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Understanding Shiva and Shakti


Any practitioner of Tantra could be accused of cultural appropriation. But this assumes that Tantra emerged at a fixed time and place within the context of a homogenous culture. And this just isn't the case. In reality, Tantra migrated and re-emerged in different places and at different times over at least 1500 years, and within different social, political, economic and even religious cultures. What this demonstrates is that Tantra has an underlying universality that can be re-expressed using different cultural (and religious) frameworks.


The difficulty however, can often be distinguishing between what is universal and the cultural iconography that was used to express it. The use of Hindu deities, in particular Shiva and Shakti, are a good example of this. Whilst many Tantras used these deities (or forms of them) to communicate their concepts these deities are themselves merely an iconic representation or symbol of a more esoteric and universal concept. In short, Shakti is synonymous with energy or power and Shiva is synonymous with a certain kind of consciousness - Shiva-consciousness.


For a modern mind raised in a progressive and largely secular western democracy - such as my own - the concept of Shakti-energy is not that difficult to grasp. We are used to seeing our cities lit up by unseen sources of electricity or the idea of radio waves travelling through the air to connect multiple devices via WiFi. Even science acknowledges the ubiquitous and abiding nature of energy. Einstein's well known theory of relativity recognises that “all matter is energy” whilst the first law of thermo-dynamics states that energy cannot be created and energy cannot be destroyed - a law that could have been taken straight from a medieval Tantra.


Understanding Shiva-consciousness is perhaps more difficult though. To help grasp the complexity of Shiva-consciousness it is worth noting that Shiva is often depicted with five faces. This indicates that Shiva-consciousness is more than our own limited concept of consciousness, which is perhaps best described as self-awareness. Shiva-consciousness is multi-directional.


This can be better understood when we consider the Tantric concept of the material universe and how it emerged. According to Tantra, Shiva and Shakti are two aspects of a transcendent Absolute. But this Absolute did not create the material universe, rather it became the material universe. This process is equated to the churning of milk into butter - nothing is added or removed from the milk, it simply solidifies and condenses into something else.


Within Tantra it is the interaction between Shiva and Shakti that constantly drives this churning. Whilst a modern mind - used to images of electricity illuminating light bulbs - might imagine Shakti-energy as light, the ancients conceived Shakti as sound. As raw sound interacted with consciousness they condensed into a series of phonemes, captured within the Sanskrit alphabet. Eventually these phonemes began to merge, forming concepts as words, which then condensed into objects and existence in its entirety.


According to early Tantrikas two of the original phonemes were Ha and Sa, representing Shiva and Shakti. When they combined with the first consonant M, they formed the word Hamsa, which translates as: I am that.


This phrase reveals the five faces of the multi-directional Shiva-consciousness. “I” signifies the presence of a self-aware consciousness - a thinker. “Am” identifies the presence of an existential subject - a physical presence. Whilst the word “that” acknowledges an observing consciousness and the recognition of an object. Each word then represents one of Shiva’s five faces. The phrase itself expresses the fourth face - an awareness of unity, a lack of separation: I am that. The fourth face then is a unifying consciousness. But what about the fifth face? The fifth face is the unspoken reciprocal consciousness. The recognition that the observer is also observed; their own consciousness is mirrored. If “I am that” then “that” is also an “I” and you are equally perceived as a “that”. Indeed, if you weren't then you could not be brought into existence as a physical entity - you would never be an “am”. This mirroring consciousness completes the existential loop; it defines the churned milk as butter.


Shiva-consciousness goes far beyond our own limited notion of consciousness then, and Tantrikas aim to experience this multi-directional consciousness as part of their practice, just as they also aim to experience their own being as the embodiment of Shakti-energy. And when both of these have been mastered, only then can you really begin to conceive of the Absolute that is everything.


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