Even This is Her Face: The World That Burns and Still Remains

Fiery gaze of Goddess Kālī during ārati, her face lit by flames, revealing both ferocity and tenderness.

The Tree and the Cry

Sri Ramana was once asked whether this world was created for happiness or for misery. He replied:

from ('Guru Ramana' by S. Cohen): “Creation is neither good nor bad; it is as it is. It is the human mind which puts all sorts of constructions on it, as it sees things from its own angle and as it suits its own interests. A woman is just a woman, but one mind calls her ‘mother,’ another ‘sister,’ and still another ‘aunt’ and so on. Men love women, hate snakes, and are indifferent to the grass and stones by the roadside. These connections are the causes of all the misery in the world. Creation is like a peepul tree: birds come to eat its fruit, or take shelter under its branches, men cool themselves in its shade, but some may hang themselves on it. Yet the tree continues to lead its quiet life, unconcerned with, and unaware of, all the uses it is put to. It is the human mind that creates its own difficulties and then cries for help. Is God so partial as to give peace to one person and sorrow to another? In creation there is room for everything, but man refuses to see the good, the healthy and the beautiful, and goes on whining, like the hungry man who sits beside a tasty dish and, instead of stretching out his hand to satisfy his hunger, he goes on lamenting. Whose fault is it, God’s or man’s? But fortunately for man, God, in His infinite mercy, never forsakes him. He always gives him new chances by providing Gurus and Scriptures to guide him to find the errors of his ways and ultimately gain eternal happiness.”

Ramana’s words are like the cremation ground itself: merciless and tender at once. They strip away the illusions of “good” and “bad” the way fire strips flesh from bone. The tree is just the tree. The world is just the world. It is our clinging, naming, and fearing that twist it into joy or into horror.

The Confrontation

But how can this be said so easily?

When I was a child, my closest friend was kidnapped while on a simple bike stroll. She never came back. Only the bicycles were found by the roadside. The most likely fates are unspeakable: a body consumed by violence, or a life trafficked into darkness.

How can I say of this: “It is neither good nor bad, it is as it is”?
How can anyone point to such a horror and reply, “It is like the peepul tree, unconcerned”?

This is not a philosopher’s question for me. It is a wound cut into my childhood, buried in silence for decades. A knot that lived in my body as aloofness, as numbness, as the refusal to feel.

And yet here is Ramana, standing in the smashān, telling me that creation is neither good nor bad. That the tree is the tree, while men eat fruit, find shade, or hang themselves from its branches.

The words strike like fire.

Karma and the Two Creations

Sri Ramana did not leave the agony of human experience unanswered. When a visitor asked him why evil flourishes and the innocent suffer, he replied:

(from 'Guru Ramana' by S. Cohen): “Whose karma is it? There are two creations, one God’s and the other man’s. The former is single and free from karma. The latter is varied and has varied karmas. If man removes his own creation, there will be no varied individuals and no varied karmas; misery will thus disappear. He who kills man’s creation sees heaven only, the others see only hell. It is every intelligent man’s experience that evil-doing recoils on the doer sooner or later. Why is this so? Because the Self is one in all. When seeing others you are only seeing yourself in their shapes. ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’ means that you should love him, because he is your Self.”

Here he is speaking on two levels at once:

Paramārthika: God’s creation, the tree itself, untouched and neutral, beyond good and evil.
Vyavahārika: man’s creation, the world of separate selves and karmic knots, where cruelty wounds and evil recoils on the doer.

On the ultimate level, creation is free. On the human level, suffering is real, because we experience ourselves as divided from the Self. Both truths must be seen: the tree is unconcerned, and yet the man hanging from its branch is a fact of the relative world.

The Smashān of Devi

Sri Ramana spoke from the summit: the tree is just the tree, creation neither good nor bad. From the highest vantage, this is unshakably true. The Self remains untouched.

But Kaula–Śākta Tantra refuses to soften the edges. It does not wrap horror in metaphors of “maya” and turn away. It drags the body into the fire. It says: Even this. Even the child taken in broad daylight. Even the friend who never came back. Even the ugra karma so unspeakable the mind still hesitates to name it. This too is Devi.

In the smashān there is no hymn to soothe you. There is no priest chanting the Vedas to cover the silence. There is only the sound of the pyre and the stench of burning flesh. There is only the absence that rips through a family when a child vanishes, the unending questions of what was done to her, where she was taken, how her small body was used, how her voice was extinguished.

Kaula does not look away. It stares directly into this abyss. It says: Yes, this is also in creation. This is also Mother. Not only the flowering tree, not only the bridal chamber, not only the temple lamp. But also the roadside where bicycles lie abandoned, and no one returns. But also the dark rooms where innocence is crushed. But also the silence of decades, where no answers come.

In the smashān, the Mother does not arrive as comfort. She arrives with skulls in Her garland, Her tongue dripping blood. She says: You will not hide this any longer. You will not bury this horror in numbness. You will watch it. You will smell it. You will feel its weight in your chest. And you will know that it is Mine.

This is not the tidy karma of scriptures. This is not the “lesson” of philosophy. This is the nakedness of reality when all consolations are stripped. The ugra face of Devi, who does not apologize for creation, who does not give easy answers, who does not spare even children.

Most spirituality turns its eyes away here. It prefers beauty, devotion, softness. Or if it speaks of the fierce, it does so glamorized — the tantrika in red silk, the goddess as seductress. But the true smashān shows something else: a girl stolen and never seen again, a silence that lasts thirty years, a wound that freezes a child’s heart into aloofness.

Kaula does not glamorize this. It does not console. It sits on the ashes and whispers: Even this is Her play. Even this face, the one no one wants to see.

After the Fire

What remains after looking into this abyss? Not serenity. Not clarity. Not the clean arc of “healing” we crave to write into our stories. Only the silence of smoke after fire, the smell that clings to skin long after the pyre has gone cold.

The mind wants to tie things together: to say that the knot is dissolved, that some “lesson” has been learned, that innocence lost has been transmuted into wisdom. But the smashān spits these comforts out. It leaves you with half-burnt bones, with blackened earth, with the memory of laughter that never returned. It leaves you with bicycles by the roadside and no body to bury.

Devi does not rush to rescue. She does not whisper, “It’s all for the best.” She bares Her ugra face, and the garland of skulls rattles when She walks. She holds nothing back. She shows us that creation contains this too: the beauty of the peepul tree, yes, but also the rope hanging from its branch. The soft fruit, yes, but also the hands that pluck a child from the road and extinguish her life.

In this place, the scriptures are smoke. The philosophies collapse. No hymn will drown out the silence. No mantra will cover the smell of charred flesh. This is not a metaphor. It is the world as it is when stripped of all veils.

And here, the Mother is merciless. She takes away even the luxury of forgetting. She returns the buried memories. She forces the eyes open: See. See this too. Do not look away.

This is why most spirituality flees. It wants gods of comfort, teachers who promise safety, doctrines that reframe horror into something palatable. But the smashān leaves no such escape. It demands that we sit in the ashes with nothing but what has been lost.

And when you stay, when you do not flee, there is no answer waiting, no sudden vision of redemption. There is only the raw truth: This too is real. This too is Her.

The Hand of Tenderness

And yet, even here — in the smoke, in the silence, in the unbearable absence — there is something that does not abandon.

Ramana said: “But fortunately for man, God, in His infinite mercy, never forsakes him. He always gives him new chances by providing Gurus and Scriptures to guide him to find the errors of his ways and ultimately gain eternal happiness.”

The smashān burns, but the Current still flows. Even when the world shows its ugra face, even when the heart is scorched by loss, the Mother does not withdraw Her presence. She is the fire that consumes, and She is also the one who gives the breath to endure it.

Tenderness is not the denial of horror. It is what allows us to remain open-eyed before it, without collapsing into despair. It is the invisible thread that holds us upright while the pyre burns. It is the quiet pulse beneath the silence, saying: I am still here.

This is not consolation. It does not explain, it does not excuse. It is only the simplest truth: that even in the ugra, we are not forsaken.

Post Scriptum

Another sage of Arunachala, Yogi Ramsuratkumar, once met a young woman who carried a wound not unlike the abyss I have described. What follows is an episode from Amarakavyam, recorded by one of his devotees. I share it here because it reveals how a true saint sits with horror — not by explaining it away, but by holding it with presence, tenderness, and unshakable truth.

Yogi Ramsuratkumar

A middle-aged couple with their daughter came to Yogi Ramsuratkumar at the Sannathi Street house.

“Swami, for several days my daughter has been crying all the time. She does not eat. She does not attend college. She confines herself to her room. She does not talk to anybody, not even to her mother. We tried our best to make her normal, but we failed. We tried to take her to a doctor, but she refused vehemently. Finally, I asked her whether she would be willing to see Yogi Ramsuratkumar at Tiruvannamalai. She said yes. So we are here, Swami,” the father explained anxiously. His wife was silently shedding tears.

The girl was in her early twenties. Her face was swollen; continuous weeping had altered her beauty. Her eyes were red, filled with tears. She struggled to suppress her emotions, but her pain was visible.

Several devotees were present in the hall. Yogi sent them away, one by one, and asked his attendant to sit outside on the verandah. Only the author remained. Yogi did not mind his presence.

Yogi then focused his attention on the young girl. As his gaze fell on her, she began crying uncontrollably. Her parents also shed tears, but when they tried to pacify her, Yogi gestured for them to remain still. For more than fifteen minutes the girl wept. Yogi watched her intently, smoking continuously, silently listening to her sobs.

At last, the girl grew quiet. She slowly raised her head and looked at Yogi hesitantly. He gave her a warm, broad smile, which brought a shy smile to her face.

“Will you take coffee?” Yogi asked. The girl nodded.

He asked the author to fetch coffee from the Udupi Hotel, enough for all. When the cups arrived, Yogi poured his coffee into a coconut shell, sipping slowly. He asked everyone to drink.

When they had finished, Yogi beckoned the girl forward. He offered her the remaining coffee from his coconut shell. She hesitated, then accepted it reverently. Wanting to wash the shell, she rose, but Yogi took it from her and passed it to the author, who washed it and returned it. Yogi smiled again at the girl. Her face softened. She was able to look at him directly.

The room was filled with a strange but powerful energy, radiating divine peace. Yogi recited a Sanskrit śloka in his melodious voice, then explained:

“The Ātma is pure and holy. None can corrupt it. None can defile it. None can hurt or harm it. Ātma remains pure forever. We are that Ātma. We all are that Ātma.”

Every word came with deep emotion and compassion. On hearing this, the girl began to sob again. The only sound in the room was her weeping, rising out of a deep silence. The atmosphere vibrated with an unspoken force.

After some time, she said: “Swami, I have been ruined, destroyed. I lost my chastity. I wanted to commit suicide, but I could not. I did not tell my parents what happened to me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I can ever come out of this shock and pain.”

The parents were stunned. They too began to cry.

Yogi sat silently, radiating deep peace. Then he repeated the same verse and again explained its meaning. He beckoned the girl near and sprinkled water on her.

“You are pure, Amma. You are that pure Ātma. You cannot be ruined. My Father says you are eternally holy and pure. You are always under the protection of my Father. Do not worry about the past.”

Hearing these words, the girl’s face glittered with a strange calm.

The father, shocked, murmured that now he understood what had happened to his daughter. Yogi interrupted:

“Whatever happened, happened by the will of my Father. Whatever happens, happens by the will of my Father. Whatever will happen, will happen by the will of my Father. Remember my Father. Everything will be alright. Remembering my Father is life. Forgetting my Father is death.”

He repeated these words several times.

Finally, Yogi asked the author to chant his Name. The author chanted “Yogi Ramsuratkumar” for more than half an hour. The girl and her parents joined in. The atmosphere changed completely. The sorrow that had weighed on the family lifted. The girl’s swollen face relaxed; her eyes shone with peace.

Yogi gave them fruits as prasādam. The girl bowed to touch his feet, and he touched her head with blessing. She smiled with gratitude. Yogi instructed them to go directly home.

The family that had come carrying unbearable sorrow left with hearts full of peace.

And perhaps this is enough: to know that even in the ugra face of creation, there are still hands that remind us we are not ruined.