Shakti Sadhana |
What is Shaktism by Devi Bhakta |
I've been meaning to write something on
this for a long time, but the final straw that finally made me sit down and do it was the recent post in which a certain "Uriya Baba"
(I have never heard of him before, but I'm guessing he's a Shaiva or Vaishnava swami) was quoted as saying, "Disengage yourself from
this body, a place of humiliation, a despicable bag of wastes, urine and excreta (your body)."Uday, who posted that quote, later
explained it further, saying: "Ultimate truth is atma, soul, or say supreme power, God. Rest all is myth. complete materialistic
world is a myth." "My problem with these posts is
simple: Thay have nothing to do with Shaktism! In fact, they are diametrically opposed to the very spirit and teaching of Shaktism!
To reject this world or to dismiss one's own body in a temple of Devi is as wrong as it would be to proclaim, "Embrace Christ!" or
"Submit to Allah!" while standing among the worshipers here. It's simply poor taste. However legitimate such diverse religious
sentiments may be in their proper place, they do not belong in a forum devoted to Shaktism. In fact, many Shaktas would consider
such remarks to be nothing less than a provocation, a slap in the face -- a direct insult to their faith, to the Goddess Herself!
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WHAT IS SHAKTISM? Let's begin with a basic definition. When faced with the hard question, "Are you a Shaiva (devotee of Shiva) or a Shakta (devotee of Goddess)?" the easy (and all-too-typical) answer is to say, "It doesn't matter! Shiva and Shakti are One!" Which is fine -- it is a good answer and -- at a vastly high level of abstraction -- it is ultimately the right answer. But it's also a refusal to answer, in a certain sense, and it is almost ridiculously vague for the vast majority of devotees, who have a long climb ahead before reaching that lofty spiritual peak. But let us try to rephrase the concept in a more useful way: Both Shaivism and Shaktism agree that the Ultimate Divine contains the Feminine the Masculine, and the Neuter, while simultaneously transcending all such gender distinctions. And you don't have to take it from me. Devi Herself states as much in the "Devi Bhagavata Purana": "I am Manifest Divinity, Unmanifest Divinity, and Transcendent Divinity. I am Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, as well as Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati. I am the Sun and I am the Stars, and I am also the Moon. I am all animals and birds, and I am the outcaste as well, and the thief. I am the low person of dreadful deeds, and the great person of excellent deeds. I am Female, I am Male, and I am Neuter." By way of explanation, the Sanskrit scholar C. MacKenzie Brown clarifies that pure Shaktism "clearly insists that, of the two genders, the feminine respresents the dominant power in the universe. Yet both genders must be included in the ultimate if it is truly ultimate. The masculine and the feminine are aspects of the divine, transcendent reality, which goes beyond but still encompasses them. Devi, in her supreme form as consciousness thus transcends gender, but her transcendence is not apart from her immanence." Brown's analysis continues, "Indeed, this affirmation of the oneness of transcendence and immanence constituites the very essence of the divine mother [and her] ultimate triumph. It is not, finally, that she is infinitely superior to the male gods -- though she is that, according to the [Shaktas] -- but rather that she transcends her own feminine nature as Prakriti without denying it." WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A SHAKTA? ~~~~~~~~~~ NOTE (5 August 2006): I wrote this essay blue moons ago, but recently received the following comment from a member (dhalsim108) on my preceding generalization: I would like to inform you that this statement is completely non-representative of Kashmiri Shaivite views. For a summary of them, I will point to you the website www.kashmirshaivism.org/introduction. There, John Hughes writes, "Although Kashmir Shaivism and Advaita Vedanta both teach nondualism, the non-dualism of Kashmir Shaivism is quite different from that of Advaita Vedanta. Essential to this difference is Advaita Vedanta's proposition that this universe is untrue and unreal, that it is a false projection of maya. This theory is completely opposed to the Kashmir Shaiva theory of reality. To counter this proposition Kashmir Shaivism argues that, if Shiva is real, how could an unreal substance emerge from something that is real? If Shiva, the ultimate essence of existence, is real, his creation must also be real. For the Kashmir Shaiva this universe is just as real as its creator..." Kashmir Shaivism holds that the world is real, being in essence the same as Shiva Himself. Furthermore, unlike in the advaita vedantism of Adi Shankara, Kashmir Shaivism holds that the body is not merely a "bag of excrement" but the very vehicle through which one will ultimately merge with the Ultimate. Indeed, this form of Shaivism and Tantric Shaktism seem to be a lot less dissimilar than it previously seemed. I understand that you were "hugely oversimplifying", but please note that less educated people will read and believe what you say, especially the people who frequent ShaktiSadhana, whom I think by and large hold a great deal of respect for you, as I do." And so, dear reader, with that caveat in place, I return you to the essay. Thanks, dhalsim108! - DB ~~~~~~~~~~
But let us now
look at Shaktism. Again, this is a vast oversimplification, but here we see Shakti as the Supreme One, Without a Second. To devotees of Shiva or
Krishna or Rama who would scoff that we are giving Her far too much importance, we can quote the Rig Veda, the most ancient scripture of
Hinduism where Devi says: IS THE BODY A TEMPLE OR A `BAG OF WASTE'? |
But at a certain point in our spiritual evolution, we begin to tire of this world's transitory pleasures and satisfactions. We may still love the world very much -- the beauty of nature, the faces of our children and those beloved to us; the pleasures that this earthly body can give us sometimes -- but we begin yearning to move beyond this rather limited sense of reality. You might say that we love Shakti so much that we yearn to see the rest of Her -- her Transcendent Aspect (which you can call "Shiva" for convenience if you like, or not). But at a certain point in our spiritual evolution, we begin to tire of this world's transitory pleasures and satisfactions. We may still love the world very much -- the beauty of nature, the faces of our children and those beloved to us; the pleasures that this earthly body can give us sometimes -- but we begin yearning to move beyond this rather limited sense of reality. You might say that we love Shakti so much that we yearn to see the rest of Her -- her Transcendent Aspect (which you can call "Shiva" for convenience if you like, or not). The Shaivite would say that the sole, best use of this body and this world, is as a springboard to the next. While we are incarnated as conscious, sentient beings, we must work on ourselves to escape the churning wheel of samskara as soon as possible! The Shakta would agree -- to an extent. Yes, the ultimate goal of Shakti Sadhana is liberation; but we say that Devi is not only the goal. She's also the journey! IS THERE `REALLY' A GODDESS? |