Shiva/Shakti Combined in One Form

Someone sent me the image attached, asking for an explanation of it. I do not have permission to publish this image and would be willing to get that if I could locate the artist.

There are several explanations but if you want something standard, you have to read the Shiva Purana and the Devi Purana. in addition to some other books having to do with Shiva activities like the Linga Purana and the Markandeya Purana.

Many different Swamis explain this in various ways. The person who inquired of me, asked this about it:

Can you give a little insight into this Rupa since I was made to understand it's a merging of Shakti (meaning kundalini energy) with the susumna nadi?

That question means that we begin understanding this with the idea that Shakti or the woman in the image is merging with sushumna nadi, the man in the image. And that the woman is specifically the kundalini energy.

Actually I never heard this explanation but it is likely that this is somewhere stated in some Indian book. There is a book about kundalini which describes kundalini as a supreme goddess. This book became famous globally after it was translated by Arthur Avalon under the title of Serpent Power. See it on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/Serpent-Power-Secrets-Tantric-Shaktic/dp/0486230589

However apart from the symbolic interpretation or presentation of this type of male/female combination image, there is the story in the Shiva Purana about Andharishwara, which is a form in which there is Lord Shiva and Goddess Durga in one body as half side Shiva and half side being the Goddess.

Some say this means that Shiva and Durga are actually one even though they appear side by side as two separate people.

There are astral places where one can see this Andharishwara form but usually yogis are not invited to such places. These places cannot be penetrated because they are forbidden zones.

However this does not mean that we cannot get some insight into this type of dual person living in one body. After all we know about congenital twins. That is something real in this world, where two entities are living in one body which appears to be joint at the waist or head or at some other place. That is not a myth. From that we can assume that it is possible for Shiva and the Goddess to live as one body somewhere.

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In relation to the dual form being the kundalini merging into sushumna I feel that whosoever said that does not really understand what happens when kundalini rises. If anything, it would be that the kundalini as the goddess of the subtle and material bodies, lives at muladhar base chakra, where she sleeps usually.

The problem is to wake her up and make her move up through the spine. If one learns how to do this by any means, that would be a method of kundalini yoga.

In this case one has to get the hormonal energy in the body to enter into the muladhar chakra where she sleeps.

To do this there are many methods. The one I use is to use breath-infusion to mix with the hormonal energy and then to strike kundalini with the accumulated force. When she is hit in that way she moves up the spine; that is provided one applies certain contractions.

In this system the sleeping lazy kundalini is the goddess, who sleeps at the base of the spine in the sushumna nadi. She is already in there. She does not have to be put there but she is at the bottom of the channel which is usually blocked like a blocked pipe line.

Then there is the hormonal energy which is already in the lower part of the trunk of the subtle body. It is already there. This might be equated to Shiva, the God. He has to be induced to take a breath-energy charge or some other charge. Once he gets sufficient charge he has the power to penetrate into sushumna where he strikes the kundalini. When the two meet there is an explosion which causes energy to radiate and which if guided by the yogi will move through the sushumna nadi central channel.

See a pdf of Serpent Power here:

http://www.bhagavadgitausa.com/Serpent%20Power%20Complete.pdf