From: The Path of the Mother
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Kali Statue at Ammachi's ashram in India
"When the Universal
Mother becomes angry, it is a dazzling sight - like billions of suns ablaze at
the same time. Who could bear such a thing? . . . only consciousness in its
pure, motionless form can bear it. The anger of the Universal Mother is a
violent tempest of consciousness. . . . It can only be counterbalanced by an
energy that is perfectly motionless; and that is Shiva lying prostrate, while
Kali dances out all Her fury on top of Him."--Ammachi  Mother Kali's infinite compassion and
patience is equaled by her capacity for wrath. She
represents the divine principle of fierceness that annihilates our negative and
false sense of self. For most of us of the Western world, Kali's image is so
foreign, so conceptually incomprehensible, so terrifying, that it can be
difficult to relate to her. Often we take for granted our secure position in the world and have no reason in the moment to remember our ephemeral state, especially if flowers are blooming, the sun is out, and there is a slight cooling breeze. Then, one day in mid-summer, black clouds appear overhead and thunder rumbles in the distance. The wind blows fiercely, lightning strikes nearby, and the drum roll sounds that were once far away are now cracking with ear-shattering force. Maybe the lightning breaks a tree limb, starts a raging forest fire, or kills a person who didn't heed the distant warning sounds. Kali is both the benign weather and the tempestuous. In some of her more ferocious appearances she is a volcano eruption in Hawaii, an earthquake in India, a tidal wave in Japan, the fallen meteor in the Nevada desert, a supernova bursting into a new star, or the violent explosion of our own sun when our solar system was born. Her Devastation is Synoymous with Creation Her devastation is synonymous with creation. The volcano forms a mountain, the storm brings water for life on earth, and the earthquake splits the ground into an enormous crevice, a phenomenon of beauty. Our own birth is at once a creative and devastating experience. Fifty pounds of pressure on our tiny heads expels us from the womb along with the blood, urine, and feces which can accompany birth in natural settings. This creative force is also Kali. The rapture you might experience while lying on the ground on a summer night, gazing at ten billion stars shining from above, represents still another aspect of Kali: her night of eternal peace. Even in our wildest imagination it might be difficult to envision a beautiful young woman as the author of all that is. Wouldn't it be more understandable for a female who causes the creation, preservation, and devouring of the entire universe to come to us in an awe-inspiring, maybe even terrifying form? To prevent her from destroying the entire universe, Shiva lay down in front of her.  Mother Kali is portrayed as naked, black, with
red tongue hanging out, three-eyed, full-breasted, and with long, unruly hair
flying free. Often she is depicted as standing with one foot on top of a
reclining, white, and peaceful-looking Shiva. In the middle of a battlefield,
while holding the severed head of the evil king she had pierced with her dart,
Kali remained filled with infinite rage. In her tempestuous fury she didn't
quit her anihilistic course. To prevent her from destroying the entire
universe, Shiva lay down in front of her. She stepped on him, felt his infinite
calm, and stopped. In this classical pose Kali represents perfect union, her
active primordial force and his inert pure consciousness. In her supreme state
she is both Shiva and Shakti. In Hindu culture, black represents the feminine and white the masculine. Black is that color into which all colors go and out of which all colors come. Yet black is also a paradoxical symbol. The great Indian saint Ramakrishna tells us that Kali only looks black because we see her from a distance and lack an intimate knowledge of her properties. He says the phenomenon is like looking at the ocean; from far away it looks dark, but when we come closer and dip into the water with cupped hands, we can see that it is crystal clear. Out of her alone everything is born In her most intense darkness, the Mother is a densely concentrated light, not vibrant, but imploding like a black hole in outer space, out of which she creates the worlds and sends forth a million billion shining suns. Since both the masculine and the feminine reside within her, out of her alone everything is born. Through her everything is nurtured and protected, and into her everything is devoured at the end. Over and over and over again, an eternal cycle of creation, preservation, and dissolution continues. To know the numbers of these cosmic seasons would be like counting the stars on a moonless night. Within the Mother's created world exist the polar opposites of male and female, light and dark, good and evil, birth and death, demons and angels. Kali presides over all these polarities which make up the vitality of the world and are the natural order of our life force. She makes no distinction or judgment between these opposites; they just are - they are the nature of creation. Kali is Pure Consciousness as well as Primordial Nature 
Ammachi, thought by many to be an incarnation of Kali,
explains: "Among all the gods, Kali is the only one who didn't marry. Eternal virgin . . . eternally celibate! Whom should Kali marry? Who can marry Her? Shouldn't there be two people in order to marry? Where is that second person? How could Kali's marriage happen? Kali is neither man nor woman. She is both. She is Pure Consciousness as well as Primordial Nature. She fills both outside and inside. Kali is the compassionate Mother of the devotee who longs to see Her as well as the fierce Bhadrakali who kills the ego of the egotistical. Kali is everything." Those of us who truly desire to free ourselves of cumbersome and inhibiting egotistical ways can meditate on Kali and get her blessings quickly. Why is this so? Ammachi explains that our minds are easily fixed on Kali's fierce aspect since that is what predominates in our own character. Most of us are of a highly active and easily distracted nature; we want excitement, adventure, romance, danger. Kali's form is suitable for this kind of passionate mind. Her disheveled hair represents her boundless freedom. At first sight, Kali, complete with blood dripping from her trident and out of the corners of her mouth, is repellent. But contemplating the significance of her form further reveals a more expanded and realistic view of the mother of the universe. Her nakedness tells us that she is without illusions or veils of ignorance to cover her. She is clothed with the sky, with the universe itself. Her full breasts epitomize her ceaseless act of nurturing, her eternal state of motherhood. Her disheveled hair represents her boundless freedom. Her protruding tongue symbolizes the passionate nature of the feminine force and her insatiable appetite. With her tongue she stimulates us to act out both our attractions and our repulsions. With her teeth she cuts off our intense longings and aversions, devours our ignorance, and leads us into liberation. Most people all over the world prefer not to entertain the inevitability of suffering or death as an aspect of life and of creation. Yet death is certain, and so is birth. Kali is the harbinger of both life and death, and of joy and suffering. She represents the most extreme potential of all creation. All the good in the universe is contained within her left side, all bad is within her right side. She is the giver of all and the destroyer of all. She grants us the gift of life - its joys, its pain, its beauty, and its ugliness. And after we've become totally immersed in her creation, entangled in her enchanting world, we fear the inevitable, which is her power to take it all away. In the end she ushers us into her eternal black night in which we become endowed with absolute joy beyond compare. We become supreme reality. We become resplendent. We become Her. Ammachi says, "She is the great destroyer, forever swallowing up all She has created in order to fashion it within Herself and send it forth in new births. Her dance of death is that of a life constantly renewed. Like the gods She has light, like the demons She has force, but more divine than the gods and more terrible than the demons, She can conquer all. This is why She is depicted showing opposing tendencies like beauty and beastliness, terror and tenderness, because they can and do co-exist within us. Sometimes She enchants the world, at other times Her frightening dance makes the world tremble beneath Her feet. She bewitches with Her charm and instills fear. Yet beyond these, She wields a power in which all oppositions melt away." Footnote: "Kali," with a long "a," literally means, "the black" and refers to Goddess Kali. The word Kali, with a short "a," refers to Kali Yuga or the Age of Materialism and has to do with dissension and strife.  Details about The Path of the Mother  Order from: Amazon: The Path of the Mother : With the Divine... or from your local bookstore
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