Daniel Odier - Tantric Kali: Secret Practices and Rituals

Tantric Kali

Tantric Kali provides depth as we are guided through mythology, ritual, visualization, and life teachings to have a direct experience of Shakti from the wisdom teachings of the Kaula path. Daniel offers another treasure from the heart of his realizationsteeped in his lineage with translations of the oldest ritual to Kalisongs and hymns and truly transformative practices and meditations direct from the root. A full-spectrum offering, this is the birth of another Odier classic. Daniel is one of the extraordinary and skillful practitioner-teacher-scholar-writers of our time. Tantric Kali is juicy, liberating, radical, and exquisite and offers a unique compendium of tantric Kali sadhana accessible to all.

SHIVA REA, YOGINI,
FOUNDER OF SAMUDRA GLOBAL SCHOOL FOR
LIVING YOGA, AND AUTHOR OF
TENDING THE HEART FIRE

Praise For The Authors Previous Book
Tantric Quest

Daniel Odiers story is the stuff of dreams for the spiritual seeker. Until this book, we have had few (if any) modern first-person accounts of a Westerners initiation into tantrism. Tantric Quest fulfills our longing to understand this mysterious method and does so admirably, describing a path where sensual delight is married with full attention to re-create our birthright of life in the garden of the Goddess.

YOGA JOURNAL

Preface

A certain number of practices that I received directly from my teacher Lalita Devi are not part of any treatises that I am aware of. I received my knowledge of the rituals and secret practices from her. Concerning the rituals of Kali, I also benefited from the magnificent presence of Shri Maa, a yogini disciple of Ramakrishna, who lives in the Napa Valley in California and who is a great admirer of Kali. I never practice the ritual without donning the rudraksha (seed of Shiva) necklace that she gave me.

KRIM: the seed syllable (bija mantra)of Kali

INTRODUCTION

Kali and the Tantric Path

T he mention of Kali evokes a shadowy world cloaked in mystery, for this Indian goddess emerged from humanitys ancient past. Although she has been worshipped for centuries, most of the treasures of her mythology and practices still remain virtually hidden in Sanskrit texts and esoteric sects. But Kali has many gifts for us.

I am Great Nature, consciousness, happiness, the quintessential, says Kali in the Chudamani Tantra. She is the Cosmic Mother, dark as storm clouds, naked with wild hair falling to her knees. She comes to us from a rich past devoted to the worship of feminine powera veneration of the Great Mother that was universal before the advent of religions. The civilization of the Indus Valley is where we find the seeds of the great ideas that were to form the movement that revered the Great Goddess. Terra-cotta statues of her can still be found, dating back 4,500 or 5,000 years. Paleolithic sites represent the Goddess in the form of triangular stelae or rounded rocks, some of which are still worshipped in India.

Kali sprang forth from pre-Vedic (before 1500 BCE) rural traditions that were wild and shamanic before migrating slowly into Indian tradition. She was perhaps the ancient goddess worshipped by the inhabitants of the Vindhya mountain range, which separates north from south in the center of India.

According to Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon), writing in the Garland of Letters, Kali is the deity in that aspect in which It withdraws all things which it had created into Itself. Kali is so called because She devours Kala (Time) and then resumes Her own dark formlessness. He quotes the Mahanirvana Tantra as follows:

At the dissolution of things it is Kala (Time) who will devour all and by reason of this He is called Mahakala and since Thou devourest Mahakala Himself It is Thou who art called the Supreme Primordial Kalika.... Resuming after Dissolution Thine own nature dark and formless, Thou alone remainest as One, Ineffable, and Inconceivable.

Kali speaks to us of the darker aspects of nature and our own human nature, yet she also speaks to us of love, for she became the consort of Shiva, adopted by tantric practitioners of the Kaula path. Kaula is the vamachara path, often called the left-hand path, but because vama also means woman, it would be more accurate and in harmony with the Kaula path to translate vamachara as the Shakti path.

In the realm of Tantra, the central theme is the divine energy and creative power (Shakti) that is represented by the feminine aspect of any of various gods; personified as a devi, or goddess, she is portrayed as his wife, above all as the wife of Shiva.

The world of Kali is huge. It would be presumptuous to think that I could treat the whole of it, but I did want to bring together in one book the essentials of the mythology, rituals, and practices as well as the mystical worldview that they represent. Here you will find several texts that are being published in English for the first time.

Chapter 1 explores Kalis origins and symbolism, which will make it clear from the outset that she will be our guide to territory of the human psychophysical being that is usually scorned or forbidden in religion.

In chapter 2 the Kaula path and its spread across India is described in greater detail, with glimpses into the fecund field of Kali mythology, as well as an introduction to the thirty-six principles of reality (tattvas). This chapter includes translations of the Kaula Upanishad and the Kularnava Tantra, which makes it clear that the value system of the Kaula tradition is very nonconformist.

Kali, however, is still able to speak to us, primarily through practices we enliven within our own beings. Chapter 3 introduces preliminary practices that are essential preparations for entering into Kalis profound rituals of transformation.

Chapter 4 contains the first publication of an English translation of the Nirrutara Tantra, the oldest presentation of the Kali ritual.

The Kali ritual is presented in detail in chapter 5, culminating in the ritual of Sacred Union.

Practices and visualizations to guide the aspirant along the Kaula path are given in chapter 6, including a focus on the eight chakras and sixty-four yoginis, the Yoginis Practice of the Heart, and the Devouring of Inner Demons.

In addition to inspiring the composition of many tantric scriptures, Kali has also evoked devotion in the form of hymns and songs, several of which are presented in chapter 7.

Civilization has brought us many marvelous things, but it has also cut us off from our ancient roots and from our connection to nature, to animals, and to the cosmos. The arrival of religions has added all sorts of regulations and rules, which have repressed our fundamental connections with the world. We have become frightened, conformist, moralizing, guilty, and terrified by these impulses that violently surge up in us, sometimes in sexuality and sometimes in confrontations. They can astonish us and shock us.

This is the context in which the practices of Kali are invaluable for todays practitioner. They allow us to reintegrate all of the volcanic impulses that flow through us in the labyrinths of imagination and dreams. As a presence that was established before the great religious movements, Kali has the power to reconnect us to our roots, to restore the complete range of what it means to be human, to offer us acceptance of all our richnessshe encompasses the whole history of humanity from the first babblings to its final development.