The Union of Shiva and Shakti

Shiva and Shakti are two archetypal deities found in Yogic and Tantric teaching. Archetypal is a key word here, because if seen as such, they can provide us profound insight on the nature of reality. They are similar to concepts like Yin and Yang, Form and Emptiness, Heaven and Earth, and lend themselves perfectly for poetic expression, as a dramatic eternal love-story that expresses the metaphysics of this universe and consciousness.

In essence, they are non-secular, and they represent the two polar opposite, yet symbiotic forces of this universe—and of our own direct experience—which are the permanence of the present moment, and the impermanence of everything within the present moment.

Shakti is wild, untamable, unpredictable, beautiful, sensual, mesmerizing, and mysterious. She is the mother—and daughter—of all things, lovingly taking care, yet also able to sweep anything and everything away within less than a second if that is what she is moved to by her spontaneity.

She is nothing that the mind imagines her to be, and in fact, the more we try to conceptualize and understand her, the stronger a sense of estrangement grows, to a point where we feel completely disconnected from her.

Rationalizing Shakti, and trying to confine her into concepts and ideas, is the start of all suffering and confusion, and makes her natural intelligence and nourishment that she offers us whither away.


Feeling Shakti, and meeting her directly and intimately through our senses in each present moment, leads to the rediscovery of our innate wisdom, aliveness, and bliss.

Her polar opposite, and symbiotic counterpart, is Shiva, who just like Shakti, becomes veiled by our thoughts and imagination.

He is a mountainous silence, a stable and reliable presence, stainlessly loyal, free of judgment. There is nothing that he does not know, and no matter how difficult things get, he remains an infinite source of love and compassion that never leaves.

He is powerful beyond measure, the master of all things and all living beings, but without any pride, tyranny, or claim.

When Shiva’s presence gets veiled, the world gets veiled, darkness remains, and the word ‘love’ loses its meaning. Shakti withers, and the joy of their union is lost, reduced to merely a story of the mind told in folk tales and myths.

But when Shiva remembers who he is, and thus remembers Shakti, they both implode into ecstasy, an infinite love-making, returning all of creation back into balance, letting only love prevail.