shakti – Robert Rabbin

Posts Tagged ‘shakti’

09
Feb
2016

I know how to heal the world. I’ve known for 40 years.

categories: Social Transformation, Society & Culture, Spirituality & Religion

I know how to heal the world. I’ve known for 40 years. It’s simple but I don’t know if we’ll do it. I don’t know if it’s possible since it seems we prefer being sick, wounded, hungry and angry. I’m not giving up though.

Here’s a bit of backstory.

Forty years ago, I was living in an ashram in India. One morning around 5:30, I walked out of the kitchen where I had been cleaning and cutting fruits and vegetables for the communal lunch. The sun was just rising above mountain ridge across the valley. Entering the main courtyard, I decided to sit for a while on a concrete planter that enclosed several coconut trees. I fell very silent.

We might normally associate silence with not talking, or the absence of noise or the atmosphere in a forest. It’s all these but it’s also more. Silence is a syrup—a very delicate syrup—that mysteriously yet palpably flows through all living things everywhere, through all of existence. It’s a quantum level sap that gives life to all things everywhere. We might call it prana (breath) or shakti (primordial life force). (more…)

12
Dec
2015

Reframing Cancer & Chemotherapy

categories: Health, Silence, Spirituality & Religion

(written in March 2012)

The notion flooded into me just moments ago, with great clarity, urgency, and force. With my chemotherapy sessions beginning tomorrow, I “heard” that I was to rename and reframe both the chemo and my cancer.

From this moment on, I will no longer use the word “cancer,” nor will I use the word “chemotherapy.” I have renamed them Shiva and Shakti, respectively.

Thus, “non-small cell lung cancer with EFGR mutation” becomes SHIVA, and Alimta Chemotherapy becomes SHAKTI.

Shiva, meaning “auspicious one” is the aspect of the Supreme Being that continuously dissolves to recreate in the cyclic process of creation, preservation, dissolution and recreation of the universe. Shiva is the destroyer of evil or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Though he is one with great power, he lives a life of a sage at Mount Kailash. Shiva is seen as the Supreme God and has five important works: creator, preserver, destroyer, concealer, and revealer (to bless).

Shakti, meaning sacred force or empowerment, is the primordial cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the entire universe in Hinduism. Shakti is the personification of divine feminine creative power, sometimes referred to as “The Great Divine Mother” in Hinduism. Not only is the Shakti responsible for creation, it is also the agent of all change. Shakti is cosmic existence as well as liberation, its most significant form being the Kundalini Shakti, a mysterious psychospiritual force. Shakti exists in a state of svatantrya, being interdependent with the entire universe. (more…)

05
Dec
2015

Anger is Rocket Fuel

categories: Authentic Living, Spirituality & Religion

One of the recurring questions people ask in my talks has to do with anger. People are very concerned about it, afraid of it, mystified by it — certainly, they think that anger corrupts and compromises spiritual intention and sincerity. It would not be overstating the case to say people think anger is not our friend.

I, however, do. I like anger. Anger is my friend. I do not think anger is something we have to throw out like trash, or cure like a disease, or coax into a cage like a threatening animal.

Anger does not have to be a problem. Anger does not have to be destructive to either our self or to others. Anger does not have to be our enemy, or an impediment to spiritual sincerity. Anger does not have to corrupt wisdom, compassion, and good intentions.

We have to keep in mind that before anything else, anger is a word. I don’t mean to be glib here. Think about it; when someone says “anger,” it’s as though someone shouts “Fire!” We have to do something, immediately and reflexively. Fire is real. Fire is hot. There isn’t much to discuss, is there? Fire is fire. Get water, run, beat it with a rug: do something. But anger is not just anger. It isn’t as fixed as fire; there are a lot of nuances, meanings, possibilities, and opportunities behind the one word. (more…)