In Hindu mythology, there are four Yugas (or life cycles), which each define the state the world is in. The first - Krita Yuga - is where the world is in it its purest form: it’s just a utopia, where everyone is happy, healthy, and safe all the time. At this moment, Dharma (or the duty of doing the right thing), which is in the disguise of an ox, is on all four legs, representing each of the following - purity, compassion, truth, and love. Then come Treta Yuga and Dhwapara Yuga where problems start to arise and Dharma is only balanced on three and two legs, respectively.
At the end of Dhwapara Yuga, the Gods and Demons were churning the ocean for amrutham (a potion that will make them immortal) when both sides started fighting over it. In order to keep the Demons from getting the amrutham, Lord Vishnu kills them off, but one escapes. This demon, whose name is Kali, has the great power to enter the human’s consciousness and hide in it without anyone knowing, which is how he escapes death from Vishnu.
A few years later, after Lord Krishna leaves Earth, Parikshit becomes King and rules on the guidelines of Dharma. During this time, Dharma, in the ox form, goes to meet Mother Earth, in cow disguise, and asks why she is feeling sad.
“As long as Lord Krishna was here on Earth, I was happy, but now he left and I am sad,” Mother Earth says.
Hearing this, Kali emerges with burning anger and starts to torture the two animals. The King, who was walking along near there, sees this Adharma going on. He immediately realizes that the two animals are Dharma and Mother Earth, and Parikshit sees Kali trying to remove the last two legs of Dharma with a sword.
Parikshit sets out to kill Kali but on seeing this, Kali gets scared and begs for forgiveness. Parikshit gives the demon multiple options on where to live, all of them relating to Adharma.
“… You may also reside in a place of gold,” the King says.
“Ok, thank you,” Kali replies, disappearing instantly.
Of course, Kali chose the place with gold and sits on top of Parikshit’s head… on his gold crown. Thus, Kali is sitting on the King’s head telling him to do all the negative and bad things that he shouldn’t be doing, ridding the King of his Dharma.
And that’s where Kali Yuga begins.
Why did I tell you all of this?
Because Kali is everywhere.
It’s something inside of us that creates those negative thoughts and emotions. It’s what makes us talk about that person behind their back, even though we know it’s wrong. It’s the one that makes us cheat past a commitment because no one was paying attention.
There are demons hiding underneath all of us.
The moment we acknowledge that Kali is there - that we all have bad parts of us and that the negativity could be changing who we are one bit at a time - that’s the moment that the Kali in us weakens. And every time we do the good deed, say the positive thought, and choose the better over the worse - every single time - we will continue to weaken and defeat our own demons.
It always waits for when we’re in our most vulnerable moments and sweeps in to take over. But no. We must not let Kali do that anymore, and we must train ourselves to accept Kali and defeat it with our own goodness. It is nothing but a little part of us, however, when it comes out, it can take out the most significant parts of our lives.
We’re better than that. Let’s show it.
Thanks for reading! I hope you stay safe, happy, and healthy. And go show you Kali who’s boss :)