The Goddess in the Moon

Kali is worshipped on the day of the New Moon, Its wanning cycle represents her action in our lives, as the stripes us of anything we value more than her, including finally our life itself. She is dark as the invisible Moon, the embodiment of the destructive power of time. She stands for the loss of every material thing, revealing nothing in the end but the pure existence of spirit itself.

Lalita, however, is worshipped on the Full Moon. Its waxing cycle represents her activity as she helps us expand the field of our loving awareness to include everyone around us, then all of the manifestation in a crescendo of bliss. Kali takes everything away but spirit . Lalita reveals that everything is spirit.

With Lalita you have your cake and eat it, too. She is supreme love, supreme beauty, and cosmic consciousness. While Kali takes everything away, Lalita gives us everything we desire. She is the force of desire itself.

You understand, of course, that the New Moon and Full Moon are not two separate things. There's only one Moon! In the Hindu tradition, we recognize the ultimately Kali and Lalita are the same Goddess. Loss and gain blend together in the epiphany of enlightenment. 

Lalita : The Supreme Seductress

If you start pursuing serious spiritual practice in a Hindu community, sooner or later you'll hear about the Dasha Maha Vidyas, the ten great goddesses of the Hindu yoga tradition. These are the special forms of the Great Mother worshipped privately by the yogis and mystics, as opposed to goddesses like Lakshmi or Durga worshipped more openly by the public.

Lalita is one of these esoteric goddesses. Her name means " She who plays" -the universe is her playground. She's also called Maha Tripura Sundari, " the most beautiful girl in all the worlds", Raja Rajeshvari, "the supreme sovereign empress of the universe, and Kameshvari, " the goddess of love".

The Divine Protectors

Though she's juggling a lot of terrifying weapons, you'll notice that two of Kali's hands are empty, making strange-looking gestures. One of those gestures means " Don't be afraid!" The other signifies " I will protect you!"

Though Kali is a scary looking goddess, Hindus do not think of her as frightening. Instead they see her as their loving mother who corrects them when they make mistakes and who races to protect them when they're in trouble. When you visit a Kali temple, you will not find devotees cringing in terror before her. What you find is men and women eagerly trying to catch a glimpse of their beloved Divine Mother at the front of the temple, and singing and dancing with ecstatic devotion.

You'll usually see Kali dancing, too, on top of a prostrate male body. That's Lord Shiva, pure divine awareness. He gazes up at her in rapture, much like her Hindu devotees.

The Bloodthirsty Goddess

Kali is a very distinctive-looking goddess. She's half naked, though she does wear a garland of skulls and a belt of naked limbs. She's waving a lot of very scary-looking weapons around in the air, and her tongue is tuck out to suck up any negative thought that passes through your mind. 

Westerners will sometimes say, " I'm getting in touch with my inner Kali. I'm really connecting with my anger!" But Hindus do not experience Kali as an angry goddess. On the contrary, they recognize Kali as the slayer of duality. If we're angry at someone, it's because we're seeing them as an enemy, as someone apart from ourselves. It's determined to destroy. If  there's anything less than pure love inside us, sooner or later, in this life or the next, Kali will hack it out of us!

Kali : The Really Scary One

One of the demons Durga fought in the Devi Mahatmyam was called Raktabija, which means "drop of blood". Whatever she attacked him, each drop Raktabija's blood turned into a clone of himself as soon as it touched the ground.

This was the only demon actually capable of holding his own against the Mother of the Universe. For one moment the Divine power frowned. From her kint forehead leapt the most terrifying Goddess ever : Kali!

Kali stuck out her long tongue and drank up every drop of Raktabija's blood before it could touch the earth. And then she ate him!

The battles being described here are purely internal. Your guru will help you to understand that Raktabija is the mind's ability to keep generating negative thoughts and bad habits without end. The only way to stop this proliferation is to catch is to catch each thought before it has a chance to take root in the fertile field of your unconscious. If you invoke her, Kali will help you clean out the garbage stored in the basement of your subconscious. The process is full of grace, but it's not always pleasant !

The Demon Slayer

Medhas tells a series of stories about Durga's battles with an assortment of evil demons. Blood and gore are described with relish as Durga finishes them off- the poor devils don't stand a chance! These demons unhelpful qualities in ourselves, such as hatred, anger, depression, conceit, and misuse of our natural abilities.

The Devi Mahatmyam promises that anyone who hears these stories will be cleansed of their sins. This is not just a fast and loose sales pitch. Many devotees experience a profound sense of catharsis from hearing how the Divine Power purifies the psychic atmosphere of these malignant forces. Even if you don't grasp intellectually that Durga's battle is an inner one, the story is told so vividly that you feel it going on inside you. This has been called "therapeutic myth", the process of addressing your inner conflicts through vivid mental imagery. When the Goddess triumphs in the end, you feel like you yourself have won an important battle. 

Medha's two students now enthusiastically propitiate the Goddess. Eventually she appears to them both and asks what boon they prefer. The king wants his kingdom back and is granted a vast empire. The merchant, however, has developed a taste for the higher things in life after months of worship and austerity in the woods. So he asks for the highest thing he can think of : spiritual liberation. With great delight, Durga grants his request. 

The Glory of the Goddess

I told you earlier the most popular scripture in Hinduism is the Bhagavad Gita. A close runner-up in popularity is the Devi Mahatmyam, which means "Glory of the Goddess". Millions of Hindus can recite sections from it by heart. It's the story of a king and a merchant who have been betrayed by their families and friends and have lost everything they own. Deeply disillusioned, they go to the sage Medhas for  spiritual counseling.

Medhas explains that most people are deluded by the Goddess's great power of maya. They fail to see their unity with all creation and with each other. Instead they selfishly strive to enrich themselves without regard for how others may be harmed in the process. Medhas advises the two men to worship the Goddess in the hope that she will reveal to them her other great power : the power to grant more about this wonderful Goddess.