Kālī = The Lady of Guadalupe

Today we are celebrating the feast day for a very important Marian apparition that occurred on the site of a former Tonantzin temple: The Lady of Guadalupe! 

This is among my favorite occurrences in Catholic history and it gives us a nice opportunity to talk about Mā beyond any one cultural context (i.e the Universal "Mā" as opposed to the particular). 

As such, in this class we discuss the distinctions between the sthāna-devatā (deities of the region), grāma-devatā (village deities), kula-devatā (family deities) and Ishta-devatā (ones chosen ideal). 

These are exceedingly important categories of thought in the Tantrik ritual worship context, the "pūjā world" and these are distinctions I would have done well to discuss sooner in our series. In any case, we will take up the topic in the first of two lectures tonight with a special reference to how the Lady Guadalupe, the patron deity of Mexico, fits into all of this! We'll draw a bit from the material in this lecture on Mā Kālī in Other Cultures. 

Since I'm back home in Kuala Lumpur, this will give me an opportunity to discuss some unique regional deities also like Pechy-Amman, Muniswaran, Karappan etc.

For more detailed instructions for how to perform Kālī pūjā, watch this playlist: https://www.patreon.com/collection/233799

Lectures happen live every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and again Friday at 6pm PST.
Use this link and I will see you there:
https://www.zoom.us/j/7028380815

For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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