Reclaiming Shakti: Putting the Soul Back into Vedanta
What if our sufferings are sacred? The gods don’t just bless us, they break us open. A reflection on ancestral roots, spirituality, rites and feminine power.
Author’s Note: ⚠️ This piece speaks of suffering, ancestral wounds, and the power of spiritual rupture. If you are in a tender or activated state, move slowly. Take what resonates, and leave what doesn’t. You are never required to spiritualize your pain before it is ready to be held. Your body knows the pace. Let it lead you.
All is Brahma, they say.
But my gods are not merely benevolent and all-loving.
No, they’re destructive, they’re harsh.
They break me open, over and over again.
Just because I offer rites to my gods
Does not mean they will spare me suffering.
No, they will continue to give it.
Because those sufferings are their offerings.
They are the bridge, a hard bridge to say the least,
To my greatest liberation.
If a hero never faces their struggles,
How would they ever become empowered?
How would they ever come face to face with their gifts?
So no, when you tell me there’s black magic on my chart,
I will not do your rites to blindly remove it.
No, I will sit within it.
To hear where my heart is crying.
To meet the inner block with curiosity, with love,
With gentleness.
Not to banish it away,
As if it’s some black, mysterious plague
That must be exorcised without understanding.
You never teach me the meaning behind these rites, behind these poojas.
If you don’t invoke my spirit, my soul,
How am I to follow a lineage I do not feel rooted in?
We’ve been colonized.
We’ve been displaced.
We’ve been diluted.
We’ve merged with other cultures.
How do you expect us to carry our lineage
If you never build us a bridge,
A bridge that invites our curiosity, our awe,
Our reverence for inner truth?
So no,
Don’t tell us to blindly pray away our sufferings.
Tell us to invoke something within,
To help us move through them.When did we remove the soul from the Vedas?
We are among the most soulful spiritual philosophies in the world.
When did it become acceptable
To remove the feminine from our teachings?
What is Shiva without his Shakti?
So I’m putting Shakti back,
Back where she rightfully belongs.My gods destroy, obliterate, renew, illuminate.
They teach me about the meanings behind
The hurdles and the sufferings of life,
Not so I can bypass them,
But integrate them.
I may be Brahma,
But I too am Shakti.
What would life be
Without its messy relationships,
Its heart-wrenching heartbreaks,
Its earth-shattering grief?
It wouldn’t be human.
This—this is our medicine.
Our soulfulness.
Our struggles.
Our sufferings.
It’s how we become Brahma.
It’s through, not over it.
Sakthi Ramesh, AMFT #155011
Associate Marriage and Family Therapist
Supervised by Helene Mickey Wilson, Ph.D., LMFT #49203
Through The Art of Guiding Healers
Currently offering sessions in Newport Beach and Telehealth for those seeking deeper, individualized support.
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