Another Day, Another Living "Devi"

File under: The Siddhi of PR

In our zeal to identify and make clear the occluding effects of ideas about self-realization, we have memberships on several community boards and email discussion lists. On one of these we recently came to know about Kali Ma Troma Rigstal Khadro. We were immediately struck by the similarities between Kali Ma and SYDA Yoga guru Gurumayi. Both are descended from the Muktananda lineage, although Kali Ma hides this by failing to mention that one of her gurus, Swami Rudrananda, was an acolyte of Muktananda. Both also claim to transmit something called 'siddhi', and both are fairly attractive women who allow themselves to be worshipped as God walking the Earth.

Kali Ma appears to be teaching a kind of spiritual emotionalism throughout Northern California, much like Bhagavan Kalki and his ilk. The idea is to equate self-realization with only positive emotional states like love, and then "teach" people what that "love" would be like. It's a great way to populate your satsang with just the right sort of emotionally needy folks who are looking for a living "God" in their lives.

Of course, Kali Ma can "transmit" this love, but only if you come to the satsang. But don't even think about questioning her or her teachings. You are only a confused student and have no qualification to do so:

The Spiritual Guide IS. And the way IS manifests should not be put up for trial against the jury of the student’s conceptions and confusions. To do so is irrelevant and a way of avoiding doing one’s own inner work. The only way to be in relationship to one’s teacher is to be grateful for whatever the Master reflects towards you, about you or irregardless of you.

Now that she's established that she is perfectly infallible, you should toss the critical thinking and shave your head for even imagining she could ever be wrong about anything.

But not us. Our guru welcomes our challenges with vigor, leaving us with the impression that any true guru should encourage the inquiry afforded to a critical thinker. Little Ms. Kali Ma seems to be of a different class than he, making her not much use as anything other than a propped up Ishta Devata who appears to be enjoying the glories of being a living Devi.