Богдан and Malhar. Yes, but a person's Ishta Devata is not the deity they like, but rather the one that is suitable for the health of their body, mind and soul. Each person has several very specific astrological data that, when put together, point to a specific deity. There are cases where a person does not like their Ishta Devata, but this is normal because there are lessons that they need to learn from this deity. Astrological data is a reflection of the "contract" that the soul made before incarnating. No one incarnates in this human body without a prior contract. What happens when we go against the contract? You will suffer much more than what was contracted and, in the worst case scenario, die before the time determined by the contract as a penalty. There are many facets to these contracts, such as the possibility of passing our Karmas on to our children to pay or choosing to deal with them in this life. We need to find a way to free ourselves from this contract through what we have in the contract itself and the greatest means is our Ishta Devata. But the truth that few people are prepared to hear is that there should be no Karma or Contract; these things are not part of who the true God really is and who you are. It is because there are higher and powerful beings imprisoning you and these souls in this cycle. You are imprisoned, but it is not God who is doing this; it is these beings.

Agni ji is the body tatva Sri Tivra ji was discussing different than the planet tatva?

By the words, "The Deity who is suitable", do you mean - Ishta Devata?

Take seriously what Tivra said about the compatibility of the body with the deity worshipped. I worshipped Lalita and sores started appearing on my body. When I started worshipping the deity suitable for my body and soul, the sores started disappearing in a single day and other diseases also disappeared. I was very sad because I love Lalita very much but I do not have the freedom to choose yet. Karma being burned is a problem only if you are worshipping the deity incompatible with your body and soul. When you worship the suitable deity, all your diseases will be cured, all your desires will be fulfilled and you will move towards liberation in a way that you will not have to face great sufferings.

Namaste Prince. The number 51 presumably has to do with the pīṭhas, which are 51 in number, as seen in the Ṣoḍhānyāsa. Bhāskararāya says that these pīṭhas represent the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet (including ळ and क्ष), the most fundamental of the "expressions" of Vāc, so it would make sense as to why they are present in the lotuses. That they are associated with 51 Gaṇapatis would make sense too, since this is also seen in the Ṣoḍhānyāsa. Nṛsiṃha is the Bhairava consort of Guhyakālī, so that too makes sense as to why they would be there. Concerning the Goddess emerging from Paraśiva, a lot can be said. First, let's look at a verse from the Kālikāstotra of Jñānanetra: "You who are the Mother of the Worlds, are victorious. Swayed by Your will, Time, which is Bhairava, emits the universe beginning with Śiva, its universal cause, up to a tiny insect." Here, we notice that Bhairava is equated with Time, which is understood to be the Goddess' creative power. Śitikaṇṭha explains in his Mahānayaprakāśa after quoting that same verse: "Time is Bhairava, and He is the resonance of consciousness in the form of the vital breath. As it is said in the Mahābhārata: 'All things, moving and immobile, partake of the vital breath.'" This is Mahākāla, whose nature is described by the great teacher Abhinavagupta: "The functions of the [limited] subject are created and conditioned, and so merge into the 'Great Time' which, perpetually expanding, is the sole abode of of the oneness of all things, consisting of the awareness that 'I am this universe'." In other words, Bhairava/Mahākāla is the Supreme Subject, the great cremation ground wherein all things find their end, their ultimate conclusion, their very Self. But, concerning the Goddess, he says elsewhere: "Apropos of this, the thirty-seventh principle (i.e. Paramaśiva/Bhairava), consisting of the three Powers, must be transcended and transformed into a throne. On this throne we must worship above-mentioned Blessed Supreme Consciousness, the thirty-eighth principle. This Goddess is identified with Caṇḍayogeśvarī, who sets in motion the wheel of devouring and creating everything. She must be adored." The meaning of this association is explained in a passage from the Mahānayaprakāśa of Trivandrum. It is a bit lengthy, but it is very important, so I will quote it in full here: "Maheśvara’s repose within Himself is the highest state of self-awareness. But by the finest of distinctions there shines a state even higher than that. This is the Goddess-ground, in which even the Lord cannot see his way. Being and non-being are grounded in the light of all manifestation, and that is grounded in the ecstasy of consciousness void of all dependence, which in turn comes to rest spontaneously in the limit of the self-groundedness of that all-encompassing light, where the impressions of the influences left in consciousness by awareness of degree and the like are completely absent. What we mean by ‘the Goddess’ is that untranscendable ground that remains when it has devoured even the subtlest traces of the impressions of these influences, positive, negative and both, that persist even within the state of the self-groundedness of that all-encompassing light. This path of meditating on the cycles of the deities of cognition is precisely the path of the Goddess so defined. It derives from that abyss in which all imprints are obliterated. The nature of the Supreme Lord Śiva is the self-groundedness that devours awareness of degree and the like. We define the nature of the Goddess to be the point in which that itself comes to rest. Thus, though the Supreme Lords, male and female, are objectively one and the same, a subtle experiential difference between them has been revealed in order to perfect the correct perception of this fact." The first sentence is self explanatory given what I have already said about Mahākāla. And though they are ultimately one and the same, a subtle distinction is made between Bhairava and the Goddess. If Bhairava is the Supreme Subject with the awareness of "I am this universe", that still implies to some extent a distinction between the two: "I" and "this". This is what is meant by "the impressions of these influences, positive, negative and both, that persist even within the state of the self-groundedness of that all-encompassing light." The Supreme Subject is 'Supreme' precisely because it is simultaneously totally beyond and fully present in all things. But in the "highest" state of non-duality, where there is merely the Light of the unitary Great Reality, there is nothing to be transcended and nothing that is transcendent. I put "highest" in quotes precisely because any notion of supremacy loses its meaning at this point, but it is impossible to speak of such a thing without referring to a hierarchy to some extent. The Goddess is the Heart of the Lord, "that untranscendable ground that remains when it has devoured even the subtlest traces..." Thus, it is the state in which "in which even the Lord cannot see his way", meaning that there is nowhere to go and nothing in particular to be. The Goddess cannot be "Supreme" or even "all things", because She alone exists. She is not the "Supreme" Reality, She is Reality itself. The Goddess is not some specific "thing", not even the Supreme "thing", and so evades even the awareness of the Supreme Subject, even as She is the very ground of such an awareness - indeed, all modes of awareness.

Dear Prince, I believe you are crossing over now from more universal descriptions which describe general phenomenon into kula specific encodings, which in a way have no meaning at all outside of that kula's practice. These mandalas are encoded and empowered and maintained by the very sadhana performed with them, and thus the nuance of their meaning and expression is actually conditioned by that sadhana, and in theory can even change substantively (not just the stated representations but also the energetic information encoded in the mandala) over time through adaptations in group praxis. I struggle for a good analogy but perhaps the use of codenames on a secured network. The codenames themselves don't actually mean much at all (although you could still read the phonemes of the codename) in isolation from the system they are operating within. Or perhaps a data file with a sequence of binary code. The meaning of the data is dependent on what operates upon it, and it would be possible for the exact same sequence of 1's and 0's to display a picture of a flower when opened by a graphics program and interpreted as a graphics file, and yet to launch a nuclear weapon if entered as launch code and interpreted as meeting the criteria for authentication. Or to try and put it one last way, your prior question was one of ontology, and this is one of technology. At least that is my humble understanding of the matter.

Thank you, Dylan and Omid, for illuminating the relationship between Bhagavatī Kāmakalākālī, Guhyakālī, and Kāla-saṅkārṣiṇī Kālī. The third week of discussion is about the structure of the enclosure of Bhagavatī Guhyakālī. It is seen that Bhagavatī Herself emerges from a crystalline lotus of Paraśiva, who is then situated within another lotus, and so on. What do these lotuses represent? Why are they of different colours? According to the Pañca-siṃhāsana Pūjā, each of the lotuses contains 51 Nṛsiṃhas, 51 Gaṇapatis, and so on. What is the significance of these deities occupying the base of the lotuses? Next and finally, a numerous number of Kālī names were also given, occupying the petals of the lotuses (such as the 36 Kālī Mothers in the 36-petaled lotus beginning from Āgama Kālī, etc.). What is the significance of this arrangement? Overall, it seems that the worship of Bhagavatī is a very elaborate and complex one, only to be perfectly performed by the Siddhas. Please refer to this link for the extracted Avaraṇa Pūjā: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mAn8bXFDSmnCkFgQ1Av2vjGKgMqgkdbLothEa8zZ56g/edit?usp=sharing

thank you Dylan for the research and information!

thank you so much for illuminating us dear Omid

Which is the correct nama - bandhuralaka or barbaralaka? Are there any differences in meaning?