Verities of Being, Part III: Shakta (8/17/25)
“Shakta” is Part III of a series of talks for the Theosophical Society of San Francisco.
In this Substack post, I have included the full text and accompanying slides for Part III. You will also find YouTube video of the talk itself at the end of this post.
To register for Part IV (9/21/25), via Zoom, use this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/.../register/ygrx3Z1ESHCR9muMtKrwDw
Oxford Languages
Shakti
1.the female principle of divine energy, especially when personified as the supreme deity.
I would say “OK, BUT, drop “principle” LOL and instead I would just say “Shakti is the Divine Female Energy, or the Cosmic Energy” then I would drop the “especially” and the “deity” and just say THE Supreme Goddess, so …
Shakti
1. the divine female energy, the supreme goddess
Meanwhile, Merriam Webster fails badly -
: the dynamic energy of a Hindu god personified as his female consort
broadly: cosmic energy as conceived in Hindu thought
Not “consort” - if any consort is in this, it would be the other way around
The “broad” definition is acceptable.
Although “conceived in Hindu thought” should really be “conceived in Hindu thought as experienced in Yoga (Asana, Flow, Tantra, Bhakti, Mantra)” or just “as experienced in Yoga (Asana, Flow, Tantra, Bhakti, Mantra)”
Merriam’Webster’s primary definition is dull-witted AND insidious
But it gets worse -
Dictionary.com & Collins American definition of Shakta or Sakta –
“a person who worships Shakti as the wife of Shiva”
Merriam Webster in a weird, pedestrian way is closer to the mark on “shakta” –
an adherent of Shaktism
“adherent” and “ism” don’t work for us, but still its closer
Also, the term “worship” is pretty square and pretty dualisitic
Here is some clarity from Sally Kempton -
… the true power of the feminine is the power of the Shakti. As an interior face, she exists equally in both women and men. Yet most of us are unaware of her, and therefore unaware of the creative potential of our lives. We begin to touch into Shakti when we tune into the energy inside our body. We go even deeper as we set ourselves to experience deeper forms of inner inspiration, and when we begin to listen to the guidance that can flow from the deepest core of ourselves …
The yogic teachings on Shakti are particularly relevant to this contemporary moment in human history … The word shakti literally means power. Shakti the innate power in reality, has five faces. It manifests as the power to be conscious, the power to feel ecstasy, the power of will, or desire, the power to know, and the power to act. All these powers come into play in the act of cosmic creativity, when divine intelligence spins a universe out of itself, much the way a human mind creates a dream or a fantasy on its own screen. The cosmic creation explodes in a Big Bang, and then evolves over millions of years as suns, planets, increasingly sophisticated life forms, and, of course, as human beings. All of reality, this tradition says, is Shakti’s dance. Shakti takes form as the biological processes of our body. She acts through our thoughts and the play of our emotions. She becomes every atom and dustmote in the physical world. We are, in our essence, made of Shakti. Her powers of consciousness, ecstasy, will, knowing, and acting are constantly at play both in ourselves and the world.
- Sally Kempton, “Shakti: Awakening the Powers of the Inner Goddesses,”
CIIS, 1/18/14
In talks and writings over the years, I have suggested that three most important symbols for our emerging global wisdom traditions are the Yin/Yang, the Triple Spirals of the Triune Goddess & the Shakti Yantra, and so here it is.
Now I am laughing to myself because I am now going to quote the Vedas.
There is a perverse pleasure in it I confess, just as in the first two of these talks, I briefly quoted the King James maybe three or four times.
The Vedas, after all, stand right there at the imposition of a false patriarchal narrative over the naked truth of our primal reality, the beginning, and for millennia now, this superimposed façade has warped the entrance way to the portal of what we really, essentially, primordially ARE, limiting our comprehension, our access, and our experience.
Nevertheless, OF COURSE, there is profound wisdom in the Vedas.
Consider this –
I am the Queen, the gatherer-up of treasures … They know it not, yet I reside in the essence of the Universe … I rouse and order battle for the people, I created Earth and Heaven and reside as their Inner Controller. On the world's summit I bring forth sky the Father: my home is in the waters, in the ocean as Mother. Thence I pervade all existing creatures, as their Inner Supreme Self, and manifest them with my body. I created all worlds at my will, without any higher being, and permeate and dwell within them. The eternal and infinite consciousness is I, it is my greatness dwelling in everything.
- Devi Sukta, Rigveda 10.125.3 – 10.125.8
Now, I have extracted this passage, I’ve scraped away language from around it, language, framing that I do not feel belongs in the 21st Century, in this time of the Great Shift, which is driven by, among a handful of other things, the Ascendancy of the Feminine.
But there it is, in the Vedas –
I pervade all existing creatures, as their Inner Supreme Self, and manifest them with my body. I created all worlds at my will, without any higher being, and permeate and dwell within them.
Oh, and the author of the Devi Suktam, this Rig-Veda text that speaks to me, a text foundational to both Shaktism and Advaita Vendanta?
Vak Ambhrini, a woman sage, a Rishika.
There are three different versions of how the Siva Sutras came to us
In late 8th Century or early 9th Century Kashmir
Some say Siva taught it to Vasugupta in a dream
Others say it was one of the Mahasiddhas that taught it to Vasugupta in a dream
The third version, the version I embrace, is that Siva told Vasugupta to go to the Mahadeva mountain, and that there he would find a rock with the Siva Sutras inscribed on it
That rock is still there. But there is no evidence of anything ever being written on it. Which makes perfect sense to me.
There are such stones throughout the world.
In “Wyrds of Power,” I wrote -
One happy memory I have is the few times I went to my grandmother’s house in the country. There was a big stone outside. It sat under a big tree, by the side of the road. While the muggles were inside doing whatever it is that muggles do, I would go out and sit on this stone, under this tree, out by the road. And they would come out, and ask, “What are you doing?” And I would answer, “I am meditating.” I have no idea how I even knew that word in that time, at the age. But I meant it. Sometimes they would come out there, and find me crouched against the big stone, with my ear to its surface. They would ask, “What are you doing now? And I would answer, “I am listening to the sound of stone.
Anyway, the Siva Sutras is THE Source, all of Kashimir Shaivism flows from it …
The legendary American sage Joe Miller and I studied the Siva Sutras and the three other vital texts that flowed from it, Pratyabhijnahridayam, Vijnanabhairava & Spandakarika, in the Millers’ living room, late at night, it was a language we used to communicate with each other, Joe would come across a particular stanza, or some bit of commentary on a particular stanza, and in the light of that particular sutra or commentary, we would discuss internal states one of us, or both of us had experienced, or were moving toward.
This was and is my anchor in this life.
Despite life’s many vicissitudes, despite all heartbreak & loss, through all life’s triumphs, & all of life’s failures, my understanding of it, and my respect for it, have only deepened over the decades since my Yoda’s passing.
I don’t recommend reading it, the best translations, Jaideva Singh for example, are very dry and technical. It is as if the text only opens, only reveals itself, if the internal state you are reading about or is imminent or has already arrived.
Anyway, looking at the title now, I tell you with absolute certainty that “Siva-Sakti Sutras” would be a more accurate title, and indeed, “Sakti Sutras” would be as apt as “Siva Sutras,” and indeed, & that’s how it presents itself in my psyche.
The Ultimate Reality is Prakasa and Vimarsa at the cosmic level, the planetary level, the species level, and yes, the level of the Primal Reality of what we each individually are.
Ultimate Reality = Prakasa and Vimarsa occupying the same space. Likewise, our Primal Reality Prakasa and Vimarsa occupying the same space.
And all that Tattvas and everything else flows from this …
In “Shadow,” the first of these four talks, I spoke of what I call the Table of Erroneous Correspondences, including the egregious “Yang / Sky / Male / Active” and “Yin / Earth / Female / Passive or Receptive.” LOL. That’s a table that needs to be fixed, LOL, it needs to be updated with new information.
These two images offer a striking contrast. Worthy of note. On the left, Kali striding over Shiva, dancing on Shiva, walking on Shiva. And this is not an uncommon image.
Shiva is prakasa, Shiva is consciousness, Kali is vimarsa, energy, shakti, movement, action, power, so awareness and energy, consciousness and power.
Kali is on top. Shakti is the top and Shiva is the bottom.
I hope they the the definition the dictionary folks at Oxford and Mariam Webster pay and American Collins are paying attention: prakasa and vimarsa.
On the right, Ardhanari.
It's an ancient image, BTW, half Shiva, half Shakti, both male and female.
In “Secret Engine of the World,” I invoked Ardhanari. I held it up as particularly 21st century, because it acknowledges that our ideas, our experience, our viewpoints in terms of gender is shifting and that is much more complex than the wa it is presented in the patriarchal texts and, in fact, much more fluid for many among us.
And now I realize it also just as important cosmically because it’s another way of representing our primal reality at the cosmic level: Shakti and Shiva of Picassa and Vamarsa of consciousness and energy.
Yes, the Deep Feminine, Shakti, has many other names and faces.
Not only within the Indian tradition itself, of course - Devi, Durga, Parvati, and others, all emanations of various aspects of Sakti - but also in diverse cultures and traditions throughout the world.
Isis, for example, the great Egyptian goddess of creative power and deep magic. Even their symbolisms are similar.
I love this 2nd century Isis with a serpent’s tail.
The serpent, particularly the coiled serpent, is an important symbol of Shakti.
And there are the Dark Goddesses East and West, North and South …
Here are Kali Yantra and Hecate’s Wheel, both emblematic of the Dark Goddess.
The 18th century Bengali poet Ramprasad sang -
“All creation is the sport of my mad Mother Kali; By her maya the three worlds are bewitched. Mad is She and mad is her husband … None can describe her loveliness, her glories, gestures, moods; Shiva, with the agony of the poison in his throat, Chants her name again and again. The personal does She oppose to the Impersonal, Breaking one stone with another …”
- Ramprasad quoted in Elizabeth U. Harding’s “Kali: Black Goddess of Dakshineswar,” Motilal Banarsidass, 2004
Hecate! Ancient Greek goddess of Night, Goddess of the Moon, Goddess of Magic, Goddess of Crossroads, Goddess of Necromany!
And regarding Hecate’s Wheel -
“The Strophalos, or Hecate’s wheel is an ancient Greek symbol, and is an emblem of the initiatory lunar Goddess Hecate (Diana Lucifera), and her triple aspect. Only one ancient source remains to shed any light on the emblem’s meaning. The second century Alexandrian text known as the Chaldean oracle describes the emblem as a labyrinthine serpent (emblematic of rebirth) surrounding a spiral, symbolic of the Iynges- “whirlings” or emanations of divine thought. Today, it is generally used by practitioners of Hellenic Recon or Dianic Traditions of Wicca as an emblem of religious identification. Other emblems of Hecate include torches, dogs (generally female), keys, serpents, and of course, the crossroads.”
– Dictionary of Symbols
I have added a new category – the Dark Green Goddesses.
It’s an important distinction, otherwise this can all get too internal.
Delineating the Dark Green Goddesses ensures that when we are talking about the Divine Intelligence and the Deep Feminine, we are doing so from within the Temple of Nature, which is after all the only place to make our stand.
And again, She has many names, many faces, East, West, North and South …
Here are three …
On the left, Yemọja, one of the Orisha.
“Goddess of Creation, Water, Motherhood, Rivers, Lakes, Streams, Wells, Pregnant Women, Fishermen, Shipwreck Survivors and Moonlight.” – Wikipedia
“Yemonja, also spelled Yemoja or Yemaja, Yoruban deity celebrated as the giver of life and as the metaphysical mother of all orisha (deities) within the Yoruba spiritual pantheon. Yemonja’s name is derived from the Yoruba words Yeye or Iya (‘mother’), omo (‘child/children’), and eja (‘fish’) and thus literally means ‘Mother whose children are the fish’ ...” – Britannica.com
In the middle, Pachamama, She IS the Andes, the very Being of the Andes
On the right, Gaia Herself
There is one Goddess who pre-exists the Pantheon, pre-exists our species, pre-exists all but herself, because all else is her creation. She is the ONLY truly IMMANENT Divinity, she was the forging of oceans, the flow of lava, the bacteria in a dark crevice organizing itself into the first neural network, & now many billions of years later whoever you are, when you look in the mirror you are seeing only Her. She is the Divine Intelligence. She Is both the Temple & the Oracle within It. Her name was taken from the ancient Mythoi by a 20th Century scientist. But only Her name, The rest of Her new narrative is composed of scientific fact, corroborated by shamanic vision. In the South of the Americas, She is known by another name, Pachamama. Gaia-Pachamama is the only Divinity which offers direct, irrefutable proof of Her own existence every moment of every day, in every place in all the world. – Richard Power, Gaia Talks, 2023
This composition came together randomly, but taking it in, as a whole, I realized that all three of these artworks emerged from the Scintillant Deep in the last half-century, the Yemoja in 1970, the Gaia in 2000 and the Pachamama in 2020.
The Great Shift is underway. The Great Shift to a Green, Woke, Feminist Civilization.
Oxford Languages defines Prana as “life force or vital energy.” I say the breath within breath, I say prana travels on the breath, I say the breath travels on the prana.
In yoga, prana is also one of five vayus (winds, breaths) – prana, apana, samana, udana, vyana. They’re all prana, of course. The vayus delineate the ways in which prana moves.
For example -
Upward Dog, Camel – Prana Vayu
Tree – Upana Vayu
Warrior II – Vyana Vayu
Malasana (Squat) - Samana Vayu
Downward Dog – Apana Vayu
Pranayama. The science of breath. Powerful practices
The glory of Ujjayi Breath – the engine of Ashtanga & Vinyana.
And then there is Ham Sah …
“The breath is exhaled with the sound sa, and inhaled with the sound ha. Therefore the empirical individual always repeats the mantra hamsah. Throughout the day and night, he repeats this mantra 21,600 times a day … The mantra hamsah is repeated by every jiva (living being) automatically in every round of expiration-inhalation. Normally, it is repeated 21,600 times a day. Since the outgoing and incoming breaths are repeated breaths repeat this naturally, automatically, without any effort on anyone’s part, it is known as ajapa-japa …” – Jaideva Singh, Siva Sutras
Ham the sound of exhalation, Sa the sound of inhalation
Ham Sah, So Ham, same …
The Swan is held up as the symbol of the Ham Sah.
(Actually, it’s the bar-headed goose, one of the world's highest-flying birds. It breeds in Central Asia, Tibet, Kazakhstan, and winters in South Asia, India …)
These three paintings are from series of twenty-four swan paintings that Hilda af Klint produced from 1914 to 1915. She was exploring light and dark, male and female …
Few people have heard of Hilma af Klint, let alone seen the hundreds of paintings and drawings that the 20th-century Swedish artist created. The art establishment ignored her and she barely sold a single work … As a clairvoyant and mystic, Af Klint believed that her abstracts were painted under the direction of higher spirits and that the world was not quite ready for her radical art, but she probably never foresaw such posthumous acclaim. She developed a vocabulary of triangles, squares, circles and spirals before Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich declared themselves the inventors of abstraction. While Kandinsky claimed to have created the first abstract painting in 1911, Af Klint had in fact beat him to it in 1906 … Af Klint studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, graduating with honours in 1887, only to break away from painting conventional portraits, landscapes and botanical studies … She found inspiration in mysticism and spiritualism of theosophy and anthroposophy. She attended spiritual gatherings with four female friends – in a group calling themselves “The Five” – exploring spiritual realms through meditation and seances. Believing that they could communicate with mystic beings, they transcribed their messages through automatic writing and drawing, experiments that predated the surrealists by decades. - Dalya Alberge, Hilma af Klint: Swedish mystic hailed as the true pioneer of abstract art, Guardian, 10/16/22
Merriam-Webster does well with the definition of Chi:
vital energy that is held to animate the body internally and is of central importance in some Eastern systems of medical treatment (such as acupuncture) and of exercise or self-defense (such as tai chi)
We could say Prana and Chi are the same, and it would be accurate.
But it is also accurate to say that are different.
I could have given just a look at Prana-Chi, rather than separate looks at Prana and Chi. I went this way, separate looks, because we principally access them in different ways. For example, Vinyasa and Pranayama versus Yin Yoga and Qi Gong.
Prana is harnessing wind power. Chi is like harnessing the power of the surf.
These two charts are from a marvelous resource, Between Heaven & Earth, A Guide to Chinese Medicine.
On the left, “Five Phase Yin-Yang Rhytms,” which shows “the stages of transformation that define all processes in nature.”
On the right, “The Rhythmic Circulation of Qi from Day to Night,” which shows how “Qi and Blood circulate con continuously in an orderly sequence from one Organ Network to the next throughout the day and night.”
In Yin Yoga, when we hold Saddle Pose for 5 minutes, we’re stimulating the Kidney Meridian in the sacrolumbar region, when we hold Wide-Kneed Child’s Pose for 5 minutes, as we pull the tissue of the inner thighs and groin, we’re working on the Liver Meridian, when we hold Dragonfly Pose for 5 minutes, were stimulating the Spleen Meridian as it flows up the inner thighs. These are just three examples, and each Yin pose works in more than one way, I just want to give you a brief glimpse into how it all flows.
The first book of Phillip Pullman’s brilliant His Dark Materials trilogy was originally entitled “Northern Lights.” And, indeed, the Aurora Borealis is integral to understanding the nature of the mystical “substance” (for lack of a more apt word) that Pullman calls “Dust.” I commend His Dark Materials to you, in all its iterations, in book form, in the 2007 film The Golden Compass, with Eva Green as Serafina Pekkala, Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter and Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra (like Harry Potter, one of the “Chosen Ones”), AND in the BBC streaming series, His Dark Materials, three seasons, twenty-four episodes (2019-2022).
“Witches have known of the other worlds for thousands of years. You can see them sometimes in the Northern Lights. They aren't part of this universe at all.” - Kaisa, Serafina Pekkala’s daemon to the gyptians on their boat, The Golden Compass
“The sight filled the northern sky; the immensity of it was scarcely conceivable. As if from Heaven itself, great curtains of delicate light hung and trembled. Pale green and rose-pink, and as transparent as the most fragile fabric, and at the bottom edge a profound and fiery crimson like the fires of Hell, they swung and shimmered loosely with more grace than the most skillful dancer.” – Phillip Pullman, The Subtle Knife
Well, OK, what does this all have to do with Madame Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine?
Fohat is something that I have wanted to unpack for you for quite a while now, and this talk on Shakti and Shakta offers the perfect framing.
Fohat is a term from the language BEFORE, before Sanskrit, before Tibetan, before …
In S.D., Vol. I, H.P.B. says it is “the key in Occultism which opens and unriddles the multiform symbols and respective allegories in the so-called mythology of every nation.”
When you read about Fohat in theosophical texts, you’ll read about Logos too. In my view, for our purposes, Fohat and Logos are equivalent to Shiva and Shakti and Prakasa and Vimarsa, i.e., Consciousness and Energy, at both the Macrocosmic and Microcosmic “levels.” (Again, “levels” like “substance,” I put in quotes and use for lack of a better word).
I urge not to indulge in any Adam’s Rib nonsense, just see Logos and Fohat as arising together out of the Nothingness, and thenceforth, occupying the same space, LOL, the legendary American sage Joe Miller might say “in connubial felicity,” i.e. Yab-Yum in coitus, as mentioned in the first talk in this series.
In S.D., Vol I, H.P.B. calls Fohat, “Cosmic Electricity.” She goes on to say “The ancients represented it by a serpent, for ‘Fohat hisses as he glides hither and thither’ (in zigzags).”
Furthermore, in her commentary on “The Voice of the Silence,” she refers to Kundalini as the “Fohatic power” foundational to everything in both the seen and unseen worlds.
Fohat, then, is the personified electric vital power, the transcendental binding Unity of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the mani- fested planes, the action of which resembles—on an immense scale— that of a living Force created by will, in those phenomena where the seemingly subjective acts on the seemingly objective and propels it to action. Fohat is not only the living Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by the Occultists as an Entity—the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising their influence on all those planes respectively. On the earthly plane his influence is felt in the magnetic and active force generated by the strong desire of the magnetizer. On the Cosmic, it is present in the constructive power that carries out, in the formation of things—from the planetary system down to the glow-worm and simple daisy—the plan in the mind of nature, or in the Divine Thought, with regard to the development and growth of that special thing. – H.P.B., S.D. Vol. I
“Fohat is not only the living Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by the Occultists as an Entity – the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising their influence on all those planes respectively . . . the primordial Electric Entity – for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an Entity – electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness.” – H.P.B., S.D., Vol. 1
But, uh, what does this have to do with the Aurora Borealis, i.e., the Northern and Souther Lights? Well, Blavatsky’s Fohat is Pullman’s Dust.
In S.D., Vol. I, H.P.B. calls the North and South Poles, “the two ends of the Egg of Matter.”
And she goes on to say –
“The agitation of the Fohatic Forces at the two cold ends (North and South Poles) of the Earth which resulted in a multicoloured radiance at night, have in them several of the properties of Akâsa (Ether) colour and sound as well.” . . . . . . “Sound is the characteristic of Akâsa (Ether) : it generates air, the property of which is Touch; which (by friction) becomes productive of Colour and Light.” . . .
– H.P.B., S.D. Vol. I
So, to be cryptic, poetical, and literal, all at once – at the Poles, above the Earth, but within our atmosphere, the veils slip, and we glimpse the naked beauty of Shakti.
I talk about the pathless path. I embrace the pathless path. I encourage the pathless path. And I am of the lineage of no lineage. That doesn't negate or push aside lineage or push aside the very well-worn paths, the institutionalized, the traditional paths.
I'm just saying I talk about the pathless path and the lineage of no lineage.
And I can't say you design your own path because that would be really foolish. But I can say that organically you live your life, and organically eyes open consuming, intellectually, somatically, experientially, karmically consuming. you organically develop your own path, your own way. Embracing those words of the Buddha, that Joe used to love quoting, “take what works for you and leave the rest.”
Lalla-Devi (aka Lalleshaw). Early 14th Century. One of the great poet saints of Kashmir.
Compelled into an abusive at the age of twelve, she wandered away in her early twenties. She studied with a Shaivite guru, but with her mystical awakening accelerating, she soon left him in the dust.
She traveled alone. Barefoot. Living on alms only. If you google her image, you will find countless depictions of her as a beautiful, modestly dressed woman, but Lalla-Devi walked naked in the world. Travelers would tell of encountering her in the forest. She would sing her poems to them.
Lalla-Devi’s ecstatic insights drift across space-time to nourish even now.
The great Coleman Barks (a friend and the publisher of Great Song: Life & Teachings of Joe Miller) has exquisitely rendered some of them in his Naked Song -
With passionate practices
I held the reins secure on my mind
and made the breath one column
Then the new moon’s clear nectar descended into me, nothing pouring into Nothing
What Tantra is and isn’t is a very important subject.
For me, Tantra isn’t about some version of “Kundalini” coiled up at the base of your spine, etc. Tantra is about the life of the five senses and about Psyche-Soma and about the alchemical processes that advance our evolution (both as individuals and as a species).
In Wyrds of Power, I wrote -
Tantra is being buried alive in rich soil only to realize that you are the root of the world, and that the warm brown decay is your nourishment. Tantra is being swept away in the fierce current of a great river that has overflown in banks, swollen with torrents of tears. The term "Tantra" is a survivor of abuse. It has been cruelly exploited. Tantra has been sold into slavery and then auctioned back to itself. Countless times. But Tantra is invincible. Its experience of its own nature is the very essence of healing. Tantra is a path of self-immolation in the smokeless fire of radical transformation. Tantra is the pain in pleasure and the pleasure in pain. Tantra is the wind; if it does not thrill through something else it has no sense of itself, ceaseless movement is its calm abidance. Tantra is a sacred technology. And like the many technological breakthroughs in medicine and computing made in the course of space exploration, Tantra is a by-product of the Great Goddess's engineering genius, just one of the many dazzling technological breakthroughs made in the course of Her Self Creation. The perfection of Tantra is savored in utter loneliness just as deeply as in sublime communion. Yoga and Tantra are the wings of a great bird. The bird cannot soar with only one wing. Tantra revels in the deep mysteries of gender in all its dazzling permutations. From deep inside the nature of suffering, Tantra opens a portal beyond. Tantra is discovering that "you" are the dark blue flesh of space itself and that all of this red life is contained within "you."
The Path of Love. Simply put. Love. Ishq. Agape.
Mirabai (aka Meera). 16th Century. One of the great Bhakti poet saints.
High-bone, Mirabai married a prince.
After he died in battle, her in-laws attempted to kill her.
But she danced off with Krishna. Her powerful songs celebrate that mystical union.
Sainted, Mirabai became a blazing beacon for a robust Bhakti movement, in all its health and vibrancy - democratic, diverse, inclusive, egalitarian, altruistic …
“The colors of the Dark One have penetrated Mira’s body; all the other colors washed out. Making love with the Dark One and eating little those are my pearls and my carnelians. Meditation beads and the forehead streak, these are my scarves and my rings. That's enough feminine wiles for me. My teacher taught me this. Approve me or disapprove me: I praise the Mountain Energy night and day. I take the path that ecstatic human beings have taken for centuries. I don't steal money, I don't hit anyone. What will you charge me with? I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders; and now you want me to climb on a jackass? Try to be serious.“
– Mirabai (Rendered by Robert Bly)
Merriam Webster’s “Baraka” definition’s is OK, a bit mugglish, a bit pedestrian, but factual -
a blessing that is regarded in various Eastern religions as an indwelling spiritual force and divine gift inhering in saints, charismatic leaders, and natural objects
I would say not just “natural objects” but spaces as well, physical spaces, literally, spaces that have been impressed, imbued with the grace of a great saint or sage, e.g., the French caves in which Mary Magdalene dwelled after she fled North, or by the overflowing, ceaseless current of Gaia’s own grace, Gaia’s own baraka, e.g., Yosemite.
In the upper left-hand corner is a photo I took at Uluru, in Australia, one of the most powerful places on Earth, I could literally feel the Rainbow Serpents coiling there, nesting there, as we circumambulated the immense sandstone monolith.
In the lower right-hand corner is a photo I took at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, in Portugal. I had a profound experience there too, I was there at the beginning of the war in Kosovo, I had lit one of the tall white candles and tossed it in, I was praying for NATO and the Supreme Allied Commander, I felt a presence next to me, I turned my head and met the piercing gaze of a very old, leathered-skinned Albanian women, truly a powerful crone, we look into each other’s souls, and then she vanished.
I remember seeing this photo of Mother Krishnabai, Mataji, when I first arrived in San Francisco, over half a lifetime ago. I learned that Samuel Lewis, the American Sufi murshid (AND a member of San Franciso Lodge of the Theosophical Society), had said she was the highest person living on the planet at that time. I understood immediately, viscerally.
And this was when I came to learn about the 36. From the legendary American sage, Joe Miller, as I say, “my Yoda.” A Kabbalistic teaching. There are always 36 beings in incarnation, literally holding it all together for humanity, simply by their presence, simply by being. Some are radiating and conscious of their roles, others are simply radiating, unconscious of their roles. I have been tuned into all of that ever since.
I have written about all of that in “I, Dragon.”
I just mention it here as an example of how Baraka humanifests, or woomanifests.
Guru’s Grace is Mataji’s autobiography. The book itself, any and every copy of it, IS literally an object permeated with Baraka. Blessing. Grace. Magnetism.
Not a word is spoken in Ron Fricke’s 1992 documentary Baraka. No narrative, no voice over. Filmed in twenty-four countries, on six continents, over a 14-month period.
Find it on-line. Watch if you haven’t. Re-watch it if you have.
It explains something that cannot be explained.
In Shadow, the first of these four talks, I spoke of several important mythoi including Star Wars, in terms of what Light and Darkness really are, in relation to each other, and within our psyche-soma, both individual and collective.
I mentioned that in my creative imagination, I saw a theme weave a new Star Wars trilogy, following this most recent one (Force Awakens, Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker).
In that fourth Star Wars trilogy, which starts with Rey returning to the remote island where the Library of the Jedi had been (before Yoda burned down), and where Luke had lived in seclusion until Rey found her way to him in The Force Awakens.
And in this first movie of my imaginary fourth Star Wars trilogy, Rey finds a notebook he had hidden there, a notebook that delineates a new paradigm for living and working in, with and through the Force, a notebook in which he sorts it all out, what Light and Dark really are, what Evil really is, all of it, a new dispensation for a new age …
I bring it up again here and now, because it occurs to me that all three of these talks address the subject matter of that hidden notebook, in Shadow, the truth about Light, Darkness and Evil, in Siddha, a litany of siddhis, i.e., powers, that all of us have, in-born, hard-wired, integral to our primal reality itself, and in this third talk, Shakti, the diverse ways that the Deep Feminine Cosmic Energy reveals itself and flows through of all creation on this particular planet, e.g., Prana, Chi, Fohat, Dust, Kundalini, Ishq, & yes, The Force.
Luke’s notebook would have several sections, one for each planet on which he had explored what he knew as The Force, and the many ways it offered itself to different species, cultures, and civilizations throughout the galaxy.
And something else occurred to me, as I prepared this talk for you, another entry in Luke Skywalker’s secret notebook, which as I said, was hidden away by him so it would be found by Rey at the perfect moment, that moment it would be needed most.
This something else concerns the narrative beautifully told in the movie Rogue One (2016) and the streaming series Andor (two seasons, 2022 and 2025 on Disney). Chronologically, Andor comes before Rogue One, so if you haven’t watched them yet, watch Andor first.
In the context of what we have been exploring in these three talks, this Star Wars spin-off narrative has a vital message. The characters you will come to love on this story line are resistance fighters, democracy restorers, but they were NOT Jedi, and yet they offer themselves up, they risk everything, they struggle to overcome fear, doubt and hopelessness, they lean forward like Tagore’s “bird that feels the light and sings while dawn is still dark,” their names were not known, many of their heroic deeds would go unchronicled, they triumphed even in defeat and despair, they succeed in stealing the Death Star’s schematics and in transmitting those plans to Leia and the rebel forces.
They gave their lives to get it down. Down the road, the schematics would lead to the Republic’s decisive victory over the Empire. They were not trained in the Ways of the Force, they could not levitate, or read minds, or deflect laser fire with light sabers. They just had their courage and desperation. They even strode into certain death, chanting "I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me, I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me, I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me … "
And so it was, and so it is. The Force was within them and did move through them.
We are all Siddha, we are all Shakta, IF we allow ourselves to live this life, in, from and through the primal reality of who and what we truly are.
VIDEO: Richard Power - Verities of Being, Part III: Shakta (8/17/25)
