Published by Jaico Publishing House
A-2 Jash Chambers, 7-A Sir Phirozshah Mehta Road
Fort, Mumbai 400 001
www.jaicobooks.com
Sally Kempton
Published in arrangement with
Sounds True, Inc.
413 S. Arthur Ave.
Louisville, CO, 80027, USA
www.soundstrue.com
AWAKENING SHAKTI
ISBN 978-81-8495-619-1
First Jaico Impression: 2015
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1 A Crown of Feminine Design: The Goddess Incarnates
CHAPTER 2 The Grand Tantric Narrative: Gods, Goddesses, and Worlds
CHAPTER 3 Durga: Warrior Goddess of Protection and Inner Strength
CHAPTER 4 Lakshmi: Goddess of Abundance and Good Fortune
CHAPTER 5 Kali: Goddess of Revolution
CHAPTER 6 Parvati: Goddess of the Sacred Marriage
CHAPTER 7 Saraswati: Goddess Who Flows as Language, Insight, and Sound
CHAPTER 8 Sita: Goddess of Devotion and Mystical Submission
CHAPTER 9 Dhumavati: Crone Goddess of Disappointment and Letting Go
CHAPTER 10 Radha: Goddess of Romantic Longing
CHAPTER 11 Chinnamasta: Goddess of Radical Self-Transcendence
CHAPTER 12 Lalita Tripura Sundari: Goddess of Erotic Spirituality
CHAPTER 13 Bhuvaneshwari: Goddess of Infinite Space, She Whose Body Is the World
EPILOGUE Dialoguing with the Goddesses
APPENDIX I The Goddess Families and Their Consorts
APPENDIX II Calling Out the Power in Mantra: Overview and Pronounciation Guide
APPENDIX III Quiz: Goddess Power in Action
APPENDIX IV Which Goddesses Are You?
Reader's Group Guide
Notes
Annotated Bibliography for Further Reading
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Illustrations
FIGURE 1 Chart of the Cosmic Hierarchy
FIGURE 2 Two Faces of the Goddess
FIGURE 3 The Goddess Durga
FIGURE 4 The Goddess Lakshmi
FIGURE 5 Vishnu and Lakshmi
FIGURE 6 Dancing Kali
FIGURE 7 Parvati/Shiva as ArdhanarishwaraThe Androgyne
FIGURE 8 The Goddess Parvati
FIGURE 9 Parvati as a Maiden Yogini
FIGURE 10 Shiva and Parvati with Their Sons, Ganesha and Kartikkeya
FIGURE 11 The Goddess Saraswati
FIGURE 12 Rama and Sita
FIGURE 13 Sita Sitting in the Fire
FIGURE 14 The Goddess Dhumavati
FIGURE 15 Radha and Krishna Entwined
FIGURE 16 The Goddess Chinnamasta
FIGURE 17 Lalita Sitting on a Bed Supported by Four Male Gods
FIGURE 18 Lalita and Shiva in Union
FIGURE 19 Bhuvaneshwari with the Cosmos in Her Body
FIGURE 20 The God and Goddess Family Tree
Acknowledgments
I offer profound appreciation to the students and friends who participated in my classes and teleconferences on the Goddess. Your attention, feedback, and friendship helped create this book.
Thanks to everyone at Sounds True who helped shepherd Awakening Shakti through the process, especially Tami Simon, Haven Iverson, Jennifer Holder, Elisabeth Rinaldi, Karen Polaski, Jennifer Miles, and Rachael Murray.
Andrea Ferretti, Haven Iverson, and Tami Simon read several of these chapters at an early stage, and made significant editorial suggestions. Kelly Notaras did a masterful job of editing the completed manuscript. My gratitude to them and to the others who gave important feedback: Karen Osborne, Marc Gafni, Constantina Rhodes, Rudy Wurlitzer, and Mark Schmanko.
This book is not a work of scholarship in the classical sense. As a Western devotee/practitioner, I stand with one foot inside the Indian tradition and another outside it. Ive interpreted these traditional texts and practices through a contemporary lens, often in the light of my own meditative experience. Im conscious that my interpretations are sometimes creative and often nontraditional. At the same time, I have tried to let the tradition live in me and speak through me, to let my story and the stories of the goddesses dance together. That said, Awakening Shakti could not have been written without the work of so many scholars, practitioners, and devotees whose writings and translations I have relied on to guide me through the thicket of Shakta literature and symbolism. I am especially grateful to the late David Kinsley, whose books Hindu Goddesses and Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine are foundational for anyone who studies the sacred feminine. Ive also been influenced by the writing of master Indologist Heinrich Zimmer and by Andrew Harvey, whose wonderful book Return of the Mother carries the Goddesss passion better than any I know. My friends Douglas Brooks and Constantina Rhodes always inspire me with their insights into how the mythic realms interface with the personal psyche.
Deep bows to all the sages and scholars whose works are cited in this book. Any mistakes Ive made through inattention or audacity are not your fault, but my own.
Special thanks to Yoga Journal and my editors thereKaitlin Quistgaard, Andrea Ferretti, Charity Ferreira, Hillari Dowdle, Shannon Sexton, and Kathryn Arnoldfor giving me such a privileged platform from which to write about issues of the inner life, for your editorial brilliance, and for publishing my first articles on the goddesses.
To Deb Buxton, my indispensible virtual assistant, for help on every front.
To my dear friend Marc Gafni, whose insight and precision help make everything I write better, and whose love and kindness always expands my heart.
My deepest gratitude to Swami Muktananda, who kindled the energy of the Goddess inside me and showed me how to revere her inner forms.
To Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and all the other lovers of the divine Mother, whose devotion helps reveal her to the world.
To the goddess Matangi, who translates the Goddesss subtle wisdom into the earthy language of daily experience, and whose shakti pervades this book.
Above all, to the most personal of all forms of the Goddess, my inner lover, guru, and guide, Chiti Kundaliniby whose grace we are, in the end, set free.
CHAPTER 1
A Crown of Feminine Design
The Goddess Incarnates
I am the sovereign queen, the treasury of all treasures,
whose breathing forth gives birth to all the worlds and yet
extends beyond themso vast am I in greatness.
DEVI SUKTA (Praise Hymn of the Goddess) from the Rg Veda
If there is to be a future, it will wear a crown of feminine design.
AUROBINDO GHOSE
O ne October night in rural India, I fell in love with the Goddess. It happened on the second night of a festival called Navaratri, which celebrates the divine feminine as the warrior Durga, slayer of the demons of ego and greed. Like so many festivals in India, Navaratri is both a big party and an occasion for mystical communion with the divine. Women put on their most gorgeous clothes; temples overflow with worshippers. Nights are filled with dancing and storytelling. People have heightened, even visionary, experiences of the energy that the festival invokes.
