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Shubhasito(Noble Thoughts): Concerning Symbols
Shubhashito: Part II
On: CONCERNING SYMBOLS
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.......In the East, the accepted symbol is of a woman nude, with
flowing hair, so dark a blue that she seems in color to be black,
four-headed-two hands in the act of blessing, and two holding knife
and bleeding head respectively, -- garlanded with skulls, and dancing,
with protruding tongue, on the prostrate figure of a man all white
with ashes.
A terrible, an extraordinary figure! Those who call it horrible may
well be forgiven. They pass only through the outer court of the
temple. They are not arrived where the Mother's voice can reach them.
This , in its own way, is well.
Yet, this image, so fearful to the Western mind, is perhaps dearer
than any other to the heart of India. It is not, indeed, the only from
in which the Divine Energy presents Herself to Her worshippers. To the
Sikh, She is absorbed, embodied in his sword; all women, especially as
children, are Her incarnations; glorious Sita carries the great
reality to many.
But Kali comes closer to us than these. Others we admire; others we
love; to Her we belong. Whether we know it or not, we are Her
children, playing round Her knees. Life is but a game of hide-and-seek
with Her, and if, in its course, we chance to touch Her feet, who can
measure the shock of the divine energy that enters into us? Who can
utter the rapture of our cry of "Mother"?
-
Kali The Mother
By Bhogini (Sister) Nivedita
Chandan
cbando@lynx.neu.edu
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* "This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they *
* alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive" *
* - Vishwa Vivek *
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