Maa’s Altar and Prasad for Devotees

Kali Puja at PantheaCon is something of a tradition, and as we entered the room to set up for the ritual on Saturday night, a devotee (the first in line waiting for the doors to open) noted this was her fourth year coming to worship with us. She had nowhere to go in her hometown and looked forward to this celebration of the Divine Mother as Dark Goddess every year. Nothing could have set the stage better for our worship than the yearning heart of a lover of Maa.

Our puja was meditative and blissful, a call to listen deeply to our internal landscape for reverberations of soul. Devotees gathered in the space to the simple sounds of OM MAA, and we together came into her embrace gently and sweetly. Some of us called to her aloud, others only in our hearts. Our circling created a container for the evening’s work and then our breath to the beat of SA’HAM (She I Am) invited Goddess Kali to be present. If we have nothing else, we have our breath to guide and provide inspiration for worship.

This Kali Puja asked us to remember why we are here and it challenged us to own the truth of our incarnation. Wounded, knowing pain and suffering, we still chose life. With this, the puja asked us to be the fullest truth, to reflect our soul’s purpose, in order to give back to Maa the life she provided. Doing so, we will each find freedom and experience love.

From invocation to deep meditation, devotees worked the mantra OM KRIM KALYAI NAMAH from breath to bone. We allowed Maa to enter consciousness and then permeate our bodies as a liberator, a devourer of falsehood. We felt her passion alive within us as space was created for our emerging selves to be revealed.

This called for a celebration, and a chorus of JAI MAA! danced about the room, syllables lifted on voices filled with power and emotion. Her ability to see us, hold us, and allow us to be all of who we are and are becoming was palpable. The potency of Maa Kali shone in our eyes.

Gratitudes to all sisters and brothers present in the flesh and in spirit. We feel you still and with you kiss Maa’s lotus feet.

Kali Puja in July at our temple is special because it precedes initiation for those who have journeyed with Daughters of Kali this year. Today’s puja felt energized with the excitement of uncertainty as well as the blessings of Maa’s mysteries because of this. Adding to the deepened awareness of our footfalls on the spiritual path were the sounds of Anga Puja, worship of the Divine Mother’s body as our own.

Listen to Anga Puja.

An excellent resource for this worship is Swami Satyananda Saraswati’s Shiva Puja book, where you will find the whole of the Sanskrit, plus transliteration and translation. Simply, the puja offers worship to Maa’s body in their various parts, extolling Her virtues as the devotee does so.

After our individual sadhana and internal worship, we praised Maa in our sanctuary with aarati and personal devotions. The circle was opened with gratitudes and a final offering of thanks to all the spirits, guides, ancestors and deities who had joined in the rites.

We will meet again in August, but our rituals will be for our soon-to-be initiates and our elders who choose to rededicate to Her for another year and a day. Blessings to all those who have and who continue to travel the path. Jai Maa!

There was nothing that could have prepared us for the way in which Maa manifested on Sunday night for SHARANYA’s 6th Annual Yoni Puja. Devotees gathered in San Francisco from near and far for the celebration that joins us with tens of thousands of devotees as the time of Goddess’ menstruation and Ambubachi Mela approaches at the shrine of Maa Kamakhya in Assam, India.

Our temple full, invocations were chanted and songs to the Divine Mother sung as drum beats proclaimed our sincerity and heart’s yearning. Many had never uttered her names, but tonight, we filled ourselves with love and honored She Who Resides on the Blue Mountain as Universal Mother. At the same time, we did the essential work of looking within to initiate a more personal process, one of connecting to the vibrations and essences of Truth and Beauty that She embodies as each part of creation.

After our meditation and deeper dive into the internal landscape, we surfaced to reflect in Her holy waters, cleanse, make offerings and let our intentions be known. Maa was there as Her praises rippled in tones and through movements around community. We approached with care, deliberately and with humility, anointing Her and accepting blessings.  Red and pink flowers encircling her murti, devotees sipped of Her nectar and bowed low in respectful obeisance.

Our time for individual prayers and darshan done, the air filled with the beat of the drum once more, and with bells ringing in celebration, we sang, danced and shouted with joy for the presence felt, surrender achieved, and all the moments filled with meaning yet to be revealed.

Jai Maa Kamakhya ki Jai!

Read about one of our past pilgrimages to India during Ambubachi Mela to learn more about the Goddess.

For thousands of years, yantras have been used in the Tantric tradition as visual metaphors for the body of the divine. As expressions of devotion and contemplation, they are similar to Tibetan mandalas in that meditation upon them is tantamount to returning to the primordial fiat of one’s being. Because yantras are comprised of archetypal geometric forms and shapes, they are believed to offer liberation from bondage.

There are many different yantras, all of which have specific intentions and meanings. For instance, the sri yantra (believed to be the mother of all yantras) is made up of nine interlacing triangles, five inverted ones which represent Shakti and four upright ones which represent Shiva. As a symbolic map of a human being’s spiritual journey, the sri yantra describes nine different routes (from the center, or bindu, to the outer plane) that represent a different stage in the process.

As a geometric symbol, the yantra represents everything that can be internalized in our consciousness. Ma Kali, the mother of time (and its destruction), is also the progenitor of breath, divine love, and transformation. The elegant Kali yantra can thus be understood as a signifier of transformation and healing. To meditate upon it is to surrender totally to the energy of spiritual growth, and to turn emotional catharsis to one’s spiritual advantage.

The 36 centers of the Kali yantra correspond to the 36 principles of creation. The central bindu itself is the elemental aspect of the soul, and of Kali, from which everything in the material world emanates.

The five inverted triangles of the yantra represent the sheaths of human consciousness: physical, life force, mental/emotional, wisdom, and bliss. And the inverted position of the triangles symbolize the regenerative power of the divine feminine. The two circles represent life and death. The eight lotus petals that surround the bindu represent the eight tattvas of nature: earth, water, fire, air, ether, the lower mind, the higher mind, and the ego.

The colors of the yantra are also, of course, symbolic. Red represents the life blood and energy of the manifested world, black represents the eternal mystery of the void from which creation ensues, and gray represents the liminal space between realms.

To meditate on the Kali yantra, simply do the following:

1. Gaze at the bindu of the yantra, being sure to concentrate on your third eye, or Ajna chakra.
2. Experience and relish the exchange of energy between the yantra and your heart center, which is where Ma resides.
3. Let the colors of the yantra infuse your consciousness.
4. Silently call forth on the regenerative power of Kali, which has the power to transform the deepest suffering into the deepest bliss and wareness.
5. Close your eyes now, but let the image of the yantra remain with you.
6. Chant the sacred breath of Ma Kali, “sa’ham,” and stay relaxed and peaceful.

  Jai Kali Maa!

Contributed by Nirmala Nataraj for the SHARANYA May newsletter. Read it to learn more about our work in the world and upcoming (6/17) Yoni Puja.

Before our temple doors open to the public each month, initiates who have committed to a year and a day of devotions and deeper study in Her name gather to circle and dive, like vultures, into the fires of self-transformation. February was no exception, and we found ourselves immersed in the embrace of one of our beloved Mahavidyas. She brought us each a special secret of Her path in the space of our meditations meant to help us  in our spiritual blossoming. This powerful ritual work set the stage for a puja later in the day that brought the community gathered, newcomers and Sha’can practitioners alike, into relationship with Maa in a quintessentially new way.

The difference began to be felt with the beginning of our invocations, the space for Agni set with the first verses of the Rig Veda. With this call to the God of Fire and our mudra creating a crucible for the work of our ritual, the mood noticeably shifted. A vibration began to hum through the air, in some creating a felt sense of connection to the Divine, a reflection perhaps of the focus of those gathered.  Again and again we returned to our sacred intention for the puja, breathing the depth of our invocations into the center of our hearts. In this way, the more we opened, the more we received from beyond ourselves in direct alignment with our soul’s yearning in the moment. And the more we received, the more we strengthened the whole of our ceremony together.

On this night, the Sanctuary in which Maa resides was filled with red flowers, offerings of love and sweetness all around. We entered in the throes of our own personal ruminations; or for some of us, quietude, despite the slow and steady chant of OM MAA again and again. Although she is small in size, Maa is large. We felt Her calling us into truth and spiritual nakedness from the moment we crossed the threshold of Her home. For some, the prayers offered at Her feet were without thought, pure and gentle surrenderings of ego and attachment. For others, the prayers were precise and detailed, seeking an exchange of energy in the realm of taking and creating that is Her domain.

Maa Batakali in Her Sanctuary

But as we each approached Her, those familiar with our ritual could not help but notice that the hold was stronger than usual, Her eyes meeting ours with knife-like certainty, and ours fixed on Hers just moments longer than usual. There was no harshness in this, mind you, just the sharpness of a clarity brought on by the clearing away that had been done hours before. Maa, it seems, had been ready for some moving and important connections to be made this day.

Gratitudes to all who journeyed with us into Her embrace on February 26, 2012. Jai Maa!

It was perhaps no accident that exactly 108 of us gathered last night at 11PM for a ritual dedicated to the Divine Mother, Kali Maa. In Hinduism, the number 108 is considered especially auspicious, aligning the heavens and Earth in powerful relationship toward peace.

Indeed, our ceremony for the Dark Goddess was imbued with the special fragrance of the Divine as She opened internal gateways and sweetly unleashed her scythe of discrimination among us.

Some come to Kali hoping to score power and prestige, Her allure a false understanding of the wild ride She promises. Others come fearing Her mysteries, an ego-driven humility rather than a willingness to get raw to be found beneath their lowered gazes.

The work of our Kali Puja was to draw out the heartfelt yearning that lay at the bottom of it all, first using mantra to stir up our insides and strengthen our resolve.  With reverberations of OM KRIM KALYAI NAMAH in the air, our pranayama then asked the guidance of Pranashakti to hold the channel of our potential open to let Goddess do what was needed.

Some called Her name with abandon, others cried softly into their palms. Maa was there, bold, audacious, soft and supple in all Her glory. Provocations to remember were made and community supported the energy of vitalization with focused breath, intention, and a drumbeat of connection to Earth and ancestors. We called on one another as family and the circle strengthened.