I was told I needed to separate my thoughts… yeah… I can barely get my thoughts to slow down long enough to get them typed or on paper, let alone organize them. So, for you my critic, I will attempt to write in decent form and with some type of hierarchy and organization my thoughts and feelings towards today’s Eastern Religions Class. (AND.. I guess I can tab in my paragraphs… but don’t expect too much out of me all at once)

I felt like a little girl in class today. Honestly. I almost walked up to the front of the class, pulled out my green carpet square and sat intently staring up at my professor. I was in tune and just soaking in each word she spoke and hung on them as if they were a treat from the gods themselves. She brought roughly 10 little figurines of porcelain to help narrate and depict the stories of the gods that she would deliciously paint before my eyes. As she delineated each story they seemed to weave in and out of each other almost lulling me to sleep countless times. I was in such euphoria.

Why did the stories in Sunday School never invite me so? I have heard probably thousands of times of how Jonah was swallowed by a whale and lived to tell about it. Shouldn’t that have made me eager to read more… I should have at least wiggled in my seat with some sort of excitement. Well I am sure I did but the thoughts running through my head were probably not of Jonah, but of ‘o, I wonder what snack we will have today.’ ‘Is the big hand supposed to be on the 6 when snack comes or the little hand.’ Or ‘O… for Gump sake, clock would you tick faster.’ Regardless how intriguing the stories were intended to be, they just don’t not seem to scale even close to the excitement brought on by the stories of the Hindu gods. Though, how can one God compete with 330 million Hindu gods and goddess’? Rapture!

Kali. WOAH!!! (blank stare) What a beast! Kali –or- ‘the Dark One’ licked up the blood of all the demons she would slay; for she knew that if the blood touched the ground another demon would manifest itself on the spot. To save the towns folk she slaughtered all of the demons plaguing them and licked up all of their blood before it had a chance to barely breathe oxygen let alone touch the dust of the Earth. But she then got drunk off of the blood that she then went on a killing spree of even the people and wore their skulls as a necklace and their leg and arm bones as a skirt. She did not stop until she was touched by Shiva, her husband. Once her true love touched her she immediately turned back into Parvati.

Kali is a goddess who gets shit done. She will stop at nothing to get things in order and if a few civilians get slaughtered in the way, not a problem. I respect her. I fear her. Who am I kidding, I idolize her.

Destruction in the Hindu faith isn’t always considered negative. It is just part of an ongoing process. Part of Samsara, the cycle of suffering… Of Birth, Death, and Rebirth. Bhag. Gita said, “Just as a person discards old clothes and puts on new ones, once the body is destroyed, the soul simply puts on a new body.” Destruction is not only present it is a necessity. It is life.

Personally, I struggle with this concept. While I understand/comprehend/can write about it, I don’t fully grasp it. Sitting here Agnostic, neither seeking nor being stagnant, I would like to believe we could potentially be reincarnated to be given another chance at Liberation, or Moksha… but I just can’t bring myself to believe it. So.. here is my catch fall… Say I find Moksha. I am Liberated. What happens? I dissolve into nothingness and everything at the same time. I become one with the Force? Is this the concept? I just cannot wrap my mind around what happens next. This is where my understanding ends.

May The Force Be With You