There vs. Here

Bridging the “not really a divide” divide

So right off the bat I’m going to use some big words. One is Transcendent and the other is Immanent. Among other things these mean “there” and “here” respectively. In spirituality they delineate the divide between embodied life and everything else. Some people refer to this divide as the veil although there are as many ways to define and refer to this separation as there are people and beliefs. These terms also describe the unchanging universal Everything juxtaposed with the ever changing Becoming of living. These two have been on my mind for about four different reasons.

Concerning Yoga and Kundalini — Being very fond of source material as I mentioned, I realized I’d never actually delved into any for chakras and wanting to go several levels deeper I started to dig. As I’m reading “The Serpent Power” I have been struck by the way in which Shiva and Shakti are described. First, Shiva is seen as transcendent. Not surprising as this is the common understanding of him in the western world. He’s seen as the being which is “there,” representative of Universal energy, the potential for all things, encompassing all but being none. What is interesting to me is seeing Shakti described as power, the active mover which manifests potential, the immanent universal force. In yoga she is seen as a part of all human beings, the kundalini coiled at the base of the…