SHAKTI

When the Shakti is awakened in you, you’re activating the same energy that creates and sustains the universe. She is the force that moves the universe, the life force, the ground of all creation, enabling us to experience the most profound states of connection and love.

The Jagadguru, Baba Muktananda wrote, “Shakti is the active power of Consciousness. She is the divine energy that enlivens every part of the universe and also every part of yourself. Through her, you experience the world, and through her, you also come to know the Self.”

There is a subtle vibratory energy at the substratum of everything we know. Yogic seers experienced this energy not simply as abstract vibration but as the expression of the divine feminine power, called Shakti.

The word shakti means, “power.” Shakti, the innate power in reality, has five “faces.” It manifests as the power to be conscious, the power to feel ecstasy, the power of will or desire, the power to know, and the power to act.

‘The tantras say that all of these powers come into play in the act of cosmic creativity, when divine intelligence spins a universe out of itself, much the way a human mind creates a dream or a fantasy on its own inner screen.’ (Sally Kempton)

The cosmic creation explodes in a big bang and then evolves over millions of years as suns, planets, increasingly sophisticated life forms, and, of course, human beings.  All of reality, this tradition says, is Shakti’s dance. 

“I am the Queen, the gatherer-up of treasures,

Most thoughtful, first of those who merit worship.

I bear powers of all the gods within me,

And manifest each form, in every place.” Rigveda 10.125

Shakti takes form as the biological processes of our body. She acts through our thoughts and the play of our emotions. She becomes every atom and dust mite in the physical world. We are, in our essence, made of Shakti.

Her powers of consciousness, ecstasy, will, knowing, and acting are constantly at play both in ourselves and in the world.  She is also the force that inescapably nudges us toward the evolution of our consciousness, with which we must align when we seek conscious transformation.

‘She refines everything she touches, removing impurities, liberating you from old patterns and letting you perceive the world anew, through the eyes of pure Consciousness and bliss. She is a source of joy and the delight of life. When you experience her within, there’s a spontaneous feeling of bliss that aries. This is her true nature; she is both the cause and the experience of joy who reveals your own inner Self to you. Her movement awakens knowledge, peace, and wisdom in the heart of the seeker.’

Learning how to develop a relationship with the Shakti is a daily practice. When we open to and allow the Shakti to be an active guiding presence in our life as an ever-present dynamic force of love that is accessible to us through devotion, awareness and direct engagement we learn, as Baba Muktananda said, “to experience the world, and through her, you also come to know the Self.”

“Mother, in my heart’s deepest cave,

You do ever dwell in secret,

Playing with your maya, dancing in joy.

O Mother, I have no one else but you!

Reveal Yourself inthe lotus of my heart.” Sri Ramakrishna