Mahakala

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The next Tibetan Buddhist deity who appeared to me is Mahakala, a wrathful protector who promised to help me endure the hellish effects of chemotherapy. He appears like a demon, but he functions as a protector, and his purpose is to help us overcome obstacles on the path to enlightenment. He is a hulking god with flaming hair and a crown of skulls, and he is surrounded by fire. His domain is the Void of Timelessness, and he is fierce in order to protect all beings from evil. The five skulls he wears in a crown signify his transformation of the five faults or kleshas into the five wisdoms. He doesn't have much tolerance for delusion, greed, ignorance, rage, and other passions, and with him around, we don't tend to get as caught in these illusions because Mahakala grabs them up and dissolves them into the Great Void.

Mahakala

When he appeared in my active imagination work, I sort of tiptoed around him at first. Then I did a little research to see who I was dealing with, and when I read that he transformed kleshas into wisdom, I opened right up to him. I talk to him like he's a great-uncle - politely, but with appreciative affection. In my inner work with Mahakala, I often ask him to cleanse me of my kleshas. He lumbers over to stand in front of me, and suddenly all these stuff flies out of me into him, where it immediately disappears into the void. The stuff is made of all kinds of things...smoke, little holographic memories, pieces of my tumors, blobs of red anger, or feelings of despair. But once they hit him, they are gone forever. I've tried stepping into Mahakala's body to look for them, but all I've found there is the Great Silent Void. I still haven't figured out how my awareness can even exist within the Void; the world of active imagination can definitely lead us into paradoxical, inexplicable, mysterious moments.

I have asked Mahakala to enter my body when I attend each chemo session, and to absorb and dissolve all of the poisons in the drug that my body doesn't need. He acknowledged that he will be happy to oblige, and I can imagine myself palpably feeling his huge body extending out from my own as I walk into the infusion room and the nurse plugs my sacred chemotherapy elixirs into my blood.

The roots of Tibetan Buddhism are said to be tied into Tantric Hinduism along with the ancient, animistic Bon religion of pre-Buddhist Tibet. In those cross-over times, Kali was said to be the sister of Mahakala, and they both ruled over non-linear, spiraling time that permeates the Void together. Knowledge about huge archetypal powers such as what these two deities represent gives us the opportunity to tap into universal patterns of energy that can help us change our consciousness, and that of the entire world.

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