Grace of Kali

Vedic texts like the Puranas declare, it is precisely during the darkest age, the age of Kali Yuga, that the most direct path, the easiest path, the purest path to liberation is given. Grace is more abundant in the darkest time. This is the compassion of the Infinite. It is said that one cry of the Mother's name is enough.

We are liberated not by staying in paradise, but incarnating on earth as dense voluptuous bodies, in the garden of opposites. The gods are jealous of humans who get to be on earth at this time.

Diamonds are not formed in the sky. Diamonds are formed under terrestrial gravity, out of pure black carbon. "God realization," Mahesh Yogi once said, "is a very concrete experience."

Here on earth, the densest matter is a springboard to the higher Self. But we spring inward, not upward. We become both gross and subtle, dark and bright, human and divine. We become whole.

Wholeness means total release from clinging. Wholeness means we no longer cling to light, or flee from shadows. We no longer cling to spirit, or flee from matter. Wholeness means we stop eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and start eating from the tree of life.

Now the mind is confused by duality, and those who pretend "to know" are the most confused of all. Yet precisely when the head is uncertain are we invited to fall into the Heart, to tap the source of divine Wisdom and divine Beauty.

Thus we find the simplest yet most profound instruction for spiritual sadhana repeated nearly verbatim in both the Indian yogic text, Vijnana Bhairava, and the early Christian manual of prayer, The Philocalia: "Let the mind sink into in the heart."

Why waste this precious chance in anxious despair and outrage? See the chaos on the surface of the world as the husk of the fruit, whose interior is juicy, tangy and sweet with the nectar of life itself. Only then do you truly hold something in your eye, your smile, your gentle hand, that gives nourishment to others.

Practice vivekya, discernment, to distinguish the eternal depth from the ever-changing surface. In Kali Yuga, one cry of the Name slices through the bitter rind. One breath of the Divine sweeps away the illusion of ten thousand lives.