Union Energy of Shiva and Shakti

Union Energy of Shiva and Shakti

According to Shaivism, one of the major branches of yogic philosophy, there is divine masculine energy that takes the form of the Hindu god, Shiva, and divine feminine energy that takes the form of the goddess, Shakti.
Both Shiva and Shakti are alive in both men and women. All of us have divine masculine (Shiva) aspects and divine feminine (Shakti) aspects to our being.

It’s said that our feminine side resides on our left side, while the masculine resides on our right side. We hold these energies within us and, when united, there’s a complete balance, joy and presence within our very being Accessing each of our divine natures — both masculine and feminine — can be both enlightening and surprising. However, we need to remember that we carry within us both aspects of the Divine.

The Nature of Shiva Energy

Shiva is another name for the Absolute Reality or Absolute Consciousness that makes up our cosmos. Shiva is the transcendent aspect of cosmic consciousness or the Source of everything and all that is.
Shiva, in all his steadfast union between the internal world and the external world, is often known as the Lord of Yoga. The power of Shiva’s consciousness can bring great inner strength and spaciousness.
In the tradition of Shaivism, Shiva is forever in union with Shakti, his divinely feminine consort. The nature of Shiva energy is steadfast, stable, peaceful, strong and totally unmoved with complete presence.
Shiva represents the state of being unmoved by pain or suffering brought on by the external world. He is centered, grounded and compassionate. We can invoke his pure presence through meditation to call in the extraordinary qualities of Shiva into our own being.
Direction, purpose, freedom, and awareness — these are our divinely masculine qualities. The masculine energy of Shiva is aware of everything that comes into creation.

All the things of creation are birthed through the feminine aspect of Shakti and all of us have these qualities within us as well. They are dance, movement, power, energy and the freedom to become.
Shiva is pure being in its stillness. Shakti is pure becoming in all her flow and creativity as well as her endless opening to possibility.
Your inner masculine side knows who he is and is purposeful in his knowing. There are deep wisdom and capacity for awareness within Shiva.

The Nature of Shakti Energy

Shakti is exquisitely beautiful with a flowing and shape-shifting quality to her — embracing reality as a dance. She is fluid, flowing and powerfully flexible.

Shakti energy can be wildly sensual, raw and expressive. Shakti energy can be seen in everything that lives as the manifest, while Shiva energy is formless.

Things that have already come into being are made of Shakti energy. These two divinely sacred energies are equal and opposite forces. We can’t have one without the other.
We can integrate Shiva and Shakti within our inner consciousness, within our entire being. These sacred powers can open us up and transform our very being.

The Shakti energy within us can take the form of prana, that life force energy that flows through our nadis, or subtle energy channels.

It can also take the form of kundalini energy, that coiled energy that lies dormant at the base of the spine until it is unleashed. When this happens, a kundalini awakening occurs, in which the Shakti energy awakens and moves through the central channel, or the Sushumna Nadi, along which the seven chakras reside. This is when deep cleansing, healing, and transformation takes place — and it all happens through the movement of Shakti energy within.

We can feel our Shiva energy when we are the witness of the Shakti. When we sit in meditation, cultivating clear presence and purpose, we are resting within our inner Shiva nature.

Shiva holds space for Shakti to move through. Shiva gives direction to Shakti’s shape-shifting energetic flow.

Shiva and Shakti Union

In union, Shiva and Shakti make up the half-woman lord known as Ardhanarishvara. The image of Shiva-Shakti in consort is a truly beautiful one to gaze upon. This androgynous figure shows the union of masculine and feminine aspects of our being, which brings about a mystical wholeness within Shiva is the yogi god with his naked torso and muscled legs, with dreadlocks and a snake around his neck. He carries a trident and has a peaceful face.

Shakti has long hair, large almond-shaped eyes, and delicate features. She wears a flowing silk cloth and one of her feet is raised in a dance.

The image conveys complete balance, joy, and presence. This is Shiva-Shakti — the union of the sacred masculine and feminine consciousness that lies within us and throughout the Cosmos.

Kundalini Yoga, a form of Energy Nature

Kundalini Yoga, a form of Energy Nature

Kundalinī Yoga is pure, spiritual science that leads to enlightenment and God-realisation under the guidance of a spiritual Master. Those people who write about the supposed danger of this path either do not have a master or do not follow his instructions. So if a person expresses negative views about Kundalinī, ask that person about his relationship with his Master. Often it will be found that the cause of the problem lies in the fact that he has acted without appropriate guidance or has ignored the advice of his Master.

Therefore do not allow such voices to create uncertainty, and confidently follow the advice of your Master. It is important to be patient and moderate, not to force and not to cling onto ideas such as how ‘it’ will be, or how ‘it’ should be. When ‘it’ happens perhaps you will not even know how and when it has taken place, because the spiritual power within you has unfolded so naturally and imperceptibly.

The term Kundalini is based on several words and therefore has several meanings.

The word-ending “ī” indicates that it relates to the feminine principle and deals with a form of Shakti (energy) and Prakriti (nature).

Kunda is a hole or well into which all debris and rubbish is thrown. In time the rubbish loses its original form and disintegrates into a formless mush in which the individual components are no longer recognisable. In a similar way, our impressions from earlier lives lie like an amorphous substance deep in the unconscious (Mūlādhāra Chakra).

Kundala means ring (generally earring). A ring or a circle has neither a beginning nor an end. It is infinite and that is why it is a symbol of creation. Cosmic energy is circling constantly; we do not know when the Universe began and how long it will last.
Two other roots of  Kundalini, serpent, and Kala, time or death. What is the connection between these terms? The symbol of the snake has many meanings: ignorance, energy, unhappiness or happiness, death, time and change. In Indian mythology, Lord Vishnu rests on a thousand-headed snake and sends out the first vibration (Sphurna), from which the entire Universe evolves.

The symbol of the snake also refers to the poison and danger that lies in ignorance. Ignorance is as poisonous and deadly as a cobra. But poison can also heal and even have a life-saving influence. Knowledge about its correct application and dosage is an important thing. So just as the power to heal is contained in poison, supreme knowledge lies dormant in the “ignorance” of the unconscious. Just as a snakebite can suddenly change our life when the Kundalinī awakens our consciousness changes fundamentally and we reach another dimension of time and space.

At this point, I would like to correct one common misconception about the so-called “rising of the Kundalinī”. The translation “serpent power” gives rise to a frequent misunderstanding. The concept that a feeling like a snake crawling along the spinal column comes with the awakening of the Kundalinī is totally false.

The path of the Kundalinī proceeds from the Mūlādhāra Chakra at the lower end of the spinal column up to the Sahasrāra Chakra at the top of the head. But its awakening is not a physical occurrence; it consists exclusively of development in consciousness. This becomes more noticeable as our perceptions of cosmic vibrations and radiant energy (Tattvas) become more sensitive, and our understanding of the connections and laws within the Universe deepens.

We need to gain experience in order to acquire knowledge. Each experience, whether good or bad, increases our understanding. Clarity arises through knowledge. With the awakening of the Kundalinī, our consciousness expands and we become aware of the truth. Its awakening brings with it pure joy, pure knowledge, and pure love. An enlightened one, a person whose Kundalinī has awakened, radiates such an all-embracing love, purity, power and goodness that everybody feels drawn to such a person.

Occasionally in Yoga literature, Kundalinī is connected with Tantra and occult powers and is considered as something dangerous.

Like every other form of energy, one must also learn to understand spiritual energy. From childhood onwards, we learn how to deal with internal and external energies. Whenever we run into something new and unknown we always need some time, as well as practice and proper instruction before we are able to deal with it. And so it is with the power of the Kundalinī. In order to be able to integrate this spiritual energy, careful purification and strengthening of the body and nervous system are required beforehand.

Sometimes an ambitious aspirant may force the rising of this energy through excessive and vigorous practices without being properly prepared for it. Instead of “enlightenment” such an impatient person more often than not brings about considerable psychic disturbances and, at times, even permanent mental damage. However, do not blame the “Kundalinī” but blame stupidity or incorrect techniques. Whoever faithfully follows the path the Master has given will certainly not suffer such problems.

Union of Siwa (Purusha) and Sakti (Prakriti)

Union of Siwa (Purusha) and Sakti (Prakriti)

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.

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. 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 (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 (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 colorful 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 human and 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 the 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 realize 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 realized 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.