Shakti

Picture Credit: Lakshmi Ambady

You’d think she’s the most exquisite

against the black,

Splendid, without a doubt

Her glow in gold.

But tell me isn’t her dissolution the loveliest of all?

At her peak, yet disappearing into Him when the day breaks?

“The feminine is the most powerful dimension of life. Without the feminine energy or “Shakti” there would be nothing in existence.” Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.

Sadhguru said this during my first course with him in 2011. It was the “Inner Engineering” program. He said- No one has a perfect body or a perfect mind. In that sense we are all disabled in some way or another. But beyond the physiological and psychological dimensions, all life is just the same. All life is Shakti.

Shakti in Sanskrit means power, energy and capacity. But its is not just physical strength. Shakti is the fundamental motion of life itself. Because life is simply an upsurge of energy, finding expression in the form of Nature, trees, animals, humans, atoms, rocks, metals, plastic. All physical entities, even the non- living objects are as alive as we are simply because their atomic and molecular structure is in perpetual motion as is ours. Just because they lack the kind of consciousness that we do does not make them any less animate than the living. All life as we know is held together by the forces of the cosmos- electromagnetic, gravitational, radioactive and the strong nuclear force. Together these forces help to sustain / destroy creation and its matter. Symbolically if Shakti is all of creation that moves, vibrates and hence expresses, the Shiva is the stillness or the backdrop through which all these movements occur.

Shakti is the feminine principle of creation. The rhythms of Mother Nature, the birth and death of stars and galaxies, our entire lives and of everything that exists as we know has the power of Shakti surging wildly and fluidly. Without Shakti, Shiva is the unmanifest. And he’s dormant.

In the human body, Shakti is bioelectricity- the subtle currents that animate our nervous systems. She is neuroplasticity- the capacity of the brain to rewire and create new life and behavioural patterns. She is also metabolic energy- the cellular fire in our mitochondria that fuels life. She is the emergent order- the way life organizes itself from an atom to molecules to compounds to a spark of creation. She is the energy running through all living and non- living systems in this universe.

In our nervous systems, Shakti shows up as aliveness- the pulse of the vagus nerve regulating breath, the hormonal currents that shape moods and emotions, the capacity to be fertile or even not fertile. Every tremor that releases energy, every spontaneous breath that expands the chest, every shiver that recalibrates the nervous system cannot happen without the motion of Shakti. But when trauma lodges in the body, Shakti becomes trapped. Muscles tighten, breath shortens and the body curls inwards to brace itself. Here Shakti is just held hostage in frozen postures, unexpressed tears and silenced voices. Healing is about releasing what was always there- allowing Shakti to move freely again. In yoga, Shakti rising through the body parallels the somatic journey of traumatic release. Just as Shakti can awaken and ascend through our nerve channels, unresolved survival energies can be thawed and integrated, liberating vitality that was once bound. Spiritual awakening and Somatic healing are two languages describing the same event- Shakti reclaiming her flow. Somatic power is regulation. The capacity of the body to contain intensity without exploding or collapsing. When you can grieve fully without drowning in it, when you can express anger without hurting someone, when you can hold stillness without disassociation- that is Shakti embodied. In this sense, Shakti is not a metaphor for some kind of power, but she is the power of the body to hold, release and transform. She is the felt sense of being alive. The river and its current. The sacred power moving through your being right now as you read these words. She is your gut and your instinct. She is your compassion, your passion and your love. Shakti is the womb of creation. But Shakti is incomplete without Shiva. For her to dissolve she needs space. For her to reveal herself through creation she needs the lap of creation itself. Shiva is that nothingness. Shiva is that lap, that space from where she emerges. In this recognition, Shakti reveals herself as the cosmos in somatic form.

Shakti bridges science and spirit, matter and energy, biology and divinity. Today the first day of Navratri- the 9 days and nights of the Goddess form, I offer my gratitude to both the silence of Shiva and the song of Shakti residing in me. Together my body and my soul is a testament to their merger for I am a child of their union. Om Namah Parvati Pataye Har Har Mahadev.