<h4>Eastern Teacher to The West</h4>
<em>by Chandra Alexandre</em>

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This article tells the story of my own exploration into the mysteries of the Goddess as manifested within the Hindu pantheon as Chamunda, the fierce, emaciated and terrifying Dark Mother. She is a goddess who is particularly revered among Shaktas (believers in the primacy of the Divine Feminine), and she has historically found favor within all strata of Indian society, from the village shudras (lowest caste) to the rulers of India. Temples to her exist throughout the country: from the forts of Rajasthan to the highlands of Himachal Pradesh, to the adavasi (tribal) lands of Orissa.

In Orissa, where I was blessed to spend five months exploring, she appears primarily in two forms: i) as one of the Matrikas (Mothers), and ii) as one of the sixty-four yoginis (witches) who are themselves daughters of the Asta Matrikas (Eight Mothers). From my exploration into Chamunda I have gained an understanding of the ways in which the Goddess teaches through one of her manifest forms, and this article is an attempt to share some of what I have discovered with you.

But here, I can only hope to present my learnings as shrouded with the veil of perception I carry as a western woman. However, I share my interpretation of the mysteries as revealed to me by Her so that Her name may be invoked and Her presence asked to help banish the ignorance and prejudice of our time. I do not pretend to fully understand Chamunda (within her original context or otherwise) or for that matter, the great mystery of the Goddess; but rather I claim to appreciate Her because of my resonance with the form and symbols offered to us from India.

<strong>The Image of Chamunda</strong>

From an 8th century stone statue originally found in Dharmasala (Cuttack, Orissa) and now located at the Orissa State Museum in Bhubaneswar, I learned to see for the first time through this image what the power of the Divine Feminine can be through a figure that could (and does) readily inspire fear in both Western and Eastern onlookers. Chamunda appears to penetrate the manifest world through this sculpture of grey-black chlorite stone. She is chiseled with her most readily recognizable features: sunken eyes, sagging breasts and skeletal body; but the obvious attention and carefully-detailed precision with which she was created belie a profound respect and/or love on the part of the sculptor that is perhaps not readily understandable from our current vantage point.

Coming across her image amidst myriad sculptures on the floor of the museum is like dropping into a cold pool after a 20-minute steam bath. Upon first seeing her, I was instantly astounded and shocked by her presence until the realization set in that encountering Her was making my insides tingle in ways suggestive of Her great power. She is an awesome figure, with third-eye and navel raised out of the stone, veins defined over the course of her entire body, no teeth, heavily hanging earlobes and snake-entwined arms - one of which holds in its long hand a severed human head, which she grasps with finger nails that come to a point. In her other partially-intact arm she holds a skull cup or kapala at the level of her heart. She is garlanded with skulls, wears ouroboric anklets, and is seated on a corpse with her right foot on the ground and her left leg bent at the knee, foot turned, its sole to the sky. Her hair is aflame and pulled upwards, wrapped and held in place by a snake-band tiara, the center of which bears a skull.

Although my initial contact with the fierce form of the Goddess had come to me through a dream image as Kali, both she and Chamunda are alike in many respects, related by their transformative abilities and their stature as Crones. While Kali manifests the power of time and of death, Chamunda too holds infinity and eternity. Both can be intensely frightening images of divine, feminine power especially to those unaccustomed to dealing with the Dark Goddess. Both are often similarly depicted: in the cremation ground, often seated upon a corpse or engaging in Tantrick rituals involving sex, blood and death. In this, they explicitly manifest antinomian characteristics within mainstream Hindu tradition, and they become by this provkers of (r)evolution from the inside, and transformers of worlds from the outside as they reach westerners.

Chamunda's intensity through the vehicle of the statue in Bhubaneswar shook me deep inside and stunned me. And I was nevertheless drawn to her and mystified by what she had to offer. Somehow, I could not help but feel her incredible power through the skeletal form, while at the same time, I became immediately and especially aware of how at odds with this impression and indeed terrifying she would appear to most westerners. Rationally, I wondered how in the world this figure could be known as one of the matrikas when she seemed so very far from western, as well as the traditional Hindu conception of mother, either literal or archetypal. Mother in any sense is most generally normalized to mean nurturing and life-giving. Chamunda appears to be everything but this, and I had to work to see the interconnections. On another, non-rational level, however, I could immediately feel that there was a mystery of fecundity held within those bones. I was, of course, feeling in my own bones something very old and true about her.

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While within both Eastern and Western contexts mothers are seen as caretakers and life givers, understanding the Devi as matrika (mother) is another story. Within the world of Indian Goddess theology at least from Vedic times (circa 1,500 BCE), it seems that the devi as a mother who nourishes the world is understood as someone who must herself be replenished in order to continue to sustain life. "If she were only to give birth and to nourish her creatures she would soon grow weak, and creation would cease." [1]

Because her life-generating and sustaining aspect is so powerful, she carries an insatiable hunger that is equally great. This hunger is often represented in images by showing an emaciated figure. Thus understood, the fierce devi is integral to understanding the birth/death aspect of the cycle of life in India, which makes possible the whole of manifest existence. She is obviously the living Crone, a Dark Goddess who functions as a gateway between the realms of this world and the next. Recognition of this leads to liberation; and images containing within them the fullness of samsara, as Chamunda does, serve as gateways to simultaneous embracement of life and death, duality and oneness, a holistic future and personal enrichment through the suffering of life. They hold the key to embracing the walk of the heart, where sadness and joy, pain and elation ever co-mingle.

Understanding the goddess as both life-giver and destroyer manifests in symbolic form as a circle, or chakra within the Indian context. This chakra is reflective of the cycles of life apparent, for example, in the waxing and waning of the moon and those other cycles tied to this one, such as menstruation and the ebb and flow of the tides. A circle is the form taken by the temples dedicated to the yoginis, or sixty-four derivations of the Asta Matrikas mentioned previously who include Chamunda among them. It is therefore perhaps no coincidence that the goddess as yogini would be configured for worship by the tantricks in circular temples, since their tradition is infused with reverence for the Goddess as containing the mystery of She who is both of the source of all life and the fount of death; the One who contains All. In addition, the yoginis are also linked to yaksis (nature spirits), and they, as well as those who worshipped them, were called witches and magicians. As yogini, Chamunda and her sixty-three sisters were said to have the power to fly, to become invisible, turn humans into animals, and other such things. In many ways, these traits and the correspondence of female deities with witchcraft again brings together East and West through demonization of the Feminine.

But much like the Indo-European demonization of the pre-Christian Death/Regeneratirx aspect of the Goddess into Witch, Chamunda too was demonized and subordinated by patriarchal traditions in India. She was linked to Yama, Lord of Death, becoming less than he in Vedic hymns. An interesting suggestion, however, of her ties to pre-patriarchal roots may be found by looking at her vahana (mount), the owl. Even today in the west, this bird may still be found carrying the messages of the Dark Goddess, of the Feminine Divine who holds the mysteries of life, death and rebirth. A friend found a link between east and west on pilgrimage to the Black Madonna Notre Dame de Bon Espoir (Our Lady of Good Hope) in Dijon France. She writes of her experience,
<blockquote>The oldest of the Black Madonnas...Notre Dame de Bon Espoir was yet another Black Madonna who made a tremendous impact on me. Interestingly, there is an owl carved into the side of the church where She is housed.</blockquote>
Therefore, understanding the origins of the witch in prehistory and her later modifications to more fierce/violent characterizations at the hands of patriarchal peoples will perhaps help to heal some of the ills caused by misrepresentations of the Feminine while eradicating some causes of Devi’s (and by extension women’s) subordination. It might be said that if we come to understand the full nature of Her, we would see that all Her forms are those of beauty within the divine creation.

While the term witch is in the eastern context used with negative connotation, it is important to understand that the yoginis of the temples were not demons to the tantricks. Given the tantrick insistence on reverence for the immanence of the divine and the sacredness of nature, of maniest reality, yoginis are understood as affirmations of the multifarious aspects of the Goddess. While some of these aspects can be very violent or fierce, with the goddess often depicted with sword in hand, blood and human flesh dripping from her mouth, severed heads around her waist, and other gruesome adornment, understanding her and her relationship to patriarchy over time is interesting. Such depictions, on the one hand, are likely overlays onto an ancient Crone/Death-Regeneratrix deity whose original association with death was severed from her link to life because of a dualistic patriarchal worldview that failed to recognize, for example, the interconnectedness of life and death and instead demonized women and nature as expressions of that relationship.

In contrast to gruesome depictions of the goddess Chamunda and those associated with Her, patriarchal Hinduism has begun, within the last century, to sweeten the fierce goddesses. Perhaps this is a tell-tale sign that the power of the feminine is being responded to a new and different way. That is, first, She was representative of the power of Oneness and, simply put, patriarchal consciousness (as manifested in the social, political and other realities millennia ago that have created today’s normative Hindu consciousness) sought to (and managed to) break that monopoly by rendering Her as fierce so as to facilitate specific ends, which were to carve out dualistic territory (for some reason). After supression in very specific ways for those millennia, however, She has sought to bring balance to a dichotomous worldview. In response to Her presence now, instead of the fierceness previously required to serve the purposes of a patriarchal worldview, the institutions today that which to retain power have rendered her sweet and submissive, now, to serve their ends of maintaining the status quo. Were patriarchal powers to allow Her fierceness, their reign might quickly come to an end, and this, of course, is exactly the point of honoring and remembering Her as all that She is while concurrently utilizing the power that Her fierce characteristics contain.

Further, while the word witch today still reverberates strongly with anti-God-loving sentiment for some people, to call oneself a witch as I do is an act of resistance to patriarchal obfuscation of the truth, and reclamation of women’s power within any tradition (as well as outside them). In the west, it is an appellation that is taking on an entirely new meaning, particularly with the resurgence of the goddess in the discipline known as Women’s Spirituality, through Wicca (a reclamation of indigenous European earth-based traditions) and through other forms of earth-based religion, that hold within them both the pre-historical notion of goddess as life-giver/destroyer and the more patriarchal characterization of the goddess as violent warrior, from which many, nevertheless are able to find powerful tools for creating life-affirming change.

Again before what I now call my statue of Chamunda, this time recording notes and impressions while interposing photographic moments until the museum’s 4 o’clock closing time, I eventually come to be alone with her. I am alone in that statue-filled room mesmerized, or very likely in trance, feeling as though some incredibly magical force surrounds the two of us. From my spot on the floor, I watch her watching me and ask her to teach me Her secrets. That evening, I wrote in my journal:
<blockquote>From where did the ancient Saktas get her image? What are her myths and associations? How and when does she manifest? Why? What are the psychological implications of her presence as a Goddess and what do they tell us about the people who created her? Why does she exist in this fierce form that was obviously so loved (feared?) by those who worshipped her? Can she help us in the west better understand the nature of the Divine Feminine; and if so, can we find ways through her to promote self-understanding? She is starved; does she link us psychically to the root cause of/cure for anorexia? Can she help western women in the throes of addictions, especially eating disorders, with their own reclamation process? How does understanding Chamunda help me to better understand myself?</blockquote>
My questions only began to touch the surface of her depth. As a western woman living today I can never know her true or intended purpose, although I can make an educated guess informed by my academic pursuits as well as my bodily knowings and intuitions.

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Even so, Chamunda through my eyes is not Chamunda in any fully Indian sense, even though I have explored her on her own ground (literally, as well as through her myths, philosophies, symbols, and worship). Rather, for me, Chamunda is an exploration into the depths of personal, and perhaps more generally the question of women’s, spirituality. Particularly within the western context of women’s spiritual development, the importance of Chamunda as a teacher can be grasped when it is understood that she holds within herself the tension of embracing both Mother and Witch archetypes; two aspects of the Feminine that have long been used to subordinate rather than empower women. Chamunda illustrates that these aspects ever inter-related, constantly situated within a flux of interchangeability that she herself manifests.

<b>Chamunda and Kali: Blood Sisters</b>

My initial contact with the <i>raudra</i> or fierce form of the Goddess, as mentioned above, had come to me years earlier through a dream image as Kali, a Hindu goddess representative of the power of time and of death. In many respects, Chamunda and Kali are alike. Indeed, both are initiators into the fullest spectrum of life, and both serve to awaken us to the value of impermanence and cyclical time. Some Shakta practitioners understand both goddesses to be manifest aspects of the same ontological truth; nevertheless, both can be intensely frightening images of feminine power to those unaccustomed to dealing with the Dark Mother.

Iconographically, Chamunda and Kali are often similarly depicted: in the cremation ground, seated upon a corpse and engaging in practices involving sex, blood and death. At the Chamunda-Devi temple [<a href="/mandala/chamunda-devi-eastern-teacher-to-the-west/4/#ref">4</a>] outside of Dharmasala (Himachal Pradesh), Chamunda is plainly understood to be a form of Kali and the ten <i>mahavidyas</i> are depicted at her shrine. The Devi as Chamunda-Kali is also mentioned in the <i>Tantrasara</i>, <i>Shaktapramoda</i> and <i>Pranatosini</i>. [<a href="/mandala/chamunda-devi-eastern-teacher-to-the-west/4/#ref">5</a>]

Chamunda-Kali provides a gateway to: i) understanding of the Goddess in the Western psyche for juxtaposition with the Eastern manifestations of Her; ii) how Western vs. Eastern conceptions of reality play a role in determining the images of the Divine Feminine that abound in each context; and iii) the potential power of reclaiming the Dark Mother in the West with the help of images from the East.

<b>Western Appreciation for the Goddess</b>

From this brief discussion in conjunction with other goddess tales, perhaps a vision of the goddess who relates to the emotional, physical, and psychic bodies of women and men, regardless of their country of origin, by virtue of the human condition, is becoming apparent. Woven here is the notion that where women in particular are being drawn to Devi’s symbolism for its promotion of, at the very least, what may appear to be a feminist ethic, those who are attracted to her in their spiritual longing (in any of her forms) necessarily cross lines of demarcation whether social, political, or geographical—and so too does Devi. Goddess worship and feminism too needs to be able to create a container for dialogue, with both arenas developing cross-cultural methodologies that can facilitate the creation of safe space in which to then make discussions happen that relate the spiritual realities with the economic, social, and political ones. From within that space, the hope would be to generate a metaphorical fire from which truth based on a process of coming to agreement can be born. Only then can we empower women and men to be all of who and what they are, no matter what the context in which they find themselves.

Giving a historicity to Indian images of the divine may help those non-Hindus interested in appreciating her from within western contexts to make informed statements and educated assertions (based upon contextual understanding) about their own uses of/for her while providing a ground for possible adaptations of Devi within a new environment. For just as the goddess centuries ago crossed from India to neighboring lands, our technological advancements today have moved us all towards a global community, which has indeed also helped to shape the transportation of Devi across oceans and continents.

For western women, images of the goddess as whole, as containing paradox, and particularly as embracing sexuality and other aspects generally suppressed under patriarchy, are healing. In the western context where transcendent male gods (or more specifically, one male god of generally Jewish or Christian disposition) dominate and no female/feminine is accorded divine status (despite the high status imparted to Mary, as discussed in the last chapter), the need for a Divine Feminine who recognized, honored and is both immanent as well as transcendent is glaring. Perhaps this is one reason why the Indian conception of goddess captures the fervor of western feminists and those seeking alternate visions of the divine that are more inclusive. Devi seems approachable in the sense that she, as her myths and iconography at the very least portend, undergoes and is much of what women recognize to be their individual truths. In her, every woman finds a piece of herself; and every man, perhaps, can learn a little more about the heart of his essential nature.

The mainstream Western images of the Divine Feminine in a contemporary context where the Abrahamic faiths prevail have largely been limited to the Virgin Mary, and perhaps if one is generous, to Sophia, the Black Madonna and Lilith. These last three however, represent an undercurrent of the Christian and Judaic faiths, and they are not recognized by many practitioners; at least not with full awareness of their power and connection to pre-patriarchal religion.

In any case, it is apparent that the Divine Feminine within our context as represented in Her most ubiquitous aspect as the Virgin Mary has little but a "soft" or benevolent and nurturing side. She is holy and untouchable, even by her husband; she is vehicle for the avatar Christ, but not God herself; she is incapable of engaging the more uncomfortable aspects of life; she listens and conveys the message of her followers, but does not have the power to act directly for those who worship her.

This image of Mary is put in juxtaposition within Christianity to the one God, who is All. Her place is marginal in relationship to His magnificence, and reflects the Western/patriarchal schism typified by Descartes’ mind/body duality (God as transcendent mind, Mary as earth-bound body) or more simply, the valuing of men over women and heaven over earth. Further, it underscores that the religious traditions of patriarchal cultures have unfortunately tended to pathologize the relationship of dualistic principles. In life, dualities abound, but their representation in the West has long since posed them as warring opposites where the position of the Divine Feminine (and women) is relegated to minority status.

The patriarchal worldview, particularly as expressed in the powerful "First World" nations of the West, has manifested skewed valuations of dualities in other spheres of life as well. It has done so to the point of ignoring (or largely ignoring) the inherent worth and wisdom of the Feminine principle and has created an urgent need for crisis prevention in the environmental, developmental, psychological and social arenas. Further, if we accept that the project of patriarchy has been based on the scientific and philosophical deconstruction of life (through exploitation of resources and peoples by Western science and paradigms supported by such traditions) and on the establishment of dualistic categories formed from reductionistic tendencies (in order to propagate the favoritism of man and culture over women and nature, e.g.), then we understand how dichotomization destroys relatedness, promotes homogenization, and makes subjugation the norm for half the population the world over.

Unfortunately in both the East and West, the archetypal Feminine principle, which in India is called <i>pakriti</i>, has often been associated only with women and with nature, to the detriment of both men, women and the planet. For to deny that the Feminine has value is to deny more than gender or population; it is to deny half of the entire spectrum of life. It relegates all that is receptive, open, life-generating and nurturing to the margins of society, and it is there that we can look to find the festering sores of all the various crises of our time.

Fortunately, particularly within the past ten years, writers, thinkers, theologians and others across the globe in fields as diverse as the sciences, religion and women’s studies have explored the dance of life beyond the confines of duality. There, many have found that the "opposing" forces of life are in a play of complementarities, where tension makes growth, change, and transformation possible. In understanding that life is more of an ever-shifting dynamic balance of energetics where opposing forces create an existence filled with variety, spontaneity, laughter and music in which the soul may rejoice, a new vein of consciousness has been born in our time.

The impact of the Goddess archetype upon women and men as She re-emerges into consciousness has profound ramifications upon all aspects of life. In the East, many have been called to re-examine their relationships to the manifest Divine Feminine in actual women. On the individual as well as the collective level, She reminds us that women too are powerful, worthy of respect in this world; She teaches that respect for our bodies helps us to respect the Earthbody; She tells us that all things ugly and beautiful are Her creation. She is a "creative trinity;" [<a href="/mandala/chamunda-devi-eastern-teacher-to-the-west/4/#ref">6</a>] serving as a gateway to simultaneous embracement of <i>both</i> duality and oneness, a symbol of integrated duality and the unconditional love that binds them. With this, many in the West have been drawn to remembering the Goddess as a potent symbol of wholeness. Many have turned to Her myths, rituals and traditions of pre-patriarchal times in order to quench their personal longing for "something else." I believe that Chamunda helps to bring a special dimension to understanding the fullest sense of what that wholeness means.

<b>Eastern Goddesses, Patriarchal Cultures, and a Vision from the West</b>

While the West has tended to infuse its traditions with a dualistic split, the Eastern traditions of India have tended to concern themselves with a monological "One" in the realm of spirit while an overlay of patriarchal duality has settled into the societal sphere. This has wrought a complexity of contradictions in Indian society. For example, the Ganges River, sacred sphere of the Goddess Ganga who manifests through and as its waters, is the most polluted and yet simultaneously the holiest river on Earth for devout Hindus. Similarly, while the Divine Feminine is recognized and worshipped through myriad images of Goddesses (Ganga, Kali and Chamunda among them), women still occupy a marginal position in traditional Indian society.

As David Kinsley has noted: "In the Hindu tradition a woman is taught to understand herself primarily in relation to others…It is society that puts demands on her primarily through the agents of relatives and in-laws, and not she who places demands on society that she be allowed to develop a unique, independent destiny. A central demand placed on women, particularly vis-à-vis males, is that they subordinate their welfare to the welfare of others." [<a href="/mandala/chamunda-devi-eastern-teacher-to-the-west/4/#ref">7</a>]

While attempts have been made to reconcile patriarchal duality at the level of society with a philosophical and religious spiritual unity, the fact of the matter is that such discontinuity invalidates and undermines both. Little progress has been made in this regard within the Indian context. But it is from within this struggle that ways of thinking that seek to heal the split of culture from embodied/immanent spirituality have more recently emerged. Many writers, but most prominently the Indian physicist and ecofeminist, Vandana Shiva, have made a case for recognizing the Divine Feminine/Goddess in order to ameliorate tension and diffuse the boundaries of derision caused by the patriarchal paradigm.

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In her book, <i>Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development</i>, Shiva explores one way of looking at the Divine Feminine through lenses that appreciate both transcendent as well as immanent manifestations. She proposes fully embracing the notion of <i>Pakriti</i> as a "spiritual" discipline rather than simply as "nature," so that a more balanced worldview can be achieved. This new worldview takes into account the marginalized position of women while de facto promoting environmental sustainability and the wellbeing of diverse, autonomous communities focused on the sacredness of relationships rather than on their destruction.

According to Shiva, Pakriti means not just the traditional counterpart to Purusa (the Divine Masculine, or the Masculine Principle of manifest culture and society), but instead the<i>entirety</i> of nature with its ability to create, sustain and destroy in order to continue the cycle of life in all its aspects. Thus, Shiva’s position asserts "both a <i>holistic</i> perspective and an<i>inclusive</i> agenda of concerns based on its considerable respect for diversity—both in turn being principles of nature." [<a href="http://sharanya.org/articles/chamunda/chamunda4.php4#ref">8</a>]

On another level, such thinking shows that the construct of <i>maya</i> (illusion) as found in many Indian philosophical systems is not required to solve the corundum of how manifest reality (difference) can be reconciled with the unitive One. Instead, maya can be understood as the human resistance to holding the tension of paradox in life. In this way, perhaps the women of manifest nature can reclaim their right as beings who are living testament to the power of the Goddess and be honored as such. And the "One" can take on new meaning as a "dynamic system of relations wherein any particular manifestation functions simultaneously as a distinct part and the unbroken whole. The parts are not derivative of the whole, or vice versa, [nor are the parts dissolved into one another to become the whole, or vice versa.] Each aspect constitutes the other." [<a href="http://sharanya.org/articles/chamunda/chamunda4.php4#ref">9</a>]

It is with this idea in mind that the Goddesses of East and West need to be (re)evaluated. Unfortunately, however, as we saw earlier in this article, the Western Goddess(es) of mainstream contemporary manifestation and interpretation provide little by way of role model to help us accomplish the task of aware integration of spheres on both the intra- and inter- (as well as micro- and macrocosmic) levels that permeate the realms of mind, body and spirit. Therefore, if we are to move beyond our present embeddedness in the philosophical systems of our respective contexts, any divine teacher thus considered must be a manifestation of reality that lies beyond duality while embracing of it, and must be a penetrator/trix of all worlds, symbolic and otherwise.

Chamunda and her sister Kali, in my opinion, represent an understanding of the limitations of a dualistic worldview while simultaneously embracing duality as facilitator for self-awareness—-the manifest universe and the physical form being vehicles for the exploration of consciousness into itself. Further, they allow communication and representation among each and every sphere of life as well as among worlds, much like the Hermes Trismegistus of Greek mythology and later hermetic philosophy who not only facilitated communication between Gods; between Gods and men; but also between the worlds of Heaven and Hell. In this way, the Divine Feminine as manifest from within the Eastern psyche serves the required purpose; for as C. MacKenzie Brown notes: "In the Devi-Bhagavata…the goddess is both male and female, and transcends the two, but without devaluing either the transcendent or <i>samsaric</i>[earthly or immanent]<i> </i>dimensions." [<a href="http://sharanya.org/articles/chamunda/chamunda4.php4#ref">10</a>]

Further, it may be noted that from a perspective focused on the dynamics of inter-relationship rather than the intra-relationships of East and West, the Western relationship to "God" and the Eastern understanding of non-duality as a quality of "God" is typified by the following story:
<blockquote>A Western reporter and an Indian devotee of the Goddess come across a statue of Kali. She has her four arms: the upper right raised in blessing, the lower right offering a boon (wish), the upper left holding a machete dripping with blood and the lower left gripping a severed human head by the hair. Seeing this split, the Westerner immediately asks: "So how do you get the blessing and avoid the machete?" The Eastern devotee angrily replies, "That's not it at all...The blessing is only won when you accept both sides of her, including pain, sorrow, decay, death, and destruction. Run from her horrors, and you run from her blessings. To deny death, to act as if your little self is the center of things and must be protected from pain and preserved as long as possible—this is the real death. But embrace Kali as she is—kiss her bloody tongue and feel all four arms caress you at once—then you have life, you have freedom." [<a href="http://sharanya.org/articles/chamunda/chamunda4.php4#ref">11</a>]</blockquote>
In this story, the boon for the Western mind would be to get beyond dualistic thinking; and the boon for the Eastern mind would be to allow this non-dualistic perspective to integrate into all spheres of life, not simply the spiritual one.

But working with images such as Chamunda and Kali, I believe, is one way to begin transforming traditional perspectives. Although a re-visioning of these goddesses in the East to include a mandate for social reform might be a worthwhile endeavor, I can only mention here the potential impact that working with them might have upon Western consciousness were, for example, a fully developed program inclusive of yoga, ritual, meditation and contemplation, etc. to be implemented by those wishing to break free of the limiting constructs of our time.

<b>Revisiting the Goddess</b>

Therefore, I hold that those wishing to reach beyond the schisms of Western thought (and beyond the hypocrisy of Eastern practice if one is from that context and so inclined) need to welcome a teacher capable of fully embodying both sides of duality; for one must be willing to embrace death if seeking to fully enjoy life (as the story above pointed out). The extremely intense presence of Chamunda when brought into contemplation by a seeking mind can indeed be a call to wake up to the vibrancy of life; to the reason behind the ephemeral nature of things; and indeed to the fullest sense oneself and one’s purpose in the world.

For as told in the Upanishads when Sanatkumara says to the young Narada: "One who meditates upon and realizes the Self discovers that everything in the cosmos—energy and space, fire and water, name and form, birth and death, mind and will, word and deed, mantram and meditation—all come from the Self." [<a href="http://sharanya.org/articles/chamunda/chamunda4.php4#ref">12</a>] The Self is therefore the embracing One and that which enables human beings to comprehend the infinite diversity of the world. The manifestations of the macrocosmic world can be easily understood in terms of the microcosmic Self and vice versa; or again in the words of Hermes Trismegistus, "as above, so below."

In meditating upon the image of Chamunda and asking questions as I did about the reasons behind her powerful presence, one may be forced to ask too exactly what this Goddess desires us to see and to ultimately understand about our presence in the world: What is my role here? Why is there suffering? What is the purpose of life? Why has Patriarchy been a part of our human experience? As it says in the Chandogya Upanishad, "You are that." [<a href="http://sharanya.org/articles/chamunda/chamunda4.php4#ref">13</a>] And so for the individual contemplating the nature of non-dual reality while trying to reconcile manifest existence and personal experience, Chamunda can function as a portal to understanding.

It also seems appropriate that as we today search to give a meaning to our lives in these times of planetary crisis, turning to different ways of knowing and of experiencing reality may assist us in our struggles to ‘make sense of it all.’ This introduction of Chamunda as a teacher to the West is again not an attempt to co-opt or misrepresent a Hindu deity; it is simply a suggestion to be aware of more than those things with which we are readily familiar in our quest.

Done with honor, respect, and with no claim at contextual understanding, opening to the patterns of collective thought that made the Goddess Chamunda a part of human reality may be a way to break the hard lines of Western dichotomy. It may help us reconnect to the ancient roots of many of the symbols, myths and traditions that have sprung from our collective human history, and it may help us connect to something deeper from within our own Western psyche. It may help us to eventually reclaim the power inherent in both Mother and Witch for the betterment of humanity.

Thus Chamunda-Devi may be a kind of key - not to unlocking the past, but to helping us ‘re-find’ the awareness most important for us today. Perhaps she can help us to dive into the primordial well of remembrance that exists within each of us in order to help surface feelings and intuitions that are particularly important for the creation of human as well as Gaian wholeness.

As the last line of the <i>Creed of the Star Goddess</i> tells us, "I [the Goddess], have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire."  [<a href="http://sharanya.org/articles/chamunda/chamunda4.php4#ref">14</a>] We need only wish to remember in our hearts, with all of our heart, and She will reveal Her reality no matter where we live, what language we speak or what traditions we follow. As we move forward along our collective path in this evolutionary spiral we call life, may we seek always to know the truth of our past, so that we may all move together towards tomorrow. In this project, Chamunda is certainly qualified to be our guide.

The rest of my stay in India continued to be filled with Chamunda’s presence, and I began to affirm as I learned more about her that she was unknowable in any purely historical or religious sense but for my own cellular memories perhaps and more recent experiences of her. By Chamunda’s grace, however, I find that as I deepen into her mysteries and continue to invoke her in my life, I am drawn back in time so that I may discover not only her truth, but also the truth of how the track of recorded history both reveals and obscures truth. As much contemporary feminist scholarship reveals, much of recorded history obscures. By Chamunda’s grace, however, the path towards greater self-awareness was presented to me, and I continue to ask the above-mentioned questions, slowly gaining insight into her potential role as a teacher of the West.

The path towards greater self-awareness therefore has very large implications, and I continue to ask the above-mentioned questions to gain insight into Chamunda in all manifestations so that she may ultimately teach her secrets to all those willing to learn. I for one, am realizing that the mysteries of the Goddess reveal themselves to me though my personal experience, and as I open to trusting that my spirituality in this vein contains the greatest wisdom of all, the circle is closed and I am before Her once again.

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1. Kinsley, David. <i>Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition</i> (University of California Press: Berkeley) 1986 p. 149
2. Dehejia, Vidya. <i>Yogini Cult and Temples: A Tantric Tradition</i> (The National Museum: New Delhi) 1986, p. 187
3. The Matrikas first appear in the <i>Mahabharata</i> and have collectively been dated to about the first century A.D. Their manifestations in the literature of the epic - and post-epic periods seem to be characterized as malevolent, blood-drinking and demonic; but worship is also directed to them for protection. The Matrikas are notably a group of goddesses, the number of which becomes somewhat standardized at seven or eight in the postepic period. They are given in the <i>Visnudharmottara-purana</i> as: Yogisvari, Mahesvari, Vaisnavi, Kaumari, Brahmani, Chamunda and Varahi.
4. I have visited this temple and seen these images. David Kinsley also makes mention of this fact in his work,<i>Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas</i> (University of California Press: Berkeley) 1997, p. 16
5. Kinsley, David. Ibid., p. 75
6. Sheldrake, Rupert. <i>The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God</i> (Park Street Press: Vermont) 1991 pp. 196 - 199
7. Kinsley, David. <i>Hindu Goddesses</i>, ibid<i>. </i>p. 77
8. Kothari, Rajni. Foreword in <i>Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development</i> by Vandana Shiva, (New Jersey: Zed Books) 1989, p. X. (Original italics.)
9. Spretnak, Charlene. "Radical Non-duality in Ecofeminist Philosophy" essay <i>in Metis: A Feminist Journal of Transformative Wisdom</i>, Spring, 1996; Vol 1, No. 1., p. 11
10. Brown, C. MacKenzie. <i>The Triumph of the Goddess: The Canonical Models and Theological Visions of the Devi-Bhagavata Purana</i> (SUNY Press: New York) 1990, p. 216
11. Reported by Tim Ward in <i>Common Boundary</i>, March/April, 1997, p. 34
12.<i> Chandogya Upanishad, </i>translated by Eknath Easwaran (Nilgiri Press: Berkeley) 1987, p. 190
13. <i>Chandogya Upanishad</i>, ibid<i>.</i>, p. 183
14. Adapted from the traditional (oral) poem by Doreen Valiente, British witch. Traditional.