Bhadrakali is one of the powerful forms of Great Goddess Parvati or Devi as mentioned in the popular stories related to Devi. The Sanskrit meaning of Bhadra means the one who is full of blessings and good fortune and prosperity. Maha Maya Bhadrakali is the most popular form of Devi worshipped before the war by Rajputs and for black magic.
Mantra:
ॐ ह्रौं काली महाकाली किलिकिले फट् स्वाहा॥
Om Hraum Kali MahaKali KiliKile Phat Swaha॥
Best days to initiate this mantra is on Fridays or tuesdays, Ashtami thithis, Navami thithis , Amavasya or on Purnima days. One can chant or recite this mantra for 9, 27, 45 or 108 times. One can use Rosary beeds made out of Rudraksha as Japa mala.
Bhadrakali is the popular form of Devi worshipped in Kerala as Sri Bhadrakali and Karim Kali Murti Devi. In Kerala, she is seen as the auspicious and fortunate form of Kali who protects the good. This goddess is represented with three eyes, and four, twelve, or eighteen hands. She carries a number of weapons, with flames flowing from her head, and a small tusk protruding from her mouth. Her worship is also associated with the Tantric tradition of the Matrikas as well as the tradition of the ten Mahavidyas and falls under the broader umbrella of Shaktism.
Some communities, like the Kodavas and Nairs, worship this deity as a family deity. They worship certain weapons at their temples which they believe to be the weapons used by the goddess. The Kuladevata or community deity of the Kudumbi community is Kodungalluramma, the mother goddess of kodungallur.
Mahavidyas (Great Wisdoms) or Dasha-Mahavidyas are a group of ten aspects of the Divine Mother or Kali herself or Devi. The 10 Mahavidyas are Wisdom Goddesses, who represent a spectrum of feminine divinity (Shakti) .
Kali काली, Tara तारा, Tripura Sundari त्रिपुरसुन्दरी(Shodashi) , भुवनेश्वरी, Cchinnamasta छिन्नमस्ता, Bhairavi भैरवी, dhumavati धूमावती, Bagalamukhiबगळामुखी, Matangi मातंगी , and Kamala कमला. These ten aspects of Shakti are the epitome of the entire creation.
Kāli conveys death, destruction, and the consuming aspects of reality. As such, the death itself. In the Pancatattva ritual, the sadhaka boldly seeks to confront Kali, and thereby assimilates and transforms her into a vehicle of salvation.
Kali appears as a symbol of triumph over death. Pray to Kali for liberation/salvation/God realization not for siddhis.
Kali, the Goddess of energy and transformation. The thunderbolt or vajra that destroys the serpent of the ignorance and releases the light of absolute truth.
Kali wields the sword of knowledge, which cuts through ignorance, a severed head, which symbolizes letting go of rational mind and ego; and the lotus, which represents spiritual fulfillment. She wears a garland of skulls around her neck, which represents the wisdom and memory of human existence.”
When we honor Kali, we honor the changes in our lives. She shows us the cycles in everything – nature, seasons, our relationships, our moods – reminding us that these aspects of ourselves are part of nature – everything must keep changing, evolving to go on being vital.
Kali teaches that pain, sorrow, decay, death, and destruction are not overcome by denying or explaining them away. These are inevitable parts of life and denying them is futile. For us to realize the fullness of our being and to realize our potential, we must accept these parts of existence. Kali’s gift is freedom. The freedom of the child to revel at the moment obtained only after a confrontation with or acceptance of death. Kali is Mother, not because She protects us from the way things are, but because She reveals our mortality to us and releases us to act fully and freely.
Meditate on Kali and honour ourselves in all aspects – not simply the positive but ready to accept our shadow side. Eliminating the negative aspect of ourself which doesn’t do us any benefit. When you invoke Mahakali you are calling her to liberate you from your restrictions and own negative aspects.. Her tongue hanging out denotes she is teasing you ..its the brutal way of awakening depending upon your mistakes. She dwells in cremation grounds because she brings death.. the old dies and rebirth occurs ..
भद्रकाली, Bhadrakali in Sanskrit means “blessed, auspicious, beautiful and prosperous” and she is also known as “Gentle Kali”.
Kali is Chinnamasta छिन्नमस्ता, Chinnamasta is the Hindu the Goddess of Great Wisdom; She is associated with the concept of self-sacrifice and the awakening of the kundalini, our spiritual energy. She is the embodiment of sexual energy.
Chinnamasta is the shakti or power of Indra or Lightning, the electrical energy of transformation, and spreads Herself along with myriads of channels enveloping the who of the cosmos. She helps to free from the limitations of the mind, helps successful meditation, improves perception, free from troubles, or finds solutions to problems. She diminishes negative or dark energies and gives victory over enemies.
She is shown feeding others with her own blood symbolizes .. dropping own ego and feeding other egos .. she represents tolerance..
Chinnamasta who helps the sincere and devoted yogi to dissolve his or her mind, including all the ideas, attachments, habits, preconceived ideas into the Pure Divine Consciousness, helping him or her to transcend the mind and to merge with the supra-mental state (unmana) of the Divine Beatific Void.
This is why we need not fear the loss of our head or of time, because sooner or later death takes us all through the great passage, regardless whether we want it or not. The renunciation at the complicated mechanism of attachment and possession thoughts, of which the most persistent is the idea “I am the body”.
Kali is about going beyond yourself – dropping your ego doesn’t mean destroying it but making it divine, your limitations, your masks – coming back to your divine nature. There is no need of destroying the ego for spiritual evolution, ego can be made divine, tolerance, compassion, unconditional love and forgivness makes the ego divine ..
In the stories of the Hindu pantheon, Kali kills the demons that try to thwart her. One interpretation is that our demon is our negative ego.
Negative Ego stands in the way of spiritual progress, selfishness, jealously, hate, lust for power etc – of our own spiritual evolution but there is no need of destroying the ego for spiritual evolution. And interestingly, the ego can be well fortified by our own spiritual successes.