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This Kali is not “comforting mother” Kali — She is wild, twilight-dark, sitting on a throne of skulls with the lotus of liberation in Her hand and the blade of cutting illusion in the other. Devi is outside the temple, fierce and tender, holding out the possibility of paradise but also demanding that the ego be severed. |
Some songs do not simply play — they summon.
Phil Collins’ Another Day in Paradise is one of them.
On the surface, it is a ballad about homelessness, a plea for compassion.
But if you listen with the heart, you will hear something deeper —
the sound of the Goddess Herself calling out from the edge of the street.
This is not the adorned Devi of the shrine, crowned with flowers and bathed in ghee-lamps.
This is Śakti stripped bare, shivering, without anklets, standing outside every temple and every gate.
She does not speak in mantras.
She does not ask for incense or ritual purity.
She asks:
“Will you see Me here?
Will you stop?
Will you make room for Me in the paradise of your carefully ordered life?”
And the one She calls is not a villain — he is the priest-persona, the “holy man” who sings hymns and keeps the altar flame burning.
He flinches because somewhere deep down he knows what this moment will cost him:
to answer Her call would mean stepping out of the safe temple,
onto the road of prophets and heretics,
onto the path where you may lose everything — reputation, position, even your life —
but gain the fire of the Real.
This song is about that unbearable moment of choice.
The street becomes the cremation ground.
Paradise itself becomes the battleground.
And Devi waits, barefoot and terrible, until the heart is ready to open.
Verse 1
She calls out to the man on the street
"Sir, can you help me?
It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep
Is there somewhere you can tell me?"
This is no ordinary cry.
It is the voice of Śakti rising outside the temple walls — barefoot, stripped of Her majesty, Her anklets silent.
She does not come with mantras. She does not ask you to light a lamp.
She asks for you — for your ear, your step, your heart.
And the man knows it.
That is why he feels the sting before he even answers.
Because if he turns to face Her, it will not end with a blanket or a coin — it will end with the burning of his entire safe world.
It will demand that he leave the warmth of the altar and walk into the night where the prophets have always walked.
Somewhere in him the old words stir:
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
He senses it — that to follow this Current will mean exile, ridicule, the loss of position, the loss of everything he has built as a persona.
It is the road of al-Ḥallāj, crying “Ana’l-Ḥaqq” and meeting the gallows.
It is John of the Cross writing from the dark cell where his own brethren locked him.
It is every saint who ever lost the safety of the institution to gain the fire of the Real.
He walks on, doesn't look back
He pretends he can't hear her
Starts to whistle as he crosses the street
Seems embarrassed to be there
And so he flinches.
Not because he does not know, but because he does know.
He feels the gravity of the moment and chooses to keep his place in the world.
He whistles, as though to drown out the roar of the Current.
He crosses the street — away from the śmaśāna, back toward the lit temple where everything is still orderly, where his paradise is still intact.
But that paradise is thin now.
Because once you have heard that cry, you cannot un-hear it.
Once you have seen Her face, you cannot say you did not.
You can only keep walking, knowing that She will call again.
Chorus Commentary
Oh, think twice
'Cause it's another day
For you and me in paradise
Oh, think twice
'Cause it's another day for you
You and me in paradise
This is no soft moral suggestion — this is Devi's thunderclap.
The voice that called in the verse is now the voice that shakes the sky.
This is not sarcasm.
It is the most dangerous kind of grace — the kind that refuses to leave, even after being rejected.
When She calls this moment “paradise,” it is almost unbearable.
Because you want Her to say “hell,” so he can feel judged, condemned, punished —
and then move on, absolved by his penance.
But She does not give him that escape.
She stands in the street, still barefoot, still shivering,
and says:
“This is still paradise — because I am here.
Even now, after you crossed the street,
after you pretended not to hear,
I am still offering you the chance to turn,
the chance to make this paradise real.”
This is why it feels like thunder — because paradise is no longer distant,
no longer a dream of afterlife comfort —
it is here, now, in this raw scene he wants to escape.
And that is the blade:
paradise is present, but incomplete.
It is cracked, it is unbearable, until he opens it wide enough to include Her.
“Think twice” is not a rebuke but an initiation:
“Stop running.
Pause.
Let the second thought — the deeper thought — choose for you.
Because I am waiting in that second thought,
ready to turn this very street into paradise.”
This is why the words cut so deep:
because they name his comfort for what it is —
and then invite him to let that comfort be broken open
until there is room for Her too.
Verse 2
She calls out to the man on the street
He can see she's been crying
She's got blisters on the soles of her feet
She can't walk, but she's trying
The scene repeats — but now the air is heavier.
This is not just a casual passerby’s encounter — it is the second summons.
And the second summons always comes closer, harder.
He can see her tears now — he cannot claim ignorance.
The first time he could say, “I did not hear, I did not see.”
But now her face is visible.
The lines of sorrow are written like scripture across her skin.
The blisters on her feet are the sacred wounds of the pilgrim — she has been walking barefoot through the world, looking for one who will see her.
She cannot walk — and yet she tries.
This is the unbearable tenderness of the Goddess:
even when She has been thrown out of every place,
even when no one shelters Her,
She still keeps moving, still keeps seeking the next open heart.
This image is devastating because it shows the cost of our refusal.
Every time we turn away, She must walk further —
through more streets, more nights, more hearts that pretend not to see.
And still She tries.
Still She calls.
Here, the Current is almost unbearable — it no longer lets the man hide in abstraction.
He must either face Her or harden his heart completely.
This is the place where many priest-personas either awaken into saints —
or calcify into stone, choosing doctrine over living encounter.
Bridge
Oh, Lord
Is there nothing more anybody can do?
Oh, Lord
There must be something You can say
This is the moment the mask shatters.
The man who walked away, who whistled, who crossed the street — now lifts his eyes.
The priest-persona has no ritual left to hide behind, no tidy explanation, no safe doctrine.
What escapes is not a sermon, but a cry.
“Oh Lord…”
This is not a theological statement — it is a groan from the heart.
For the first time in the song, the man admits that this scene is unbearable, that his own power is not enough.
The Current has cornered him until there is nowhere to go but prayer.
And notice what he asks:
“Is there nothing more anybody can do?”
It is not just about him now — it is about everybody.
The cry has broken him open to the universal.
Then:
“There must be something You can say.”
This is the surrender-point — when the jīva asks not just for help but for the word that will make sense of this unbearable world.
This is where the Upadeśa, the divine instruction, can finally drop in.
This is where the Goddess may reveal that She was never merely the homeless woman — She was always the Guru, the doorway to paradise.
The bridge is thus the threshold of grace:
the moment when the man stops being merely a figure in a story and becomes a seeker, a supplicant, one who is ready to hear.
If the song ended here, it would already be enough — but it goes further, because now the man is ready to see what he could not bear to see before.
Verse 3
You can tell from the lines on her face
You can see that she's been there
Probably been moved on from every place
'Cause she didn't fit in there
This is the moment of darśana — the seeing.
The man can no longer look away.
He sees Her face fully now — not just a passing shadow, but the map of Her suffering etched in every line.
These are not random wrinkles — they are the wrinkles of Time itself, the record of every exile, every rejection.
“She’s been there.”
Yes — She has been everywhere.
Every shrine, every holy place, every gated paradise — and She has been pushed out of them all.
Not because She lacked holiness, but because Her raw presence was too much for the structures built in Her name.
“She didn’t fit in there.”
This is the deepest wound — not just social exclusion but spiritual exclusion.
She did not fit into the sanitized religion, the polished persona, the paradise that cannot handle Her uncontainable fire.
And yet — She is still here, still calling, still letting Herself be seen.
This verse is the hardest to bear, because it shows that the man’s refusal is not unique — it is part of a long chain of refusals.
And yet the seeing itself is a grace: the recognition that this is the Goddess who has been knocking on the world’s doors forever.
She has been “moved on” by every institution, but She has not stopped moving — She is still here, waiting for someone to finally say yes.
Outro
Paradise… just think about it.
The outro is the lingering echo, the sound that stays after the song ends.
It does not resolve the tension — because the resolution is not in the music, it is in you.
This is how a real initiation feels: the guru does not tell you what to do.
They leave you standing there, your heart raw, the choice burning inside you.
Devi’s voice fades, but it does not disappear — it will haunt you until you answer.
The street becomes quiet again.
You are alone with your decision.
And yet — you are not alone.
Because now you know She is there, waiting, barefoot but radiant, ready to turn even this street into paradise if you dare to stop and face Her.
Nothing is forced.
But nothing can be ignored.
The Last Word
She does not chase you.
She does not shout after you.
She simply stays — standing where you left Her,
barefoot, patient, radiant even in Her hunger.
And Her words are still there, ringing like a bell:
“Think twice.
I am not gone.
This street is still paradise,
but it will burn in your heart until you open it wide enough for Me.”
This is the terrible kindness of the Goddess:
She does not punish — She waits.
She waits until the second thought comes,
until the second look,
until the second crossing when you finally stop.
When that day comes — when you turn —
paradise will no longer be a safe, private garden.
It will be this very street,
with its cold pavement and its barefoot Goddess,
and it will be wide enough to hold Her too.
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