kali yantra

Shiva and Kali grant liberation by removing the illusion of the ego. It is partly correct to say the Goddess Kali Ma is a goddess of death but She brings the death of the ego as the illusory self-centered view of reality. Goddess Kali Ma comes from the Sanskrit root word Kal which means time. There is nothing that escapes the all-consuming march of time. Goddess Kali Ma is depicted as standing on Shiva who lays beneath Her with white skin (in contrast to Her black or sometimes dark blue skin). Goddess Kali Ma is the goddess of enlightenment or liberation. Nowhere in the Hindu stories is Kali seen killing anything but demons nor is She associated specifically with the process of human dying like the Hindu god Yama (who really is the god of death). Mother Kali Ma is the most misunderstood of the Hindu goddesses. Ma Kali wears a garland of skulls and a skirt of dismembered arms because the ego arises out of identification with the body. It is true that both Goddess Kali Ma and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds and devotees often go to these places to meditate. Shiva and Kali are said to inhabit these places because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego. He has a blissful detached look. Shiva represents pure formless awareness sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss) while She represents "form" eternally supported by the substratum of pure awareness. Thus we are the eternal I AM and not the body. As the story goes, this represents a great battle in which she destroyed the demon Raktabija. Liberation can only proceed when our attachment to the body ends. The Encyclopedia Britannica is grossly mistaken in the following quote, "Major Hindu goddess whose iconography, cult, and mythology commonly associate her with death, sexuality, violence, and, paradoxically in some of her later historical appearances, motherly love." Her black skin represents the womb of the quantum unmanifest from which all of creation arises and into which all of creation will eventually dissolve. This is underscored by the scene of the cremation grounds. She holds a sword and a freshly severed head dripping blood. This is not to worship death but rather it is to overcome the I-am-the-body idea by reinforcing the awareness that the body is a temporary condition. In truth we are beings of spirit and not flesh. The garland and skirt are trophies worn by Her to symbolize having liberated Her children from attachment to the limited body.