Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

Yoga / Hindu : Shakta (Goddess-oriented) 18th Century	About Kamalakanta Timeline (1769? - 1821?)
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English version by Rachel Fell McDermott Original Language Bengali	Is my black Mother Syama really black?
Commentary by Ivan M. Granger Themes   Heart   Light   Womb       Recommended Books Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott	Is my black Mother Syama really black? People say Kali is black, but my heart doesn't agree. If She's black, how can She light up the world? Sometimes my Mother is white, sometimes yellow, blue, and red. I cannot fathom Her. My whole life has passed                trying. She is Matter, then Spirit, then complete Void. It's easy to see how Kamalakanta      thinking these things went crazy.     -- from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott Amazon.com
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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

Kamalakanta, like Ramprasad, was a saint who addressed his songs to the Bengali goddess Kali. Kali is both loving mother and terrible destroyer, the beginning as well as the end -- she is all of creation.

The lines, "She is Matter, / then Spirit, / then complete Void," almost sound like a Buddhist formulation. But, of course, such observations don't belong to any one sacred tradition alone; they are simply the result of direct mystical experience, whatever the religious framework. Matter reveals itself to be an unreal experience of surfaces and appearance. The so-called tangible reality perceived by the senses emerges from a divine and living radiance that "lights up the world." And at the heart of it all is a profound stillness, an emptiness that swallows everything so completely that all form and separation disappear. Yet, at the same time, that Void is also alive and pregnant with the whole unmanifest universe. This is Kali in her essential (formless) form: the Void that consumes everything and the Womb that gives birth to all of creation -- both at once.

Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
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