Shiva and Shakti Consciousness and Energy

Shiva and Shakti

Consciousness and Energy

 

Amongst the attributes of the Chakras we meet two important symbols: Shiva and Shakti.

SHIVA symbolises consciousness, the masculine principle.
SHAKTI symbolises the feminine principle, the activating power and energy.

Whenever a power becomes active, and wherever energy exists, Shakti is working. Other terms for these primal principles are PURUSHA and PRAKRITI; Purusha is consciousness and Prakriti is nature.

Lord Shiva is generally portrayed holding a trident, which represents the trinity of Īshwara, Purusha and Prakriti .

Īshwara is the omnipresent, eternal, formless divine principle; Purusha is the Ātmā and Prakriti is the manifestation, nature. An electric light can be used to explain their relationship. The electric current, which is the source of the light, is Īshwara; the light is Purusha, and the object that is illuminated is Prakriti.

SHAKTI (or Prakriti) means energy, power, movement, change, nature. It is the maternal principle – the provider, abundance. In the human as well as in the animal kingdom the mother offers nourishment, warmth and security. There is no greater love than the love of a mother. The mother carries and nourishes the child in her own body. When it is born she provides it with mother’s milk and raises it at the sacrifice of her own self until it becomes self-reliant.

SHIVA (or Purusha), on the other hand, is pure consciousness – the unchanging, unlimited and unswayable observer. Purusha has no desires whatsoever; these are inherent only in Prakriti. Purusha is the empty, clear screen onto which Prakriti projects her colourful film.

Shiva and Shakti are manifestations of the all-in-one divine consciousness - different sides of the same coin. In many pictures these two primal powers are each depicted as being one half of the same image; one side female and one side male. The left side is the Divine Mother, Pārvatī, the “feminine” energy, and the right side represents Shiva, the “masculine” consciousness.

Through the splitting of the primordial principle at the advent of creation the duality within our lives came into being, together with a strong force that is constantly striving to re-unite with the other part.

Only when Shiva and Shakti combine can action, movement and creation arise. Until energy is impregnated with consciousness it is ignorant, disordered, aimless and “blind”. Energy alone can produce nothing; consciousness bestows upon it content, form and direction. Conversely, consciousness without energy is dormant power, sleeping energy, and on its own is unable to be the cause of anything. Just as Prakriti without Purusha is unable to act, and vice versa, Purusha without Prakriti is also incapable of creating anything.

The meaning of Shiva and Shakti is occasionally misunderstood when Shiva and Shakti are looked upon as “man” and “woman” and their union is regarded as a sexual relationship. Sexuality is something completely natural, and misunderstanding arises only when sexuality and spirituality are mixed.

• Sexuality is the union of man and woman
• Spirituality is the union of the human and the divine consciousness.

Shiva and Shakti exist within each of us as the masculine and feminine principles. This has an effect on the physical level – it is the cause of sexual attraction. Within man there exists a tendency towards the feminine qualities, and within woman a tendency towards the masculine. Through this the masculine consciousness is attracted by the feminine and vice versa. If both are in balance there is no sexual attraction. But if a tendency for the masculine predominates in man, or the feminine in woman, this results in a preference for a homosexual partner.

Shiva resides in the Sahasrāra Chakra and Shakti in the Mūlādhāra Chakra. When Prakriti and Purusha unite in the Sahasrāra Chakra, knowledge, knower and the object of knowledge become one. Once we have experienced this no desires remain within us because we realise unequivocally that everything we have ever yearned for is carried within us. In this state of absolute consciousness there are no polarities and therefore no more sorrows; there is only everlasting joy, unconditional love, unlimited compassion and total understanding for all living beings.

For as long as consciousness is connected to the physical body it is unable to remain constantly in the Sahasrāra Chakra and so returns to the residence of the Ātmā in the Heart Centre (Anāhata Chakra). A realised person always thinks, feels and acts from the heart. Embedded in eternal love and eternal happiness, that person is always conscious of the immortal Ātmā, the ocean of bliss, and their consciousness is forever connected to the divine consciousness.

• Shakti is the motherly love of God that surrounds us with warmth, caring and protection.
• Shiva is the paternal love of God that gives us consciousness, clarity and knowledge.

I wish for you the blessing of the Divine Mother who lives within you as energy and vitality, and the blessing of the Divine Father who resides within you as consciousness and knowledge. May they always take care of you, protect you and guide you, and in their infinite love lead you to the cosmic consciousness.

  

 

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Goddess Shakti - The Mystica

Goddess Shakti - The Mystica

 

Hindu Goddess Shakti (or Sakti) is the Tantric title for the Great Goddess (Devi), realized as a sexual partner and as the innermost animating soul of man or god, like the Greek Psyche, Roman Anima, Gnostic Sophia, and the Kabbalistic Shekina, all based on the Skati. Jung declared her to be the figure known as My Lady Soul: "Every mother and every beloved is forced to become the carrier and embodiment of this omnipresent and ageless image, which corresponds to the deepest reality in man."

Hindu Goddess Shakti is translated "Cosmic Energy." (see Soul of the World) She implies "power, ability, capacity, strength prowess; regal power; power of composition, poetic power, genius; the power or signification of a word or term; the power inherent in cause to produce its necessary effect…[S]hakti is the female organ; shakti is the active power of a deity and is regarded, spiritually and mythologically, as his goddess-consort and queen." The Tantras say, "the female principle antedates and includes the male principle, and…this female principle is the supreme Divinity"
Tantric doctrine stipulates mortal women are "life-itself" and Goddess-like, because they embody the principle of Shakti. The sages say, "...hold women in great esteem and call them Shaktis and to ill treat a Shakti, that is, a woman, is a crime." A Tantric synonym for "woman" was Shaktiman, "Mind of Shakti" or "Possessor of Shakti."

In Hindu Goddess Shakti is the eternal and supreme power, variously described as manifest energy, the substance of everything and all pervading. The Vedic meaning of Shakti is "energy." In Hinduism Shakti is a term for the manifestation of the creative principle. However, the concept of Shakti is derived from the hoary past and brahminized in later centuries. The concept of the supreme power as female, a mother, a womb, a vulva is not found in the pre-eminently patriarchal scriptures of the Aryans, but arises, to be made respectable by the higher castes, from the submerged prehistoric mother cults of the earliest people of the subcontinent.

A Shakti was also a spirit-wife, or feminine guardian angel, who could be incarnate in the earthly wife, mistress or whore, or a wholly supernatural figure. "An important division of the ‘mythology of woman’ is devoted to showing it is always a feminine being who helps the hero to conquer immortality or to emerge victorious from his initiatory ordeals…Every Teleut shaman has a celestial wife who lives in the seventh heaven, where he meets her and makes love to her during his ecstatic journeys."

The final union with Shakti occurs at the moment of death, according to the Tantric mystics. She was both the individual and the cosmic goddess absorbing the body and soul of the dying sage into herself, an experience of unsurpassable bliss on his part. "The possession of her, the cosmic Shakti, the living embodiment of the principle of beauty and youth eternal, is the ultimate quest, the very highest prize."

The Kulacudamani Nigama said not even God could become the supreme Lord unless Shakti entered him. All things arose from their union, but she said, "There is none but Myself Who is the Mother to create." The Lalita Sahasranamam said, "The series of universes appear and disappear with the opening and shutting of Her eyes." As God required her power before he could do anything at all, so her worshipper on earth required the power of his own Istadevata, Shakti, or fair-love."

Likewise, the Middle-Eastern mystics such as the Sufis kept to a similar belief. They proclaimed such a fair-love or fravashi essential to any man’s enlightenment. By the Christian Gnostics Shakti was worshipped by such names as Sophia, Pneuma, Eide, or Anima. Some Gnostic writings used sexual symbolism to describe the union of one’s soul after death with Shakti, as in the Mandaean Liturgies for the Dead: the soul or "image" (Eide) embraces and caresses the dead man like a beloved woman. This Tantric idea came to the West by the Avesta doctrine that, after the death of a believer, his own conscience would overcome him "in the form of a fair maiden."

In Hinduism, for accuracy it should be noted, Shakti means eternal and Supreme Power, variously described as manifest energy, and substance of everything, and all-pervading. In the Vedas the term means energy. Presently Shakti is both connected with and identical to the power of the gods Shiva, Vishnu, or Brahma, the great Hindu triad. From the most ancient Hindu scriptural times Shakti, under a variety of names, is linked to Shiva, the Lord of Sleep (and his various guises, especially Rudra). Shiva is said to be helpless without the divine energy, Shakti. The two, coupled in sexual union, are the two inseparable forces that impregnate the universe with life in all of its forms. Without Sakati, Shiva is merely the Void. "He has no visible form," the Linga-arcana Tantra states. "What can be expected from the worship of nothingness?" Shiva (or Rudra), thus a corpse, cannot be worshipped without Shakti. The Goddess is the source of all, the universal Creator. Shakti does not even need Shiva; as eternal Virgin (Kumari) she does not depend on any one any power, for she is the One Itself as Power.

Shakti, energy, is the personification of a god, recognized in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. In the more specific context, the Salti identifies the creative force of the god Siva, particularly the ugra or violent aspects of Durga and Kali. The Shakti may frequently have the same characteristics and carry the same attributes as the principle god. In Tantrism, the Shakti defines the unity of opposites, which is the yoni sexuality that unites with the lingam of Shiva. A.G.H.

List of Hindu Deities

Hindu Deities

List of Hindu Deities

A brief list of Hindu Gods And Goddesses