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| the union of Śiva and Śakti, not hidden away but blazing in the smashan for all the worlds to see. This is the secret of the song: that devotion, desire, death, and liberation are one and the same act when consecrated. |
Some songs do not merely play — they open a circle.
They do not entertain; they initiate.
Hozier’s Take Me to Church is one of the most Kaula songs ever written — a hymn that channels the voice of the vīra sādhaka, the warrior of the heart, crying out to be broken, to be remade.
From the first line, we are not in a concert hall — we are in the smashan, the cremation ground.
The air is heavy with smoke and sweetness.
Somewhere in the dark, the Goddess is laughing — not cruelly, but like someone who knows what you are about to lose and what you are about to gain.
This is not rebellion for its own sake.
This is the deeper rebellion: the refusal to live half-alive, the refusal to bow before lifeless altars when a living flame waits outside the gate.
The singer is not mocking faith — he is begging for the real thing.
Not safe absolution, but the terrible, tender initiation that will cost him his very “I.”
Every verse is a step closer to Her.
Every chorus is a kneeling, a tearing open of the chest.
By the time we reach the bridge, we are already stripped — no masters, no kings, no sinner left standing — just the heart, still beating, ready to be offered.
This is why the song feels dangerous and holy at once: because it is not describing devotion — it is devotion.
It is the voice of the vīra saying:
“Burn me, feed me to Your fire, take even the last illusion of me —
but do not leave me outside Your temple.”
Verse 1
My lover's got humour
She's the giggle at a funeral
Knows everybody's disapproval
I should've worshipped her sooner
If the heavens ever did speak
She's the last true mouthpiece
Every Sunday's gettin' more bleak
A fresh poison each week
We were born sick, you heard them say it
My church offers no absolutes
She tells me, "Worship in the bedroom"
The only heaven I'll be sent to
Is when I'm alone with you
I was born sick, but I love it
Command me to be well
My lover's got humour / She's the giggle at a funeral
This is the sound that shakes the bones — the wild laughter of Kālī in the cremation ground.
Funerals are supposed to be solemn, yet She laughs — not cruelly, but with the fierce tenderness of one who knows that death is only a costume change.
Her giggle is an initiation bell, calling you into the smashan to witness what lies beneath the veil.
Knows everybody's disapproval / I should've worshipped her sooner
She has never been acceptable to polite society — She is too raw, too free, too unwilling to be tamed.
The sādhaka feels the sting of delay, the ache of wasted years — years spent bowing to lifeless altars while She waited outside the gates.
If the heavens ever did speak / She's the last true mouthpiece
This is parā-vāk — the primordial speech, the sound before sound.
When She speaks, all scripture is silenced.
Her mouth is the final scripture, Her kiss the last initiation.
Every Sunday's gettin' more bleak / A fresh poison each week
This is what happens when worship is drained of Shakti: it becomes a narcotic, a slow death.
Every sermon, every moral commandment becomes one more drop of poison until the soul can no longer breathe.
We were born sick, you heard them say it
Yes — but not in the way they meant.
Not “guilty sinners,” but beings cut off from our Source, gasping for Her touch.
And the Kaula path does not hide this sickness — it brings it into the ritual fire until it becomes medicine.
My church offers no absolutes / She tells me, "Worship in the bedroom"
What is denied in the temple is revealed in the bed.
Here is the Kaula secret laid bare: the body is the shrine, desire is the oblation, the union itself the yajña.
The only heaven I'll be sent to / Is when I'm alone with you
Heaven is not postponed for the afterlife — it is now, in this trembling moment of union.
This is bhoga turned to yoga — enjoyment alchemized into liberation.
I was born sick, but I love it / Command me to be well
Here is the final surrender.
“Yes, I was born into longing, into the fever of separation — but I love even this, for it drove me to Your feet.
Now, burn the last remnant of me. Make me well, even if that wellness means the death of my ‘I.’”
Chorus
Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Oh, good God, let me give you my life
Take me to church
This is no request to return to the pew — it is a cry to be taken to the real temple, the temple of fire and blood and trembling devotion.
This is the sādhaka falling to their knees and saying: “Bring me to the altar where something real still happens. Where my body, my fear, my shame will be burned into offering.”
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
The dog is the pashu, the uninitiated soul — and here it kneels willingly.
It is fierce and tender at once: “I will crawl, I will beg, I will worship — but not at the false shrine.
Even if what You show me shatters every belief I held, even if the shrine of my ego is exposed as a lie, I will still bow.”
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Confession here is not to be absolved but to be slaughtered — ego laid bare on the chopping block.
“Sharpen your knife” is an invocation to Kālī as the head-taker, Chinnamastā who drinks the blood of the separate self.
The sādhaka is not afraid — he is offering his neck.
Offer me that deathless death
This is mahāmṛtyu, the great death that ends all deaths — the death of ignorance, the death of the false “I.”
In Kaula language, this is the consummation of sādhanā: to die before dying so that what remains is only the Heart.
Oh, good God, let me give you my life
This is not a bargain but a total gift.
No half-offering, no partial surrender — “take all of it, burn all of it, leave nothing of me outside Your temple.”
Verse 2
If I'm a pagan of the good times
My lover's the sunlight
To keep the goddess on my side
She demands a sacrifice
Drain the whole sea, get somethin' shiny
Somethin' meaty for the main course
That's a fine lookin' high horse
What you got in the stable?
We've a lot of starvin' faithful
That looks tasty, that looks plenty
This is hungry work
If I’m a pagan of the good times / My lover’s the sunlight
So be it—call me “pagan.” I won’t hide what is holy in the open.
The “lover” here is not merely human; She is the sun breaking over the skin, Shakti as daylight—warm, exposing, relentless. In Her light, nothing counterfeit survives.
To keep the goddess on my side / She demands a sacrifice
Not a bargain—an unveiling. The price is always the same: control, pride, and the curated self. She doesn’t want your flowers; She wants what you clutch with white knuckles. Put that on the plate.
Drain the whole sea, get somethin’ shiny / Somethin’ meaty for the main course
Empty the ocean of thought, shame, and performance until only raw presence remains.
The “shiny” is the clean, bright edge of arousal—unsullied by scripts or guilt.
The “meaty” is the living heart and unarmored body—offered without residue. In a true rite, you are the offering.
That’s a fine lookin’ high horse / What you got in the stable?
Down from the saddle. Bring the titles, poses, moral pedestals.
She will lead each proud animal out by its bridle and lay it on the altar. Kaula doesn’t just take your vices; it asks for your virtues when they harden into a mask.
We’ve a lot of starvin’ faithful
The senses, the inner gods, the sleeping currents—everything in you is hungry for the Real.
They cannot live on pious crumbs. They feast only when presence is whole and love is unfeigned.
That looks tasty, that looks plenty / This is hungry work
Yes—this path devours. It eats pretense first, then inhibition, then the last hidden corner of “me.”
But the hunger is holy: as you are consumed, you are nourished. The heat of union becomes nectar; the body becomes sacrament; the two become a single flame that needs no witness.
Bridge
No masters or kings when the ritual begins
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
Only then, I am human, only then, I am clean
No masters or kings when the ritual begins
The circle is closed, and with it every hierarchy collapses.
There is no priest to mediate, no king to rule, no judge to condemn.
Devi is the only sovereign here. Both participants stand equal — stripped of titles, roles, power games — before Her presence.
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
This is the shock of Kaula truth: what was once branded “sin” becomes honey when tasted with awareness.
It is “gentle” not because it is tame, but because the harsh edge of shame has dissolved.
The innocence regained here is not the naiveté of childhood but the nakedness of the soul, unafraid to be seen.
In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
The rite does not rise above the world — it digs into it.
Madness is the holy intoxication of Shakti; soil is the earthiness we tried to escape.
Both are taken into the crucible: sweat, tears, breath, the animal body — nothing is left out.
Only then, I am human, only then, I am clean
Paradox: only by passing through what was forbidden do we emerge whole.
Purity is no longer abstention but integration — nothing excluded, nothing left in shadow.
This is śuddha-advaya: the spotless non-dual state where even impurity is recognized as another mask of Her.
When Nothing Is Left but Her
The song does not end — it consumes.
By the time the last chorus fades, the pews have burned, the altar has cracked, the stained-glass windows have fallen to shards.
And there you are — barefoot, breathing hard, the smoke of your own former self still rising around you.
This is no polite faith.
This is the faith that leaves bite-marks and ash.
The faith that does not pat you on the head but presses your face to the ground until you taste the soil and call it holy.
Hozier’s hymn is not blasphemy — it is initiation.
He kneels not before an idol but before the living Goddess,
and every “amen” is not resignation but ignition.
This is what Kaula knows:
that there is no way back to the safe temple once She has taken your life into Her hands.
No way back to clean, white-linen worship after you have heard Her giggle at a funeral.
You will hunger now, and you will bleed,
and you will love it, because it is real.
At the end, there is no preacher, no sinner, no saint —
only the heart, still beating, still smoking from the fire,
and Her gaze, laughing, terrible, unbearably tender —
as She whispers the only commandment left:
Live as the offering you just became.
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