It’s often said that Maa Kāli shouldn’t be worshipped at home, that She is too fierce, too wild. Another popular claim is that without proper rituals and initiations, approaching Her could lead to destruction. But let’s be honest, what kind of mother demands procedural perfection before allowing Her child to call out to Her?
If that were true, what of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, or Bhagwan Bāmadeva, who received Her in the rawest, most unfiltered ways. Their very lives dismantle the notion that ritual purity is a prerequisite for divine proximity.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa says: “kaler doṣa-nidhe rājann asti hy eko mahān guṇaḥ — kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁ vrajet” which means that Kaliyuga is an ocean of faults, but one great quality redeems it: which is simply by chanting the name of Kṛṣṇa, one is freed from bondage and attains the Supreme.
Sri Krishna - who as revealed in the Adya Kali Sahasranamavalli is none other than Maa Kaali Herself, the supreme Guru of this Kaliyuga, anticipated exactly this confusion, and left beautifully behind a leela for us seekers.
After Kurukshetra, Sri Krishna once visited Hastinapur where the Pāṇḍavas (except Yudhishtira) asked Him What Kaliyuga would be like. To answer, He fired four arrows in four directions, asking each pandava to bring one back noticing what they saw.
Sahadeva found his arrow lodged near a mountain where he saw a massive boulder plummeting downward, crushing everything in its path, only to finally stop, halted by a small plant at the brink.
This leela explains that in KaliYuga, dharma will fall; People will act destructively, hurt others, break rules, but one sincere moment of remembrance of the name of god, soaked in surrender, can halt the fall just as the small plant stopped the boulder - it reminds us that In Kaliyuga, Naama mantra performed with sampoorna bhakti remains the only way of attaining her grace.
Kākabhūṣuṇḍi, the timeless witness across creation, watched the same divine leelas repeat across infinite worlds, with different structures, different dharmas, different outcomes, so how can one think that mastering specific rituals in this version of reality would matter to the one from whom all of creation emanates and gets dissolved back into.
What you consider absolute here, could be variable elsewhere. Karma, time, and even ritual are relative constructs for they are real within a frame, but they are not the Source.
So when people obsess over the outer form, as if perfect performance grants divine access, the entire point is missed.
A flawed act done with surrender is more powerful than a perfect one done with pride.
She alone knows what was given up to take that step and only She sees what it cost him.
Sri Ramakrishna’s life teaches us that when love becomes real, ritual drops by itself. “When the child is quietly playing, the mother watches, but when the child truly cries, the mother runs: not because the call was perfect, but because it was real.”
He was not born into ritual perfection. He had no formal education, no mastery over Sanskrit texts, and yet , the Deity came to him. He worshipped Maa Kāli with raw, childlike bhakti, often skipping rituals or breaking norms out of sheer love. When he couldn’t bear Her separation, he would cry until unconscious, and Maa would appear to him, not as a symbol, but as a living Mother. He proved that where bhāva is real, Mā Herself completes the ritual. His entire life stands as irrefutable proof that it is not structure, but surrender, that awakens Her presence.
Bhagwan Bāmadev, known to many as Bāmākhepa, shattered every concept of external correctness. He roamed cremation grounds, wore no marks of orthodoxy, and often appeared mad to society. But it was he who communed with Mā directly, spoke to Her, argued with Her, and offered Her whatever arose: be it food, mud, or his own tears. If ritual was absolute, he would never have reached Her.
The life of the greats teaches us that She has never responded to structure. She responds to bhāva, the inner posture. Not the one displayed for others, but the one buried behind the act. If it’s real, She lifts it. If not, it doesn’t matter how flawless it looks.
Some may never recite a mantra, never fast, never step into a temple. But they will turn to Her — once — when no one sees, and that single act, if true, will reach Her before a thousand rituals done in self-image.
She is the architect of illusion and also the one who tears it apart for she created karma, time and consequence.
In the Devi Māhātmyam through the verse:
“Yā devī sarvabhūteṣu mohā rūpeṇa saṁsthitā… namastasyai namastasyai namastasyai namo namaḥ” we see that She is the one who deludes, and also the one who liberates those who take shelter in Her.
Not everyone is born with clarity, knowledge, or has the right traditional ritualistic background, yet that has never stopped her from responding to the one that comes in truth.
We can get lost in her Maya and forget, but she will always remain Kṛṣodarī, the one who holds all actions soaked in devotion towards her above anything else…
Jai Gurudeva
Jai Bhairav Baba
Jai Maa Adya MahaKaali - MahaKala Bhairava Sadhana By Praveen Radhakrishnan
- By Kesehven Lutchmanen Shisya of Gurudev Shri Praveen Radhakrishnan