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).