Thomas Ashley-Farrand

There is also a longer form of the above mantra that relates to Kali as the destroyer of negative ego on the one hand, and the provider of a very fast route to spiritual liberation on the other. It would be difficult for you to discover this mantra, usually referred to simply and mysteriously as the Great Fifteen-Syllable Mantra. If you decide to work with this mantra, please have extra patience with yourself. Because it can work quickly, it may also cause some turmoil in your daily life.

The mantra will bring to the surface aspects of our ego that we have decided are okay. We all become comfortable with ourselves in certain contexts.

We know who we are, make allowances for our aberrant behaviour, and fool ourselves that we are trying hard and doing the best we can.

But if those internal qualities are truly not beneficial to us, this mantra will begin to eradicate even those characteristics we may have decided are okay and want to keep. If we are determined to hold on to parts of ourselves that are based on a deluded sense of satisfaction, particularly if our behaviour is less than ideal, then Kali will come to our aid with a stainless-steel, scalpel-like precision.

When we invoke Kali through this mantra, we are saying, 'I want true spiritual advancement by the most powerful and direct route, the consequences to my ego notwithstanding.'

So if you pick this route, its only fair that you know what you are in for. It will be intense, possibly unnerving, probably uncomfortable, certainly disruptive to one or more aspects of your mundane life, and also very effective in a short amount of time.

Om Hrim Shreem Klim Adya Kalika Param Eshwari Swaha. 'Om and salutations to She who is the first one, dark within her own reality, the supreme primordial feminine, who cuts through illusion to the unabridged truth of existence.'

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