Kali Alok Dutta
S
omeone told me once: ‘Just like you need a lawyer to fight your case in a court, you need a priest to argue your case with God.’ My humble reply was: ‘But, you don’t need a mediator when you argue with your parents. They naturally understand their children and definitely understand their language.’ And, if God is truly your parent, then your relationship with God is a relationship of love. There exists nobody and nothing between the parents and their children; there could not exist anything. There is devotion but not out of fear. It is a devotion absorbed in love. Sri Ramakrishna has shown this through his life and teachings. At least, that is what I have gathered. I love Mother Kali. That is why I see her from a son’s perspective. Kala means time and Kali is the controller of time. Just like dhana means wealth and dhani means wealthy. I am born in this ‘time’ and the controller of time, Kali, has given birth to me. Kala and Kali are inseparable. That is why in Kali’s altar, both are present. Kali is the coming together of creation, sustenance, and destruction and Kala denotes their co-existence. The one, who gives birth, sustains too. That is why creation and sustenance are her responsibilities. And one who has birth has merging also. She merges in the chest of Kala. I intentionally did not use the word ‘death’. In fact, nothing dies. That which is non-existent, exists in history. Because Kala and Kali are inseparable, to love Kali, one has to know Kala. Kali puts out her tongue so that she would understand and experience Kala through taste, smell, sound, sight,
798
and touch; that is why she keeps her nose, ears, eyes, and the entire body open. She also sees Kala through her heart and altar. That is why her third eye in the forehead is open—it is the symbol of the vision of heart and knowledge. Let us understand time. It is constantly flowing. A poet has said: ‘Time flows by the river current.’ Time constantly comes from the past, touches the present, and runs after the future. The sky, air, planets, and stars are all witnesses to this. The human being can only indicate time to some extent through units like second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, and so on. The vast can be measured. The human being has measured the highest peak, the Mount Everest, the seabed, and also the speed of light, which is 1,86,282 miles per second. Further, even for measuring great distances, the human being has combined the speed of light with time and created a unit called the light year. But there is no tape to measure the infinite. Not only that there is no end for Kali or Kala; there is no beginning also. It would be an understatement to call them the primal god or the primal goddess. The human being bows down before the vast and yet aspires to touch it. The mountains are high! Humans get enthralled by the Himalayas and bow down with respect, yet they scale its highest peak. The sea is vaster and deeper. Humans cross seas and oceans and move on their beds. And the sky! The land and waters of earth are not infinite but, the sky is infinite; without beginning and without end. Humans wander PB December 2016