Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

1. The Mother: Individual, Universal, Transcendent

Fragment ID: 19001

While praying today I saw the image of Mother Kali. She was black and naked and standing with her foot on the back of Shiva. Why is Kali seen in such a form and on what plane is she seen like this?

It is in the vital. It is Kali as a destroying Force – a symbol of the Nature Force in the ignorance surrounded by difficulties, trampling and breaking everything in a blind struggle to get through till she finds herself standing with her foot on the Divine itself – then she comes to herself and the struggle and destruction are over. That is the significance of the symbol.

9 February 1934