KALI MAA And The Dark Forest

1. Imagine that you are Kali. Beautiful. Adolescent, overflowing with untamed power. Your skin is black or midnight blue. Naked, supple, a huntress—all senses on full alert. You brandish your cleaver. You are like a tigress, nose to the wind in order to sniff out the presence of a potential victim.

2. You move through the dark forest with a light step, softly. When you begin to feel your untamed strength mounting you stoke it to incandescence by remembering, one after the other, all those people who have made you suffer in your life. They are going to appear in the forest. The cruelest ones first.

3. As soon as you feel their presence, violence rises up in you, your lips draw back, your power increases, and you run toward your first victim. When your victim sees you, she is stricken with panic. You savor the moment before cutting her to pieces. Each one of your victims merits individual treatment. Some you just slice in two, others get chopped into tiny pieces. As pieces fall to the ground, you stride through them, rushing on to your next victim.

4. The more the trail of victims lengthens, the more your savagery explodes. You control nothing. Pure expression of violence! At first you will have some difficulty letting your energy explode, but little by little, just like the mythological Kali, you are swept along.

5. A moment will come when you have killed all those who hurt you, and you will feel the energy begin to swing back. At that moment, you leave the dark forest and discover a very beautiful valley. It’s nighttime with stars and moonlight, the Himalayas, and a beautiful lake. The placid surface of the lake attracts you, and you walk toward it. Your body becomes calm.

6. You arrive near the lake and, slipping into the cool water, all traces of blood are washed away. Sweetness overcomes you little by little. You drop your cleaver and begin to feel a deep relaxation in the muscles that were tensed in violence.

7. Your body becomes so light that the energy of the water propels it to the surface. You float, arms and legs crossed, watching with deep happiness the crescent moon, the snowy peaks, the stars. Your breathing becomes soft and subtle. You are in harmony with earth and sky, water and space.

8. Suddenly, among the stars, all the fragments that you cut up appear. They float for a moment in the midnight blue sky and then rain down into the lake. As soon as the body fragments touch the water, they become light and luminous; they float around you like constellations.

9. Little by little the fragments come together and the bodies re-form. You no longer feel the slightest animosity or the slightest tension. The bodies assemble in the same place as you—their feet and hands touching, they form a circle around you. A mandala is created with you at its center. You understand that the beings who made you suffer are victims and that they had no other language available to them. You understand that all violence comes from frustration. You can no longer hold anything against them.

10. On the contrary, such a force of love circulates between you and them that umbilical cords spring out of your navel and attach you to the navel of each person in this first circle. You nourish them with your love and knock down the transmission of violence. There is not even forgiveness—just understanding of the chain of violence that you have just broken. You have become the Kali of infinite love.

11. Once you understand that your aggressors are victims, a second circle forms, made up of those who brought suffering to those who were violent toward you. From the first circle, umbilical cords bring nourishment to the second circle.

12. More circles form. In this way you can create five of them in a magnificent mandala that floats in the midnight blue sky.

The chain of violence is broken. This practice is extremely powerful; little by little it eradicates our most violent instincts.