Goddess Shakti

Sham S. Misri

A famous myth tells us the story of how the Great Goddess was born at the beginning of times. "An evil demon, Mahisha, was threatening the Universe and even the existence of the Gods. Brahma and other gods asked for Vishnu and Shiva’s help.

When a great danger threatens the Cosmos, Gods appeal to the power of Shakti to make it go away. "The Supreme Male", Purusha, is perhaps that time “the great impotent", and an immobile personality. He acts through Prakriti, nature, "The everlasting Feminine", that is the dynamic principle, the one who creates and feeds.

Full of anger, all gods focused their energies in a fire that came out of their mouths. These fires mixed together and made a gigantic brilliant, white, burning cloud that finally took the shape of a fascinating Goddess with 18 arms.

This Goddess was Shakti, who managed to destroy Mahisha the monster and thus saved the world. Thus the Gods gifted Shakti with their powers. She was the Unique Feminine Force. The result was a renewing of a primitive state of the universal power.

In Tantra the woman is sacred.

In Tantra Shakti, "the cosmic feminine force", is raised to the position of Divine Mother who sustains the Universe and all the beings, the multiple manifestation of gods.

It is called Uma, The Virgin that ranks the Universal creation. In this case Shakti is the highest peak of all worlds, pure and untouchable. Once it manifests the universe, Shakti becomes the maintainer of space and time and all subtle and physical worlds.

In its final essence she is the destroyer, Kali, the one who absorbs into the divine everything that is incomplete and limited in order to prepare a new Creation. Only in Tantra the female principle has got a real role, just as important as the male one.

Tantra goes further and presents the Divine Being as a glorious perfect and harmonious combination of feminine and masculine. The Divine is presented as the Shiva - Shakti couple in ecstatic sexual union.  In Tantra the woman and the man are complementary and equal in chances of discovering the ultimate reality.

Of all spiritual ways Tantra is the first who brings the woman and the everlasting Feminine out in the open and enhances their value, to the highest levels.

By unifying the man and the woman, by love they look different and beautiful; they become the divine couple Shiva - Shakti. Thus they can complete one another at all levels of being, creating a Glorious healthy women.