Śakti

Śakti means “power” or “energy”. In Hindu thought it is the creative power of the divine, and in the Śākta traditions it is worshipped as the Goddess herself, in forms such as Durgā, Kālī and Lalitā, the supreme reality on which even the gods depend.

In the Śaiva traditions, Śakti is the inseparable power of Śiva: as heat is to fire, so Śakti is to Śiva, and without her he would be inert. The Tantric traditions picture their relation as the union of the god and the goddess, and much of their practice seeks to awaken Śakti within the body and reunite her with Śiva. In Kashmir Śaivism, Śakti is Śiva’s freedom (svātantrya) and self-awareness, through which the one consciousness manifests as the world.

Śakti makes the ultimate active and personal rather than silent and remote. Its devotees speak of the divine as mother, and of the world not as an illusion but as her play.