Sri Ramakrishna and Bhavatarini Kali – Br. Shankara

Sunday, November 3, 2013

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Bhavatarini Kali
Kali, the Divine Mother, also known as Bhavatarini,
Savior of the Universe. Sri Ramakrishna worshipped
this image in the Dakshineswar Temple (near Kolkata)

Swami Vivekananda said, “Eternal, unquestioning self-surrender to Mother alone can give us peace. Love Her for Herself, without fear or favour. Love Her because you are Her child. See Her in all, good and bad alike. Then alone will come ‘Sameness’ and Bliss Eternal that is Mother Herself when we realise Her thus. Until then, misery will pursue us. Only resting in Mother are we safe.”*

From The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p635-6:
“As long as a man is conscious of ‘I’ and ‘you’, and as long as he feels that it is he who prays or meditates, so long will he feel that God is listening to his prayer and that God is a Person … It is God Himself who makes us feel this difference; and on account of this difference one sees man and woman, light and darkness, and so on. As long as one is aware of this difference, one must accept Sakti, the Personal God. It is God who has put ‘I-consciousness’ in us. You may reason a thousand times; still this ‘I’ does not disappear. As long as ‘I-consciousness’ exists, God reveals Himself to us as a Person.

“Therefore, as long as a man is conscious of ‘I’ and of differentiation, he cannot speak of the attributeless Brahman and must accept Brahman with attributes. This Brahman with attributes has been declared in the Vedas, the Puranas, and the Tantra, to be Kali, the Primal Energy.”

Br. Shankara talks about Kali and Her relationship with Ramakrishna, and performs a short worship of the Mother.

*Complete Works, Volume 8: Notes of Class Talks and Lectures–Fragmentary notes taken on a Sunday afternoon in New York in June, 1900