather dangerous. That makes it a contest of wills, and, unless your will is stronger, Kali will frighten you into insanity or heart failure. Not because She hates you; oh no, She never hates anyone, though of course no one likes to be ordered around. No, She loves you and wants to play with you, but if an elephant wrestles with a mosquito, what will be the outcome?
If you treat Ma like your wife — and I’m not saying it’s impossible; I knew one saint who did it, who projected his worship onto a statue of Ma and worshipped Her as his spouse, and eventually succeeded — and then one day find a human woman who seems attractive to you because of some connection from a past lifetime, you might suddenly find yourself projecting your worship onto the Maya, onto the flesh and blood instead of into the essence. Because your worship has built up so much energy your descent into Maya will be all the deeper, and who knows how long it might take to drag you out?
The best way to treat Shakti is as a Mother. It can save you from so many karmas also. If you look at all women as your mother would you ever think of raping or cheating or deceiving one? And if you see the Divine Mother in all beings can you ever intentionally injure anyone? No, and this automatically draws you away from the cycle of action and reaction. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa saw the Divine Mother in everyone, including even his own wife, and look what it did for him!
You can go into all the world’s religions but nowhere can you find anything so sublime as our vision of the Motherhood of God. Christianity has it to some extent with the worship of the Virgin Mary, but the worship of the Mother has been perfected only in India because India is herself a mother. India has sheltered so many foreign races and religions, Jews, Zoroastrians, Christians, Muslims, etc., and has allowed them to flourish in their own ways. Has any other country ever done this? Because of this the cow is the symbol of India.
The cow is the perfect mother. She has four teats: one for her calf, one for guests including birds and animals, one for use in rituals, and one for her master. The milk is automatically divided into four equal portions; everyone is provided for. And the cow is passionately devoted to her calf, just as a real mother must be to her child. Sometimes the mere sight of the calf makes milk flow from the cow’s udders; not drip-flow.
I have seen this more than once when I owned a dairy. And if the calf dies the cow refuses to give milk — not like our water buffaloes who can be tricked with the head of a calf on a stick.
The buffalo is the symbol of Tamas, stupidity, dullness; the cow is pure Sattva, mental brightness.
And not just buffaloes, even your Western cows will give milk whether or not the calf is still alive. When I always say that this is the fundamental difference between East and West I am not just talking through my hat. What is so great about giving milk? All animals do it. The greatness in our Indian cows is that they give milk only out of an outpouring of love. That is the value of cow’s milk. Won’t at least a little of that love come through into the milk? It must. That emotion separates cows from other animals. So how are we wrong to worship cows? We are not worshipping the hide, hooves, and tail; we worship the essence. A few years ago I read in the newspaper that an American cow suddenly devoured five dozen baby chicks who happened to be playing about in front of her. No Indian cow would do that; Indian cows mother little animals.
You know that Lord Krishna was called Gopala when he was a baby. Gopala literally means “protector of cows.” There are many esoteric meanings to this word, but even the obvious meaning is beautiful. Gopala was such a lovable little baby that all the cows in the vicinity loved him more than they loved their own calves. This is why I always say that you should treat God as your Mother. The baby is the best controller of Shakti because there is no desire, no desire at all except for the mother, and, therefore, the mother will be perfectly, continuously attentive to the child.
Always sit in the Mother’s lap. When you get out of Her lap and try to protect yourself She says, “All right, go on. Go ruin yourself.” How can you take care of yourself? You cannot. The Law of Karma is too big for anyone to tackle alone. But if you stay in the Mother’s lap and always rely on Her for everything you need She will always provide it. Can any real mother ever neglect her child, or not try to make it happy? As long as you treat Ma as your own Mother She will treat you as Her own child.
How does a mother know when her child is hungry? It cries. Whenever it cries in a particular way the mother knows, “Yes, time for feeding.” I know this from my own experience. When I am really angry, disgusted with the world, Ma comes to me and taps me on the shoulder, as it were, and says, “Forget all about that. Do you know … ? “And She proceeds to teach me something new, something I had never dreamt of, something so amazing that I become speechless and forget my anger completely. What compassion! Was there ever a mother such as She?
When the baby is not crying, however, its mother knows that its little tummy is full, and she does not bother about it. It is the same way in the world. As long as you are quietly enjoying your life as a human, Ma thinks, “Well, he is satisfied. Let him be. What use does he have for me?” And when you decide you are finished with life and want to get out of the unending cycle of birth and death, then there is only one thing to do: scream, cry out, demand that Ma should come and take care of you. And that is the only way that Ma will ever come to you. You have to desire Her much more than anything else — and there are so many obstacles to that in this dark age, in this Kali Yuga.
But if you can identify yourself with the newborn baby, then what desires remain? A baby is too innocent to be aware of any but the simplest and most essential desires. In that state there is no question of temptation. If you give a baby a choice between a chocolate and a diamond, which will it take? The chocolate, of course. A diamond has no value for a baby. And if you learn that the world has no value you will never be tempted by anything and you will be able to avoid all the obstacles which crop up in Kali Yuga. But only a baby can do that. That is why I love the baby Gopala and the baby Jesus so much.
You know, we Vedics believe that the same Rishi who incarnated on the Earth as Rama, and later as Krishna, also incarnated as Jesus. We take Jesus as one of us. But look what has happened to Christianity, to the beautiful teachings of Jesus. They have slaughtered so many millions in the name of Christ, when Christ preached that one must always turn the other cheek. But Jesus! His eyes! And the image of the Mother and Child: the baby Jesus playing with His Shakti. It is so sublime. Christians are just such fools to have received such a teaching and then to make such hash of it. But this is the thing, as Kipling said, “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” In a way he was right. We Easterners have value only for emotion. You Westerners, like your cows, are basically materialistic. Of course there are exceptions, mind you. But when Nature Herself has created such differences in people, how can the one race understand the other? It takes a lot of effort.
THE VISION OF THE GODDESS
There is another good reason to become a baby in front of Ma. Babies love their mothers no matter how vicious or ugly they may be. To talk idly about Ma’s form is one thing, but to actually see Her dripping with blood, Her fangs ready to devour you, is quite another. Your reaction to Her determines what She can do for you. If you don’t react with fear, She will do anything for you, out of love. If you react with fear or disgust, She will become all the more fearsome and disgusting, and then where will you be? Kali and all Her manifestations — Smashan Tara, Chinnamasta, Bagalamukhi, and the others — are not bad. No one wants to love them; everyone is afraid. Kali can’t understand why everyone is afraid of Her. If you love Her enough, you will change Her natural destructiveness to such an extent that even the underlying thirst for butchery will vanish.
People think that Smashan Tara is the most terrifying of the Goddesses — and She is. One of Her names is Bhayankari, that is, “the Terrifier.” But if you go to Her with a heart full of love for Lord Krishna, She becomes Radha, Krishna’s greatest lover. If you treat Her as a mother, She loves you as a mother loves her child. But if you have no faith in Ma, the Great Goddess, and if you fail, then there remains nothing for you but to be born over and over again until you get it right.
You may go to an image of Ma and tell Her, “Wah, Ma, how lovely you are!” or “How frightening!” or whatever, but the emotion you feel is only a reaction to Her outer form. You must know what sort of being you are worshipping if you ever want to develop a real relationship with Her, if you ever want to get underneath Her skin and reach Her inner being.
Without knowing Her inner being, how can you know Her? And before trying to go inside you must first understand Her external form, because it is actually your external form. The Atman or Universal Soul is the orb of the sun, and you are the reflection. Just as the moon can be reflected in thousands of pools of water at once, the Atman can appear in millions of humans and still remain aloof, untouched. Most humans are imperfect reflections because they are enmeshed in the Three Gunas, the three principal qualities of existence. If a lake is disturbed it cannot reproduce truthfully the image of the moon. But when it is calm the image is perfect. When you see Ma you are seeing Her through the veil, the film of the Three Gunas, which explains why you cannot see Her in Her true form in the beginning.
Why is She blue? First ask that, and once you’ve understood it you’ll be able to comprehend the rest. Why is the sky or the sea blue? If you pick up a handful of sea water it is clear, but the sea as a whole seems blue. Air is colorless but the sky is not. These are optical illusions, and the fact that you see Ma — or even Krishna for that matter — as blue is also an optical illusion, because you are seeing them with your physical eye. Were you able to see with the divine eye, you would see something quite different. But to you now, Smashan Tara is Shyama, a deep, rich, luminous, midnight blue.
Around Her neck is a garland of freshly severed human heads, what we call in Sanskrit a Runda Mala. There are eight grinning heads on this garland. They represent the eight “nooses,” the emotions which cloud the mind and incite one to perform karmas, thereby creating a tighter bondage to the ever-spinning wheel of birth and death. These eight nooses or snares, pashas in Sanskrit, with which you could hang yourself are lust, anger, greed, delusion, envy, shame, fear, and disgust. While you are in a state of ignorance you possess one or many or all of these emotions or grinning heads. Smashan Tara tells you, “I chop off your head to cure you of this malady, to free you from the grip of these snares.” Most people, unfortunately, are so attached to their snares that they shrink from Smashan Tara in fear, thinking She wants to kill them. She does want to kill you: the false you, the limited personality which has accrued over so many births. You fear Her because you identify yourself with this mediocre personality when your true personality is something quite different. When She cuts off your head, your mind becomes firm, unwavering in its concentration, which enables you to succeed at Aghora Sadhanas.
Smashan Tara is ghatastani or “pot-breasted.” What is a more appropriate symbol of motherhood than the female breast? Motherhood is inherent in all women. Take a tiny girl of two or three and give her a doll. How she will mother it! She will fuss over it, feed it, put it to bed; you will rarely find any boy who will bother so much about a doll. Women are meant to be mothers; the instinct is inborn. But it is only potential until the woman actually bears a child herself or adopts one. Then the motherliness fully manifests.
Even this realization does not develop spontaneously. It develops along with the child. In the case of humans, as the child develops in the womb, the mother’s breasts enlarge and the nipples darken. The breasts actually double in size and weight during pregnancy. Milk also begins to form. The body is preparing food for the child even before its birth. Isn’t Nature magnanimous? Most men see the breast and think of sex, but you’ll ruin yourself if you try to treat Smashan Tara as your sex partner; you are just not strong enough to do so. Only a handful are. So you must realize She is coming to you as a mother, to love and protect you, and welcome Her in that way. She is lambodari or “big-bellied” because She consumes and digests all beings in the universe: She brings them into Her before sending them out again.
Around Her waist She wears a skirt of human arms, freshly severed. One of the Sanskrit words for hand or arm is kara, which is related to the word karma. These arms represent all the karmas of all your millions of births. There are both left and right arms, so they include all karmas, auspicious and inauspicious. Most people clothe themselves in their karmas, and She wants to cut them off, remove them from you completely. Why does She wear them as a skirt? Because they cover the navel and pubis. And are these not the two things for which the majority of karmas are performed, the belly and the genitals? Won’t most people do anything for food and sex?
As anklets Smashan Tara does not wear silver jewelry, but tiny cobras. The cobra is always the symbol of the deceased ancestors. When you do sadhana you must always remember you are not doing it for yourself alone, but for all your progenitors, since had it not been for them you could never have taken a human rebirth. She tells you, “These are your ancestors who have come to me and taken the shelter of my lotus feet.”
Smashan Tara has four hands. In one there is a skull, which symbolizes the coating of the Three Gunas which surrounds the individual soul. The noose in another hand represents the noose which Yama’s messengers of death use to snatch the living from the world. By seizing this noose from Yama, the King of the dead, She grants you the boon of immortality, because then there is no way for Yama to take you. With immortality comes fearlessness, since the basis of all fears is the fear of death. The third hand holds a pair of scissors, with which She cuts the three Gordian knots that bind you to embodied existence. This is connected with Kundalini Yoga. And finally, in Her fourth hand She carries a sharp sword, called a Khadga, which is symbolic of the eternal play of destruction and creation of the universe. To you it means destruction of your doubts, your false ideas, and impressions. She strikes through them all with Her sword. And because people die of doubt, this ensures you will never die.
Finally, Her face. I think it’s the most beautiful I have ever seen. She has lotus eyes. Remember, the lotus is the symbol of discrimination. And Her tongue lolls from Her mouth, dripping blood. All creatures, no matter how tiny, have some sort of blood-like substance. When She takes it from them She purifies the blood, as they say in Tantra, through the process known as Rakta Shuddhi. What this means is that She removes so many of the karmas which have forced the individual to be born into a particular womb that a higher rebirth is guaranteed. She actually alters the patterns of your personality, which is merely the aggregate of all your countless karmas in myriads of births. This is the Adhidaivika Rakta Shuddhi, that is, Tara’s purification of your personality.
When you have realized — not just mentally comprehended but realized through your own experience in sadhana — all the qualities of Smashan Tara, then She is no longer blue to you. She loses all color, all attributes. When you come and rest on Her lap all your wrong ideas about Her are removed. You see Her as She really is. You can’t see Her with the physical eye. In Sanskrit and most Indian languages the eye taken as a whole is a feminine noun, the eyeball is masculine, the pupil is feminine, and the retina, called the pardah, or curtain in Hindi, is masculine. So you see the dual nature of the external universe is mirrored in the physical eye. With the physical eye you cannot hope to see anything but duality. But when the “curtain” is lifted you see the absolute, undifferentiated Reality, what we call in Sanskrit the Nirakara Tattva. Not even the shreds of distinction remain. Can a blind man tell the sex of someone in front of him? Only if he gropes. The state in which you see Smashan Tara in the Nirakara form is Nirvikalpa Samadhi, self-identification with formlessness.
So, you begin with ignorance, unable to distinguish “e-y-e” from “I.” You see Smashan Tara in Her terrifying form because you are possessed of the eight nooses, of eons of karmas, and all the rest of the filth of your false personality, and She wants to disconnect it from you in the fastest way possible. Then, you see both you and Her as one; when all differences disappear, you cannot be different from Her. Finally, if you are meant for it, you again return to Her lap, and see Her in Her old form — but how different it will look to you then! You can’t imagine it, you simply have to experience it. You go from duality to unity and back to duality, just as Paramahamsa Ramakrishna did.
My Tara always stands on Shiva, Who is deep in samadhi. One foot is flat on His body while the other is prodding Him, “Wake up! Wake up! Come dance with me.”
Why is Shiva in samadhi? Shiva here is actually Jiva, the Individual Soul plus its coverings of the Three Gunas and all the rest. Because of the heavy overlay of karmas and Gunas and what-have-you, the Jiva is always in a state of deep sleep, unaware. When because of hard penances and stiff sadhana you realize Shiva, the Jiva becomes Shiva. Then you can say, “Shivoham, Shivoham”: “I am Shiva, I am Shiva.” Then you see there is not the slightest difference between Jiva and Shiva. Some gurus tell their disciples to repeat “Shivoham, Shivoham,” but it is really useless. They begin imagining they are Shiva without having any of His qualities.
Once Shiva awakens, He and His Shakti begin to dance together, and the dance ends with Her merging into Him again. When the projection of the Shakti occurs, Shiva sleeps because He has lost the part of Him which was aware of Himself, His true self. After Shakti wakes Shiva She ceases to exist. It is only when your ego forgets all the eight nooses and the rest which force it to self-identify with the body (the physical e-y-e, eye) and identify with Smashan Tara, because your ego is simply your own personal Shakti, that the ego awakens the Shiva (capital I) and the dance begins.
One final thing: Do you know why Smashan Tara is always depicted in the smashan near a roaring funeral pyre? It is not your physical body She is burning on that pyre, it is your causal body. She cremates all the billions of karmas filled in the storehouse which is your causal body, thereby freeing you from further obligation of being born in the world.
See Ma, evaluate Her from all Her facets, find out about Her yourself, and find out the way you can love Her best. Most humans are such idiots that they are terrified of Ma, because they are afraid to disengage themselves from their filth. You must see Her in Her playful form, Her terrifying form, all Her forms, and love Her.