Kali, the Hidden Saints and the Path to God

 The list of those who attained realization through devotion to the Divine Mother is long, but it is not complete. Elizabeth U. Harding points out that many saints of Kali never revealed their spiritual greatness to the world. They were content to live quietly and lead hidden, holy lives. Because of this, many of them remain unknown. 

Harding also considers the difficulty of recognizing a true saint. There are many holy men, gurus, babas, and others who claim to know God, and it is not always easy to distinguish the genuine from the pretender. She writes that it takes a holy person to recognize another holy person, but suggests that there is another way of looking at the question: by observing the effect such a person has on one's own mind. 

According to Harding, contact with a true saint increases one's desire for God. This desire for God is described as an essential element in the realization of God. In this way, the influence of a saint can be recognized not simply through words or appearances, but through what is awakened within the person who comes into contact with him or her. 

Books can also provide a kind of holy company. Harding writes that although a book or a word is not the same as direct spiritual companionship, it can help to focus the mind. She describes her own book about Ma Kali, the Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, as only a map. Kali cannot be defined by a book. The reader must ultimately make the effort to experience the Goddess for themselves. 

The saints, Harding says, can show the direction of the spiritual path, but they cannot walk it for another person. The experience of one person seeing God cannot simply become another person's experience. Yet the experience of the saints gives hope: if one person in this world can see God, then there is also hope for others. A true saint therefore inspires a person to make the attempt for themselves. 

Harding then turns to the Divine Mother's love. After so much has been written about the love of people for the Mother, she considers the love of the Divine Mother for all people to be the fitting subject with which to end the book. Yet the more she reflects upon it, the less she finds that can be written. Human love for God can be described, but the love of God for us is too great to be contained in words. 

For Harding, when the soul burns with the desire to know the Great Goddess Mother, the rest will arrange itself. She writes that the Divine Mother will provide the teachers, the money, and the opportunity, and that everything will become favorable. 

And so the book does not really end with a final definition of Kali. It ends with an open path: the saints can point toward the way, books can help focus the mind, and the experience of others can give hope. But the journey itself cannot be made by anyone else. 

Source & Note

This article is based on Elizabeth U. Harding’s Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar (Nicolas-Hays, 1993). The material has been edited and adapted for this publication.