GENDER, SHAKTI AND KASHMIR SHAIVISM

The last few years I have found myself very interested in Shakti, the goddess, and the exploration of female archetypes.  I have taken three classes at LMU with Laura Amazzone around the Southeast Asian Goddess Traditions, co-hosted a monthly Goddess circle at my yoga studio, made yantras, recited mantras, and have done a lot of exploratory writing and art on the Goddess.

I have been working with Shakti in a personified way by relating myself to different goddesses.  I am especially attracted to goddesses: Matangi, Tara, Kali and Saraswati. But Kashmir Shaivism seems to me to take Shiva and Shakti out of the personified God and Goddess forms into a more abstract identity.

Verse 3 of the Bodhapancadasika: Fifteen Verses of Wisdom reads  “Shiva and Shakti are not aware that they are separate. They are interconnected just as fire is one with heat.”

Firstly, I want to explore who is Shiva. In Kashmir Shaivism the “ . . . Śiva that we are talking about here is referred to in the verse as Parameśvara, or Paramaśiva, i.e., supreme Śiva, and this is the Śiva that we relate to the supreme light of consciousness. Now, if you go to India, you can go to a temple. . . where you will find they’ve got statues of Śiva . . . you can find pictures of Śiva with Parvati and Ganesh, their son. These are much lower forms . . . we are not talking about that Śiva here. This idea of Śiva in Kashmir Shaivism, we have to make sure that we are not picturing Śiva in an embodied form there, because we are talking about Śiva as the light of consciousness.”  (Webinar One, Kashmir Shaivism and The Transformation of Life)

As for Shakti, according to Swami Lakshmanjoo:  “It was necessary for Śiva to recognize that Śakti within himself in order to create the universe. . . . Shakti is the whole universe. And from where this universe comes out is Shiva….This state of Lord Shiva and the state of the universe is interconnected with each other.”  

For me, Shakti has always meant the goddess and feminine energy of the life force that pulses within. And this definition of Shakti as the the whole universe is a new concept.

In The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition, Tracy Pintchman traces the origins of the Shakti. “In the Rig Veda , there appear to be two distinct meanings of the term : shakti denotes either “ability, power, capacity.” or “help, service.”   In the Svetasvatara Upanishad 4.1 there is one supreme god who is described as bringing about the manifestation of the diverse world by applying his power or shaktis.  In the Kumarila Bhatta, Shakti is the power inherent in all objects that determines the relationship between cause and effect.

Pintchman explains that it is not until the rise of Tantraism that Shakti becomes associated with the feminine.

In Tantra, the Absolute, although essentially singular, is understood to have female and male aspects.

The female aspect is that of energy or Shakti. The male aspect of God cannot act alone but needs his energy, his Shakti, with whom he is inseparably united.

Therefore, the supreme Shakti without whom God would be incapable of action, is ultimately responsible for the creation or manifestation of the cosmos. The created world arises through coupling of God and Goddess, Shiva and Shakti.

In Kashmir Shivaism, Shiva is the Absolute being or Source.  Shiva out of a kind of play (svatantrya) divides himself from Shakti and then reunites with her and controls the universe through her.

The Shakti I have been exploring before this course comes out a binary model of Shiva-Shakti or  masculine-feminine energies.  “The idea that the great male gods all possess an inherent power by which or through which they undertake creative activity is assumed in medieval Hindu mythology. When this power, or Shakti, is personified it is always in the form of a goddess.”

Through this course, I understand that we are all Shiva and Shakti. And in the teachings of Kashmir Shaivism, since Shakti is part of Shiva, then we are all Shiva. “. . . there is only Śiva. In fact, Śiva and Śakti , that’s Śiva and his energies, that’s only one reality. That’s not two things. It’s not Śiva and then there is Śakti as a dualism, it’s one reality, like two sides of a coin. It’s one being.”
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I have been thinking a lot about gender over the last year.  Especially after I worked on the television show Transparent.  My experience of gender before Transparent was that people were either gay, straight, or bi-sexual.  That was my understanding of the world and it seemed complicated enough but very manageable.  I knew straight people, I knew gay people and I knew bi-sexual people.  Then I did Transparent and I learned of a whole other world that existed of transgender people.

I was assigned a transgender assistant, Van.  She was very blonde, pretty and sexy.  But her name was Van and her voice was deep.  In the beginning, I kept referring to Van as “him” or” he”, even though in a transgender sensitivity training I was told that you use the pronoun that goes with how people present themselves.  Since Van was dressing as a woman I should have been saying “she” or “her”.

 My subconscious mind went to the sound of her voice, which she didn’t try to soften, and to her other masculine characteristics.  Later, she explained to me that her ideology was that it wasn’t necessary to have a girl’s name or make a more feminine voice.  She was happy with who she was and those affectations were not necessary.

Once after a long period of work, Van and I both had to go to the bathroom.  The bathrooms on the TV show Transparent had been declared gender neutral.  It was explained to the crew that a very difficult thing for transgender people is going to the bathroom because there is no appropriate bathroom for them and they are shamed in either bathroom they chose. So as I got to the bathroom Van entered first and hiked up her mini skirt and peed in the urinal.  I was shocked spying a penis coming out of a denim cover.  I went to the closed stall to urinate and think.  I hadn’t realized that Van still had a penis.  I had thought that she would have had it surgically removed.

Another time, when I thought it was appropriate I asked Van about her penis.  I am not sure the exact wording I used, but I inquired if she was going to get rid of it.  She told me that she would never get rid of her penis. She enjoyed it very much and it was a part of her.  She even discussed further that some men found a pretty female with a penis to be very erotic. In sexual encounters, they enjoyed her in both her masculine and feminine aspects. So this was all news to me.  At this moment, I realized what different worlds Van and I were living in and how little I knew about hers.

As I learned more about the transgender world and discovered that Facebook now has 58 gender options.  I began to understand that gender is not simple or manageable.  In fact, gender is very messy, personal and individual. Going beyond the dualism of male and female and embracing the monistic idea that we are all Shiva seems to be more appropriate for this multi-faceted world.

As I contemplate the third verse of the Bodhapancadasika,

I think about how the Shiva and Shakti exist within me.

I know that I am allegedly Shiva and I know that I am not fooling myself in thinking that I am Shiva when I achieve a blissful state.  But I am not blissful.  I am not happy with my career which takes up a huge part of my life. I don’t have enough time for my yoga practice. I am dissatisfied in general. But I do truly believe in self-realization being part of this world as John says in webinar six “Shaivism, our tantric tradition, is that we see that the world is really made, as we discuss again and again, that the world is made for realization, that the tools of the world, of Lord Shiva’s śhaktis (energies) are the tools that we take to have that reality, and that includes vision and tasting and hearing and walking and all the aspects  . . . that we have in this world. All of those aspects can be used as ways of having that realization or finding that divine reality, which we are.”

I am beginning to realize that the life I am living is full of binaries that I don’t fit into: black/white, male/female, gay/straight.  The binary system doesn’t leave enough room for diversity, intricacies, gray area and specificities. The ideas that we are all Shiva, and there is Shakti in all of us, and Shakti and Shiva are inseparable seems to leave more room for everyone (including myself) and be completely inclusive.

I am not ready to nor interested in  giving up my non Kashmir Shaivite version of Shakti.  I will continue my investigation and celebration of the Goddess, but as I do it, I will now have the awareness that beyond Goddess there is a higher form where we are all one with Source (referred to by some as Lord Shiva).  And I am reminded of the quote from Galatians 3:28:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for  you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Yoga Nidra Script - Dream Exploration

DREAM EXPLORATION YOGA NIDRA

Internalization: Gross to Subtle – Stage 1 – 3 minutes
a) Remove wrist watches, glasses and anything tight on the body
b) Get a blanket, pillow under head, support for knees, get as comfortable as possible
c) “It is best to stay still during the practice ..but if you have to move, move mindfully and quietly and come back to stillness as soon as possible.”
d) Awareness of body and breath
e) Say to yourself mentally “I am practicing Yoga Nidra . . . I will stay awake for Yoga Nidra.”
f) Body preparation – alignment of the body
g) Release for Gross tensions – 3 deep breaths – say to yourself “letting go”
h) Awareness of the body – body floor contact points, body parts supported
i) Sounds around you – far to near
j) Awareness of breath – sound of breath in the nostrils
k) Awareness of the heartbeat

Sankalpa
a) Short positive statement in present or future tense
b) If you do not have a Sankalpa /Resolve or intention or today’s practice say “I will stay awake for Yoga Nidra”
c) Repeat 3 x with the exact same wording

Body Rotation – Stage 2 – 6 minutes
a) Same rotation each time
b) Good pacing
c) Right side, Left Side, Front, Back, Major Parts.  Whole Body

Breath  Awareness – Stage 3 – 4 minutes
a) 2 minutes Noticing the rise and the fall of the breath at the navel
b) Counting backwards from 9 to 0
c) If the count is lost start again at 9
d) If the count reaches 0 begin again at 9
e) Stay with the counting minutes at the navel
f) Stay with the breath at the navel
g) 2 minutes noticing rise and fall of the breath at the chest
h) Noticing the rise and the fall of the breath at the navel
i) Counting backwards from 9 to 0
j) If the count is lost start again at 9
k) If the count reaches 0 begin again at 9
l) Let go of the counting
m) Let go of the awareness of the breath at the chest

Opposites
a) Heavy
b) Light
c) Heavy
d) Light

Visualizations
It is time to re-enter your dream you are working with today. The dream you are painting is this workshop.

Enter the dream as if you were entering a familiar place
- Go to any location within the dream
- Maybe where the dream began
- Maybe another place in the dream
- Walk through the dream
- What do you see?
- What does it look like?
- Are the colors vibrant or dull?
- Is it crowded or spacious?
- Is it dark or light?
- Do you see anything that you did not see before
- What does it smell like?
- What does it taste like?
- What do you hear?
- Who else is there
- Who do you meet?
- Approach anything and anyone who can offer information about the questions you have and ask them about your dream
- Ask them questions like: who are you?  Why are you here? What are you wearing?
- Ask them about anything that you don’t understand

2nd Sankalpa
a) Time to repeat your Sankalpa
b) If you do not have a Sankalpa or intention for today’s practice  use again the Sankalpa “I will stay awake for Yoga Nidra”
c) 3 x with the exact same wording and the belief that it will come true

Externalization – Stage 4 – approximately 3 minutes
a) Awareness of Breath
b) External Environmental  Awareness – Sounds – near to far
c) Remember . . room, ceiling, walls, floor
d) Awareness of the Body – Body floor contact
e) Repeat the Practice is over
f) Begin to move – wiggle toes and fingertips, roll wrists and ankles,
g) Make movements larger but be mindful of what is around you
h) Roll over to fetal position and take 3 deep breaths
i) Push up to seated and join me in the chanting of Om

Creativity Coaching - Lesson 5 - How to better join with yourself to support your creative efforts an creative life?

I think what would help me better join with myself to support my creative efforts and creative life?

a) Journaling

I feel more centered and joined with myself when I journal.  I consider answering these questions as part of my journaling process.  I liked the idea the person in your example did with having a separate journal for inner critic. That is something I may play with.

b) Doing Yoga

I get a lot of my most creative ideas in savasana at the end of yoga.  My stress level inhibits my creativity and yoga is one of the biggest destressors I know.

c) Meditating Consistently

When I meditate consistently I really change. I am more positive.  I feel better and my creativity as it a higher level.  I also hear less negative criticizing self talk.

Matangi and Me

om hrīṁ aiṁ śrīṁ  namo bhagavati ucchiṣṭacāṇḍāli  śrī mātaṅgeśvari sarvajanavaśaṁkari svāhā

“Reverence to Adorable Matangi, the outcast and residue, who gives control over all creatures.” (Frawley, p.143)

I have been exploring the Southern Asian goddess for three semesters in the LMU Yoga Philosophy Certificate program.

  Of all the goddesses I learned about so far Matangi is the one that resonates the most with me. She is called on to achieve command over speech, creativity, music, knowledge, and fine arts and to remove disharmony and achieve harmony in life.  For me, what is most important about Matangi is that she is both goddess of arts/creativity as well as being an untouchable, dark Sarawati.  As a brown artist yogini interested in creativity and the creative process,  Matangi and I connected.

“Matangi is the dark mystic, ecstatic or wild form of Saraswati. . . Saraswati is often a goddess of only ordinary learning, art and culture. Matangi rules over the extraordinary, which takes us beyond the boundaries of convention…She is that part of Sarasvati that is allied with the transforming energies of Kali.” (Frawley 1994: 140)

In the many descriptions of Matangi, she holds in her four hands: a noose, a sword, a goad and a club. I think of the noose as an instrument to hang the demons and deterrents to my creative process and personal growth including getting in my own way. The noose may kill my scared self-deprecating self in order to make room for the new, true and authentic self. The sword cuts through fears and opposition and allows me to be the heroine of my own story filled with strength and fearlessness. The goad, like a hook, encourages me to move forward and remove all obstacles and troubles from my dharmic path. The club, one of the simplest of all weapons, reminds me to trust my intuition, celebrate my primitive nature, and to stay strong against self-doubt and any other enemies. The club also symbolizes my devotion and surrender to a higher power.

Another of my strong identifications with Matangi is her status as an untouchable.

I consider myself in many ways untouchable because I am mixed race and not just mixed race but a combination of black and Jewish, two things that a lot of people don't like (or even hate).

Caste painting of a mulatto marriage

 I was in India traveling through some villages around Jodhpur my host pointed to the untouchable camp with disdain and disparaging words and all I could think was: they are me.

That's what people say about black people in America (especially in the past, but still in the present).  I explained to my host how in the 60s there were different water fountains for blacks and whites and how if a "colored" person went into a white person's swimming pool, the whole pool would have to be drained and scrubbed to get our pollution out.

White man throwing bleach into a swimming pool with blacks in it

When I was looking for places to study yoga in India, I hated all the schools that wrote this teacher was a Brahman, blah, blah.. I thought what do I care about that, I want to go to a school where the teacher is a Dalit like me.  I don't want to hear about how pure anybody is.   What do I care about that? I am not pure. I am not seeking purity. Everything is not pure - a dirty Jew, a lazy n word - that's me.  THAT'S ME!!

 In America, I always have identified with being both the pollution and the polluter. Being a black/Jewish artist yogini, to find a goddess who is an outcaste and a goddess of creativity helps me not feel so alone and isolated.

Matangi urges me to go very deep into self- exploration, explore my darkness and find my unique voice that comes out of my personal narrative. “Matangi represents the power of women’s creative voices to overturn or unsettle the patriarchal patterns of accepted female behaviours and opinions. She pushes the boundaries and extends the limits of our horizons so that when we manifest the power of our creative energies, we can express what has previously been prohibited or reviled, and we can reveal what has been hidden and forgotten.” (Dinsmore-Tuli)

 Matangi is yama, the dark one. She encourages me to slow down and just sit and rest. “Creativity may involve ecstatic outpourings that are joyous and free, but it always also involves spending time in uncertain places which are frightening and unknown, times when all there is to do is to wait (for the seeds to germinate), for the bread to rise, for the editor to get back with the comments on the manuscript). All these, aspects of creativity are part of the process.  Matangi’s great power is to be equally at home in all these phases.” (Dinsmore-Tuli, p. 309-310)

Matangi is worshipped with "food from stained hands and lips,” which is a huge reversal of Hindu rituals that are usually obsessed with purity. She asks for leftover food, which is normally considered highly polluting, because she emerged from leftover food. I find a great relief in embracing what is not pure and exploring the darkness, the wild eroticism, being untamable, going beyond those places any of us would mention in polite conversation and experiencing the creativity that is there is what I want to do (and may in fact be doing). “Her special siddhi is the capacity for abundant creativity and the expression of unique vision.” (Dinsmore-Tuli, p. 309)

  Matangi is beautiful and unapologetically sexual. One of her names according to Kinsley is “she whose limbs are intoxicated (with passion).”  Mata means thought, opinion, wild, and passionate. “Creativity and sexuality are two sides of the same coin.” (Dinsmore-Tuli, p.309)  Matangi is an avatar of  Parvati when she dressed as an untouchable to seduce Shiva.For me this seduction story reminds me of the desire for the Other in both passionate and horrible ways.

I think of the inestimable rapes of black women in America during slavery and beyond by white men, as well as, loving mix raced relationships that were not legal in all of the US until 1968.  I think of the countless rapes of Dalit women in India.

Matangi is also about using our sexuality when we (as women) want not for the power, pleasure or spiritual awakening of men.

Matangi brings awareness of the ebb and flow of the creative process.  We can’t force ourselves to create when it is not the time. “Just as there is no point in pressing a woman for sexual intercourse if she is too tired, or too premenstrual or otherwise at the wrong time of her particular cycle, so too there is no point in pushing for productivity in the reflective or evaluative phase of the creative cycle.” She reminds us to be in the present moment and take it for what it is. Her seat in the human body is the throat, the fifth chakra. It is in the throat chakra that we speak our truth. “She also resides in the tip of the tongue, the place wherein speech is articulated and wherein we are able to taste the essence of things.” (Frawley, p.142) In addition, Matangi, the elephant goddess, is related to the ear and our ability to listen and understand.

According to Kinsley, Matangi has a few other origin stories besides the Parvarti-Shiva seduction. The first form is a Buddhist tale about hunter Matanga and his daughter Prakrti (an early form of Matangi) who falls in love with Ananda.  Ananda first encounters Prakrti when he is looking for water. She refuses to give him water because of her low caste. Ananda responds “I am not asking you what your caste is, I am only asking for water.” Affirmed as a person who is not just an outcaste, she becomes instantly enamored.  Prakrti uses her mother’s magic to attract Ananda, who falls for her but later resists her with the help of the Buddha. Impressed by the power of the Buddhist teachings, Prakrti becomes a Buddhist nun.

There is also the story Uccista-mantangi, who animates from remnants of the food Vishnu and Lakshmi gave Shiva and Parvarti  at a dinner party. Shiva blesses her with the ability to grant people to control their enemies and obtain objects of their desire by repeating her mantra.  Matangi is also sometimes considered the daughter of the Rishi Matang/Matanga and she was given to him as a boon for his merits as a sage. “Playing a ruby-studded vina, ecstatic, delighting in sweet speech, I remember the daughter of the sage Matanga, who has soft dark- emerald limbs.” (Frawley, p.142)

Because the guru instructs through the spoken word, Matangi represents the teachings of a guru and the guru tradition. “Matangi’s voice is brave and terrifying to those who are constrained by fear to live their lives according to propriety and expectations.  She rattles people, pokes holes in their comfortable boxes of convention, and embarrasses the cowed and silent by singing loud and clear.” (Dinsmore-Tuli, p.312) In several festivals, Matangi is the jester.  She is like the boy in the story The Emperor’s New Clothes who says the emperor is naked. “…. her status as an outcaste gives her the power to inhabit the outer regions of consciousness where no-one else will go, to say outrageous and alarming things, to be vilified, despised and humiliated, and through it all to remain surrendered with a clear pure heart so that what needs to be manifested can find its way out.” (Dinsmore, p. 309-310)

“The Tantrasara at several points says that by meditating upon, reciting the mantra of, or worshipping Matangi one gains power over others, the power of having everything one says come true, and the power of attracting people.” (Kinsley,  p.220) As a yantra maker, I will connect with Matangi by making her yantra.

In Harish Johari’s Tools for Tantra, I learned about the form and colors in Matangi’s yantra. The bhupur is dark olive green perhaps reminding us of her connection to the forest and the wild. The yantra’s eight petaled lotus symbolizes the eight fold prakriti (the five elements and the three internal organs. The colors of the lotus petals are pink, which I consider the color of the yoni and remind me of our sexual nature and the connection between sexuality and creativity. The yantra has a six pointed light yellow ochre star with a touch of emerald green and is set in a neutral white background. The six pointed star is a union of Shiva and Shakti, masculine and feminine, and represents our human place between heaven and earth. The yellow ochre perhaps represents  turmeric and the power of the sun and the green the Anahata chakra. The golden bindu represents Matangi herself.

And as for Matangi and me, our journey together,  I am sure she will always be with me. I don't know how I have lived 45 years without knowing her.  But I have found her now. Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to my life Matangi!  Please come in, the door (or the yoni) is open!

om aiṁ namaḥ ucchiṣṭacāṇḍāli mataṅgi sarvasaśaṁkari svāhā

Books that I cite:

Tantric Yoga and the Wisdom Goddesses by Dr. David Frawley

Yoni Shakti by Dr. Uma Dinsmore-Tuli

Tools for Tantra by Harish Johari

Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas by David Kinsley