One of the great literary treasures of the last century is “The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna”. This magnificent diary by one of Ramakrishna’s Bengali disciples is a magical window into the spiritual beauty and veracity of traditional Indian spirituality as personified by this singular Perfect Master. This book is priceless: There is no other book like it for its power to convey para bhakti, or supreme divine love.
Ramakrishna was devoted to Kali, whom he considered his Mother. Kali is the most marvelous and perfect illustration of the divine as the power of Nature in the Indian pantheon. Kali is mythic in that she does not take birth (form), except to manifest to her devotee; She is thus unlike Vishnu who takes birth as the Avatar, or the God-Man, i.e. the Christ, the Buddha, the Prophet, Rama and Krishna, etc.
Kali is the shakti (power) of Lord Shiva, who along with Brahma and Vishnu comprise the Indian Godhead; She is popularly considered a terrifying goddess of destruction who can confer boons that ease suffering to her devotees. But her spiritual meaning refers to her role as Mother Nature as the destroyer of form (bodies) so as to facilitate the growth of consciousness, life after life. She thus represents the inexorable drive for greater and greater consciousness through millions and millions of forms and lives that define creation: gas, stone, vegetable, worm, fish, bird, animal and human. She is the divine recycler.
Thus, to worship Kali is to worship the divine life force that animates and sustains all of life in its journey through form (bodies) toward union with God. Kali is the divine Mother inspiring all of her progeny to return to God and become God.
All death and destruction is a prelude to greater life. This is Kali.
We are now in the end phase of the Kali Yuga, the Machine Age. This is the age of greatest adharma, i.e. unrighteousness. This is the age of the greatest destruction of truth and harmony and well being of the Earth. This is the age of fire and the wrath of Kali as She destroys like never before the ignorance that worships form and not the spirit that would return to God as Bliss.
Kali is the supreme Mother whose love for creation will annihilate it, to liberate it.
