Saturday, May 20, 2006

A Stab at a Definition

Nondual shaktism is taking the manifest universe to be the ultimate authority in life and imagining that universe to be female. It doesn't deny Brahman, but doesn't dwell there much.

Ma's ultimate authority is due to the omnipotence of life. Shit happens, good and bad. We could all get wiped out in a gamma ray burst one day. Huge black holes are swallowing whole star systems. In the face of such tremendous power and scale, all we puny humans can do is surrender to Her.

For the devotee of Kali, everything is by Her will. Whatever happens to us or anything else is all Her. We exist as Her devotee in a vast field of Her Manifestation. All objects and events are Her. Our bodies and minds are Her even while we imagine them to be separate.

You are giving yourself to creation, which is the Mahashakti, which is the other side of Brahman, like fire and its power to burn.

Kali is Shiva inside out. When a nondualist talks about all this being one, s/he's talking about creation and being together. An advaitin may only look at being and collapse creation into it, or declare creation illusory. But he's gonna get plowed by the truck if he jumps on the freeway. The shakta sees the creation as real and the events in it as God's will. Shaktism doesn't deny the inner truth of Brahman, but it does give life more credence and focuses attention there.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Fire and its Heat, Water and its Wetness

Brahman and Shakti. Shiva and Kali. They are one, yet seemingly not the same. Kali is all manifestation, which is essentially the omnipotent force in life. Shiva is our very soul, one that we share with all being. We are the intersection of Brahman and Shakti, the Atman and the manifest mind and body. It's never any more divine than right here, right now. One can get lost in the bliss of complete union with the Divine, but there's still going to be bills that need to be paid.