Meditating on Mahakala

Just as all colors are absorbed and dissolved into black, all names and forms are said to melt into those of Mahakala

Religion as most of us see it today is largely predominated with the forces of Light. Aside from old pagan religions who worshipped the light in aspects of the physical world (i.e. the Sun), the rest of the world sees the light as the color of morality, and we eternally seek to follow it. Light = Righteousness. However, surely not everything is black and white, and sometimes we should draw our isnpiration from the forces of a kind of darker philosophical symbolism.

Depending on the light alone might not be enough to make it in this world, or the world of spiritually. Like it or not, we are not all white inside. You and I know, failure of knowing it will lead to a great and painful dichotomy. Just as seasons change, and day becomes night, we people need to combine the forces of light and darkness. This would be the real use of the positive and the negative, the forces of yin and yang. Some of the more brave ones would take this even further and practice with it, trying out negative patterns of behaviour, which would create a two wrongs make a right situation. Or play with karma in the form of seeing if a good action will overcome a minor bad action. If we think about it, our whole spiritual life is an effort to overcome the bad with good, but maybe aligning with the bad and accepting it is an open door to freedom...

The absence of color is a form of emptiness, the absolute, where everything is destined, where everything finally disperses. All dissolves into one, where there is no name and no form to trouble our mind. Meditating on the black and dark in this world could be a way of better understanding reality, which in turn leads to emancipation and freedom.

Western morality has taught us to be persistent and painfully consistent, pick a side and stick to it; but the physical and the spiritual world are not at all so one-sided, but are truly incosistent! Just observe and realize it. Things are in a contant flux, and so should we be.
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Afterthrought: I wrote this article in a desperate need to justify some of the darker inclinations that I, like everyone else, feel from time to time.  Sometimes I feel I'd much rather have my actions dissolve into nothingness where no possible karma will haunt me. Alas, that's just a wish, and that article is just me talking to myself! I need to learn to enjoy being good instead of having karma as a watchdog for my actions.