Monday 11 June 2012

Confessions of a Single, Female Backpacker - V

Well, my plan to wake up for the 4 a.m. darshan of Ma Dakshina Kali didn't materialise. As it is with such places, I slept like an infant and at 5:30 a.m. forced myself to awake so I could be in time for the 6 a.m. darshan. Trudging sleepily down the guest house lobby, I ran into a family headed to the temple and ganged up with them. Being long time Bengali devotees of the temple they told me awe- inspiring stories of how the 2000 strong crowd I saw the day before was actually because of the heatwave. It would have been easily twice that being the weekend. Why, just last December they remember standing in line behind 25000 in the shivering winter morning. Was I grateful to have missed that one !


We purchased white gallons to fill with water from the Ganga and made our way to the ghats.






It was a moment of moments. Beginning last January I had been summoned by some mysterious force to every significant Ganga Ghat .Hrishikesh, Varanasi and now as it makes it's way to the ocean, at Dakshineshwar. That familiar sight of pre-morning rituals on the ghat, families bathing and praying, filling white gallons of the holy water to take home ... I hope to decode the design behind this someday. As I took the 3 customary dips in the freezing January winter at Varanasi, it was half-belief and half- curiosity at exploring this ancient ritual.  Then in the even more freezing November waters at Hrishikesh it was perhaps 3 quarters belief and a quarter of doubt at this coincidence. Now as I took my 3 dips, the magic of Bengal worked it's way, coursing through my nerves, deleting all that is contrary to belief. Belief in the Source. There could be more that has happened, time will tell. 


I made my way to each Siva Temple, representative of all the jyotirlings and poured the water I had collected on each and every one of them. Along with many others chanting, singing devotees, an experience like no other. Outside on the sprawling courtyard a group of devotees had gotten hold of drums and broke into an impromptu song and dance performance that was mesmerising to watch. Their intonations of ancient mantras through song was a first. And like the evening before I let go of all my inhibitions and joined this group of men and women, adults, dancing and prancing like children. I broke out of the group to stand behind line for a darshan of Kali.


If the persona of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa , his message of love, peace and harmony does not clear your misconceptions of the reality behind Kali's fear inducing exterior - nothing else will. As the cosmic principle of Time, Death and Destruction Kali offers the seeds of regeneration and rebirth. Like a mother, Time is the womb of the Source through which all things are born, Kali being Time is the mother who offers new life. And mothers, are always of love. Through her seer Ramakrishna and his protegee Vivekananda, Dakshina Kali unleashed a new age of awakening. Ramakrishna  was followed by a dozen Bengali New Age Gurus who spread the message of Self and God Realisation throughout the world irrespective of religion, race and creed. From Tagore, Ram Mohun Roy to Paramahamsa Yogananda and Anandamayee Ma.


This is the gift of Dakshina Kali, Ramakrishna and Bengal to the citizens of the world.


A new beginning into the light. 

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