KALI: The Power of Yogic Transformation

How Kali is depicted in her manifest form as a Goddess is so widely misunderstood and often feared. Why are we in general so afraid of what seems foreign to us... what we do not understand? Many people see a fierce or frightening image, make their own assumptions, as wish to investigate no further. But for the one who has Sadhana (yogic practice), Kali is understood with a devotional heart and we are blessed to experience Kali's grace.
Kali is the High Priestess of Yoga. She is the power of all yogic transformations. She is shown as blue or black, with wild eyes and hair, carrying a severed head, a sword, wearing a garland of skulls. Kali takes us through the death of the old, and rebirth to the heights of spiritual awakening. She is kriya shakti or yogic action. The first spark or inclination we have to begin an inner yogic practice and she is the shakti that stays with us, leads us, and moves through us on our sacred quest in life. Perhaps this is why she looks so frightening to us, because she asks us to leave parts of the outer world for the inner world of meditation. To take a pilgrimage to our inner world, which is to have a true experience of our divine reality. Kali wants to take away the ego that only weighs us down but we cling to it so desperately. She wants to rid us of everything negative that holds us back from experiencing our true light of divinity. To the average person this does not seem so appealing and for some a very scary image...
The more we cling to old habits of negativity, the more cataclysmic Kali's energy can be. However, if we approach our sadhana with sincerity and bhakti (devotion), and hold to it with dedication, Kali nurtures us on our transformative journey just as a mother stays with her child as a guide and protector. Kali is the energy that moves us, that guides us into the heights of meditation. She is the yoga shakti that transforms our entire being until we come to know our true Self, which is to merge with Shiva (pure consciousness).

Happy Navaratri!

Today begins Navaratri: The nine nights of the Goddess. Yogis, Sadhaks, Shaktas and Tantrikas everywhere meditate on the Divine Mother at this time of transition into spring. From Durga springs forth her shaktis in which these first three days are dedicated to Kali, second three to Laksmi, and last three to Sarasvati. In classes this week and next, we will meditate on and experience the different energies and manifestations of Devi. This Saturday is the spring equinox which is half way through these nine nights. On this night we will gather together for Kirtan as our own sacred offering. At the end of each of the 3 day increments stay tuned for teachings from class and insights into the magical realm of Shakti that pervades the entire universe and beyond. Next...

Kali: The Goddess of Yogic Transformation

Yogic Alchemy

Alchemy is a process of transformation. Alchemists have the ability to turn heavy base metals into amazing metallic light, beautiful gold. The psychologist Carl Jung explained this alchemy as a metaphor for transforming our own internal darkness of the body and mind into light... "transforming the dark matter of the unconscious into the pure gold of the integrated self".
Through our yogic practices there is a graceful churning, an ongoing transformation into sattva (purity and light), an inner alchemy. As we hold to our practice with dedication grace flows through us purifying our minds and hearts and calls for us to let go and surrender to this grace even more. Only then can the Goddess Kundalini Shakti (spiritual energy) to be awakened within us and transform us safely and gracefully. When we come to understand and experience this transformative energy, grace unfolds in our lives and we see how shakti expresses itself through us. Tantrikas (tantric practitioners) like to say that Shakti breathes us. When we clear through the darkness of the mind and ego we see that we are not the ones even breathing here. As long as our organism is alive the breath is automatic.... Shakti is breathing us. All consciousness is a marvelous expressive dance of the Great Absolute.
With a dedicated yogic practice we are ever transformed, transcending all limitations so we can come into the glory of the integrated Self. To not just know this with the mind and intellect, but with love and attention, dedication and surrender, we get to experience this inner alchemy. As the Shakti moves through each of the koshas (sheaths of our being), and Chakras we experience how the darkness, dullness and inertia of the body, mind, and spirit are transformed into a golden vessel of capability and purpose.