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Ultimately, without each other, shiva and shakti are only half useful. In fact shakti is a bit more useful alone than shiva. It is said that shakti can function to a degree without shiva (as evidenced in acts of nature), but shiva cannot function at all without shakti. Our body is a prime example. It can pump blood, breathe and digest food automatically (prana shakti), it can even lie in bed and think (manas shakti) without being told to, but it cannot get out of bed in the morning without a conscious choice (shiva) motivating or willing it to do so. The body is somewhat useful on its own but the conscious choice (shiva) is useless in itself without an active body (shakti) to manifest that choice in. This basic observation equates with the fact that thinking something does not make it happen. One must then manifest that thought consciously and enact it into being.
At the human level, shakti is all our energy in all its forms. As explained previously in the pranayama section, the total of our energy (maha shakti) can be again divided into two parts - physical (prana shakti) and mental (manas shakti). All parts of our body, even our thoughts, are just energy. Thoughts have been shown to be nothing other than nervous impulses or tiny lumps of electrical matter. They are all just energy in different forms and are subject to the same laws of physics as bigger matter.
Shiva is our consciousness, our awareness, our knowingness (not the knowledge itself) - that element which is called "higher mind" , as distinct from the brain, the thoughts, and the mechanical thinking, feeling parts. Yes, it is meta-physical; yes it is esoteric; and yes, it can be known and proven by the practise of the age-old meditation techniques.
To think of shakti simply as representing women, and shiva as simply representing men would be a gross misinterpretation. Neither would it be true to assume that women are composed mainly of shakti and men mainly of shiva. Tantra maintains that all of us are varying mixtures of each element, and that in order to grow, to evolve, to become more whole, we must find within us our own source of shakti-ness and shiva-ness, and then use both these qualities for greater spiritual wholeness in conjunction with worldly purposes.
Shakti is described as a goddess, (the female aspect of complete God-ness) not because she should just do all the work as told to by Shiva! Rather, it is because the nature of energy and matter is like a
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giant cosmic womb, a mother vessel which contains all things in potential state.
Shiva is described as a god, (a male aspect of complete God-ness), not because men are better thinkers or should spend their whole day in states of supreme consciousness, but because the nature of higher mind and consciousness is more like a giant cosmic phallus which penetrates matter, giving it the spark of ojas (or spiritual semen) to replicate itself. It is indeed strange how the common modern stereotypes - where women are meant to be the weaker sex, obedient to the man - are so completely reverse of the tantric Goddess and earth mother philosophies. In truth, it is Shakti who really has the balls! The tantric term for the female reproductive organs is yoni. More broadly it means anything which is womb-like where the needs of consciousness to express itself can be satisfied. Geometrically it is symbolised as a downward pointing triangle similar in shape to both the pubic area, uterus and pelvis.  Three dimensionally, it is symbolised as a golden egg, (Hiranyagarbha) the cosmic womb. By either representation, the yoni contains an enormous storehouse of potential reproductive and regenerative energy. It typifies a woman in that she is able to nurture those who approach her and that she is the reproducer of her species.
The term for a male's penis is lingam. Lingam most correctly means the "causal body of Shiva", that is, the thing which is the cause of reproduc-tion, (yeah, and the thing which causes so much trouble for women in this area)! Geometrically it is |
