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The scene for true Kali worship takes place in a cremation ground where the air is smoke laden and little specks of ash from burning funeral pyres fall on white, sun-dried bones scattered about and on fragments of flesh, gnawed and pecked at by carrion beasts and large black birds. It is a frightening place for most, but a favorite one for the "heroic" Mother worshipper who has burnt away all wordly desires and seeks nothing but union with her. This kind devotee fears nothing and knows no aversion.
However, the majority of people are terrified by the Divine Mother's awe-inspiring grandeur, back lit by the fires in the cremation ground. Most people would rather worship her in a less threatening place, where reality is a symbol rather than the truth. Instead, they go to temples, worship at roadside shrines, or worship in their own homes. They pray to the Divine Mother to grant them the boon of a child, money to feed the mouths of a hungry family, to grant them devotion and liveration from existence in misery.

Why would anyone want to worship the terrible Mother of the cremation ground? According to Tantrics, one's spiritual disciplines practiced in a cremation ground bring success quickly. Sitting next to corpses and other images of death, one is able to transcend the "pair of opposites" (good-bad, love-hate, etc) much faster than another person who blocks out the unpleasant aspects of life. The cremation ground's ghastly images arouse instant renunciation in the mind and help the Tantric to get rid of the attachment for the body
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I would like to hear your thoughts on worshipping such deity's!~NFA

Ohh, and if you have any information on such aspects of worship:)~NFA

I personally wouldn't find this a 'settling' place of worship. But such is the case for anyone looking at what is an extreme compared to their customs.

I guess its less creepy to me than those who eat corpses of their loved ones as a religious ritual.

All kinds of spiritual customs abound, this I assume is less scary than some out there.

Well this form of worship is something I personally wouldnt do. I must say though, that many cultures and religions have customs that I would find more scary then this. Natives also have burned there dead as well as on a side note have rituals such as flesh offereings and peircing the chest with daggers to show there manhood and strength etc. So like I have said they all have rituals that seem extreme or scary.

That paints a gruesome picture of worship, however, sacrifice was very common. The giving of the life....the life force and the life blood were to sacred and to appease the God/dess to whom the person was sacrificed. PERSONALLY, I do not want to worship something that needs/wants the life of another.

While I would not usually choose such a place of worship, I can somewhat understand it. If you look at it from a warriors viewpoint, someone who is facing or surrounded by death frequently, there is an acceptance that comes to you that death is just another part of life and will come to all. So being surrounded by death is not such an uncomfortable place for those to whom it's become common. There are many burial practices that seem odd or revolting to us now but had we been raised to believe and understand the reason behind them we would accept them as necessary to the well-being of ourselves or our dead.

I have heard of many Mian's who did this. Cannibal tribes as well. I know it is all simple, but there is something kind of respectful in the way of worshipping a deity. Especially one like her. I never knew Kali to sit in these tables of worship.~NFA

"Why would anyone want to worship the terrible Mother of the cremation ground?"

Ive seen people worship far worse.

Personally I do not know more than what was posted here about this belief system. But from what I see it seems a bit...primitive? I am not sure, ive never been much of a worshiper anyhow. heh.

Once again, more net info on Kali - most interesting!




"The Goddess Kali is almost always described as having a terrible, frightening appearance. She is always black or dark, is usually naked, and has long dishevelled hair. She is adorned with several arms as a girdle, freshly cut heads as a necklace, children's corpses as earrings, and serpents as bracelets. She has long, sharp fangs, is often depicted as having clawlike hands with long nails, and is often said to have blood smeared on Her lips. Her favourite haunts heighten Her fearsome nature. She is usually shown on the battlefield, where She is a furious combatant who gets drunk on the hot blood of Her victims, or in a cremation ground, where She sits on a corpse surrounded by jackals and goblins." 1

In general we might describe Kali as a Goddess who threatens stability and order. She is the destroyer of the very world She is supposed to protect. Kali, the Great Mother Goddess who brings Life and Death. She is the furious embodiment of the divine feminine that is released when she becomes enraged.

According to Barbara Walker, "Kali was the basic archetypal image of the birth-and-death Mother, simultaneously womb and tomb, giver of life and devourer of her children: the same image portrayed in a thousand ancient religions." 2

One legend says that Kali manifested when the demon Daruka appropriated divine power and the powerful Goddess Parvati knitted Her brows. From Her fury sprang Kali, armed with a trident. She dispatched Daruka and remained in existence, beyond even the control of Parvati, of whom She is an aspect.

Kali is still one of India's most popular Goddesses. In fact the city of Calcutta is an anglicised version of the name Kali-Ghatt, or "steps of Kali", Her temple. The bloody rites of Kali worship are sometimes so terrifying, that few understand them. Kali is a symbol of the worst we can imagine and by knowing Her, we can overcome the terror of our own death and destruction. "Once faced and understood... Kali frees her worshippers of all fear and becomes the greatest of mothers, the most comforting of all goddesses." 3

Kali is an important figure in Hinduism, despite Her intimidating appearance and ghastly habits. She takes a central role in Tantrism, where an underlying assumption if ideology is that reality is the result of the symbiotic interaction of male and female, Siva and Sakti - polar opposites that in interaction produce a creative tension.. In Tantra it is Kali's vitality that is sought through techniques aimed at spiritual transformation. She is affirmed as the dominant and primary reality. From: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/2214/kali.htm

If you are looking for more information on the godess kali. try using the full name kali-ma it will narrow the search for you and give you more accurate info.
she is one of the godess's that i pay homage too. she bring life through destuction.

Thanks butterfly for that information! Very awesome. I have looked under Kali-ma I defo am interested in finding out about her. She is very faceted in her dualities as a deity.~NFA

Not my cup of tea, but lots of people do find beauty and awe in destruction. Given the awsome powers attributed to her, imagine how powerful you would be in her graces.

kali-ma appears with a skirt made of human arms and a belt made of human heads. that is only one of he forms.
she is not all destruction and death she is also the "mother"figure and grants her worshipers life and fortune.

That paints a gruesome picture of worship, however, sacrifice was very common. The giving of the life....the life force and the life blood were to appease the Gods to whom the person was sacrificed. PERSONALLY, I do not want to worship something that needs/wants the life of another.

As Kali is a Hindu goddess and a devourer of Human bodies. She possesses a mouthful of sharp teeth with which to rends her victims' flesh from their bones. This does not at all describe the vampire.

Additionally, Kali is not a reanimated corpse nor does she exhibit any of the other fictional or more historically reputed characteristics of the vampire. Kali, like so many other demons, gods, goddesses, ghosties and goblins filling mythological tomes worldwide, is yet another legendary entity who solely by her nature as a violently bloodthirsty and/or flesh-hungry being, is erroneously regarded as a type of vampire... when, in fact, she most certainly is not.

If anything, given her reputation as a particularly gruesome and violent devourer of Human flesh, she far more resembles the werewolf in this regard than she does a vampire.

Now I recognize and appreciate that folks want to give better topics and have more legit discussions but I think it really should be a rule that content that NFA put up should be linked and sourced to the site pulled from.

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/5229/kali/kali.html

Now my problem with just cut and pasting is what is going to stop people from just copy pasting the rest of the article to answer the question? It's kind of a cop out and it is leading people to think that you have an understanding of topics that you simply don't.

Okay now that I have gotten that off my mind I will answer the question (without resorting to cheating and copy/pasting the rest of the article this was pulled from.)

The worship or service as some LHP advocates would call it towards these darker deities (not our beloved MV here in VR...) constitues a balance that often we understand the good and bad nature that we view ourselves in. We don't try to cut out elements that are distasteful to us, we recognize that as a whole there are bound to be parts of us that we aren't proud of yet these things make up who we are.

Kali is simply one personification of these elements that many of the majority dislike and have refused to deal with thus leading to a highly weakened majority when faced with decisions or an environment that the Kali archetype would sweep over without problems whatsoever. That is the power of what some are looking for and why they would choose to worship or serve a deity such as this.

wow its a great post.being an indian we are true devotee of godess kali maa.actually her appearance shows her like that as she signifies the destroyer of evil. she is actually a clone of goddess durga who took this form to kill all the demons of this world.it was said that when she killed every demon every drop of blood which fell to the ground gave birth to a new demon so she drank every drop of blood of demons to save it from falling on to the ground. she became outrageous and finally all the gods in heaven sent lord shiva her husband to stop her from the destruction .so he laid down on the ground and suddenly she happened to put a foot on the laying lord shiva and her toungue came out when she noticed that she stepped on her husband and finally she stopped.

The aspect of Kali is frightening but then isnt what happened in a natrual disasster also as frightening she is the angry earth mother it seems the one that will get rid of the things she doent like about mankind...
The one thing I remember of reading about the history of her follower is that they would become part of a group traveling and then others would come out of the night when they had camped and kill the fellow travelers..This is a recorded history and has nothing to do with the movies..This happened during the time of English occupation....
I could understand the followers of Kali killing britsh travelers but they most often killed there own other hindu's.
My question is this were those killings a part of a ritual that Kali followers do???

I never said I wrote anything evangius! I just copied, and pasted to start a fucken topic of interest to me, and I thought maybe others would know more about this than I. So, you trying to start anything in this thread is just ridiculous. I did not link it cos I had already clicked over after copying, and pasting it in another forum I get on. So thank you for putting the link up here:) ~NFA

This thread is going off topic and turning into flaming.