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SHAKTI FESTIVAL
MAY 2012
Shiva/Shakti
Never one without the other ...
The male/female Dance of the Cosmos.
Creation/Manifestation here on Earth.
The primal stirring of pure awareness that gives rise to existence is Shakti. Pure awareness is static, transcendent, peace, unmoving, and unchanging. Shakti is dynamic energy, immanent, love, and perpetually moving and changing. Pure awareness is masculine while Shakti is feminine. Thus, it is the divine feminine that produces universes without end and all the beings that occupy them. In Taoist terminology, pure awareness would be yang while Shakti would be yin. Thus Shakti is resolve, will and energy and She is expansive. The sum total of all the energy in existence and the will to direct it is Shakti. Every God in Hinduism has his Shakti and without Her energy they have no power. The play of female energy has no beginning and no end. Although restless by nature, it cycles through periods of rest and motion.
Hindu Goddess Shakti
By you this universe is borne,
By you this world is created,
O Devi, by you it is protected.
The Shakta tradition glorifies Devi, the consort of Shiva, as the World Mother who, as Shakti, is the energy giving power behind all creation. Shakti is shown in many forms. As Uma or Parvati, she is the gentle consort of Shiva. As Kamakshi or Rajarajeshwari she is the Great Mother. In the form of Durga she rides a tiger, the ego and arrogance that man must subdue. In her angry form she is Kali.
| The earliest term applied to the divine feminine, which still retains its popular usage, is Shakti. The word Shakti is used in a variety of ways ranging from its use as a way to illustrate the ultimate primordial creative power, to expressing the capacity or power of words to convey meaning. The word 'Shakti' is derived from the root 'shak,' meaning potency or the potential to produce, an assertion of Her inherent creative aptitude. |
| All interpretations of the word 'Shakti' hold common one parameter, Power. Specifically, Shakti means Power, Force and Feminine Energy. She represents the fundamental creative instinct underlying the cosmos, and is the energizing force of all divinity, of every being and every thing. Devotees believe the whole universe to be a manifestation of Shakti, who is also known by her general name Devi, from the Sanskrit root 'div' which means to shine.
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