Swami Vivekananda on Shakti

“There was the other idea in the old Vedic hymn to the Goddess: ‘I am the light. I am the light of the sun and moon; I am the air which animates all beings.’ This is the germ which afterwards develops into Mother-worship. By Mother-worship is not meant difference between father and mother. The first idea connoted by it is that of energy—I am the power that is in all beings.”

“In an old Veda is found the mantra, ‘I am the empress of all that lives, the power in everything. ’Mother-worship is a distinct philosophy in itself. Power is the first of our ideas. It impinges upon man at every step; power felt within is the soul; without, nature. And the battle between the two makes human life. All that we know or feel is but the resultant of these two forces. Man saw that the sun shines on the good and evil alike.”

“Mother is the first manifestation of power and is considered a higher idea than father. With the name of Mother comes the idea of Shakti, Divine Energy and Omnipotence, just as the baby believes its mother to be all powerful, able to do anything. The Divine Mother is the Kundalini (“coiled up power”) sleeping in us; without worshipping Her we can never know ourselves....Every manifestation of power in the universe is ‘Mother’. She is life, She is intelligence, She is love....A bit of Mother, a drop, was Krishna, another was Buddha, another was Christ....Worship Her if you want love and wisdom.”

“This world is all alike the play of Mother. But we forget this. Even misery can be enjoyed when there is no selfishness, when we have become the witness of our own lives. The thinker of this philosophy has been struck by the idea that one power is behind all phenomena. In our thought of God, there is human limitation, personality: with Shakti comes the idea of One Universal Power. ‘I stretch the bow of Rudra when He desires to kill’ [‘to destroy evil,’ Rigveda, X. 125, Devi-Sukta], says Shakti. The Upanishads did not develop this thought; for Vedanta does not care for the God-idea. But in the Gita comes the significant saying to Arjuna, ‘I am the real, and I am the unreal. I bring good, and I bring evil.’ (Gità, IX: 19, X: 4-)”