Sati's Secret

In an age of excessive obedience to social and political norms, retelling this beautiful story from the Shiva Puranas is essential. Shiva, Sati, and the arrogance of Daksh. Whenever humankind becomes too arrogant and thinks that its language, politics, yagyas, homas, and rituals are more powerful than the divine consciousness behind all beings, Shiva, then Shakti returns over and over again to teach us a lesson. We should live in Shiva and Shakti consciousness and not by the laws of Man alone. This is an extract from my forthcoming book The Kundalini Code.

In the beginning, before space and time, before anything, there was nothing. Pure emptiness. This was Shiva, the formless one. Purusha, Brahman, the All Mind, the God of Spinoza, the Void. Pure consciousness.

From this arose desire, Ichcha, and the first waves of immanence vibrated through space and time. The emanation came in three phases, drawing an algorithmic path for all manifestations to follow. Creation. Existence. Dissolution. Birth, life, death. Ichcha, Jnana, Laya. Desire, knowledge, dissolution. The nature of all space and time.

Within that vibration arose energy, power, waves, and particles. Thus, the dance of the universe began. This energy was Shakti, Prakriti, Nature. She was the first mother Adi Shakti. From her womb, everything came into being, and back into her womb, all would return. She was the grand illusion of space-time. She was Maha Maya.

From that first dance, a primeval sound arose. The Pranava. Aum. Out of that first sound, Shakti created the universe by using her voice, Aeem, and transmitted energy to every particle. She emanated Hreem. Galaxies came into being. Suns came into being. Planets came into being. Everything she created would secretly encode the sound Shreem into its very essence to remind it where it had come from. The Moether’s womb.

The first being created was Vishnu, the dreamer of the cosmic dream. Out of his navel arose Brahma, the creator of worlds. Through his Shakti Saraswati, they created everything we see, hear, and experience. Humans were born from this vibration and received the power of sound to create words, civilizations, and Mantras. Daksh, the firstborn of Brahma, was the father of humanity and the keeper of the Mantras.

Brahma soon realized that human beings would lose their moral compass without the presence of Father Sky and Mother Earth, or Shiva and Shakti, in their lives. So he appealed to Adi Shakti, the first mother, to descend to earth among humans and bring Shiva, or higher consciousness, to life, thus reminding the humans of their essence in nature. She was his mother, so she could not refuse, and was born as Daksh's daughter, Sati.

Sati meditated on consciousness for many years until finally, Shiva came into the world. Shiva and Sati found resonance and celebrated their union for thousands of blissful years on Mount Kailash in the heart of the Himalayas. While they exuded the bliss they experienced, human beings went about discovering the power of Mantras to build worlds and civilizations.

The living Shiva was an outlier, never one to conform to human standards. This upset Daksh, who found his son-in-law disgusting with his ash-smitten skin, matted locks, and naked body. Surrounded by animals and other creatures of the wild, he was in a perpetual state of intoxicated bliss. He did not fit into Daksh’s vision of the ideal man.

Daksh insulted Shiva often. But for the love of Sati, Shiva forgave every slight from his father-in-law. Then, one day, Daksh held the world’s greatest Yagna, a sacred fire, to chant the great Mantras. He invited all the energy beings, light beings, yogis, saints, and sages, but he did not invite Shiva and Sati.

Shiva did not care, but Sati wanted to go, as this was her father’s special ceremony. When Shiva refused, the infuriated Sati revealed her true self to him as Maha Kali, ferocious with ten heads and ten arms. Shiva was terrified and could not escape in any of the ten directions. He finally relented, saying, “I have no power over you. You must do as you will.” Sati decided to go on her own.

Now Daksh, like human beings tend to do, had become arrogant with power. He controlled Mantras, Devas, Gods, and all human affairs and felt he did not need the grace of Shiva or consciousness in human concerns.?

When Sati arrived at the sacred fire, Daksh immediately began insulting her husband as a good-for-nothing layabout who spent all his time making love, intoxicated in bliss, with no concern for humanity.

Sati was devastated by this public humiliation and filled with sorrow. She had descended to bring harmony, grace, peace, and compassion to all humanity. But instead, the human ego had taken over. Now, the universal dance of Shiva and Shakti was being dismissed and seen as valueless.

In an instant, she took on her form as Adi Shakti, the first mother, and set herself ablaze from her inner fire at the Manipura Chakra. Her fire consumed Sati, but being Adi Shakti, she remained intact, and the energy began to burn everything around her.

Shiva felt the vibration of her fire in the Cosmos and was devastated. In his anger, he opened his third eye and released the violent force of Veer Bhajrasan, the fearsome destroyer of worlds. "Destroy everything! Destroy everyone! Destroy all Mantras!"

The apocalypse that followed was the end of the world. Humanity, along with its powers, Mantras, and light beings, all were destroyed. Veer Bhajrasan killed everyone and cut off Daksh’s head.

When Shiva calmed down, he felt compassion. In deep sorrow, he brought all back to life, placing a goat’s head on Daksh to teach him a lesson—no one being is greater than pure consciousness. Then he picked up Sati’s dead body and roamed the galaxies. In his grief, he left a trail of destruction behind as worlds began to dissolve back into pure consciousness.

Vishnu, the first being, saw this dissolution and knew he had to save the universe. He hurled his Sudarshan Chakra discus of light and cut Sati into 51 pieces, and as each piece fell to earth, a sacred holy place arose there. Today, these are the 51 Shakti Peethas, or ancient temples dedicated to Shakti across India. 51 is also the exact number of letters in the Sanskrit alphabet as all mantras and words come out of SHakti. Shiva returned to Kailash and lost himself alone in meditation.?

With great compassion, the first mother, Adi Shakti, gave humanity two chances to return to her. First, she placed all parts of her body across India so that by worshiping Shakti and making pilgrimages to her temples, humanity could reunite Shiva and Shakti in the world again.

And then, in a brilliant move, she decided to hide her true self in a place where only the most genuine seekers could find her. She knew humans would conquer the land, the seas, the skies, and even space, so she hid in the one place she knew they would never look. Within.

She hid in the human body, at the base of the spine, waiting to see which true seekers of humanity would discover her there and help her rise to meet her lover Shiva waiting in Brahma’s Cave, which is in the head. She coiled herself three and a half times around a Linga, or sacred seed of Shiva, and there she sits, waiting to reunite with her eternal lover. And this is how Kundalini came to be in us.

In her compassion, she gave human beings a secret code. A set of secret keys to discovering, unlocking, and awakening her. She gave us energy, breaths, sounds, and geometries to help us. She knew we would find our way back to her. So, now she waits for you to discover this secret, the Kundalini Code.