Kali, Kundalini, and the Dance of Self

This article was originally published in Holistic Living Magazine.

I stumbled onto the spiritual path while sitting at the piano. After years of classical training, I was tired of playing other people’s music. I wanted to find my own. Then improvising late one evening, soaring in the music of my heart, something deep inside me cracked wide open, the top of my head seemed to split apart, and the next thing I knew light was pouring through me. Four years later I would learn I’d had a kundalini awakening. At that point I had no idea what had happened or what the mysterious kundalini energy even was. This was the rather dramatic beginning of my spiritual journey. It was 1973.

Over the next few months I marveled at the way this light — which came now every evening when I sang and played the piano — was changing me. Although I did not yet fully understand it, I knew I was experiencing a process of transformation and found the guiding passion of my life: studying the relationship of spiritual transformation, inner healing, and the arts — first in the laboratory of my own body and later, in all the people I would come in contact with through my work. The reality of spiritual transformation hit me like a brick. That such a thing was really possible, that it could be activated through the arts, and that it seemed to be happening to me, was sheer magic.

Since improvisation had been the vehicle of my awakening, I embraced it completely, exploring myself and my world in the mirror of creative work. I wanted to make art that uplifted artist and audience. I wanted my art to be a conduit for the divine. I suspected that artists could be the shamans, priests, and priestesses of the modern world, but understood that simply making art was not enough. There had to be a spiritual component to the work, some force that would continually temper the artist, clearing out all the psycho-emotional stuff that clogged the inner pathways, so that great shining light could blaze.

A few years later I discovered the dark goddess Kali. I had found my way to the Indian spiritual master Baba Muktananda, whose work would guide me though the next long leg of my journey. It was from him that I first learned about the mysterious kundalini and finally understood what had happened to me.

In the Indian yogic tradition, kundalini is envisioned as the supreme energy of transformation. It can be awakened through yogic practices, contact with certain spiritual masters, and as I had discovered, through the creative process of making art. Upon awakening, kundalini reveals itself as a great shining inner light. Like a fire, it burns through the blocks and obstructions that keep us trapped in suffering and opens us to the blissful well that yogis call, the “inner Self.” Kundalini supplies the fuel for the inner journey and because it is regarded as a female energy, it is often referred to as a goddess.

I took to the Indian goddess tradition like a fish to water and from the first time I ever chanted the name, Kali Durge Namo Namah, I was smitten by the dark one, Kali, the black goddess of transformation. Kundalini had claimed me many years before this and I sensed that Kali and kundalini were really one, two aspects of the same dynamic field of energy, the supreme darkness and the supreme light. It’s important to point out that when I speak of goddesses, I am speaking of energy fields. Mythology can be very confusing, creating the idea that gods and goddesses are either made-up storybook characters or divine beings separate from ourselves. Of course on one level, all the myths are stories, but these are stories filled with spiritual power. When we learn how to read them, myths become maps of the inner realm.

One of the most famous myths of the Goddess tells us how Kali comes into the world during a violent battle with a terrible demon army. The gods have been rendered powerless and Durga, the Great Goddess, has been summoned to save the day. The battle is fierce and at a certain point, things get out of hand. This is when Kali appears, leaping from the brow of Durga and demolishing the entire demon army. Kali is the most potent force of the Sacred Feminine, absolutely one-pointed in her task. She exists to restore dharma, the path of righteousness. In the battle that ensues, nothing and no one can stop her. She is the force of truth, perfection in motion, divine symmetry. Victory over the demon army is assured.

The battlefield of course is really the field of our own psyche. The demons are the obstacles to our growth. We know them as fear, doubt, unworthiness, greed, rage, and addiction. They travel with us all of our lives. Kali is the force that devours them, releasing their essential energy, destroying their potential to do harm. She is the alchemical fire, transforming our lead-heavy souls into molten gold. On the surface, the iconography of Kali is terrifying. She is often pictured holding a strange-looking sword in one hand and a severed human head in another. She wears a garland of human skulls, a belt of human arms, and her tongue lolls out from her mouth. Apart from her gruesome adornments, she is quite naked, primal blackness, dancing on the supine corpse of her lover. This outer appearance however is a veil.

Kali is the supreme force of inner healing. Understanding the nature of her radiant blackness is the key to transformational work. We have to trust in the terrifying darkness, surrendering to it in order to receive its many gifts. We have to understand that only by diving into this seeming blackness, will we receive its incredible light. It takes everything from us, then gives it back, tenfold. And one of its most accessible gates opens to us through the realm of the arts.

Most any form of intuitive creative process work can lead us down, into the belly of the goddess. Wandering through this rich and fertile darkness we encounter the demons and the gifts — obstacles, terrors, painful memories, creative insights, healing images, songs of self. This is where the art that heals us comes from.

Kali’s sword is the sword of discrimination, cutting away layers of false self and clinging ego, all the sticky stuff that clogs our way. It also cuts the gems of healing from her garden, offering them to us as gifts for making the descent. The severed head she holds represents those parts of ourselves that keep us down — the caustic inner tyrant, complaining victim, damning judge. Her garland of skulls symbolizes the power to speak the truth, her belt of arms, the power to serve that truth — more gifts for those who make the inner journey. Her lolling tongue grounds her as she dances and the corpse is not a corpse at all. It is her consort, the god Shiva. In their sacred union he represent the state of utter stillness. Kali is the power, the shakti, rising from that stillness.

The sacred syllables of Kali’s name are filled with power. “Ka,” the sound of “ah” opens the heart; “li,” the sound of “ee” opens the third eye. When we repeat the name Kali, we clear the pathway between our head and our heart. So entering the realm of Kali, we enter the mysterious playground of our inner world. Everything we need for healing and transformation is stored there. The sword of our discrimination. The wisdom to know where to place the blade. The courage to stand strong in the face of the battle. The blazing lights — the healing gifts — that guide our way. All the displaced pieces of ourselves are also down there, waiting to be found once again. Our artist self, youthful innocence, carefree lover, wild adventurer, perfect craftsman, all the many aspects of ourselves we’ve stashed away. All of these, the gifts of our life, the gifts of the Self are resting underground, waiting for us to find them in the womb of the dancing goddess, the black one.

We call her Kali. Her name means “time.” We know her by diving into the fire of our own great heart. She lives there singing. Yes! Singing and dancing, singing and dancing, singing and dancing, the force of truth in which we shape our lives. Kali Durge Namo Namah, Kali Durge Namo Namah, Kali Durge Namo Namah. Salutations again and again to Kali, the force of transformation that turns our mundane lives into radiant works of art.

Saraswati: She Who Sits on the Tongues of Poets

This article was originally published in the Winter 2000 issue of Ascent
and reprinted a few years later in Yoga Chicago.

Glory to you, O Mother, You are creative sound and sacred speech.
You play on the vina and are the supreme goddess of the world.
O Saraswati, make my throat your dwelling place.
Bless me with the strength of wisdom and the power of knowledge.
The seven musical notes and all mellifluous speech are the sacred
water flowing from your feet. goddess of creative art and its embellisher;
you dwell on the tongues of poets and minstrels. Glory, all glory to you.

There were once three sister goddesses whose names were Ganga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. Perfect equals in every way, their radiance shone throughout the three worlds. When they came of age, all three were given in marriage to Lord Vishnu. Whereas their sister Lakshmi was content, Ganga and Saraswati wanted to be free. Vishnu however, was quite attached to all of his wives. Without some trickery there was no escape. The three devised a plan. Ganga and Saraswati would feign a bitter feud between them. Lakshmi would try to mediate and fail. Vishnu, in a fit of rage would send away his warring wives. The plan worked. Lakshmi remained in the realm of the gods where to this day, she showers radiance, abundance, and good fortune upon the earth. Ganga and Saraswati took the form of rivers, flowing from the heights of the heavens to the depths of the seas. Ganga still flows today as Mother Ganges, the great holy river of India. As for Saraswati, most say that sometime around the year 3000 BCE, her waters began to recede until they dried up and disappeared. But others tell it very differently. Out of her great love and compassion for the human race, the mighty Saraswati transformed herself from a river of water into the river of inspiration, flowing through the human heart and soul.


The goddess Saraswati has always held a fascination for me, but for many years it was mostly intellectual. That changed about ten years ago when I was on retreat at the ashram where I spent the formative years of my sadhana. I came into the meditation hall one morning and was greeted by a most amazing sight. A magnificent statue of Saraswati had been installed on one side of the room. Carved from a huge block of sandalwood, the goddess came alive before my eyes. I sat there spellbound, riveted to the form, realizing that in my life as a musician and composer, Saraswati had always been there, singing from deep within me, yet I’d somehow never recognized this before. It was like meeting a mysterious stranger who had supported me since my birth and was finally revealing herself to me. Then tears came, long and deep, as I faced the many ways I took my musical gifts for granted. In a moment of exquisite and excruciating pain, the reality of this mysterious goddess broke open inside my heart.


In India, the worship of Saraswati begins in the ancient Vedas where she is associated with the Saraswati River, which flowed through northwest India during the second millenium BCE. As a river goddess she was worshipped for the fertilizing, purifying, and life-giving powers of her waters. Even during this early stage, when she was still primarily a river goddess, the hymns of the Rg-veda describe Saraswati as the “inciter of all pleasant songs and gracious thought.” As the early Vedic religion grew into the Hindu tradition, Saraswati came to be equated with Vac, the Vedic goddess of speech.


In time, Saraswati’s river nature merged with the three key powers identified with Vac — truth, sacred vision, and language — and Saraswati became the great goddess personifying the highest faculties of human creativity. She has ever since been lauded as the supreme patroness of music, the inventor of language, and the source of insight and wisdom.


Saraswati is a vast constellation of archetypal energy. In her transcendental aspect, she is considered the shakti or power of Om, the sacred sound from which creation springs. Some tantric sources equate Saraswati’s riverbed aspect with sushumna nadi, the central channel and repository of the major chakras, while others equate her flowing waters with kundalini, the supreme light of consciousness. Saraswati is also praised as the elemental force that gives mantras their special power and she is strongly identified with the Gayatri mantra, revered by many as the sound form of light.


In his book Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine, David Kinsley writes that from the tantric perspective “the deities are thought of as aspects of the cosmos that correspond to aspects of the human organism.” He says that “the aim of tantric sadhana is to establish identity with the deity worshipped [and] to awaken that deity within oneself.” For me, the brilliance of the tantric system is in this teaching. Sadhana is not about outer worship of a god or a goddess whom we perceive as separate from ourselves. Ideally, we establish identity with a deity to awaken the energy stream personified by that deity within ourselves. While outer worship has its place, if we don’t work to embody our chosen deity, we risk falling into the trap that Tibetan Buddhist teacher Trungpa Rimpoche called “spiritual materialism.”


Over the years I’ve developed practices to awaken my inherent Saraswati energy, working with mantras and visualizations and contemplating the myths, iconography, and scriptural references surrounding her. All of this makes wonderful food for body, mind, and soul, but the truth is, when Saraswati comes, it as a grace, unexpected and unabashedly divine. As a musician, I often feel her presence when I sing. I also feel it when I’m teaching and performing. For me, the challenge has been in learning to get out of the way. I find that a steady diet of meditation, chanting, and hatha yoga does wonders in this regard.


Saraswati energy pulsates with the power of revelation, creativity, and the Word. Like water, it has the capacity to cleanse and refine. Once awakened, the Saraswati impulse slowly washes away the clutch of ego and wrong understanding and in the open space that is created, reveals the knowledge of the Self. Saraswati is elusive and mysterious. Her gifts of insight and inspiration are not so freely given. As everyone knows, water is slippery. To keep Saraswati’s waters vital and flowing, we have to work hard to hold them. Discipline, purity, and noble thoughts are a crucial key. As the force of inspiration, Saraswati is present at the beginning of any creative project, however, the way in which we shape the initial vision seems to determine how much of her light will infuse the finished work.


Saraswati’s nature is completely sattvic. She personifies the purest of the pure. Visualized in white, holding a vina, a mala of crystal or pearls, and a book, her mount is the white swan. The Sanskrit word for swan is hamsa and in India, those beings who have attained enlightenment are called paramahamsas, “Great Swans.” One might say they have become vehicles able to carry the full weight of Saraswati. Needless to say, those of us who wish to court the energy of this goddess do well to study the ways of these great swans.


The other day I was contemplating the painting of Saraswati that has held a special place in my studio for many years. I’d always seen her vina as symbolic of Saraswati’s identification with music and sound, but suddenly I realized, that vina is me! That vina represents each one of us who longs to merge with her. It was one of those moments when something we’ve taken for granted suddenly breaks open and we see it in a whole new way. I sat down to meditate and began to feel her waters streaming through me. I gave myself over to the experience, letting it move my upper body in graceful, fluid motions. My fingers flowed into mudras. I felt my trunk expand until my head and heart both seemed to touch the sky. My lower body, though feeling weightless, stayed rooted to the earth and I was enveloped in what I can only describe as the most beautiful music. I couldn’t actually hear this music, but I felt myself becoming one with it. There was no separation between me, Saraswati, and the song. There was only music spilling out from every cell of me, as me.


My teacher always told us that the mantra, the deity of the mantra, and the one who sings the mantra are the same. Although I understood what he was saying, it was only intellectual. Now I grasped it with my entire being. Ever since, I have felt a deeper sense of oneness with Saraswati than ever before — and a quiet inner knowing that even when I cannot feel her presence, she is always here, singing the eternal song of the Self and playing on the strings of my heart.


Welcome Saraswati. Make her your friend. Discover that of all the energies of consciousness, Saraswati is the force that can transform everything you do into art. And you will come to know yourself as music in the cosmic symphony of which we are each a small and glowing part.