From various spiritual pilgrimages, I've happened upon several places that I've found radiating a powerful spiritual force called "shakti". These powerful sites can uplift a visitor, expedite their spiritual evolution, and temporarily relieve them...
No one has been everywhere in this world, myself included. But I've been fortunate to visit many a temple, monastery, church, holy site, or cave on four continents. In those visits, I've found several of these sites imbued with a potent force known as 'shakti'.
Shakti can be defined as an energetic spiritual force that can uplift us, open our hearts, and temporarily relieve us of our 'karmic burden'. What I mean by "karmic burden" is the locked down, contracted quality of our normal day-to-day selves. That normalcy is, in contrast to authentic esoteric freedom, is a profound essence of suffering, motivating us to seek temporary relief in the form of pleasures and distractions in various forms.
Shakti is generally considered a feminine aspect of spirituality, denoting as forceful energetic dance, movement, as opposed to a "shiva" like foundation of emptiness, perfectly depicted in this drawing from the Kashmir Shavite tradition. Here she dances on the corpse of Shiva.
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Now some people are more sensitive to feeling shakti than others and even then, it can vary day to day, and some some inexplicable reason, some feel can feel it more via one tradition (religion) over another.
This can be felt in various means:
1. Alone in meditation
2. In groups. This is known as "satsang" or "the company of truth", as the congregation of many students together in a local setting seems to amplify the effect of shakti
3. At a geographical location, most often a temple, ashram, monastery, church, cave or unusual natural formation
4. With an authentic spiritual teacher
In this article, I'm focusing on #3, five particular sites around the world in which I have visited. I'm listing them in order of potency and availability. These site, as with any shakti empowered location, are like "white holes" (as opposed to black holes) a portal unleashing spiritual force in the material world.
The Paduka Mandir, Naitauba Island, Fiji
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I spent about five years as a student of the (in)famous teacher known as Da Free John, Bubba Free John, etc, and independent teacher from ironically, NYC. He is someone who could really "dish out the shakti" in a sitting, with a force at times that could almost peel the paint off the walls.
