Writing Prompts
The Sacred Dance of Shiva & Shakti
The God and Goddess of love, creation, and transformation
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This piece is intended to provide a little backstory for Alethiology’s June writing prompt, The Sacred Dance of Shiva & Shakti. The intention here is to make the prompt more accessible as a source of inspiration for everyone.
Shiva, the destroyer of worlds, is the divine masculine. He is the creator, preserver, and ultimately the destroyer of the universe at the end of each cosmic cycle. His powers transcend the physical realm and signify the dissolution of illusion, ignorance, and ego. Yet, Shiva is also the fertile ground of creation’s stillness and is often depicted meditating and transcending worldly desires.
Shakti, the destroyer of evil and demonic forces, is the divine feminine. She is the source of energy that innervates all of life with its rhythmic movement. As the mother Goddess, she is protective, fierce, wise, and nurturing. She is the creator, preserver, and destroyer of worlds throughout the cosmic cycles.
If you are new to the Vedic teachings or Hinduism, you may be wondering how Shiva and Shakti are both named the creator and destroyer of worlds. The answer to that lies in the cosmic dance played between masculine and feminine energies. Polarity. This is the state of having two opposite or contradictory tendencies, opinions, or aspects. One of the many divine dichotomies of Spirit. Existing in a state of being both distinct equals and opposites, and yet also One and therefore inseparable. In the case of these two incarnations, we see a duality of passive consciousness (Shiva) and active energy (Shakti).
It’s important to understand that masculine and feminine energies are independent of earthly manifestations of gender, as both energies are present in all souls and bodily gender is merely a function of earthly propagation of species. With this in mind, it helps to delineate gender from the thought of masculine and feminine energies, seeing them also as distinct, equal, and opposing complimentary forces that are threaded throughout everything.
Shiva in his highest incarnation of self is the unchanging, formless, and eternal reality of true consciousness. Some call it collective consciousness, others call it the source or God. These texts call it Brahman. The true reality.
Shakti is the force of energy that calls, pushes, and pulls the universe into being. Shakti activates Shiva through the sacred and rhythmic pulsing dance of life and love. She is the life force innervating all that is made manifest.
Without Shakti, Shiva remains asleep and unconscious. Shiva is transformed by Shakti’s loving energy from the inactive observer, to the creator and destroyer of worlds. Ultimately each world is destroyed by Shiva at the end of its cosmic cycle (karmic purpose), and through the destruction of one world, another is always created, and in this way, transformation of the cosmos, Self, and Spirit is always occurring.
The Vedas, the oldest and arguably most revered of the scriptures in Hinduism date back to 1500–500 BCE, and discuss the earliest known forms of Shiva and Shakti, then called Rudra (Shiva) and Uma (Shakti). Rudra is said to be a fierce hunter and healer, and is often identified as the “Howler.” Here he feels wild, unpredictable, tribal, and primal. Like humanity early in its life. Wherein Uma is said to be the radiant Goddess of knowledge and enlightenment and the consort to Rudra. She reveals the true nature of Brahman and is depicted as the revealer of ultimate truth, dispelling ignorance and symbolizing light in the darkness.
The Upanishads dating back to 800–300 BCE, tell of the divine energies of Rudra (Shiva) and Shakti and how Rudra is the supreme deity, transcending all other incarnations of God. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad speaks of Shiva and Shakti as inseparable and existing both in all beings and beyond all that exists. Specifically, verse 3.11 roughly translated tells us this about ourselves:
You are the woman. You are the man. You are the youth and the maiden too. You, as an old man, totter along with a staff. Being born in all, You face in every direction. You are the dark-blue bird, You are the green parrot with red eyes. You are the cloud with the lightning in its womb. You are the seasons and the seas. Having no beginning you abide through omnipresence. From you, all worlds are born.
The Mahabharata dating back to 400 BCE — 400 CE, makes numerous references to Shiva and Shakti. Including a hymn of the thousand names of Shiva and tells of how Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, even invokes and worships Shiva frequently. Shiva and Shakti are again seen as inseparable and their curses and blessings shape the fates of all the characters in this epic tale of love, with the central allegory being an inner journey of destroying one’s own ego.
The Tantras dating back to 600 CE — 1200 CE, lay out the practice of rituals and worship associated with Shiva and Shakti as a path to achieving higher states of consciousness and spiritual enlightenment here in the earthly realm through the divine union of masculine and feminine energies in relationship, sex and intimacy.
Throughout all of these texts, we see Shiva and Shakti as dynamic beings undergoing many transformations. Each of these leads them through a different aspect of their divinity and speaks to human battles and attributes. These teachings tell us of God’s transformations, our own transformations, and the battles we will face internally in these becomings.
Teachings that without depth in understanding can be mistaken for purely outward battles for, and against the world; but upon deeper reflection reveal the truth that each epic battle is the internal battle we will face on our journies of becoming integrated with our truth and the true reality. The truth, of course, is that we are One. One with God, one with one another, one with everything that does and does not exist.
So now let’s explore some of these transformations…
Shiva
Shiva undergoes many transformations throughout these texts as he interacts with the universe, embodying different incarnations of self (think of these as aspects of personality) to aid in creation, preservation, and ultimately, transcendence. There are far more incarnations of him than we would ever be able to cover here, but we will touch on a few to see if any resonate and get the juices of resonance and creativity flowing for you.
Rudra is Shiva’s first incarnation. Here he is a fierce hunter, the Howler, associated with healing and storms, and is portrayed as being more primitive and unpredictable and having a dual nature of both the destroyer and protector.
Mahadeva is Shiva when he is in his Supreme state encompassing the nature of all things. Mahadeva translates to the “Great God” and in simplest terms, is his highest version of self as an incarnation.
Nataraj is Shiva as the cosmic dancer with four arms holding a drum which symbolizes creation, and fire which symbolizes destruction, while performing the Tandava, a dance of creation, preservation, and destruction. An ecstatic dancing side of God. What’s not to love about this?💛
Ardhanarishvara is Shiva’s androgynous incarnation joined with his wife Parvati, half-male and half-female. This incarnation represents the unity of masculine and feminine energies. Some might call this a twin flame union. Others may think of it as wholly integrating all aspects of self.
Dakshinamurthy is Shiva as the supreme teacher of yoga and truth, often depicted as sitting under a banyan tree imparting wisdom through silence. He is the wise guru who helps others acquire his knowledge solely through living by example.
Virabhadra is Shiva’s fierce warrior created from a lock of his hair to avenge his first wife Sati and is often depicted wearing a garland of skulls. We might interpret this as the fragment of ourselves we become when we are lost to anger and revenge.
Shakti
Shakti too undergoes many transformations. Symbolizing the great many roles the divine feminine embodies in sustaining and nurturing life. We won’t get into all of her incarnations here either as it too is quite extensive, but to get the juices flowing we’ll cover a few of the more well-known ones.
Parvati is the reincarnated first wife (Sati) of Shiva. She represents love, fertility, and devotion. She is gentle, nurturing, and compassionate. The archetypal perfect wife.
Durga is the mother and warrior Goddess who upholds moral order and righteousness, destroying demons and negative forces in the world. Wherein evil is often referred to through these texts as darkness, ignorance, anger, greed, jealousy, pride, uncontrolled desires, and cravings for outward pleasures. Think of her as an angry mama bear.
Kali who comes from the third eye chakra of Durga during battles with demons, is the fierce warrior Goddess who destroys evil, ignorance, and ego. Kali is the spiritual liberator. She is what happens when angry mama bear gets leveled up 100x in crazy.
Lakshmi is the goddess of abundance, wealth, and prosperity. She is generous and kind. She is the quintessential giver and caretaker.
Now that you’ve had a small taste of Shiva and Shakti and a few of the many faces their personality are expressed through and the deeper meanings and context within the teachings meant to guide us, I hope we have ignited a little fire of resonance and inspiration in you.
We hope you enjoyed taking this journey through ancient texts with us and found some inspiration for your own.
Thank you for reading and happy writing!
- The Alethiology Editorial Team
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