Word: kali
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Bihar villagers remembered a pre-Hindu superstition that the gods require human sacrifice whenever any major building is under construction. The faith of the Thugs, worshipers of Kali, Goddess of Destruction, who thought their goddess was the more pleased the more people they strangled in her name, had never quite died out. In the last 30 years about a dozen people have been sentenced in Bihar, Bengal and Madras on charges of offering human sacrifices...
Soon he could see Kali even without meditation. In the end he believed that he had merged himself with Her completely...
When he had successively materialized the Hindu gods, Ramakrishna turned to other religions. In 1874 he tried Christianity. "Breaking through the barriers of creed and religion, he entered a new realm of ecstasy. Christ possessed his soul. For three days he did not set foot in the Kali temple. On the fourth day ... he saw coming toward him a person with beautiful large eyes, serene countenance, and fair skin. As the two faced each other, a voice rang out in the depths of Sri Rama-krishna's soul: 'Behold the Christ, who shed His heart's blood...
...this time many a pious Hindu, including the two most famed pundits of the time-Gauri and Vaishnavcharan-declared that this walking pantheon was himself an Incarnation of God. Other pious folk thought him a madman. His strange acts while in trance varied from imitating a monkey to feeding Kali's food to a cat. Later he made fun of people who proclaimed his divinity by pointing to his left arm, which he had broken in a trance, and saying, "Have you ever heard of God breaking...
...alone is the obstacle to yoga," said he. "What is there in the body of a woman? Only such things as blood, flesh, fat, entrails, and the life. Why should one love such a body?" In some of his ecstasies, Ramakrishna regarded himself as a woman and worshipped Kali as her handmaid. Said his woman devotees: "We seldom looked on Sri Ramakrishna as a member of the male...