As many of my friends know, in 2015 I was honored to be given a tour to many of the most sacred and holy sites in India. My party and I traveled through dozens of Indian states and visited dozens more temples and shrines. While each destination held special meaning, each location playing some unique role in the drama of Hindu civilization or encapsulating a particular story or lesson, there were a few stops which meant more to me personally than others, and one of these intimate visits was to the house of my spiritual father, the only Brahma temple in India. Let me tie this in further with my worship of Kama Deva and my newfound love for Kama's warrior mate, the goddess Chinnamasta.
About a month ago, around Valentine's Day, I wrote a blog post on why I worship Kama Deva, the god of love, and why I want to restore the ancient Kama festivals which take place during this pre-Spring time. While I will repeat why I love Kama Deva so much momentarily, first let me tell you about a question in Hinduism which has always bothered my mind. If you have read anything about the birth of my Lord Kama Deva, you will know that Brahma the god of creation is his father. This makes sense since Kama Deva, the god of love and sex, is obviously necessary in creating new life. Because Lord Brahma plays such a large and necessary role in the universe, creating new and evolved life, he is considered a major deity and is the first head in the Hindu trinity, with Vishnu following as preserver of life and Shiva ending with the destruction or reabsorption of life. If you travel India or the Caribbean or even the United States you will find thousands of Vishnu and Shiva temples, even thousands of temples dedicated to smaller gods, but you will never ever find Brahma temples, why is this?
Seeing that Brahma is kind of like my father, the father of my Lord Kama Deva, I noticed that lack of his worship immediately and wondered how it was that such a prominent and powerful god such as Brahma was not regularly worshiped in the Hindu community. One of my favorite set of scriptures in all of Hinduism are the Puranas, these are stories and anecdotes which carry the flavor of fables and mythologies, but indeed hide deeper meanings for those who have studied the Vedas and understand the higher natural forces as they apply to the individual and society. So what do the Puranas tell us about Brahma and his lack of worship today?
According to the Puranas, the god Shiva, who is the meditative Lord of Destruction, wanted to test the virtue of his companions Brahma (creative force) and Vishnu (preserver force). He turned himself into a huge pillar of fire and asked Vishnu to find his end and Brahma to find his beginning. Vishnu took the form of a boar avatar named Varaha and began digging down into the earth, while Brahma took the form of a white Swan and began flying up into the heavens. Vishnu dug down as far as he could but could not find Shiva's end. Brahma, flying up, could not find Shiva's beginning, but due to his pride and ego he could not accept this, and so he hatched a plot with a lotus to bare false witness that Brahma had indeed found Brahma's beginning.
When Vishnu returned to Shiva, he bowed down before the Lord of Destruction and admitted that he could not find his end, because Shiva was endless, he gave Lord Shiva the honor of the infinite. Now Brahma however, returned with the flower and said he had found Shiva's beginning all the way at the top, which Shiva knew was a lie. Angered with Brahma's ego, Shiva cursed Brahma not to be worshiped here on earth, and this curse has lasted to this day. But the bigger question is, what does all of this mean?
There are many theories as to what this Puranic tale teaches us, but I tend to go along with the theory that we are being taught a lesson about believing that certain members of society are more important or virtuous than others. Brahma has a tendency to represent the Brahmans of society, the intellectual and creative class who tend to produce the structure and culture of the nation. Brahma's wife is Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, she is often depicted alongside white swans. Brahma's decision to take the form of a white swan and then lie about his knowledge of Shiva's beginning is an allegory about how the learned Brahman class of any society can become so egotistical that they are willing to deceive others in order to protect their image as all knowing and all wise; their learnedness and positions as priests and judges does not protect them from unethical corruption, they just fall from grace is a different way than the other classes.
Now Shiva on the other hand, he tends to represent the more renegade and less structured classes of society. Shiva worshipers are notorious for not following any Varna and outrageously breaking the social norms of society. They also tend to stress asceticism and renunciation so that they can spend more time in nature, meditating and performing yoga, in order to be ever prepared to go into warrior mode when Hindu society needs protection. In many ways they actually mirror the Brahman classes, being less involved in daily life than the average person, only the Brahmans tend to cloister themselves in libraries while Shaivites are more often found in caves.
Now Vishnu, he tends to represent the Vaishya classes of society, those who are responsible for upholding the daily and practical aspects of civilization. Vishnu's wife is Laxshmi, goddess of wealth and domestic affairs, and so Vaishyas are the ruling class of practical society. Vaishyas are the administrative class, they make sure that commerce is flowing, that teachers are teaching, that streets are being cleaned and most importantly that the internet is working! They are not as creative as the Brahmans or Shaivites, but they are certainly more stable and orderly. Because of their tendency to follow the rules in place, the Vaishyas are usually the most wealthy class of society. While Vaishyas can respect the role of the Brahmans, they may resent it if the Brahmans try to interfere with daily affairs, the Brahmans are wise and learned, but not so practical and they have a tendency of being snooty. The Vaishyas may also see the worth of the Shaivites, but this can be harder for them since the Shaivites are less orderly, less materially stable and less wealthy. Vishnu worshipers do have a tendency to downplay Shiva worshipers since they view Shiva as incapable of running a clean and orderly home.
So what is the significance of Vishnu bowing before Shiva and acknowledging is supreme power? Shiva is the protector, the warrior, the one who is willing to attack and destroy the predators upon the Hindu nation, and he is not afraid to get crazy and irreverent in order to do it. Vishnu and the Vaishya classes are likely to see this in times of attack, Shiva and his followers become the supreme leaders of society since it is their very rule breaking that is necessary to save the societal structure. The Brahmans on the other hand may have a tendency to become haughty and arrogant, since it is they who usually formulate the rules and structures of society and so some of them may not be able to see the value of breaking the rules to preserve the rule, they could find it difficult to admit that their structures and knowledge are not perfect!
As I left the Brahma temple I noticed that it was guarded by Indra and Kuber, semi-scandalous warrior gods. Indra is known for drinking vast amounts of the invigorating Soma brew and sometimes being an arrogant and bragging commander. Kuber is the dwarf lord of the semi-divine, he is the lord of pigs and was once considered a demon until he was assigned the role of a sort of vault and money guard by the gods. It should not be surprising that Brahma's temple, the temple of the creative and intellectual class, should be guarded by a slightly inebriated commander and a tricky little dwarf with his pot of gold, riding around on a pig. I think that Brahma's worship is about to be revived, but those who will be restoring his dignity are not the ones who we may think are the type to do it.
Now before I move forward to how this all ties into Kama Deva and the goddess Chinnamasta, let me tell you about a very mystical experience which happened to me at this Brahma temple. As we exited the temple the tour guide brought us forward to a large lake, Pushkar Lake, Brahma's sacred waters. As the tour guide began explaining the lake's significance, something came over the air, it was like some magic took hold of the atmosphere and the tour guide's voice became melodic and full of importance. He explained to us that according to legend, anyone who has been brought to this lake, if you are here seeing it, the gods wanted you there and it was due to some high importance. None chance by this lake by accident he said, if you are here than the gods have beckoned you to present a special message, a mission of sorts. As I looked over the lake, all I could think about was my Lord Kama Deva, the son of Brahma.
As I explained before, most Hindus have what is known as an Ishta-Deva, a god or demon or energy which they feel most comfortable communicating with or which they feel best represents the underlying concepts to Hinduism in a way that speaks to them directly. If you read my post on Kama Deva, you will see that I have chosen Kama as my Ishta-Deva because he combines many unique and contradictory traits within himself and is all too often misunderstood.
Kama is not just the god of love, he is also the god of lust, but is actually best described as the god of passion and desire. Without Kama's lust function, there would be no procreation, there would be no life on earth, yet at the same time the quest for Kama, lust passion, can often times replace procreative sex in societies to the point that these civilizations become relatively childless, withering and dying. This is the case today in Europe and likely the United States, sex has become much more pornographic than reproductive. Circumstances like these, coupled with the fact that sexual lust is extremely distracting, has led many Hindus today to view Kama with suspicion or even consider him as almost evil. However, while most Hindus focus on Kama's ability to destroy a nation, they forget that in the Atharava Veda we are also told that he is one or our greatest protectors.
Kama is not just the god or representation of sexual passion, he is also the personification of guardian passion. While most humans and even other gods today avoid Kama because because of his more scandalous powers and behaviors, such as inducing incestuous thoughts in his father Brahma, they tend to forget that Kama's kinda crazy behavior and deep feeling also make him humanity's greatest protector. In the older Vedas, Kama is called upon as a dark warrior to come and obliterate the enemies of the Arya, his ability to sew evil thoughts in others minds comes in handy as he uses this to torment his victims. The Devi Purana tell us that Kama Deva is free of all jealousy, and because of this he is able to assemble and bring forth all the other gods to the battlefield with him, he is not afraid of sharing the glory; the Atharava Veda tells us that to become friends with Kama is to gain the friendship of all the gods!
Now as I have explained before, Kama used to be worshiped around the same time as Valentine's Day. The modern Hindu Spring festival of Vasant Panchami, which has been devoted to Saraswati (godess of knowledge), was dedicated to Kamadeva in ancient times. In fact, the entire 40 day period beginning around early February and ending at the spring festival of Holi was dedicated to Kama Deva and his companion Rati, as this would be the period when the Hindu youth would be preparing themselves to find love in the bloom of Ppring. Saraswati is Brahman's wife, she is the extremely pious and pure goddess of knowledge, art and music... the Brahmans have pushed out Kama Deva because they believe he is too outrageous for contemporary society, but they are suffering for this.
You probably remember by now that Kama Deva is actually Brahma's son. Brahma had created Kama to help with procreation, but when Kama pierced his father with his love arrows, Brahma embarrassed himself by becoming infatuated with his own daughter, in front of Lord Shiva, who mocked him. Since this time, Kama Deva has been a kind of outcast in Hinduism, however he is marked by his willingness to even destroy himself in order to protect humanity. Purana teaches us that if it is necessary, Kama Deva will burn himself alive if that is what is needed to destroy forces of falsehood and cruelty. This is what makes Kama Deva the ultimate god of protection in Hinduism, despite the fact that sometimes he can be naughty.
Now what does have to do with the goddess Chinnamasta, who you may not even know. I will explain her temporarily, but first let me tell you briefly about why I have been searching for her for so many years. So I've said about 100 times already that as a child I was raised very fundamentalist Christian, I had to read the bible over and over again and attend classes 3x a week to learn about and discuss bible history and esoteric meaning. The entire bible revolves around the history of the nation of Israel, and so all of the biblical enemies, the pagans, are nations which affected Israel. China, India and the far North of Europe play almost no role in biblical drama. The archenemies of Israel's god are the Semitic gods of the surrounding areas. Amongst the bible's chief antagonists, the culture and goddess they demonize and hate the most, is Babylon and their goddess Ishtar. Babylon was the pagan nation who dared to attack Israel after it had risen and instituted it's monotheistic tyranny. Most of the Israelites hated the new and jealous one true god and began reverting back to their ancestral paganism to break his rule. This weakened Israel to the point that they were vulnerable to invasion, and so pagan Babylon took much of Israel as slaves. Today, Jews and Christians paint this as some attack on the holy people, but they leave out the fact that Israel had stolen their land from the pagans, enslaves them, and set up a theocratic dictatorship which even their own people hated and rebelled against.
Jews and Christians will tell you that the restoration of Israel, even after it was attacked by pagan civilizations, is evidence that the bible and Israel are god's chosen book and nation, and this is a fabrication which I will address at another time, however it is because Babylon crushed Israel so heavily, taking all their people as captives, for this Babylon and their chief goddess Ishtar have become the most hated of all the pagans among Jews and Christians today. Any city that is famous for breaking biblical morality is called a "Babylon", Babylon is often associated with licentiousness and social decline. Even though Old Testament society was barbaric and slaving and incapable of maintaining itself, Babylon is the mark for all that is supposedly decay. One of the chief goddesses of Babylon was Ishtar, the goddess of love, sex and war. She was famous for her fierce armies and her sacred sex temples. Because the Babylonians were able to see the sacred aspects of sex, and incorporated sex into their high temple worship, Ishtar is known as "The Whore of Babylon" among Jews and Christians
After I escaped the clutches of Christianity and began removing their brainwashing from my mind, I became particularly interested in the pagan civilizations which the bible mentioned as their enemies. Many pagans today make the mistake of trying to mimic the descriptions made of pagans in the bible, they do this because they want to rebel and they think that the best way to do this is to become what the bible says it is against. But little do they know that they are falling into a trap, they are letting the bible once again command their role, to inform them about how they should be acting. Like most young pagans, I too fell into this destructive behavior and imitating the bible's descriptions of "evil pagans", but I eventually saw through this and began seeking more authentic versions of paganism. All you need to do is look at ancient pagan art and architecture and you can realize that they could not have been the narrow and cruel and evil-obsessed people the bible paints them to be, Israel was just jealous because it had no real true architecture or art form of its own, their ethos was built upon conquering and robbing from others.
Off all the many gods and forms of paganism which I studied, the goddess Ishtar always beckoned me the most. I knew there must have been some reason why Israel feared and hated her so much, how it was her who had the power to temporarily thwart the machinations of the failed slave state of Israel. Her dichotomy of being the goddess of love and war intrigued me, could it be the fact that she was able to express such extremes, that she was able to see all sides of life, birth and death, religion and sex, beauty and battle, is this what made her so powerful? The bible is obsessed with the one god's narrow and jealous personality, he cannot exist among other gods because he is too ugly and undesirable to compete. This is the exact opposite of my god Kama Deva who has no jealousy and gladly shares his power and worship with the other gods. Ishtar was kind of a protype for my path to Kama Deva, many things about her resonated with me and mirror the qualities of the Lord I worship now. However, much of the old Pagan wisdom was destroyed with the sweeping dark reign of Christianity and Islam, and so the deeper mysteries of Ishtar have been all but lost. There was too little knowledge to successfully raise her cult, which I tried, and those manuscripts which did remain seemed to only show some of her more negative aspects, which I suspect the monotheists preserved to demonize her.
While I dwelt on Ishtar for a very long time, and tried very vigorously to restore her worship, it was impossible and I eventually gave up, but she was a tutor for Hinduism, and especially Kama Deva. So here we are now, in the festival period of my Lord Kama Deva, and I am writing about him and worshiping him, and he has all of a sudden sent me a beautiful gift. I did not know this until this festival season, but Kama Deva is actually the energy force for a goddess in Hinduism who is almost identical to Ishtar. I thought I knew everything about Kama, I thought I had read all of his legends, but I was wrong. Just recently I came across a piece of art which depicts Kama Deva and Rati fornicating, a beheaded goddess stands with one foot upon them and is serving her blood to two childlike figures at her side. This is the goddess Chinnamasta, another social pariah, who like Kama Deva selflessly protects Hinduism.
So who is Chinnamasta and what does she represent? She is one of the Mahavidhyas, meaning she is a goddess of great wisdom. Chinnamasta is the goddess of contradictions, she represents the sacred and the profane at the same time. She stands upon Kama Deva because she both channels and controls sexual energy. Unlike other school of Hinduism where sex energy is either completely suppressed or uncontrollably expressed, Chinnamasta has learned to both channel and express this power at the same time. Since sexual energy is one of the most intense forms of energy in the human realm, she is able to use her contradictory powers to be an ultimate warrior, thus she is secretly worshiped by many militant Hindus, especially in the army. She is cutting off her head because she is the goddess of self-destructive fury, she is willing to kill herself to protect her people, just like our Hindu Jawan's and her servant Kama Deva.
Beyond this, Chinnamasta is not afraid to get into inconsistency in order to get the job done. She is known for her unabashed use of adharma in order to maneuver and enhance her prowess. Hinduism usually focuses on bringing humanity and society in unison with natural currents, urging us to avoid what is toxic and unsustainable, but Chinnamasta knows that sometimes you need to get synthetic and dirty so that all that is upright and gentle can survive. The two children who she feeds her blood to, they are not her enlightened servants but the unenlightened, this represents the fact that Chinnamasta will use entirely debased people and tactics in her combat strategy. Yet above all else she is a caring and loving mother, full of understanding. Like Kama Deva, most Hindus would rather not talk about Chinnamasta, but during our time of need we are all appreciative of the fact that she is there to protect us. In my opinion, Chinnamasta is the Hindu version of Ishtar, and I am certain it was upon these similar principles which Babylon was built.
What has been the point of this post, what am I trying to say? I want to express an aspect of Hinduism which I find very beautiful, but I am also trying to make a confession. There is only one Brahma temple left on earth today, because Brahma, who represents the Brahman intellectual classes, these have a tendency to be too focused on knowledge and social status in order to protect and defend and spread Hinduism. The Puranas show us that Hinduism's scholarly and dignified classes are trapped, stagnant and inert because they are yet still incapable of seeing the true power of Shiva, they will not break the law to keep the law, they will not use profanity to defend the sacred. Brahma is the father of my god Kama Deva, it is no accident that this slightly pretentious god gave birth to such a defamatory son, a lord of sex and war who shocks but protects Hinduism. But Kama alone maybe incapable of awakening the Hindu masses who are currently obsessed with degrees and positions, and so he transfers his energy to the Mother Goddess Chinnamasta whose female energy can overpower even the most torpid and lethargic Hindus today. When I visited Lake Pushkar in India I was told by the guide that I had been brought there for a special purpose. I had just left the sole temple of Brahma, the creative god, the one we need in order to raise a new order and create a new world, but he can't do it himself. His temple guards, Indra and Kuber, were locked up in chains, the baughty soldier and his impish sidekick were in jail. In order to release Brahma and harness his potential, we cannot look to the Brahman classes, or the Vaishyas, no we need to look to the "untouchables", the gods like Kama and Chinnamasta and their human servants, the ones who know how to control and express the dangerous energies of sex and destruction, the ones who are self-sacrificing, the ones who do what other may not understand, but everyone still knows it is for the great good.
So here is my confession, what I want all my Hindu friends to know. The festival time of the Lord Kama Deva is almost over, and for some reason I felt that this Puja was going to lead to something very special. It is now and only now that Kama Deva has revealed to me his great purpose, to give his energy to Chinnamasta who amplifies and expresses it, she uses its dark and light sides, she understands how to use it to birth and kill. She is the goddess of soldiers, she breaks the rules to keep the rules. The world is in peril, war is everywhere, our people are being slaughtered, the deaf and blind curse us for our vision, we have enemies at every corner. We need to spread the Brahma light of Hinduism to raise a mystic empire, but the Brahmans cannot initiate this because right now things are too dirty. So like Chinnamasta I am about to become a man of contradictions. Some of the ideas and movements you may see from now on could be a little shocking, and perhaps many will condemn it, they will say I am a corrupter. Chinnamasta is known to give her followers "sorcery", the ability to twist dharma for the good of dharma. Right now the Brahma energy can't come through, first the wall needs to be broken down, we need to release Indra and Kuber who guard Brahma's temple and I will become Kama Deva and follow Chinnamasta to do it.
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