At the end of my yoga practice last night, I took savasana. Usually, I end my practice with a seated meditation because it is so difficult for me to lie on the ground and be comfortable (lower-back woes) but last night I decided to take savasana. Some yoga teachers may instruct students to 'empty their minds' during final relaxation, I find this impossible and tense making so in my own practice I choose to just permit my mind to do whatever it wants...this being an exercise in surrender. Anyway, during my savasana I found myself thinking of Kali, one of the goddesses in the Hindu pantheon of deities. Goddesses represent creation but in Kali's case, she represents creative destruction. What captured my mind during my relaxation was the story of Kali's first appearance.
The story is that there was a demon named Raktabija attacking earth, slaying everything and everyone in his path. The gods attempted to intervene and attacked Raktabija with their weapons, but each time a drop of Raktabija's blood touches the earth, a clone of Raktabija springs up. Soon the gods are not facing one demon, but thousands of seemingly invincible demons. The goddess Durga, wife of Shiva, is at the battlefield. Some versions of the story say that Kali appears out of Durga's third eye, other accounts say that Durga transforms herself into Kali...in any case, Kali appears and she is terrifying to look at. She is black as ashes, with wild hair, the skirt she wears is made out of severed arms and she has 50 severed heads strung around her neck. The gods are so shocked by her appearance that retreat away from the battlefield as she approaches. She faces Raktabija in his thousands of bodies. But before she strikes him, she rolls out her tongue. Her tongue covers the entire battlefield so that as she begins to attack Raktabija, none of his blood falls to the earth and so no new clones are created. Soon the many bodies of the demon lie dead on the battlefield. Kali retracts her tongue and begins to dance on the dead. Her dance becomes crazed, uncontrolled and destructive. The gods fear Kali because they have no way of stopping her. In comes Shiva, Kali's husband and love. Shiva lays himself on the ground among the dead so that Kali dances over him. As soon as she realizes that she is dancing on her beloved, she stops, becomes peaceful and turns back into a beautiful goddess.
What occurred to me last night was the imporatance of Shiva's entry. Kali represents Shakti or action, Shiva represent consciousness. Without consciousness, action is out of control and can destroy the good along with the bad...only when it is united with consciousness can action be tempered and creative.
Just a thought.
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