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The Hindu deity Kali is known to have both positive and negative aspects. As a positive deity, she is the Great Mother who creates life and nature, and brings her devotees to her heaven following their deaths. As a less positive deity, she deals with destructive aspects of both nature and human personalities when people's limitations block their spiritual progress. She is an ambiguous and complex deity who is the object of devotion, fear, and awe.

This text is from a Hindu teacher and devotee of Kali who describes his experience of Kali's heavenly world following his death. Most people are familiar with the worship of Western male deities. This text illustrates a heaven associated with a devotional tradition which focuses on a female deity from the East.

While readers are familiar with devotees in Western religion and their dedication to God, the Hindu renunciant or Sannyasi tradition demonstrates a degree of dedication that is rare in the West as illustrated by this teacher's description of his life.

The teacher describes his identity in Kali's heaven:

Now I am a grain of sand on the shore of a vast ocean that is Ma Kali. I watch her storms as well as her shining waves. I spent my life starving and suffering for her. Now she has given me her presence. She is a little girl of dancing foam and the ancient circle of life.

I still exist. I still have my cosmic telephone. My contact with my disciples has been limited. It is time for them to be more independent. The guru is only a guide. I can be one with Shiva, but only he can choose who can enter that door. I have sat alone with the goddess for many days and nights, starving and in darkness seeking only her. I have given her my life and offered all things that I loved into the sacrificial fire. I have wandered without food and money with only her name on my tongue. And she has seen how I have suffered for her and she has blessed me.

Now I have no human body. I have only the mind of a devotee who observes and cherishes his only love. I have taken on many forms to amuse her. I have been the heroic Arjuna, the loving Radha, the powerful Hanuman, and the Lord of the Dance. I become the gods to show them to my devotees, but also to show my love for her and bring others to see her if her mood is dark.

I bring the blue light of Shiva, the radiant darkness, the clear night with shining moon and stars. He is her lover, her child, her father- he is everything to her.

I am the slightest breeze in her vast cosmic thunderstorm. I watch their dance in wonder. I am a grain of sand on her cosmic shore but suffering has worn me down to a crystal. In the facets of her spirit, it is her face and her colors that shine like rainbows. She is Budi Ma, the ancient of days, and the source of all living things.