Quantum scientists have found that the consciousness of a person watching an experiment affects what happens in the experiment. So they have discovered that consciousness affects the energy moving. But the Tantrics and the Taoists discovered this a long time ago. Tantrics have always been aware of energy and consciousness.
The Tantrics call it Shiva and Shakti… The Sacred Dance of Shiva and Shakti. Consciousness is Shiva. He is watching, and Shakti, the Goddess, is energy, she is dancing. If you want to imagine this in an embodiment form, you can imagine Shiva as a man sitting in a pure meditation with his eyes open, and he is watching his beautiful Shakti dancing. And her dance is the expression of life, the expression of energy, she’s expressing energy and emotions through her body. And his consciousness affects her energy, and her energy affects his consciousness.
The more energy we have, the more consciousness. And the more consciousness, the more energy.
We raise energy to raise our consciousness. It also happens the other way, if you become more conscious, you will feel more energy and you will gain more energy. If we split energy from consciousness, we start creating a kind of dark energy, harmful energy, energy just doesn’t feel good to ourselves, it doesn’t feel like it’s aligned with something higher.
This masculine and feminine energy is also referred to as Yin and Yang. And with energy and consciousness, the Yin and the Yang are always dancing together. In Shamanism, we have Mother Earth and Father Sky. This is another duality that we find in ourselves.
When we look down, we find the solid earth, we find a solid body, we find the earth realm. Wherever you fall, you will always land and be held. This is the physical realm. When we look up beyond the clouds, beyond the stars, you see space, you see eternity. And this is another Yin Yang pair, the earth being Yin and the sky being Yang. This is very important when it comes to understanding how sexual energy (our Life Force) moves through our body, how energy moves.
Shakti is energy but it can also be translated as the word power. If you have no energy, you have no power. Shakti energy has an upward direction, like a plant that grows up towards the sun, towards the light, towards heaven, towards Father Sky. This energy, this uprising energy is our Shakti, it’s the force of life. It comes from the darkness and from the seed under the ground.
Like in a plant or a tree, the same force is also wanting to push up and rise through you. As soon as you start to contemplate that and feel it and practice things, like Qigong and yoga, then you can feel a boundless source of lifeforce energy constantly rising from the earth, from the Yin, from the darkness of the earth, rising up towards the sun, towards the sky.
Your sexuality, your sexual organs is where the seed is planted, your creative seed is there. You can feel the energy there, it can feel like a humming or tingling.
It’s really the same process of nature, that this energy wants to rise up through us. When you allow the fullness of your lifeforce to rise, described as a coiled-up snake, this Kundalini energy that’s going to rise up through your spine and your crown, is like little champagne bubbles, bubbling upwards through your body.
In order to allow it, you need to be in peace with your own sexuality and your sexual energy, and you need to bring it out of the shadows, into consciousness, and make peace with it and heal shame and trauma that may be attached to past experiences.
If you push this energy out and down, you reject it out of your body. Of course, it’s not going to be the most harmful thing, but it can be very depleting. For the Taoists, you need to preserve your lifeforce by moving this energy up through your spine and you will maintain vitality.
The Tantrics also realised that we were raising consciousness here. If we let this energy rise up, it’s going to influence different energy centres, our chakras, and we can awaken each chakra and each part of our being. Then we are able to connect to different levels of reality as this energy awakens, and this is the journey that it’s actually happening all the time.
There is a guiding force in your life that is there to guide you on your own life journey, on your soul’s journey. This is your highest self, and when the sexual energy is allowed to rise, you’re going to feel a spiritual experience. That’s why many people are interested in Kundalini awakening. And Kundalini rising feels like a beautiful blessing, and this stimulates your creativity.
Consciousness awakens energy. It awakens energy in all you do. If you are cut off from your sexual energy and have no intimacy with your partner, you limit your ability to awaken your Kundalini energy and your Life Force can be dull, stagnate, and depleted. Poor relationship with your body, poor self-esteem, and shame, will keep your consciousness from penetrating down and feeling what’s alive within each and every one of us. But when you do meditation, that consciousness starts awakening energy. When you start creating a more aligned heart centred life, connecting from a place of authenticity and compassion, we can awaken the energy within us.
We can also use consciousness to direct energy. As you bring consciousness, energy starts to move, this is the same when you’re giving bodywork to somebody else, or making love with intimacy, you can put your hands on someone’s body, and just be aware, and then the energy starts to move, then we can start directing energy. We are connecting with the Shakti within both theirs and our own bodies. We can gently use our breath and our intention to guide this energy into the channels of the spine, or up to the crown, and just support it on its journey.
Working with energy can be very overwhelming. Overwhelm is a sign that there’s more energy than consciousness, there’s more activity than there is a container. When you feel overwhelmed, you don’t need to blame the energy or make it wrong, you just need to meditate. You need to sit down and become present with what’s going on. This is very important and too many schools and teachers are teaching a lot of energy activation and not teaching meditation and grounding.
On the other side, you can also have too much Shiva if you’re meditating all the time, or blocking all your emotions and feelings, you can become very stiff and very serious, and you can disconnect from life, life is just happening and it’s not great fun. But life is here for us to engage with and to make love with. To worship Shakti means to worship life itself, to worship the mystery of life, to worship the breath that flows through your body, to sit and look at your lover, and watch the breath moving through them, and open your heart in the mystery of that. And not only their breath but their emotions, their expressions, the life is moving through them to you.
It’s really your natural birthright to awaken this energy, and it really is very beautiful…it is the Sacred Dance of Shiva and Shakti.