Lalita Shakti

​The Lalita Shakti is also the inner form of the Shakti as lover. As she is a goddess of sexual desire in the external world, in the inner world she is the energy that empowers your longing for spiritual fulfillment. In the deep states of enlightenment celebrated in the Tantras, she expresses herself as the subtle touch of bliss. The Tantric philosopher Abhinavagupta taught that touch is the one sense that does not dissolve in the highest states of awareness.

Instead, it morphs into a blissful presence that caresses the inner body, even when all sense of ego and even individuality has disappeared in meditative union. It is the Goddess who brings this level of bliss into meditation.

One way to understand what happens when the Goddess, as awakened kundalini, rises through the body and unites with Shiva in the crown is to realize that she is uniting awareness with bliss. Historically, classical nondual practice has been mostly a path for male renunciants. It privileges withdrawal from the world into the detached witness state, where the practitioner stands aside from
thoughts and emotions and recognizes his true nature as awareness. When the felt sense of the Goddess’s energy is not actively present in your meditation, that witness experience can bring about a kind of desolation, a feeling of detachment from life, and a sense that nothing really matters.
Tantric sadhana takes us beyond that void state. It has as its intention to coax the goddess, who is the bliss and dynamism within consciousness, to infuse the emptiness of the void state with her thrilling presence. It is the goddess who brings blissfulness to meditation and yogic practice.

— Sally Kempton

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