Youth
The infinite and absolute super-consciousness of which mind and matter are the illusory aspects, is, as is well-known, called Brahman in the Vedanta, and the energy which expresses itself as mind and matter is called Maya. This is no place to enter into an examination of it, but it is necessary to state here the theory of Maya. The infinite and absolute cannot by definition be limited and related, be differentiated and split up into parts. If a thing looks like that which it cannot be, if a rope is seen like a snake, we call it an optical illusion. In place of the secondless Brahman we find this infinitely variegated interplay of mind and matter. If Brahman is not to die, the universe of phenomena must be regarded as a show, as an illusion or Maya.
The ancient Rishis sought to symbolise this Maya-idea, express it in concrete form, by the image of Kali.
It is beyond our purpose to enter here into the question of the so-called idolatry of the Hindus. It will suffice for our present purpose to say, that in addition to word-pictures, which all worshippers use, the Hindu Rishis thought it wise to have concrete material images to help the understanding, and hence is the system of image-worship among them.
Let us now try to read the image of Kali.
The most prominent feature about her is her horridness. She is naked and dances on the bosom of her husband. She has a garland of decapitated heads round her neck and her tongue is outstretched to drink the warm blood of her victims. Weapons and terrible agents of Death adorn and surround her. She is dark like an ominous rain-cloud and her dishevelled flowing masses of hair fall down to her feet. Her laugh beats the thunder-clap all hollow. She is all terror.
Is that the picture of a young Hindu woman? She that has no individual existence apart from her husband, she that is so graceful, unobtrusive, retiring, always covered from head to foot, always the gentle, the soft, the loving mother I If anything, Kali is the exact reverse of the Hindu woman.
And that was exactly what the Rishis wanted to draw her and we must say their success was perfect. Nothing could be more unwomanly—more unlike a Hindu woman, than the picture of Kali they painted.
Maya has no individual existence apart from Brahman, like the snake apart from the rope, or the bubble apart from the water. So the Hindu woman who is but a type of the Original Woman has no individual existence apart from her husband. But what does Maya show? Instead of keeping in the background always, instead of playing her true role, she has grabbed Brahman, put him out of sight and shows herself in innumerable, terrible, unwomanly, unmotherly ways In place of the one limitless, taintless surging ocean of bliss, we have this infinitely variegated relative world of phenomena, and the one cry of misery and death, the inevitable product of the struggle for existence which dominates and shapes it, ringing through every plane of existence from the nebulous to the human. Unless we are prepared to blind and cheat ourselves deliberately we can no longer ignore the one law of life and progress which runs through all states of matter and mind. This is struggle for existence. And not one feature of Kali will be found over¬ drawn or exaggerated if she is looked upon as the concretised image of this fundamental law of relative life.
The first impulse which is apt to rise in the mind after this explanation of Kali is known, is,—If Kali is such, why worship her? She should be the last thing to adore!
A little reflection will show that this impulse is a reflex action of the ignorance of the true meaning of worship. Worship, as we Hindus understand it, is constant remem¬ brance, always keeping before the mind’s eye. And what is there, what can be there in the universe more important and vital for Moksha than to constantly live in the idea that the universe of phenomena which frightens us with its innumerable terrific faces is in reality but a show, a false appearance, the one truth being Satchidananda which is back of it all?
Maya is false, Kali is its symbol. If Kali were painted as the ideal Hindu woman, she would have been real. To convey her unreality—as she shows herself, she is painted as the ideal non-woman.
She hides Shiva under her feet, she dances over his bosom and successfully draws and rivets all attention to herself, as the mirage which shines over the desert cheats, and holds back the vision of the onlooker from the true state of affairs. She has to be seen through, she has to be crossed over. What else should be thought of or worshipped—if not she? Does one pore over a blank sheet, if one has to commit to memory a book?
Thus the true worshipper who knows her, who has seen through her, coolly ignores her existence, refuses to see her as she shows herself and succeeds to see her as she is. Her real existence is in Brahman, as the identity of a dream-ego is the ego which sleeps. The dream, however real and potent it may be for the time being, is nothing to the waking¬ consciousness. The seer tells Kali, that she is not what she seems, she is really Brahman and in no other light would he see her. She is Tara (the way to Moksha) and Brahmamayi (pervaded, interpenetrated, overlapped and full of Brahman.
Sister Nivedita
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