By Paige Leigh Reist┃Posted: February 10, 2019
Humans are natural scientists: we love to discover, explore, and categorize the world. But this instinct to categorize can sometimes lead us to create stringent boundaries for what we believe: for instance, masculine means strong, and feminine means gentle: without exception or flexibility. These strict social boundaries and beliefs may have helped our ancestors form their identities, but in the long run, as humanity continues to awaken, these boundaries are incredibly limiting for our spirits.
Mona Shah Joshi, a senior director of Art of Living, spoke recently at the Spiritual Living Center in Atlanta on the illusion of dichotomy, and the true, interwoven nature of our spirits and the larger world.
Here’s a great excerpt from Mona’s talk on Shakti, the feminine energy of the universe--and how that traditionally compassionate, soft, and nurturing feminine energy actually exists in harmony with strength, wisdom, power, and justice, too.
Shakti: the feminine principle
“The female energy, let’s spend a moment there. Shakti, in India, is known as strength. And it’s Shakti, this goddess energy, that pervades the entire universe. The common word for strength is also Shakti, whether it’s inner strength or outer strength.
Shakti is often depicted in three different forms. Though Hinduism is a monotheistic religion, it has various symbols of gods and goddesses to represent the totality of the human experience, or divinity itself. One form of Shakti is the goddess Durga. She is mother divine, compassionate love incarnate. And yet, she’s fierce. She rides a tiger. On the one hand, she’s so soft. On the other hand, she’s the one who fights in this world for justice, the destroyer of evil. Courage with compassion.
Another representation of that energy of Shakti is the goddess Lakshmi. Lakshmi is depicted with a lotus flower in her hand, and standing on a lotus. She represents wealth and wellness, both of which are a little ephemeral, a little unstable. She’s depicted on water, which is also unstable--not solid, like a tiger, or a rock.
The third representation of Shakti is the goddess Saraswati, which represents knowledge and wisdom. She’s depicted sitting on a rock, which symbolises that once you have knowledge, it can never leave you. She represents knowledge in all forms. She’s depicted playing a veena, a sitar-like instrument--today, if they were to redo her, she’d probably be typing at a keyboard! She has rosary beads in one hand. She has many hands, because women--let’s be honest! These rosary beads represent meditation. This energy, Shakti, is said to pervade the entire universe.
Sri Sri once said at an International Women’s Conference that we have every few years, that a woman represents courage with compassion, abundance with values, valor with love, and wisdom with vision. In her, he said, lies the seed of the most powerful social transformation. We’re not just one thing as human beings. All of us have these qualities, because we have both that strength with love, fierceness and compassion. How do we bring a balance between the two? One way is to stop seeing this as a dichotomy. Seeing things as one thing or the other, because that’s not the experience of our life, is it? What if we start seeing things as these opposite values are not really opposite in nature, but in fact, complementary?”
Mona also talks about the literary and mythological tradition of the Hero’s Journey--and how we can take our own Hero’s Journey deep inside to find true and lasting transformation. Check out the full video for more wisdom on finding equilibrium and celebrating the inclusive dual nature of all of life!
The next International Women’s Conference by Art of Living will be on February 14-16, 2020. To experience the Power of She, stay tuned for more details at www.artofliving.org/iwc. Save your spot and avail an Early bird discount by 31st Oct 2019.
Paige Leigh Reist is a writer, editor, blogger, and creative writing instructor.
