Insights
I personally feel Divinity as expressive through the female aspect, more so than the male aspect. However this is due to the culture I was born in this reincarnation. Others may hold contrary views or no views at all. I feel we are all unique in our body mind complex which in turn allows us to express ourselves in our own way. There are infinite number of variables in which the Divinity has expressed through the ages in different cultures, in different parts of this world, at different times.
The image to the below is an expression by an artist, of the Divinity in the way he had perceived it through ideas presented in words.
There
is some esoteric meaning of this artistic expression. It is an image of
White (Dakshina) Kali.
Allow me to expand on the story in the Puranas about this particular expression.
In the Markandeya Purana there is available the story of Mother Chandi or Chamunda. The Divine mother was invoked by Indra and other Devas (Angels) when they felt powerless against the Asuras (Angels who are more inclined to pleasures of the senses,very selfish and without feelings).
The Asuras had taken control of the world. They were torturing people. The Devas were not able to help. All the Devas went to Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu to show them a way to defeat the Asuras. The Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva asked all the Devas to meditate on the Divine Mother. While meditating thus, energies particular to each of the participants were focused to a point. This point of all energies began to expand and took the form of a exquisitely beautiful woman. Then all the Devas and the Trinity gave a weapon to this Divine Expression in the form of a woman.
Why the form of a woman? The King of the Asuras after a long and rigorous yoga practice had obtained the boon from Brahma, that no man shall be able to slay Mahisasura. All the Devas were male, all the able bodied, who could fight were male in the population. So how could Mahisasura be destroyed?
So the appearance of the combined power of the divine energies expressed itself in the form of a woman.
The devotees invoke this image through the name and form and meditate on it.
In the image, Dakshina Kali obtains her name because she has her right foot forward.
Her face is as dark as the dark rain clouds.
Her hair long and strands flying in the air.
She adorns herself with the skulls and body
parts of the Asuras. On the upper left arm sh has the sword of wisdom,
in the lower left hand she carries The skull of Brahma the creator. In
the upper right hand she displays the posture of radiating the energy of
fearlessness. The lower right displays the granting of boons to those who
are inclined to receive it.
She embodies the whole dark space of the Universe. Her Third Eye displays all the suns of the Universe. She is dancing on the Shava, the Mahakal, the Great Time. She makes the Time stop. (The space between two thoughts or events is the characteristic of Time)
This is the meditation which Tantriks and other people invoke at the initial stage of worship.
The reason is to concentrate the mind, to focus it on the Divinity, and allow it to transcend the worldly ideas for the duration.
The meter of this meditation is so powerful and energetic, when uttered in Sanskrit. It elevates the consciousness in another realm very quickly and helps to focus the mind on Divinity.
If these ideas were not effective then it could not go on for the last five thousand or so years.
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