The trident: The trident symbolizes that the practitioner is at one and the same time the Divine, the temple, and the worshipper—all three brought together in a single branch.

Kali sprang forth from pre-Vedic (before 1500 BCE) rural traditions that were wild and shamanic before migrating slowly into Indian tradition. She was perhaps the ancient goddess worshipped by the inhabitants of the Vindhya mountain range, which separates north from south in the center of India. According to Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon),

Her fearsome aspect is there only to push her devotees to gain the courage needed to go beyond the limitations of the mind, beyond the limitations of the beautiful and the ugly, the pure and the impure, the worthy and the unworthy.

After centuries of evolution of the teachings in Kashmir, they were given clear expression by Abhinavagupta (ca. 950–1020 CE), widely recognized as one of the greatest philosophers of South Asia. He was born in the Valley of Kashmir into a brahmin family of scholars and mystics. A musician, poet, dramatist, and theologian, he had a profound

The body itself is the temple in the Kaula tradition. Within it are to be found the thirty-six tattvas, or categories, which extend all the way from the base to the Absolute beyond Shiva/Shakti.*7 Therefore, it is not necessary to reject the body or abandon it to know union with the Divine; on the contrary, one must dissolve it into the cosmos,

Civilization has brought us many marvelous things, but it has also cut us off from our ancient roots and from our connection to nature, to animals, and to the cosmos. The arrival of religions has added all sorts of regulations and rules, which have repressed our fundamental connections with the world. We have become frightened, conformist,

This is one of the constants in tantric thought: the solution to a problem lies in the problem. Moving outside it will not set things straight. On the contrary, you must have the courage to penetrate to the heart of the darkness and stop constructing an idealized being who has all the trouble in the world coexisting with deeply human reality.

If, on the other hand, it’s a matter of being fully alive, let us move on toward all that sets us vibrating, refusing nothing, leaving behind austerities that dry us out, and instead let us see the reality of the world. This major difference explains why Abhinavagupta, who played the great vina (a stringed instrument), had such an admiration for

The severed head: The severed head symbolizes mental silence and being rooted in the Self.