KAMALA
Diwali – Kamari Puja
Oh Kamala
You be the Goddess who grounds Love
You are present in the Kisses between Lovers
You make a house a home
Where you are not, the heart rots away
Where you are, there magical roses bloom
A beautiful, lavish, loving, earthly blessing is the tone and fragrance of Kamala.
She be the Mahavidya Goddess of love.
On this dark Moon night, the search for her sacred love is ventured upon.
Kamala is the woman of boundless beauty, love and sensuality.
She is the all woman of ultimate feminine allure,
She is the love within all form.
Hers is a love that we should never take for granted.
When she is taken for granted, she will be lost and only be there in form, but the elixir of Love will long be dead.
This night of Kamala Jayanti is the dark Moon nestled in the heart the dark half of the year.
Kamala Jayanti is the night of Diwali.
When we look into the tale of Diwali, we find that the Goddess has been taken for granted and been hijacked by the forces of dominance, arrogance and assumption.
(See Diwali Written Tantra for a more detailed account of this Tantric tale).
Kamala Jayanti might well be the birthday of the Goddess of Love.
But Kamala Jayanti is more than just a celebration of her presence.
It is also a recognition of her absence.
Her night of Tantric voyage is a time of honest acknowledgment and looking into the places where there is an absence of love.
Her night is the voyage to bring love back.
The name Kamala, contains the word Kama.
Kama is the name of the God of Desire.
He represents the raw principle of pure desire.
It is Kama who shoots off his arrows into the Chakras and causes infatuation and longing.
When the Bija mantra ‘La’, is added to the name of Kama, then we have Kamala.
The ‘La’ Bija (seed syllable) is the vibration that grounds desire – La being the Bija seed syllable for the Kunda, that is the pot that houses Kundalini Shakti at the root of our body. It is the very base of our being.
Ungrounded desire
plays out in putting our energies
in things that have nothing to do with
our immediate situation in life & in love.
Love is presence to the eternal loving mystery.
Tantric practice concerns itself with the most immediate feelings of the heart, and the nearest matter at hand.
To ground our desire becomes a fortifying and nourishing way towards the fulfilment of love.
To ground desire is the way of Kamala.
Kamala also means lotus flower.
The lotus is known for its deeply rooted nature in the soil and soul of the marsh, but it is equally known for its ethereally sensual manifest beauty.
Kamala is the Goddess of the lotus, displaying the grace and dignity of outer beauty, whilst having a grounded base.
Kamala is authentic feminine beauty, the one who displays the object that calls forth of desire and love.
Oh but hers is not a surface beauty, but a beauty grounded in the most immediate and earthly realities that face us.
With Kamala, there is no fakeness, there is no empty display.
She calls forth a deep robust love that goes far beyond infatuation.
She does this by having root in the most immediate things.
The Way of a Kamala is a way of nurturing simplicity, a way of honesty and living and loving that which is in our immediate scope.
This nourishes and creates beauty and love in our lives.
Love is presence to
the eternal loving mystery.
The way to honour Kamala is to keep the vision upon love.
This does not mean being only sweet.
To honour the sacred heart sometimes requires us to stand for imbalance and injustice within our relationships.
Love is clarity and balance as much as it is sacrifice and surrender.
To only surrender in love is to create an imbalance in the mechanism of exchange.
Love is exchange,
Love is balance,
Love is clarity,
Love is sacrifice
The vision of love that leads us into the eye in the heart of Kamala, is the vision of presence as to what actually is before us.
This is a great task, as we have many distractions to draw us out of the presence of love.
Love is not in the moment,
Love is the moment when it is really the moment and nothing else.
Distractions may be outside, but distractions within ourselves are studied by the Tantric.
Relationship of any kind is a place where we can see and Tantricly study the forces of exchange that create love.
Sometimes we might respond to things and cause offense within relationship.
Sometimes we might lose the presence of the moment because of inner programs and inner distractions that draw out conflicts.
A typical scenario in relationship is one of feeling not seen, because the person we engage with does not see us. Naturally this can cause frustration, but expressing not being seen to a person who doesn’t see us can become a cause of conflict.
When we do not see the other, it is ourselves that we don’t see.
When the other does not see us, it is themselves that they do not see.
These blind spots in love take profound patience and sometimes sacrifice to bear if we are to come to healing.
It it is not just bearing and sacrifice that is needed for there to be a flow in love.
Clarity is needed, boundaries that balance the exchange of forces are needed when presence is lost.
Setting boundaries can be defensive if the vision is not upon love.
Love is a Siddhi that the Tantric practices all focus upon and nourish. Absolute presence to what is happening right here and right now is the stripping away of extraneous distractions.
The spirits that draw us away from love is the Tantric study of love.
Those spirits might be cultural distractions, they might be ancestral traits tgat efho in the chambers of our soul, or they might be unresolved knots.
We face the knots not only in peace and relaxation, but we face tge knots when they tighten in the throes of conflict.
Tantric practice brings us to see our inner conflicts. There is no sweet remedy, distraction or hiding from oneself when we venture to look into our own mirror.
Tantric vision keeps an eye on
the empty make-believe ghosts
outside of the place we actually sit.
They are the ghosts that feed on
love & beauty.
This Moon is known as Kamari Purnima.
The dark Moon of Kamari (princess) and her opposite Kamar (prince).
This is the Moon of Love and Desire.
It is the 2nd Dark Moon of the post-equinox darkening half of the year.
2 is the number of dualities upon the physical and psychic plane.
The number two is the number of the polarity of Love.
The dark Moon of love is a ritual time of exploring dualities and their meeting
Dualities are expressed as Kamar and Kamari, they are the inner archetypes of the princess and the prince on their way to royal love.
Love is envisioned by both, but there are often varying hurdles that stand in the way of union.
The potential of the Kamari (princess) is the Rani queen, and the potential of the Kamar (prince) is the King.
Unifying the Kamari and Kamar is both an inner and outer task that exists in all forms of exchange.
Meditate upon this if you will.
Unifying the Kamari and Kamar
leads to the royal seat of the Tantric.
The Kam at the beginning of the names Kamari and Kamar give a hint of the energy of desire. Desire is the first step towards unification.
The Tantrics look for the root and the seed of desire.
The death of the husk around the seed of desire gives birth to potential.
The husk upon the natural desire of the soul is as much a Tantric study as the natural desire itself.
The contents are contained beneath the shell – and so the shell is a reality and of equal importance as the contents.
The Tantric view of dualities is embraced here.
Meditate here upon both the shell and the seed if you will.
See how they go together and are inseparable.
The word and principle of Kam is central to the Moon upon us.
Kam can be translated as desire.
We find this word in the title of the comercialised manual of desire.
‘The Kamasutra’ literally means the verses of desire.
As the well known story goes, Kamadev is the god of desire that sought to bring Shiva from his mountain top Samhadi and into the realm of Kamari.
There a new phase began.
The love so pure was brought into the realm of relation when Shiva united with Shakti. The royal seat was laid by their exchange of love.
GROUNDED LOVE
& UNGROUNDED DESIRE
Kama means desire.
The desire that exists between dualities is the mysterious urge of nature to unite.
The Tantric bows to recieve the secret scent of nature’s unification by appreciating her.
Tantra is the subtle study of all the places where we oppose nature within and without.
Kama is the jewel between opposites. It is the secret that is hidden in the dark caverns where opposites meet.
Where is that Jewel?
Kamala is the Goddess of Love
to whom this Lunar night belongs.
It is Kamala who presides over the ritualistic applications of the Tantrics on this night.
Kama is within the name Kamala.
Kamadev or simply Kama, is the God desire.
He be the raw principle of desire.
Kamadev shoots his arrows into the Chakras and causes desire, infatuation and longing.
The last Bija mantra of La, in the name of Kamala transforms the name Kama (desire).
The La syllable brings grounding to the desire principle.
The La grounds desire.
La is the Bija (seed) syllable for the Kunda.
The Kunda is the pot that houses Kundalini Shakti at the root of our being.
It is the very base of our being.
Tantric wisdom shows us that grounded desire is nothing but Love.
And Love is nothing but grounded desire.
This is the secret implicit in the name of the Goddess Kamala, to whom this dark Moon night belongs…. She is grounded desire.
Ungrounded desire, on the other hand, is restless ambition.
It is the sick king or queen, full of hot air and hope, but no Priya Shakti (Love Power)
Ungrounded Love is addiction, obsession, co-dependence – born of an inner unfulfilled neediness.
It plays out in spending our energies in things that have nothing to do with our immediate situation in life and love.
Tantric practice concerns itself with the most immediate feelings of the heart, and the nearest matter at hand that is the best focus for our resources and Shakti.
Where do we put our Shakti?
What do we feed our Shakti?
What we feed grows?
Do we feed love?
If we are to be truly effective in melting into the sacred heart – immediate concerns must be addressed and not avoided by going into extraneous involvements.
This is the grounding of desire.
It is a fortifying and nourishing way towards the fulfilment of Love.
GROUNDING LONGING
What is longing?
The ‘need of the inner neediness’ is to ground desire.
At its root, the unfulfilled hunger of longing seeks ‘the grounding of longing’.
This work and focus upon the grounding of longing is focus.
Tantric science is built upon this concentration of our inner force.
By grounding the desire within ourselves, the vessel of the sacred heart becomes rich with Shakti.
This is known in Tantra as Priya Shakti, which translates as the power of Love.
Tantrics have very detailed rituals for every Moon phase.
By making every single Moon, a sacred time of honour, we open our life to magic.
Our time here on earth is but a few steps between life and death, we might involve our heart and mind in many things at the expense of magic.
The Tantrics adhere strictly to the currency of magic… That magic is love.
THE SEAT OF FEMININITY
The Tantric takes the seat of femininity at the Shakti Chakra on the dark Moon ritual of love.
The Shakti Chakra as is known to Tantrics is the place of the Goddess.
It is the sexual Chakra of creation, and the seat of Kama (desire)
Kama is grounded in the Chakra of Shakti
in this ritual of Love.
The Tantric on the night of Kamala, becomes both the inner princess & prince by meditating upon the desire that unites the two poles like a magnetic circuit of force.
The Tantric identifies with the inner Kamari (princess) and rises from the base to meet the inner Kamar (prince) energy that descends from the Chakras above.
When we identify with the inner Kumar, we climb down to the feminine caverns of beauty below in the Shakti Chakra.
The place where they meet is Love.
Like a battery circuit, Shakti is one pole and Shiva is the other pole.
Kamari is the princess Shakti and Kamar is the princely Shiva.
Their union is the the realisation of Kundalini Shakti.
QUEEN & KING
Rani and Raj are well known designations of royalty.
A Queen or a King, in the mundane sense, have been given this title in India since time immemorial.
The union of the inner Kamari (princess) with the inner Kamar (prince) is the inner Yogic unification of the battery-like energies of plus and minus in the circuitry of our inner universe.
The inner union results in a circuitry that unites and heals divisions between our feminine and masculine parts… the receptive and active poles unite.
This is then reflected in our outer lives and relationships.
Resolving things inside, resolves issues without.
This is the wisdom at the heart of Tantra.
The meeting of the inner Kamari (princess) and the inner Kamar (prince) gives birth to the Rani (queen) and Raja (king)
The innocence of the prince and princess within ourselves, when brought together, create the power of queen & king.
Princess and Prince are the potentialities that are yet to unite.
The Princess and Prince are potentials that are not yet united in their power;of royal union.
Obstacles to union there may be but like a serpent the Tantric skaters on the the core of creation.
That core is love.
REAL FAIRY TALES
We must not necessarily think in fairy-tale terms of man and woman, although this can also be inferred.
The princess and prince archetype spans across designations of gender.
The macho man has a princess within him. The macho may be in woman and man alike so let us look beyond gender here.
The macho may reject the princess and oppress her.
On the other hand, the macho may honour the princess with dignity and grace.
Whatever the inner contact and contract of the macho to the inner princess may be, it will be translated to his dealings with princesses in the outside world.
The sentimental flamboyant one, might praise the princess in thought and action, They may affirm to themselves that they curtsey gracefully at the princesses court, when in actuality, they might be drowning the princess in stifling garments… too rich and weighty to allow her to move in an innocence of being.
The dealings with princesses and princess in ourselves and within others occurs on a symbolic level in many encounters in life. It may well be in the romantic sphere also but not confined to that. Both woman and man may meet the princess and prince in their dealings with their children, and associates.
Regardless of our gender definition, whether we are woman, man or other designation, we move between these two poles.
A princess is a subtle energy of maidenhood, she holds a yet un-birthed potential.
One can not jump over the princess to the queen.
To meet the princess takes gentleness and grace.
Many might jump to address the queen.
Princesses may prematurely pose as queens.
This is the path of pretence and disempowerment.
It reflects the deep inner impatience that casts the Kamari into the cold, even before she has put about herself the warming mantle of the queen.
This has disastrous consequences for all.
The self care and honesty to face oneself as one is, creates nurturing and growing love.
Time and again, the practices of Tantra, show us how impatience, ambition and force do not serve us.
The woman or feminine within us, touches her innocence and youth by taking the seat of Kamari.
The vulnerable place is the place or rebirth that her seat presents.
Indeed it is the place of power and healing.
The feminine receiving and honouring the masculine principle is the devotion of the goddess of spiritual wealth that is Lakshimi. Her luxury is love.
The man or masculine within us touches his innocence and sacred humility – by which he can meet the hand of the princess – when he takes the seat of the Kamar.
Again, may we proclaim that the vulnerable place is the place or rebirth.
Indeed it is the place of power and healing.
By stepping over the magic of vulnerability, we banish love from our lives, and move into the energy of the vain queen that folk tales the-world-over mention.
Indeed the ice queen, at once hungry for innocence, but at the same time living in a psychic curse to maintain power.
Perhaps the plight of many a man and woman,
living or dying in unfulfilled love.
The man humbling himself to take the hand of the princess within his own heart, becomes gentle.
Rigidities melt aside in a psychic and physical melting of the wax that we are made of.
Melting in the flame of Love,
which Tantra whispers of,
whether we be woman,
man or otherwise in gender…
In the spiritual sense, we are both the princess and the prince, and we are their potential union.
The study of the Moon of Kamala is about looking at the state of our inner princess and our inner prince.
Kamari and Kamar. Shiva and Shakti.
The grace of these two places in union,
is beyond the most elegant of jewels.
Union is love, it is heart and body melting.
It is soft and silent in its secrets.
The queen and the king born of innocence will rule by sacred compassionate authority.
Only a sick king or queen raises the voice in command.
To meet the grand Kamari is a test of our patience and ability to hold our power with grace.
THE SEAT OF SHAKTI
The prince within us all, is the grand Kamar.
If he assumes the throne of a king prematurely, he will have dominance made of empty power.
The prince who assumes the seat of the king too soon, rules in sickness and impotence.
His seat may cause others to tremble, but this position drinks from him as he uses power that he has not earned.
He will be impatient and violent, bullying the Kamari – within and even outside -into submission.
Of course she may obey him, but the prince who’s not won the heart of his inner princess and earned the king’s boots, will lose everything and dry up bitterly without love.
The Tantric studies such things, and works to heal the inner constellations of energy.
The Tantric brings healing elixir
to the wounded princess & prince.
The Tantric codes have much wisdom to impart in regard to the multi-faceted connections and interrelated links between princess, prince, queen and king.
The science of Tantric Mudra that pertain to these subjects and positions, reveals the inner world of our psychic royal court.
The Indian folk tales and written epics, deal greatly with royal archetypes and their spiritual significances in terms of inner and outer energetic constellations. Sometimes the stories have very intricate plots that span across different lifetimes and parallel universes.
Consider the opening chapters of the Mahabharat, if you will.
Romantic love goes through the princess and prince.
This ritual work of Diwali is profoundly healing for our past present and future encounters, between the princess and prince, both in an inner sense, and the outer tangible sense of our manifest relationships.
SHAKTI QUEEN & SHIVA KING
The true king never assumes the throne, the humble grace and insecurity of the prince is never cast aside for the true king to step into power.
Shiva is the grand king, the Yogins call him Nataraj, the king who dances through the three worlds, of past, present and future, indicated by the three sacred lines upon his forehead…. Known as Trilokh in the Yogic language.
Shiva dances hand in hand with Shakti, the grand queen.
The secret is, that they earn love and power together by keeping the innocence of Kamar and Kamari.
HEALING
If in our early life we have grown up under the influence of sick kings and queens, then our inner prince and princess might not have received the space and atmosphere to grow and develop gracefully.
The shadow behaviours that we might be playing-out on-repeat, may be composed of energetic scenarios of the past.
The wish for the optimal ideal isn’t always the way it works in life.
The prince in us might wear the garments of the pauper, and the princess within us may wear the dirty torn frock of Cinderella before she finds the grandeur of a love that lays shadowed beneath.
Approaching the princess and prince within ourselves might take a voyage through many a murky atmosphere that has frozen in-place in our inner life.
Tantra has been called magic and witchery. It has also been called healing and prayer.
Healing, and an honest unalloyed view of our reality, is the law that holds the circle of healing together.
The circle of love
RITUAL OF DARK MOON
This night’s dark Moon is a big ritual celebration is the orthodox sense all over India.
It is also a major Tantric ritual day that goes by many names.
It is a very dark night that is lit up by lamps in the billions.
It is known broadly as the Diwali Festival of Lights.
It is also known as Kali Puja, Kamari Puja and Kamala Jayanti.
The Goddess Sita is Stolen away from her beloved Raam by the amorous clutches of the powerful Yogi Ravan on this night as is the most common and popular narrative of this dark Moon.
Ravan was a greatest Yogi of unbelievable Shakti.
He was a devout Yogi who worshiped Shiva day, night & twilights between, until he acquired the power of Shiva himself.
Having identified himself so much with Shiva, Ravan became the object of Shiva’s love and admiration.
The Shiva Tandav Strotra, is a song that praises the beauty of Shiva as no other song does.
It was written by Ravan – as he wept tears of suffering when he realised the greatness of Shiva.
Ravan was so identified with Shiva, that he lifted the sacred mountain upon which Shiva lived.
Ravan attempted to show how his individual self was greater than the infinite mystery.
The mountain came crashing down and crushed Ravan’s fingers for infinite aeons of time.
Some even say that Ravan wept the Ganges into being as Shiva kept the mountain crushing upon Ravan’s fingers with just the weight of his little toe.
Shiva did this out of Love for his devotee – to teach Ravan that no one can be greater than infinity.
Shiva is the great infinity beyond the beyond.
The infinity that cannot be owned or assumed by any.
An Infinity to surrender and die before.
Ravan sang the most admiring verses ever sung towards Shiva as the weight of the mountain of infinity – that no one can lift – crushed Ravan into the most painful state imaginable.
Ravan had one little part left that had not merged into Shiva.
He had an avaricious weakness for beauty. This avarice was void of grace and honour of the feminine.
It was the crude hand of the patriarch that sought to dominate and possess the feminine – This led to his Downfall.
Sita, the cool Moon goddess was a mesmerising and receptive vessel for Ravan’s powerful burning Shakti.
Ravan could not contain the Shakti he had acquired.
He went wild and lost his mind at the thought of the beauty of Sita cooling his burning infernos of manhood.
He Took the Goddess of Moon like beauty away from her Beloved Raam with deceit and force.
Remember that this night is a study
of the Ravan within ourselves…
the part of us that wishes to impatiently
possess the Goddess before we
have won her heart, hand and trust.
When Ravan stole Sita away, Raam – the great solar lord – lost his Moon.
Darkness and destruction then fell upon the world.
Amvasya is the absence of light when the Moon is dark.
Ravan had overestimated his power!
Sita was brought back to Raam by his attendant Hanuman.
Hanuman represents the Breath.
Hanuman breathed the Moon and the Sun back together, and love bloomed.
This is the meaning of Hatha Yog
Upon the reunification of the Lovers, an endless array of lamps were lit to guide the flying monkey god Hanuman on his flight with Sita under his arm, back to Raam.
This story tells of the yearning for the inner Kamari (princess) for the Kamar (prince) and vice versa.
It tells of their loss of each other, and the grandeur of their unification.
Like a million lamps burning in the darkest night
This is the Tantric night of deep yearning love for the feminine.
It might be loved with tears?
It might be loved with the amorous force of desire?
But for Tantrics, it is a night of devotion and love – since aeons of time – for the return of the Goddess.
We shall meet in the circle of love to mourn her loss, and possibly celebrate her return.
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