Shakti and Embodiment, September 17, 2010

Participant: Can you talk about the relationship between…

David: [Laughs]

Participant: Shakti and embodiment?

David: I’m talking… I’m talking…. It’s a good relationship [laughs]. Shakti is embodiment. Embodiment is Shakti. That’s what gives rise to this area that we call the world, where embodiment takes place. All that is on the basis of an invisible energy that is humming and stirring in the depths of Being, identical to that Being, but necessary for the coming forth of things, processes, events, happenings, relationships. The shakti is all about embodiment, and embodiment is all about relationship.

Only in the quiet area of the Absolute do you transcend relationship, in deep meditation or in apprehension of nothingness, apprehension of non-duality. Other than those two exceptions, spiritual realizations need to happen in an embodied form. The embodied aspect is very important, as is the non-dual. Remember shakti is just that empty quality of nothingness turned inside out into pure energy, the energy which gives rise to manifestation. It’s not any different than that which transcends it, but it’s necessary for the Absolute to transform itself into this energetic aspect for both embodiment and relationship to happen. It’s really one event, it’s not as if there are two events going on. It’s one simultaneous clap of thunder. It’s one shaft of lighting, too quick to be seen with the eye. And yet that process of manifestation happens over thousands, and hundreds of thousands, and millions, and billions of years. It elongates itself through time so that it can happen slowly and gradually, painstakingly, revealing itself to itself. Manifestation is all about the Self revealing itself, to itself. But to do that it needs beings. It can’t do that without having beings involved. And that’s what this whole creation is, right from the very beginning, if you can talk about a beginning.