Hymn to Goddess Kālī – The Kālikā-stotra

Perhaps the earliest devotional hymn to Goddess Kālī as the Supreme Absolute, this mind-
blowing hymn alludes to fundamental teachings of the Krama/Mahārtha lineage of nondual
Tantra in devotional language.

Verse One of The Foundational Tantrik Hymn to Mother Kālī

Kālikā-stotra: Hymn to Mother Kālī

by Lord Jñānanetra, First Guru of the Krama Lineage (c. 850 CE)

Translation & Commentary by Christopher Hareesh Wallis ( © )

A Brief Introduction

Over a thousand years ago, when the spiritual movement we call “Tantra” was just reaching its
peak, a devoted spiritual practitioner and seeker of the truth made a pilgrimage to a small
kingdom called Uḍḍiyāna, one of the four most sacred Tantric sites, in the far northwest of the
Indian subcontinent. There he journeyed to a town in the heart of Uḍḍiyāna, situated next to a
sacred power-center (śakti-pīṭha), the great cremation ground called Karavīra. This cremation
ground was said to be the dwelling place of the Goddess Maṅgalā (“Auspiciousness“), a form of
Kālī, together with the sixty-four Yoginīs or Tantric goddesses. There this pilgrim took up
residence, propitiating and meditating on the Goddess until she revealed herself to him in an
awesome epiphany, granting him divine knowledge. Thereafter this tantrika, now called
Jñānanetra Nātha (“the Lord of the eye of wisdom“) became the first Guru of the Krama lineage
and the revealer of the principal Krama scriptures. He initiated around two dozen disciples. His
three primary disciples were women, including his successor Guru, the great yoginī Keyūravatī
(aka “the Goddess K”).

Judging by his writing and the status accorded to him by tradition, Jñānanetra was a fully
realized Tantric master. Though the scriptures he promulgated are far too difficult for the
beginning student of the tradition, he also wrote a beautiful hymn, the Kālikāstotra, recording his
experience of the Goddess and alluding to some of his philosophical doctrines. We present that
hymn below. To help the reader understanding something of the magnitude of Lord
Jñānanetra’s status according to the tradition, here is a quote about him from another hymn, the
Khacakra-pañcaka-stotra or “Hymn to the Five Void-goddesses“, also originating from Uḍḍiyāna
and said to be authored by “the Yoginis”:
“Lord Jñānanetra has merged with the level where all experience is one! He is the solitary Hero
of that beyond essence, in whom all phenomena have been brought to silence, radiant with the
vision of his gnosis, who has realized the ultimate reality, who has attained the bliss of
understanding, who has relished the highest enlightenment.” (trans. A. Sanderson)

Verse One:
sitatara-saṃvid-avāpyaṃ sad-asat-kalanā-vihīnam anupādhi |
jayati jagat-traya-rūpaṃ nīrūpaṃ devi te rūpam || 1 ||

O Goddess! Supreme is your nature that is formless yet has the form of all three worlds. It is
prior to all limitations, impossible to grasp through dualistic categories such as ‘existent’ versus
‘non-existent’, and attainable through the purest Consciousness.

OR (alternate translation:)

Attainable through the purest Consciousness; impossible to grasp through dualistic categories
such as ‘existent’ versus ‘non-existent’; prior to all limitations; formless, yet having the form of all
three worlds: O Goddess, such is your supreme nature!

Commentary

Jñānanetra’s hymn begins as it ends: honoring the most transcendent aspect of reality,
personified as a Goddess that cannot be conceptualized through words or visualized as having
any physical form, unless it be that of the entire manifest universe. The universe is here divided
into three traditional parts called the “three worlds”: the heavenly realms where celestial beings
dwell, the earthly realm of humans and animals, and the hellish realms of the anti-gods and
demons. However, here the term “three worlds” is used simply as a poetic way of denoting all
manifest reality. The Goddess—who, as we shall see, is divine Consciousness itself (saṃvit in
Sanskrit, a feminine word)—not only has taken the form of the three worlds, but has done so for
the sake of all the beings in all those worlds. That is to say, She extends her compassion to all
living beings, which is only natural as they each form a part of Her own body. So indeed
everything, in this philosophy, is a manifestation of the divine Goddess, whose highest form is
her all-encompassing one, simultaneously immanent and transcendent.

The Goddess‘ supreme aspect is unlimited by time and space and the other categories of
thought, and transcends all discursive concepts (vikalpas), even the most basic verbal
dichotomy we have, that of ‘existent’ versus ‘non-existent’. That is, the poet is stressing that She
cannot be captured by any categories of the mind, however apparently fundamental. She
cannot be said to exist like an ordinary object does, nor can it be said that she does not exist.
Furthermore, in the Krama philosophy, the fundamental dichotomy of existent versus non-
existent stands for all the other pairs of opposites that form the arena of everyday dualistic
thinking—for example, love and hate, life and death, affirmation and denial, attachment and
aversion. The Goddess, the ultimate reality, cannot be understood through any of these
categories, for she is beyond the very level of mind on which they operate. In fact, the mind
itself is simply a contracted, finite expression of Her infinite radiance, a ray of her infinite light.

For that very reason, She is attainable: not through the mind, but through a direct revelation of
the nature of our essential being. She is revealed within us when we become free—even for a
moment—from identifying ourselves with the veils of our mental constructs. She is described as
“prior to all limitations (anupādhi),” for She is not limited by categories such as time, space,
number, kind, cause, and so on—indeed, She herself crafts those parameters as Her chosen
framework within which She will manifest the universe. Since the Goddess is the transcendent
source of all the tools we have for understanding and experience, how can we hope to know
her? It is possible, asserts Jñānanetra: for she is the very ground of our own being–the
Consciousness that makes all our knowledge possible. That Consciousness possesses an
inherent power of self-awareness which we may choose to exercise. “Purest Consciousness” in
the verse, then, refers to a heightened state of blissful self-awareness that is expansive, free,
vigorously alive, and devoid of any contraction in the form of a thought that limits the nature of
Self. This is the state to be cultivated and nurtured, for it most perfectly expresses Her nature. In
other words, we know the Goddess by becoming her.

If this is at all confusing for you, don’t worry. It’s really very simple. You have probably already
experienced “pure Consciousness“ many times in your life. It is that state of being characterized
by an open, receptive, relaxed awareness that is very present with whatever is going on, while
simultaneously very expanded. It is focused, yet restful. You might have felt it gazing at a
beautiful view, connecting deeply with a friend, relaxing into a deep stretch, or on a perfect quiet
sunny Sunday morning. It is a state of deep contentment or acceptance, where everything you
perceive seems perfectly in its place and you too fit in perfectly. We usually attribute this state to
the external conditions that are present when we experience it. But the Śaiva tradition asserts
otherwise: this is our natural way of being, experienced spontaneously when we release our
obsession and identification with our thoughts and worries. So when Jñānanetra says that the
Goddess is “attainable through the purest consciousness,“ he means that we come to know our
own true divine nature by repeatedly experiencing it in its complete and uncontracted aspect,
until it becomes the basic reference point for our experience of ourselves. This is a fundamental
teaching of the Krama. The fundamental Krama practice, then, is present-moment awareness—
being sharply conscious of what is going on right now, without and within you, on all levels. In
this state, the energies of your body are tuned and balanced; you are responsive, but not tense.
Entering into this awareness is very simple, but also very subtle. We will explore how to do it
below.

This is the bottom line: the more you make time and space to be present and aware of the
immediate contents of your consciousness—and aware of yourself as the very field of energy
that enfolds all those contents—the more you will become attuned to the baseline of your
existence. That baseline is the loving, non-judgmental presence of grounded, contented
consciousness that is referred to as the Goddess. Consciousness is venerated as a Mother
Goddess, because like a mother it accepts and cradles all our thoughts—both “good“ and
“bad“—equally, giving us the room to play in the field of awareness and discover our nature.

Verse One in Practice

Start by contemplating those occasions when you have touched the state of consciousness
described above. It is easiest to remember your peak experiences of intensified awareness,
accompanied by relaxed freedom and quiet joy. What do these experiences have in common?
How would you describe them? What attitude or circumstances helped bring them about? What
did they teach you?

The state of “purest consciousness“ is not only exemplified by a few peak experiences of your
life. In fact, in a subtler form, you might already glimpse this state nearly every day, whenever
you feel fully present and fully yourself for even a moment. Do you glimpse it when sitting with
your morning cup of tea? In your first “downward-dog“ of the day? Doing śavāsana after a hard
day’s work? On a walk through the park? However you touch the state of “purest
consciousness“ in your daily life, regard it as a seed that can be nurtured into a mighty tree of
consciousness, deeply grounded and also touching the heavens.
So with practice, you can expand the time you spend in this state. Start by seizing those
opportunities when, after being absorbed in your thoughts or some activity for awhile, you “come
back“ to yourself. Instead of immediately turning your attention to the next thing, or reviewing
what you’ve just been thinking about, take a moment to breathe deeply and simply be present
with your surroundings, as well as your feelings and sensations inside. See how long you can sit
in simple sweet observant presence, before the kind of thoughts creep in that take you away
again. (Note: we are not talking about a thought-free state here, just a state in which our
thoughts spring from our present-moment experience, and form a part of that total experience,
instead of capturing all our attention.) Do this several times a day.

Verse Two

ekam anekākāraṃ prasṛta-jagad-vyāpti vikṛti-parihīnam |

jayati tavādvaya-rūpaṃ vimalam alaṃ cita-svarūpākhyām || 2 ||

“Supreme is your completely pure nondual form!—One, yet existing in many guises, pervading
the universe that is flowing forth within you, yet entirely free from change: it is known as the very
essence of awareness.”

Continuing to praise the Goddess’s ultimate nature, the poet begins to allude to the process by
which She emits creation. To describe Her as “nondual“ is also to suggest the existence of what
appear to be two aspects of the One: creator and created. The Goddess‘ highest nature is One
without a second, free of any duality, absolutely pure—which here really means untainted by
differentiation—and yet as the universe surges forth within Her, she takes on many forms,
shapes, and guises, pervading each one and expressing a different finite aspect of herself
through each one. Paradoxically, throughout this process She remains free from any change or
deformation. In other words, though She becomes the universe, the ‘descent’ into embodiment
in no way compromises Her or detracts from Her real nature, for Her essential being remains as
the ground of the entire process. This ground, if named, can only be called Awareness, for that
is the only factor universally present in all experience. It is what makes experience possible. We
cannot meaningfully speak of the existence of anything that is not an object within anyone’s
awareness. Therefore awareness is the ultimately real, and the only thing we can be absolutely
sure of. Just as awareness is the prerequisite and motive power for all intentional acts of
creation (tangible or intangible) in the human realm, it is exactly the same on the divine scale.
This is because in this tradition each sentient being (including you) is a microcosm of God/dess.
To put it another way, God/dess is understood as nothing but the full and complete expansion of
the active power of awareness that constitutes the unchangeable core of our human identity.

Verse Two in Practice

Verse two invites us to contemplate the whole world of diverse forms around us as equally
divine expressions of the Goddess‘ nature. This requires us to surrender our preferential
judgmental mind, our “yum/yuck response“. Based on our past history and psychology, it is
easier for us to see the divine in some things than in others. Yet Awareness is all-embracing,
and getting in touch with the baseline of our being necessarily involves being able to expand
beyond judgement.
The great saint Bhagavān Nityānanda once said, walking with a disciple, “Look at the miracle of
Consciousness: here it has become stone, here a tree, and here a human being.“ I invite you to
practice holding this vision of reality. Here’s one way to do this that I enjoy: I go for a walk,
practicing present-moment awareness and mentally repeating with everything I see, “Namo
bhagavatyai—Salutations to my Blessed Goddess in this form.“ Or, “All this, all this, Her play.“
Or even, “Here She is again!“ My phrases might not fit you at all—but the words don’t matter as
much as affirming this vision of reality again and again. Find the phrase that works for you. This
practice is also alluded to by a verse of the Śrī-Guru-gītā: “This, indeed, is Śiva (God). And this
too is Śiva! And this too is Śiva! And this too is Śiva! Know this from My teaching.“
Slowly, as I practice this, I am overtaken by a child-like delight, a feeling of joyousness: a secret
smile sometimes plays on my lips until passersby wonder what the hell I’m grinning about. This
may be your experience too. Start doing this practice by walking in a lovely park, and when you
have become experienced with it, you can try walking in more challenging environments, seeing
everything as the Goddess. Eventually you will be able to walk in “bad“ neighborhoods or what
you used to think of as degraded environments, and yet you will experience the same delight,
the same ability to affirm to yourself that the Goddess is manifest before you in this form as well.
Like a great saint of 19th century India, you will be able to say (inwardly) to everyone and
everything, “Thank you, Lord, for coming in this form.“

Verse Three

jayati tavocchalad antaḥ svacchecchayā sva-vigraha-grahaṇam |

kimapi niruttara-sahaja-svarūpa-saṃvit-prakāśa-mayam || 3 ||

“Supreme is Your extraordinary act of taking on embodiment—surging up within through Your

own pure Will, and expressing the Light of Consciousness as Your unsurpassable and
spontaneous essence-nature.”

Now we move deeper into the process by which the Goddess clothes herself in bodies and
forms. Far from being a fall from grace or a painful contraction, in the Krama lineage
embodiment is praised as an extraordinary, even a miraculous act. The uncontainable joy of the
Goddess surges up and bursts forth into manifestation as an expression of her Will—her
Impulse to become, to express, to celebrate, to body forth Her self-awareness. This Will Power
(icchā-śakti) is called pure & transparent (svaccha), because it is not tainted with objectification
like ordinary desire. It moves from the inside out, and it needs nothing other than itself. The
Goddess longs to create and embody Herself for the sheer joy of creativity, because it is the
most authentic and beautiful expression of who She is. She is like an inspired artist
uncompromised by monetary concerns and unburdened by thoughts of others‘ judgements of
her work: she is simply enraptured by the joy of the process of creating itself.

Though the Goddess emits the universe, this emission is not external to Her, but happens within
Her own being. Thus nothing that is created ever becomes separate from Her. The degree to
which you feel separate and alone indicates only the degree of your ignorance of the true state
of affairs: for on every level, we are all inextricably intertwined with and connected to every other
aspect of reality, as are all the children of the same mother. As Alan Watts once said, just as a
plant flowers, our universe ‘peoples‘. Each of us is an expression of the Whole, and everything
we do affects the Whole, as we too are affected and shaped by it. When we investigate the truth
of being, we find that we are as unseparate as we could possibly be; and yet sometimes we still
feel so isolated, cut-off or alone, even in the midst of people. Why? The answer comes in the
next verse (#4). Here the emphasis is on the fact that everything that has manifested is held
within the womb of the Goddess; She is the unifying principle that gives coherence to reality.

Though in other Tantrik lineages Śiva is often called “the Light of Consciousness“ (saṃvit-
prakāśa), here that very Light is said to be the essence-nature (svarūpa) of the Goddess,
spontaneous and unsurpassable. This Light is the power of manifestation; for only when
something is illuminated by Consciousness can it be known, and only when something is known
can it be said to exist. Therefore illumination (prakāśa) and manifestation (prakāśa) are one and
the same. Jñānanetra tells us that the Goddess’ extraordinary act of taking on embodiment is
nothing other than her choice to activate the potential inherent within the transcendent Light of
Consciousness to freely and fully express itself. This is tantamount to saying that the Goddess
is precisely that divine power (śakti) that manifests the Absolute Potential that is Śiva, without
which He is static, quiescent, dormant, and unmanifest. (Śiva without i, icchā-śakti, is like a
śava, a corpse.) Because She is one with Him, the full essence of the Light of Consciousness is
expressed by Her dance of embodiment. Nothing is held back in this spontaneous upsurge of
divine power.

Verse Three in Practice

Find an activity in your life in which you can practice replicating the way in which the Goddess
creates the universe. This means finding something you can do—a creative or playful activity,
perhaps—in which you engage and express your whole being, freely, without seeking any result
other than to enjoy and learn from the process itself. Whatever the activity is, practice making
your will pure by relinquishing your attachment to what others think about your performance in
this activity, as well as letting go of grasping after a specific level of mastery in the activity. You
might challenge yourself to an activity that opens you up and helps you explore your
embodiment in new ways, such as learning to dance or sing. Practice allowing grace to flow
through you in this activity, until you feel that Light of Consciousness freely manifesting itself
through you and as you. Eventually you will be able to experience this in apparently non-
creative activities as well, the things you think you “have“ to do—which may in fact hold the
possibility for transformative realization when performed in this way, as a divine dance.

Verse Four

vāntvā samasta-kālaṃ mūrtyāhaṅkāra-ghora-mūrtim api |

nigraham asmin kṛtvānugraham api kurvatī jayasi | | 4 | |

“You cause all Time (kāla) to be emitted, down to [and including] your terrifying incarnation as
the embodied ego. Then, having subjugated it, you continuously bestow your grace as well. You
are supreme!”

The Goddess emits Time as the limiting framework of apparent sequentiality within which
embodied existence will play itself out. Time is the basis for all change and decay, and thus is
the source of fear for embodied beings; yet it also holds out the possibility for their
transformation and liberation. Jñānanetra identifies the ego as most frightening aspect of the
world of time and embodiment. What is the ego, and why would it be terrifying?

The word we translate as “ego“, ahaṅkāra, literally means the “I-maker” / identity-constructor /
self-image manufacturer. So it is different from what English-speakers usually mean by “ego“,
and certainly different from the use of that term in Western psychology. It is that faculty by which
we build up a sense of self, through identifying ourselves with certain aspects of our experience
(and not with other aspects).
The ego, then, is a raft of self-images or I-statements, such as “I am rich/poor“, “I am fat/thin“, “I
am male/female“, “I am American/Indian“, “I am gay/straight”, “I am smart/stupid“, “I am
special/worthless”, “I am emotional/rational”, and every other I-statement you can think of.
Whether your I-statements are positive, negative, or apparently neutral, they inform behavior,
undergird self-criticism, and set the parameters for what is possible for you and for how you
interact with the world. The unique set of I-statements that you carry constantly shapes your
personality (how others see you), how you feel about yourself, and how you judge yourself
against others. Now, it is important to understand that from the spiritual point of view, all these I-
statements are false. That is, to identify your self with some contingent and temporary aspect of
your experience, such as your body, your nationality, your economic status, and so on, is to
artificially limit and contract the Self, which is in reality unbounded Consciousness, infinite
potential.

All the things we identify ourselves with are temporary, ephemeral, contingent aspects of our
experience; the only constant is awareness itself, which is eternal and transindividual. Thus the
only true I-statement is simply “I AM“ (which is the literal meaning of the Latin word ‘ego’!). Any
other I-statement is a conceptual overlay that falsely makes a temporary condition or a
judgement of the mind into something permanent and real. The one exception to this is the
statement “I am God“–IF what we mean by God is something infinite, unbounded, eternal and
free, reflecting the whole of existence. All other I-statements are necessarily limited and
therefore opposed to the statement “I am God“ (Shivo’ham).

The ordinary ego is terrifying, then, because it is the prime cause of our suffering. It is what
makes us feel separate from the Divine, from other people, and from our environment. And yet,
for all that we might wish to demonize the ego (making it a pretext for self-hatred), Jñānanetra
identifies it here as something emitted by the Goddess, and therefore a part of Her very being!
This means that it is possible to shift our understanding in such a way as to experience Her
even within an embodied form. The master says that having manifested Herself as ego, She (as
us) then seeks to restrain, subjugate, or discipline it (nigraha). This means that by invoking the
power of the Goddess within, we can see the ego for what it is and cease to give it power. A
restrained or purified ego is a friend rather than an enemy. It helps us realize honestly where we
are at in our process, and how we can grow further towards self-realization. When the ego is
subjugated, we realize that all the I-statements it comes up with have value only insofar as they
identify what we are emotionally attached to; they do not identify our essential Self.

The subjugation of the ego opens us up to receive the Goddess’ kindness, favor, and divine
grace (anugraha, the antonym of nigraha). Of course, since this is a radically nondual tradition,
the Goddess’s grace is another name for the increase of capacity to love and honor ourselves,
our process, and our humanity.

Jñānanetra’s language suggests that the bestowal of grace is an ongoing process. That is,
unlike in dualistic religion, grace is not a reward for virtuous conduct, nor is it a sign of favor
given to some and not to others. Rather, grace is always offered to us, and we experience it the
moment that we fully open to receive it. The verse indicates that disciplining the ego is a
prerequisite to receiving grace. When we strongly cling to all our ideas about ourselves, we do
not give the Goddess room to step in and show us who we really are.

Verse Four in Practice

Identify an “I am“ statement that you often use to identify yourself. Choose a more neutral one at
first. Sit quietly as if for meditation and repeat it, noticing its subtle effect on your consciousness.
Then remove the third word (or phrase), imagining it falling into a blazing fire or pool of lava,
breath deeply and just repeat the phrase “I am“. Notice the difference, the corresponding
expansion of awareness.
After you have practiced this a few times, experiment with less neutral, more emotionally
charged I-statements. Finally, progress to the incineration of ‘positive’ I-statements; you will
probably notice that the latter are more expanded, but are still very much contracted compared
to simply “I am“. After working with this technique, you will be more able to notice your many I-
statements that undergird your thoughts and actions throughout the day, though they are barely
conscious. As you notice each one, you can offer it into the mental fire with the mantra ‘svāhā’,
acknowledging that you are not defined by any of these statements, but are in fact the WHOLE
of your experience, containing infinite possibilities for further experience.
OṀ ॐ