Kali the Mother

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Kali The Mother

By The Sister NIVEDITA Of the Order of Ramakrishna Calcutta, India.

LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LTD., 1900.

A Visit to Dukineshwar

A Visit to Dukineshwar.

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace,

whose mind is stayed on Thee."—Isaiah.

HE was not in the vastness. And the Soul, lying on a housetop on the Earth, and ooking forth into the uttermost of space, realised the solitude and trembled.

Then came one whose voice spake within the heart, saying very gently, "Come thou away into that quiet place and rest awhile. There it may be that thou shalt speak with Him." And that soul arose, following after, as it were, the Angel of the Presence,—who bore white lilies, and about his feet played flames, and his eyes to look into were like mighty waters—and came by many ways unto the Lord's own garden, and rested there.

And there was in that garden a place where five trees grew together, beneath which oftentimes had the Master sat and prayed and entered into glory. Thither went the soul, laden with sorrowful queries and needs, and being received into the silence, waited.

On the left flowed the river, and the great barges went past swiftly, with sails full set. Beneath, the dead leaves stirred in the breeze, or rustled under the footsteps of a mouse. And on the branches above fell the flood of moonlight, dropping through and making spaces on the brickwork, all outlined by quivering leaves and moving stems.

The whispers of river and trees and lone night-creatures were the only sounds that could be heard. "Those with whom I was wont to come, O Master, are absent now. In far distant and separate lands think they upon this place. I would make memorial for them at Thy feet to-night!"

And the Lord said—"It is well. My own are ever Mine. I bear their burdens; I guide their footsteps; and at last I bring them to that haven where they would be. There are three here to-night, My child, not one. Be assured."

"Some whom we love, O Lord, are in fetters of suffering. With hearts cramped by fear they look out upon their world. One longs for death because life is bitter: to others, life comes so hard that we almost ask for death for them. We pray Thee, give these ease, or that light that makes ease of no account."

And the Lord, smiling, listened—

"It cannot be, O Lord, that for the People we can do nothing! In the midst of terrible calamity, shrinking from the gaze of death, or striving against the blow that will rob them of the beloved: sleeping hard in the air of poisonous swamps, ill-fed, ignorant, and oppressed, it cannot be that we, so much more fortunate, can share nothing with them. It cannot be that Thou wilt tell us it is vain to struggle.

"And what would you have?"

"Only the right to share their danger, if nothing can be done. Only to hold their hands and hearten them—to perform some menial service for them—not to feel utterly cut off from fellowship, while they tread the winepress of despair!"

"Is this all?"

"Nay, if it were granted to us to serve truly—that would be blessedness. If we might indeed bring help, then the cup were full. But even without this we pray to be allowed the freedom where men do what they can, without thought o self. Command us not forever to think of the necessities of life. Grant us to give, and leave with Thee, and remember not whether life or death we shall take away."

And there was long silence. And at last the Voice, very gentle and reproachful—

"O foolish Children! Have ye yet to learn that this love that speaks in your hearts is not yours but Mine? Must ye struggle and plead with me for My own? Know ye not that difficulties and discouragements but point out the way in which I would guide you? Strive on and fear not! That way shall be found! Can My love be baffled? . . . Is yours more than its feeblest utterance? right is only to action: thy right is never to the fruit thereof.' Maybe this struggle is itself your action. Yours not to ask how it shall end . . . . Your love is not separate from Mine. Know that these two are one . . . ."

And as the words died away, those souls rested for a moment in the sight of a Universe that was all Mother—of a love of which the love of human mothers for their children is but a feeble glimmer—of a life that whether hard or happy-seeming, was all alike the dealing of that Universe-Mother with Her babes.

And the Master put forth His hand in that place and blessed His worshippers.

An Intercession

An Intercession.

"These are the days that must happen to you: You shall not heap up what is called riches. You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve. You but arrive at the city to which you are destined, You hardly settle yourself to satisfaction, before you are called, by an irresistible call, to depart. You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you. What beckonings of love you receive you shall answer with passionate kisses of parting. You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reached hands towards you."

Walt Whitman.

MOTHER! Far away, one whom I love is very sad to-day. His heart calls to mine for help, but though I tell him how I love him, I leave him still uncheered. How is it? I know he thinks towards me, I know I talk with him. Yet I long to see him, and hear him, and comfort him face to face!

My child, if this were not so, the sense-life would not be yours, or would not hold you. When you have reached that place where the communion of souls is enough, you will find that it is more than the knowledge of the senses, faith will already be swallowed up in sight.

But, oh Mother, what can I now do to ease this craving pain? I prayed for the vision of Râghunath and did not know that it meant torture multiplied a thousand fold. When one is in trouble oneself, one's own little world lies in gloom; outside, the busy feet pass up and down beneath the windows, the birds build nests, and the children play in the sunshine, as before: but the universe becomes all black when the beloved suffers.

Cease, My child, from inordinate affection. Give Me your heart, and let Me govern it alone. Be the witness of earth's joys and sorrows, sharing them not. Thus only can you keep yourself from entanglement, and attain to peace.

But peace for myself, dear Mother, why should I seek? How can I turn a deaf ear to his voice that calls me, adding another pang to the heartache of a life, and go away myself, and be at peace? Give him

that inner peace! Let me win it for him, if Thou wilt he kind! But I cannot will to fail him in his need and loneliness, even to gain Thy blessing! Ah foolish one! Every thought of love that you send out to answer his, becomes a fetter of iron to hold him in life's anguish. Hide you yourself in My heart, My child, and he, too, will come home to Me. For your love's sake, let your voice cease to be one with the voices of the world. Let it come to him only in Mine, when that is borne on the south wind at the time of sunset, calling him gently to worship at My feet. Let it be one with transcendent love, with infinite freedom. Only thus can you satisfy him. Only by withdrawing yourself can you bring him peace. Mother! I yield. Take me, I pray Thee, into Thine own heart. Let me not look back. If Thou wilt call me I shall find my way there, surely, though my eyes now are blind with tears.

And for those I love, shall I trust Thy mercy less than I trust mine own?

Yet if at the last they seem to stumble, if the foot slip, or Thy voice fail them by the way, promise, dear Mother, once more to wake me from the dream of bliss. Cast me out from Thy heart, I beg of Thee, and let those who so need Thee, go in before to peace!

Silly, silly child! Like a helpless bird you beat your wings of littleness against My grace! Look up and laugh! For already the cloud that seemed so black is passing. Already the clasp of hands about the heart is loosened. Two souls draw the long breath of strength and relief. The feet of two who come to Me are shod with gladness. The hearts of two beat high, for the conquest born of renunciation.

Concerning Symbols

OUR daily life creates our symbol of God. No two ever cover quite the same conception.

It is so with that symbolism which we know as language. The simple daily needs of mankind, seem, the world over, to be one. We look, therefore, for words that correspond in every land.

Yet we know how the tongue of each people expresses some one group of ideas with especial clearness, and ignores others altogether. Never do we find an identical strength and weakness repeated: and always if we go deep enough, we can discover in the circumstances and habits of a country, a cause for its specific difference of thought or of expression.

In the North we speak of a certain hour as "twilight," implying a space of time between the day and night. In India, the same moments receive the name of "time of union," since there is no period of half-light,—the hours of sun and darkness seeming to touch each other in a point.

The illustration can be carried further. In the word gloaming lies for us a wealth of associations,—the throbbing of the falling dusk, the tenderness of home-coming, the last sleepy laughter of children. The same emotional note is struck in Indian languages by the expression at the hour of cowdust.

How graphic is the difference! Yonder, beyond the grass, the cowgirl leads her cattle home to the village for the night. Their feet as they go strike the dust from the sunbaked path into a cloud behind them. The herd-girl herself looms large across the pasture—all things grow quickly dim, as if the air were filled with rising dust.

That word cowdust, indeed, strikes a whole vein of expression peculiar to this Eastern land. Everything about the cow has been observed and loved and named. As much water as will lie in the hole once made by its hoof is a well known measure amongst the Aryan folk!

It is unnecessary to argue further that while the facts of nature determine the main developments of speech, yet every language and group of languages differs from every other as the characters of individuals and of nations.

Something of the same sort is true of religious symbols. Short of perfect realization, we must see the Eternal Light through a mask imposed by our own thought. To no two of us, probably, is the mask quite in the same place, and some reach, by their own growth, diverging points so distant from the common centre that they mark the extreme limits hitherto achieved of those great areas known as the Christian, or the Buddhist, or the this-that-or-the-other consciousness.

To do this, or even to carry a whole race to a new rallying-place round a standard planted on the old frontier is the peculiar mission of religious genius.

So Jesus swept down in His might on the old Jewish entrenchments of carried the banner off bodily to that outpost of love and mercy which struggling souls had reached, indeed, before Him, but which none had yet been strong enough to make the very heart and focus of vitality.

And so every one of us, simply by thinking his own thought, and living his own life to the full, may be answering his brother's cry for God in ways beyond the dreaming of the world. Are Catholic possibilities not richer for the life of Manning, or Protestant for Frances Ridley Havergal?

These things being true, the imagery of all men has its significance for us. The mask is created by our own thought directly, and indirectly through the reaction of custom upon thought. Like all veils, it brings at once vision and the limiting of vision. Only by realising the full sense of every symbol can we know the whole thought of Humanity about God.

But down with all masks!

The Uncreated Flame itself we long for, without symbol or veil or barrier. If we cannot see God and live,—let us then die—what is there to fear? Consume us in primal fire, dissolve us into living ocean, but interpose nothing, no, nor the shadow of anything, between the soul and the divine draught for which it thirsts!

True. Yet for each of us there is a chosen way. We ourselves may still be seeking it, where and when still hidden from our eyes. But deep in our hearts is rooted the assurance that the moment will yet come, the secret signal be exchanged, the mystic name will fall upon our ears, and somewhere, somewhen, somehow, our feet shall pass within the gates of Peace, we shall enter on the road that ends only with the Beatific Vision.

Till then, well says the old Hindu poet of the folk-song to himself:—

"Tulsi, coming into this world, Seek thou to live with all— For who knows where or in what guise, The Lord Himself may come to thee?"

Our daily life creates our symbol of God.

To the Arab of the desert, with his patriarchal customs, the father of the family,—just and calm in his judgments, protector of his kindred, loving to those who played about his knees as babes,—may well stand as the type of all in which men feel security.

Naturally, then, it was the Semitic mind that flashed across the dim communing of the soul with the Eternal, the rapturous illumination of the great word "Father."

God our father,—bound even to the most erring of His children by a kinship that misdoing cannot break (for if the human tie be indissoluble, shall the divine be less so?); father,—by a tie so intimate that to this day the stalwart Afghan, prostrating in the mosque, says "Thee" and "Thou" to the God of Hosts, as might an infant on its father's knee!

In the Aryan home, woman stands supreme. As wife in the West,—lady and queen of her husband—as mother in the East,—a goddess throned in her son's worship,—she is the bringer of sanctity and peace.

Profound depths stir within us, in presence of the intensely Christian conception of God—a child in His mother's arms. This ideal of the heart of a woman—pierced by its seven sorrows, on fire with love, mother beside the cradle, worshipper beneath the cross, and glorified in great humility,—has been one of the richest gifts of the Catholic Church to humanity.

Peerless in its own way is the womanhood of Rossetti's sonnet:—

"This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect God's Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee . . Unto God's will she brought devout respect,— Profound simplicity of intellect, And supreme patience . . . . . . Thus held she through her girlhood, As it were an angel-watered lily, That near God grows, and is quiet."

Jesus Himself—to those who kneel before no Madonna in the Vatican—sounds this note of the eternal feminine. "Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Is it not a woman's cry?

Nay, He is conscious of this element in His own nature. Once at least He speaks of it. In that sublime moment when He, the young Leader of the armies of the future, stands on the sunlit mountains, and looking down upon the city of His race sees the dark shadow of destiny wrapping it about, in that moment when the Patriot forgets, in a sob of human anguish, that He is Master and Redeemer, in that moment He becomes all motherhood. "O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee,—how often would I have gathered thy children together, like as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"

The soul that worships becomes always a little child: the soul that becomes a child finds God oftenest as mother. In a meditation before the Blessed Sacrament, some pen has written the exquisite assurance: "My child, you need not know much in order to please Me. Only love Me dearly. Speak to me, as you would talk to your mother, if she had taken you in her arms."

But it is in India that this thought of the mother has been realised in its completeness. In that country where the image of Kali is one of the most popular symbols of deity, it is quite customary to speak of God, as "She," and the direct address then offered is simply "Mother."

But under what strange guise! In the West, art and poetry have been exhausted to associate all that is tender and precious with this thought of woman-worship. The mother plays with the little One, or caresses or nurses Him. Sometimes she even makes her arm a throne, whereon He sits to bless the world.

In the East, the accepted symbol is of a woman nude, with flowing hair, so dark a blue that she seems in colour to be black, four-handed—two hands in the act of blessing, and two holding a 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 form 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

The stars are blotted out, Clouds are covering clouds, It is darkness, vibrant, sonant. In the roaring whirling wind Are the souls of a million lunatics,— But loosed from the prison house,— Wrenching trees by the roots, Sweeping all from the path. The sea has joined the fray, And swirls up mountain-waves, To reach the pitchy sky. Scattering plagues and sorrows, Dancing mad with joy, Come, Mother, Come!

For Terror is thy name, Death is in Thy breath. And every shaking step Destroys a world for e'er. Thou "Time" the All-Destroyer! Then come, O Mother, Come!

Who can misery love, Dance in destruction's dance, And hug the form of Death,— To him the Mother comes.

V.

The Story of Kali

The Story of Kali.

Written for Baby Legget, at Bally, Calcutta, Christmas 1898.

BABY DARLING, what is the very first thing you remember? Is it not lying on mother's lap, and looking up into her eyes, and laughing?

Did you ever play hide and seek with mother? Mother's eyes shut, and baby was not. She opened them, and there was baby! Then baby's eyes shut, and where was mother? But they opened again, and—oh!

When mother's eyes were shut, where was she? There all the time? But you could not see her eyes. Yet she was there.

Baby, some people think God is just like that. A great great Mother—so great that all this big world is Her baby. God is playing with Her world, and She shuts Her eyes. Then, all our lives long, baby darling, we try to catch the Great Mother peeping. And if any of us can do that, if any of us can look into the eyes of God, just once, just for a minute,—do you know what happens? . . . That person at once knows all secrets, and he becomes strong and wise and loving, and he never, never forgets that moment.

And when you win like that, when you catch the Mother looking, something else happens. Something lovely. All Her other children come and play with you. The little birds come, and the wee lambs love you, and the wild rabbits touch your feet, and the poor children in the streets, who are cold and hungry perhaps—poor children that the Great Mother loves most of all, because they seem to have no father or mother, and perhaps no home—poor children trust you, and make a place for you with them. We are all sitting on the Mother's lap, but these sit closest of all to Her breast.

And what do we call the Mother with Her eyes shut? We call her Kali. Were you ever for a very few minutes, unhappy? And did mother, or nurse, or auntie, or someone else, come and pick you up, and love you, and kiss you, till you were not unhappy any more?

Sometimes God is like that too. We get so frightened because those eyes will not open. We want to stop the game. We don't like it. We feel alone, and far away and lost. Then we cry out. It has grown quite dark, and still the Mother's eyes are shut. Let us play no longer. So we feel sometimes.

But the eyes are not shut, really. We think so, because it is dark all round. Just at that moment when you cried out, the beautiful eyes of the Mother opened and looked at Her child like two deep wells of love. And you, if you had seen, would have stopped playing all at once, and saying "Kali! Kali!" you would have hidden your little face on the Mother's shoulder, and listened to the beating of her heart instead!

And so, wee one, will you remember that the Great Mother Kali is everywhere? Even when the seems to be far away, it is only that you cannot see Her eyes. This mother goes away, and you cannot see her. But Kali is always there, always loving, and always ready to play with Her child.

And will you sometimes remember to stop playing, just for a minute, and to fold your little hands, and say, "Dear Mother Kali, let me see Your eyes!"

There is another game of hide-and-seek that the Great Mother plays. This is more like a fairy story. She hides sometimes in other people. She hides in anything. Any day you might see Her eyes, just looking into mother's, or playing with a kitten, or picking up a bird that had fallen from its nest. Under all these forms you may find God playing at hide-and-seek!

When there is something to do for someone—Kali is calling us to play. We love that play. She Herself said once (She was hiding in someone, and He said it for Her). "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, My little ones, ye did it unto Me." Is not that like a fairy story! And what funny places She, the Great Mother, can hide in! Another time She said "Lift the stone, and thou shalt find Me. Cleave the wood, and there am I!" Did you ever lift a stone or break a piece of wood to see what was inside? Did you ever think that was God—at the heart of things? How beautifully Kali plays! You might find Her anywhere!

Does mother love baby when she is hiding from her? Why of course! else why should she hide? Even when her eyes are shut, is Mother loving baby? Why yes, see how she is laughing all the time!

And so with Kali. We need never he frightened, though Her eyes are long shut. She is laughing all the time. In Her own good time God will stop playing, and we shall look into Her eyes, and get away and away behind the world—straight "to the other end of nowhere," all at once.

So let us always run to play when we are called. Remember, little one, if any need anything you can give, your Mother is calling you to find Her! If anyone ask for something you can do, it is really Mother saying "Peep childie!" or when a new person comes for you to love, Kali is saying "Here am I!" There is something else. You love mother and father and auntie and nurse, and—, and—. Of course you do. Besides, they love you, and they are all so good and kind.

But far far away, mother has a brother, a big brother, like Holl. Do you love him too? Why? You never saw him. He never played with you.

No, but mother loves him. And you love all the people mother loves—don't you dearie? And so we love all the people Kali loves. All the children She plays with, and the lambs, and the flowers, and the great trees, and the little fishes. She loves all these, and She loves too the stars in the sky. And so do we. For we are Her children, and everything that She loves we love too, because She is the Mother, and we cannot help it.

The Vision of Siva

The Vision of Siva.

Dark Mother! Always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for Thee a chant of fullest welcome?

Walt Whitman.

IT may have been that the forefathers saw it in the mountains. Or it may have been elsewhere. Somewhere it came to the Hindu mind that the beauty of snowpeaks and moonlight, and standing water, was different from all other loveliness of colour and profusion and many-channelled scene.

It was as though Nature, the great Mother, were clothed in raiment of green, broidered with birds and flowers and fruits, and veiled in blue, adorned with many jewels, and yet as if, amidst all the restless pomp and clamour of her glory, would shine through now and then, a hint of something different. Something white and austere and pure; something compelling quiet; something silent and passionless, and eternally alone. Even the beauty of the world, then, suggested a twofold essence. Wherever the Hindu looked, he found this duality repeated,—light and shadow, attraction and repulsion, microcosm and macrocosm, cause and effect. Nay, he looked into human life itself, and he found humanity as man and woman, soul and body.

Here was a clue. On the plane of symbolism, the soul of things somehow became associated with the manly form, and the manifested energy (Nature, as we call it) with that of woman and motherhood. In this conception will be noted the deliberate statement that God and Nature are necessary to each other as the complementary manifestations of One, just as we find in the male and the female together, Humanity. That is to say, Nature itself is God, as truly as Nature's soul. "Are God and Nature then at strife?" cries, not only a great poet, but the whole heart of our western religion to-day. And far back from out of the dim centuries comes the hushed whisper of the Indian sages—"Look closer, brother! they are not even two, but one!" Under this aspect, the One Existence is known as Purush and Prakriti, Soul and Energy.

The highest representation of the Divine is always human. The shadow of a great rock in a weary land is a beautiful presentment of some imaginary qualities of God, but not for one moment does it delude the mind into the belief that here at last it has the thing itself. So with the Light and the Door, the Mountain and the Shield. These were not images that could take captive both brain and heart, firing a man to die in their defence. Very different was it with those other pictures, the Good Shepherd, the Eternal Father!

Here a strange mental confusion is imminent. The mystery behind all form is at last named in a formula so convincing, so appealing, so satisfying, that distinction ceases; we forget that even this is not final, that beyond the expression, and apart from it, lies the whole immensity.

Hinduism has avoided this danger of fixedness in a very curious way. Of all the peoples of the earth, it might be claimed that Hindus are apparently the most, and at heart the least, idolatrous. For the application of their symbols is many-centred, like the fire in opals.

This Purush and Prakriti utters a great principle. The relation of God to Nature is one demonstration of it. The soul and experience offer us another. The dynamo and the force that charges it would be a third.

This last illustration deserves a moment's attention. Everywhere we see the phenomenon of one waiting to be touched by another, in order to manifest power and activity. The two are known in India as Siva and Sakti. As the knight waits for the sight of his own lady, powerless without the inspiration of her touch, as the disciple waits for the master, and finds in him at last the meaning of all his life before, so the soul lies inert, passive, unstirred by the external, till the great moment comes, and it looks up at the shock of some divine catastrophe, to know in a flash that the whole of the without,—the whole of life, and time, and nature, and experience—like the within, is also God.