I Am Shakti

The author of this remarkable book is a former nun, teacher of Ayurveda, humanitarian, and world peace activist promoting the principles of ahimsa. Her exploration of the universal feminine power of Shakti draws on both her own transformative experiences as a wounded healer, including recovery from cancer, as well as scripture. The first part is about brokenness, and the second on how to heal. Her current phase is rising beyond the physical longing for love into a sublimation of trust, trusting that ‘my new life will unfold precisely as it is intended.’ We are also part of Earth intelligence, and can share her immense burden and grief. As she emphasises, ‘it is imperative that we transcend the state of me-ness and otherness and merge into the higher plane of love consciousness. The perishing Earth is in desperate need of the vibration of love.’ (p. 55) Indeed! Then there is the mother wound to address, as well as the feminine and masculine divide, and the primordial fear of the feminine. Maya explains this socially in a penetrating chapter on the deification of the feminine in religion, politics, and society; this is especially relevant in terms of war and the systemic promotion of violence.

At a deeper level, there is a seamless connection between creation and destruction, dark and light, night and day, Shiva–Shakti, Yin–Yang, a paradox operating as a continuum flow in the universe seeking a dynamic and harmonious state of balance and coherence. There is a good chapter on the role of sexuality in consciousness, whereby ‘the lingam’s imprint in a man’s body is meant to be directed into the nurturing Earth of the yoni, not simply as a sexual thrust, but as a prehistoric magnetic attraction to everything progressive and constructive that a man desires and strives to do.’ (p. 155) Instead, we embody patriarchal military power in phallic missiles seeking to dominate and penetrate enemy territory.

Maya writes that conscious sexuality is our salvation from the severed state in which we exist where the conjugal intent of spiritual–sexual union is to join Shakti with Shiva in a return to consciousness by reinforcing the bond of oneness, enabling emotional and spiritual transparency, uniting mind and consciousness with body and spirit in Divine Love and Cosmic Union, progressing the Shiva-Shakti balance for all creation. At this time of the fomenting of division, it is crucial to believe that we can heal while honouring our diversity and the Earth and realising that the greatest transformative energy pattern in the universe is love – sometimes in finding the blessing hidden in the broken and in darkness. As she writes, we need to create a world culture revived by love, kindness, mutual respect, and reverence Mother Earth. This profoundly meditative text helps us transform chaos into consciousness.