Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga QUOTES

1 " The Tantric sages tell us that our in-breath and out-breath actually mirror the divine creative gesture. With the inhalation, we draw into our own center, our own being. With the exhalation, we expand outward into the world. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

2 " Durga is the strength and protective power in nature, Lakshmi is its beauty. As Kali is the darkness of night and the great dissolve into nirvana, Lakshmi is the brightness of day and the expansiveness of teeming life. She can be found in rich soil and flowing waters, in streams and lakes that teem with fish. She is one of those goddesses whose signature energy is most accessible through the senses. You can detect her in the fragrance of flowers or of healthy soil. You can see her in the leafed-out trees of June and hear her voice in morning birdsong. If Durga is military band music and Kali heavy metal, Lakshmi is Mozart. She’s chocolate mousse, satiny sheets, the soft feeling of water slipping through your fingers. Lakshmi is growth, renewal, sweetness. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

3 " Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. There are many ways to kneel and kiss the ground. RUMI "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

4 " The divine feminine knows that a birth sometimes demands a death, and that the personal self sometimes has to die if the world is to be made sacred. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

5 " For women especially, tuning into the goddesses is a way of homing in on aspects of our own life-energy that we may never have understood or owned. Celebrating the goddesses has the potential not only to tune us to our own sacred capacities, but also to help us work with the hidden and secret forces at play in our lives. When we can do that, we can literally harness these forces for our own transformation. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

6 " Love, enjoyed by the ignorant Becomes bondage. That very same love, tasted by one with understanding, Brings liberation … Enjoy all the pleasures of love fearlessly, For the sake of liberation. CITTAVISUDDIPRAKARANA "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

7 " Even if you can be aware of your awareness for only a moment, in that moment you will touch the primal awareness/bliss at the core of yourself. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

8 " At every level of consciousness, the masculine and the feminine, Shiva and Shakti, steadiness and dynamism, awareness and bliss, stability and transformation, being and becoming, complete and complement each other. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

9 " If there is to be a future, it will wear a crown of feminine design. AUROBINDO GHOSE "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

10 " In the external world, she is the force of evolution, the erotic thrust at the heart of life. She is the intrinsic creative drive that fueled the big bang and continues to unfold as stars, galaxies, planets, life-forms, species, and also human societies, cultures and individual consciousness itself. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

11 " As the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says, “As is your will, so is your thought; as is your thought, so is your deed; as is your deed, so is your life. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

12 " The word shakti means “power.” Shakti, the innate power in reality, has five “faces.” It manifests as the power to be conscious, the power to feel ecstasy, the power of will or desire, the power to know, and the power to act. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

13 " She is also the power behind spiritual awakening, the inner force that unleashes spiritual power within the human body in the form of kundalini. And she is a guardian: beautiful, queenly, and fierce. Paintings of Durga show her with flowing hair, a red sari, bangles, necklaces, a crown—and eight arms bristling with weapons. Durga carries a spear, a mace, a discus, a bow, and a sword—as well as a conch (representing creative sound), a lotus (symbolizing fertility), and a rosary (symbolizing prayer). In one version of her origin, she appears as a divine female warrior, brought into manifestation by the male gods to save them from the buffalo demon, Mahisha. The assembled gods, furious and powerless over a demon who couldn’t be conquered, sent forth their anger as a mass of light and power. Their combined strength coalesced into the form of a radiantly beautiful woman who filled every direction with her light. Her face was formed by Shiva; her hair came from Yama, the god of death; her arms were given by Vishnu. Shiva gave her his trident, Vishnu his discus, Vayu—the wind god—offered his bow and arrow. The mountain god, Himalaya, gave her the lion for her mount. Durga set forth to battle the demon for the sake of the world, armed and protected by all the powers of the divine masculine.1 As a world protector, Durga’s fierceness arises out of her uniquely potent compassion. She is the deity to call on when you’re "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

14 " The best way to explain in modern terms what a deity is, is to understand deity as a unique vortex of energy. Sometimes that energy vortex takes recognizable anthropomorphic form (for instance, in meditation visions). Sometimes that energy is felt through the sound vibrations, called mantra, or through the geometric pictures, called yantras, that map the way that energy looks in “blueprint” form. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

15 " From a Tantric perspective, the inner masculine—Shiva—is the source of consciousness, awareness. But in order to act, to stir, he must take energy from the inner feminine. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

16 " Through imagination, we tap into our highest human potential and encounter that which is more than human in us: that which is divine. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

17 " He embodies patriarchy’s inability to see the primal divinity of the feminine. She leaves because she knows that if the dignity of the feminine is not recognized, true union of the masculine and the feminine is not possible "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

18 " Another way Lalita Tripura Sundari reveals herself is as the emergence of pure Presence, the dynamic alive awareness that experiences life through your body and senses, and yet stands apart from it. In this very subtle form, Lalita manifests as the enlightened “fourth state” (turiya in Sanskrit) of consciousness, the state beyond waking, dream, and deep sleep. Her name, Beauty of the Three Worlds, points to her ultimate nature as the sublime clarity of the witnessing awareness that Tantric tradition says permeates the three ordinary states of consciousness as your capacity to be aware of experience. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

19 " If there is to be a future, it will wear a crown of feminine design. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

20 " Invoke Kali for: • transformative strength • burning limitations and karmic veils • purifying the inner body and the chakras • awakening the kundalini energy and inspiring her to rise • discovering the truth in a confusing situation • letting go of outmoded structures or egoic tendencies • seeing into the mysteries of life and death • all forms of enlightenment, especially the kind in which we move from the relative to recognition of the absolute reality • purifying and strengthening the heart • transcendent ecstasy in meditation, lovemaking, or in the midst of troubles Bija Mantra Krim (kreem) or: Krim hum hreem (kreem hoom hreem) Krim activates energy. "

― Sally Kempton , Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga