Lakshmi and Dinesh were elated when the pilgrimage route to Mount Kailash had been reopened. They had planned for this journey for years, but then the Chinese government had put a halt on the passages over the Lipulekh Pass.

The official word had been that the road on the pass had become unsafe and needed repair, but word-of-mouth had it that the Chinese authorities had a much more ambitious project in mind. Strangely, that word-of-mouth channel had dried up. Even the old traditional pilgrims – those people who had been making the trek for millennia despite the prohibitions of governments – had vanished. The last to return spoke of loud explosions causing avalanches on the formidable Tibetan crags, but they could not say more.

Then, suddenly, the border was reopened, and pilgrims encouraged to come in greater numbers than ever before. Dinesh figured that the Chinese were simply looking for a way to increase revenue. The couple was, however, more than eager to pay for their way. They would at long last lay eyes on the ancient home of the great god Shiva and his consort, the goddess Parvati.

They were not alone on the bus from Pithoragarh, in the Uttarakhand state of India. Furthermore, theirs was not the only bus heading toward their common destination. There were many fellow pilgrims, though not all were Hindus like they were. There were Buddhists and Jains as well – and probably people of more sects and religions than any could count. On this route, it was impossible to make sense of the different beliefs. But along this journey what mattered was that they were together, not how they were apart.

There was indeed a disorganized convoy on the road. While creating problems, the energy of the great community of pilgrims was palpable. Even the Chinese government minders were getting into the spirit, telling the pilgrims that they were sure to witness the Goddess herself and the end of the journey.

“See, even the paradeshi are getting into it!” Lakshmi observed, excitedly, referring to those Chinese ‘outsiders’ – excited despite having already been on the bus for seven hours.

The road wound itself alongside the Sarda River which separated India from Nepal.  Soon they would be in Garbyang. There they would enjoy the hospitality of the local Rung people – a herding, semi-nomadic people native to the thin airs of the Himalayas.  

On the bus there was one person – an obnoxious man from Gujarat. He told all who would listen that he was an early follower of the Goddess – a few years ago when she lived on a small island in the Pacific. He had finally been able to sell all his belonging so that he could go to her and give himself to be consumed by her.

Dinesh clearly thought the man was mad. The goddess Parvati, of course had many incarnations and even more names – but an American woman called “Karen”, lounging on a tropical island beach was not something that he had read in the Devi Gita. Mahadevi was how Dinesh thought of her: She who is the form of divine joy, Who knows everything, Who is the mother of all. He and his wife were Shaktas from Tamil Nadu in the very south of India. Their tradition was millennia old.

Dinesh made a face and Lakshmi elbowed him. She was more into the togetherness spirit than he was.

She agreed with the man. “Yes, Sundari is all at once the source of all creation, its embodiment, the energy that animates and governs it, and She into which everything and everyone will ultimately dissolve.”

“Well, I am going to dissolve into her stomach!” he said to her.

Lakshmi smiled and nodded encouragingly. Yes, she too thought the man was mad, but the crazy giddiness of this whole pilgrimage was a large part of what she loved about it.

* * *

Days later, the convoy of pilgrims of which Dinesh and Lakshmi were a part, finally arrived at the foot of the great Mount Kailash. They had bathed themselves in the frigid waters of Lake Manasarovar and donned their robes over their otherwise naked bodies. Now, the press of their fellow pilgrims kept them warm as stood before the great doors of the grand temple.

The temple was new, the Chinese minders had told them – or, at least what they had understood in the minders’ broken Hindi. Yet, this temple was unlike anything they had ever seen or even imagined. It was cut straight into the steep side of the valley running to the left of the mountain. The gilded doors were unfathomably large, probably even taller than the Taj Mahal.  Over the doors was a sheer cliff and then a slower slope that led up to the peak. Dinesh also saw parapet balconies carved over and to the sides of the doors.  To each door’s side the cliff faces were carved with decorative etchings in numerous scripts, including Sanskrit and Chinese glyphs. Dinesh, to his satisfaction, even saw some Brahmic script, though he could not read it.

The doors themselves depicted the Goddess, but not the god Shiva. That certainly pleased Dinesh as a Shakti, but he imagined the other Hindus, not to mention the Buddhists and Jains, would be a little less impressed by it. If they were, however, he did not notice it. Everyone seemed to be in complete awe. Lakshmi was clearly completely struck. She spontaneously knelt down and was followed by the rest of the crowd. Dinesh was a little slower to do so, but he took the opportunity to look around at the crowd behind him. They must have numbered in the thousands, though he quickly followed suit and knelt down with them.

It was but a few moments after the crowd knelt that red-robed Tibetan monks emerged on the parapet balconies. They had great horns upon which they blew in unison. The low sound filled the valley and reverberated off the other cliffs. It was then that an even lower rumble could be heard. The doors were opening!

Dinesh’s mouth dropped open. He had just assumed that the doors had been decorative only. Now his face was bathed in the light that shone out from the doors. As his eyes began to grow accustomed to the glare from the doors, he started to make out the silhouette of a figure – a human figure – a human figure that was not much smaller than the gigantic doors.

The light then changed. Rather than illuminating the door’s aperture, it lighted the figure stepping through it. She was gigantic and carried herself with a calm surety as well as sublime gracefulness. About her she wore light white robes that waved gently in the wind. Much of her all-but bare figure could be seen through the fabric. Dinesh was positive that this truly could be none other than the Mahadevi - the delightful delusion, the dream-like expression of divinity that makes life comprehensible, hence worth living.

The great kneeling crowd was stunned as she softly strode towards them. It was then that the obnoxious Gujarati from the bus stood up and ran towards the Goddess’ bare feet.

“Great Goddess Karen!” he shouted in English. “You have answered my prayers!”

She halted her stride before him. Her big toe came up to the man’s waste, though he now threw himself before it.

“For many years I have yearned and begged for this to happen. I followed you virtually from San Antonio in America, to the island, to the monastery. Only now have I had the means to become yours completely!”

“I beg of you but one final honor,” he pleaded, “and that is to swim down your divine gullet!”

The Goddess smiled down upon him. She bent her legs and reached down to him. He eagerly crawled into the open palm of her hand. She than stood back up, holding him in front of her face.

“Such a generous prayer is a pleasure to grant,” she said, replying in the same language, and opening her mouth.

The Gujarati leapt inside of her mouth. She smiled with satisfaction as her lips closed behind him. Not a single person in the valley failed to see the subtle undulation of her throat that signalled his downwards passing.

“Welcome to your new home,” she spoke softly as she rubbed her subtly-exposed belly.

“And welcome to all of you as well,” she said louder to the great crowd kneeling before her feet on the valley floor.

They crowded in on her further, but respectfully left a place for her to place her feet as she stepped forward. She beamed down benevolently at her mass of subjects.

“You are truly welcome,” she assured them again.

Both Dinesh and Lakshmi were beside themselves with awe. Dinesh had previously harbored doubts about the ancient stories of the Hindu Vedas and epics. He was a somewhat modern man, after all. Yet, as a modern man, how could he deny the truth as he saw it before his very eyes? Here was truly an incarnate Goddess before them, dwelling in the mountain just as the stories told that she would. It could not be a delusion. She had just swallowed up a man whom he had shared a bus ride with.

Perhaps to allay all of their doubts, the crowd now flocked to the Goddess’ feet, which stood in their midst. The pilgrims laid their hands upon those feet and kissed those feet with their lips. The Goddess was as flesh-solid as any of them were.

After having done as the other pilgrims had done, Lakshmi embraced Dinesh with ecstatic glee.

“We are here with Her!” Lakshmi squealed.

“We are surely thrice blessed!” Dinesh agreed with equal enthusiasm.

The Goddess then cleared her throat to regain the pilgrims’ attentions up from her feet back to her face and words.

“Welcome, my children,” she said again. “Please now come into my home.”

She carefully turned around so that none of the pilgrims would find themselves underfoot, and then walked back towards the great doors. The crowd followed at her heels.

Looking at both the doors in the cliffside as well as the mountain peak far above it, Dinesh felt reminded of a temple – the peak appearing like a Shikhara tower.  The doors, then would lead to the Ardhamandapa, the first antechamber. As he joined his wife and fellow pilgrims behind the Goddess’ heels, he was awestricken by the scale of it all. And, as large as it all was, the Goddess was not at all dwarfed by it.

They passed into the Ardhamandapa. The tremendous walls loomed over the crowd. High above, there were the openings that allowed light to shine into the chamber as well as provide access to the balconies where the monks had stood with their trumpets. Now, as the pilgrims entered the mountain temple, the monks filed in from those balconies to platforms high above the chamber’s ground floor. Dinesh could hear their chanting.

“Ka-rèn,” they chanted, followed by other names of the Goddess that Dinesh recognized, and many that he did not. He nudged her shoulder when his wife’s given name was also used, Lakshmi, the aspect of The Goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty, fertility and prosperity. She smiled at him, lovingly.

Dinesh loved his wife dearly. She had led him in the learning and devotion of the Shakti faith. He had particularly relished surrendering to her ministrations in the bedroom. All along the pilgrimage route to the lake and the mountain they had kept chaste. He hoped that they would tonight break their sexual fast in celebration of what they were now experiencing. In her eyes he could see that she was thinking along similar lines.

The pilgrims then began passing into the ante-chamber proper, the Mandapa. Along the walls Dinesh made out scenes from the Ramayana and verses from the Devi Mahatmya. From there, Dinesh saw that the Goddess strode into the temple’s inner sanctum, where she took her place on a large red cushion in the center of the Garbhagriha or “womb-chamber”. The procession of pilgrims took their cue from the temple’s layout and began to perform the Parikrama, the clockwise circumambulation around the place where the Goddess sat. As they did so, they also took up the monks’ chant.

Dinesh and Lakshmi joined the pilgrims in their devotions, moving around the Goddess. The Goddess sat cross-legged with the palms of her hands together in a praying pose. As the Parikrama proceeded she allowed one of her legs to slip and her foot came down to the floor level where the pilgrims paced. It just so happened that this was just in front of where Dinesh and Lakshmi were at that moment. Lakshmi felt so honored that she dove upon the foot in utter devotion, and Dinesh followed immediately.

The Goddess chuckled and looked down at them.

“Come here, you two,” she said as she reached down and picked up the couple from Tamil Nadu.

She held them in front of her face. Both of them blushed under the Goddess loving gaze.

“Aren’t you two cute!” she observed. “Are you a couple?”

They nodded. Dinesh was utterly robbed of his voice. Lakshmi was able to find her own.

“Yes… your holiness,” she stammered. “Married. Three years now. We have come many, many miles from South India – Tamil Nadu.”

“What are you called?” the divinity asked.

“I am named in your honor – Lakshmi. My husband is Dinesh.”

“Nice to meet you!”

“Thank you, truly!” Lakshmi uttered nervously as she quickly took Dinesh by the arm to stabilize herself.

“Aw, you two are really sweet!” the Goddess spoke, “but come and show me how sweet you two really are.”

With that, she brought her hands holding the couple closer to her mouth, which she opened wide. Lakshmi was astounded at her great fortune to be allowed to demonstrate her devotion in this ultimate way. She looked at Dinesh with her own mouth agape. Dinesh was also beside himself, but he kissed her and held her close before following his wife into the Goddess’ open mouth.

Everyone within the Garbhagriha was awestruck as they witnessed the couple’s loving sacrifice. As the crowd of pilgrims did so, the monks began to close the outer temple doors behind them. The Goddess also closer her mouth. She could feel the couple embrace one another inside.

“Mmmmm,” the Goddess hummed in satisfaction. The vibration also caused both of the worshipers inside of her mouth to be overcome with the ecstasy of their self-sacrifice and their own mutual love. The Goddess could taste this, which signalled to her that it was time to send them down.

Lakshmi was the first to go. Going down face first, she felt the flesh walls of the Goddess’ throat tighten behind her as they softened before her. She was pushed down moreso than that gravity allowed her to fall.

Dinesh was literally right on his wife’s heels as Karen gulped him down too. He kissed the soles of his wife’s feet as he was also pressed down the gullet. He belonged to both of these women, in mind, body and soul.

Goddess Karen meanwhile caressed her hand down her throat as it tracked the married lovers’ path toward her stomach. She allowed both of her feet to reach out into the public that gratefully accepted them.

“Come to me,” she bade the crowd.

In worshipful response, they crawled onto her feet and legs. She guided some of them to pleasure her. Others begged her to allow them to follow where the Tamilar couple and the Gujarati man had gone before. Taking it at her ease, she indulged both them and herself all through the night.

She had truly become a Goddess on Earth.