Part 16: Kundalini, Invoking the Muse, Creativity & Channeling
Today I'll be sharing with you all about how you can tap into the creative genius of the universe, which is, of course, powered by Shakti, the Muse, by the Goddess, by the Feminine creative force.
I'll be sharing a little bit about how I became inspired to become a photographer after a very significant point in my Kundalini journey. I'll also be sharing a little bit of my photography work.
I'll talk about my favourite book ever, which I think will definitely inspire you to take your creativity to the next level, to develop that relationship that you have with the Muse, with Kundalini, and to become creative. If you are already creative, take it to another level to become a little bit more efficient at tapping into that creativity on command when you need to.
As well, I'll be talking a little bit about a very new development in the art world and the technology world, which is artificial intelligence. I'll just touch briefly upon some new developments around AI creating art that has really mind-boggling stuff and I think I can tie that in a little bit with what we're talking about here with the Muse, with Shakti, with creativity.
As well, I'm going to show you how you can invoke the Muse in your own life to be creative. When I say creative, I don't mean just, you know, being a singer, or a musician, or an artist, or a painter, or a photographer, or a writer.
I'm talking also about how to be creative within your relationships, you know, coming up with the right things to say, to be creative at work, like being innovative. Maybe there are creative solutions to some of the problems you're faced with in your business, for example. You can tap into these things and be a little bit more inspired in everything that you do.
Before I continue, we just have to take a moment here to give credit to Shakti, Kundalini, the Goddess, the Feminine, to the Divine Mother. She is who all credit goes to when we speak about creative endeavours and creative expressions.
Everything that we see, all around us, is all her creation, including us. So anything that we bring forth, we can enjoy the act of bringing it forth, we enjoy what comes forth, but in the biggest ultimate picture, we don't get any credit at all. That credit goes to the Goddess and I just want to preface today by saying that.
So the Muse, I believe it's a Greek word for the creative Goddess. I think there were multiple Muses. And so when we think of the Goddess and we think of her as a creative force we can attribute her to being the Muse.
When we think of music, of course, it's inspired by the Muse, and so that's why it's called music. It comes from the Muse and so we can see already that this is not just a Sanskrit thing, you know, talking about Kundalini Shakti as the creative force. We see it also in the Greek system, the Greek philosophy. The Muse is there and she's feminine and she's responsible for being creative.
So I just want to remind you that this is a universal thing we're talking about here. We're not talking about something strictly limited to Yoga or India or Hinduism or Sanskrit.
What we're talking about here when we speak about Kundalini awakening, the Kundalini process, creativity, the Goddess, the Divine Mother, is a universal thing that's been acknowledged throughout many many different traditions throughout history around the world.
The Divine Mother, the Feminine force, the Feminine energy in the world is what we attribute all of these wonderful things that we experience. That's not to take away
from the Masculine. The Masculine is the foundation upon which the Feminine dances, so it's equally important. But this is not something limited to just Asian traditions.
So if you’re able to invoke the Muse, to summon her, you're able to allow her to inspire you to be creative.
Sometimes we hear about people in their Kundalini awakening process, and we think about how they've become a creative genius or somehow we think that their brain becomes activated or awakened or certain pathways of the brain are turned on and they’re able to tap into creative genius.
What they're talking about here is, when you have your Kundalini awakened, you develop a very intimate relationship with the Goddess, with Shakti, with the Divine Mother, with the Muse.
But even though you may have it awakened, you still have to engage in the practice of invoking her, of summoning her, so that you can bring forth those creative things.
You don't necessarily have to have a full 100% complete Kundalini process in order to tap into what I'm sharing here. Everybody has access to this. Even people who have nothing to do with Kundalini are still able to tap into creativity, are still able to get their ego out of the way, and allow creative energy to come through and inspire them.
We see this with musicians, with athletes who say things like ‘something took over me and I made that play’. We see it with people from all over the world. They may call themselves atheists or whatever, but they're all inviting something beyond themselves, something transcendent, to move through and inspire them.
So we can invoke the Muse and channel forth more than just art like music and painting. Everything can be turned into an art form, from work, to relationships, to physical activity, business, and humour, for example.
So what does it really mean to invoke or to summon the Muse? Well, I think that by default, we operate in a very sort of neutral state. If we just don't do anything, that's our default. We're not really creative, not really inspired, but to tap into these higher states of consciousness in which we're able to flow and be creative, we have to do something active.
This means we have to invite those energies in. We have to invite inspiration into us. It doesn't just come on its own, usually. There are times when it might, maybe we enter into a certain deep experience of surrender, but generally speaking, if you want to become efficient at this, you have to invite the energy in. You have to learn how to do that, which is what I call invoking and summoning it.
Now when I use the words, I know it can sound like we're getting into something very esoteric, like maybe you know witchcraft or something. I'm not talking about anything like that. I'm just talking about engaging in some sort of ritual to bring forth the Muse to invite her into your space.
Saying a simple prayer is all you really need to do. Here is an example:
Divine Mother, I'm about to engage in some creative activity now. I'm going to do my best to get out of the way and I invite you to use me as a tool to bring forth what you want to create for the world. I thank you for the honour to be at your service.
There's nothing specific that needs to be said or done. It's just something that resonates with you, that inspires you to get out of the way.
When I say get out of the way, I mean it inspires you, as the resistant separate sense of self, the ego, to just step aside and let something come through you.
It doesn't have to be any specific prayer or words. It can just be a feeling that you have. Shakti doesn't listen to specific words. When we pray, when we communicate with her, she resonates with a feeling, with the vibration of what we're saying.
Prior to my Kundalini awakening, I had no visual art skills. But once the Kundalini rose, I began to feel irresistibly called to pick up a camera and take photographs. I soon recognized that I was having a relationship with the Muse, and that if I summoned her and relaxed, she would inspire me as a photographer, as an artist. Eventually, this turned into a full-blown career as a dog photographer. Here is some of my work:
When I work with pets, I invoke the Muse and I ask her to inspire both me and the animals in order to create art together. Sometimes the pets aren’t cooperating, but for brief moments, it is almost as if they are inspired to pose for me just long enough for me to snap the perfect image.
There have been some recent developments in the art world, specifically around the introduction of artificial intelligence and its ability to generate visual art based on prompts and instructions given by humans. All of the cover images for my podcast have been created with AI. In particular, the Goddesses for the Kundalini series are all inspired by my visions of Shakti.
There is a hot debate right now, about who is the real artist when it comes to AI artwork. Is it the human who instructed the software? Or the software? It’s an interesting thing to discuss and contemplate. But personally, I see that it really doesn’t matter, because all credit goes to the Muse, regardless. Whether someone painted an image with a brush or prompted AI to create it, it’s all thanks to Shakti, the first force of all creation.
I know that I’ve been speaking about invoking and summoning the Muse as if it’s a very simple and easy thing to do. But of course, there are challenges along the way. It’s a practice, an ongoing process. Resistance arises, based on many different factors, such as the fear of success, unworthiness, fear of criticism, and so on.
Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, is the greatest book I’ve ever come across. It addresses how to deal with the different kinds of resistance that arises and impedes our ability to channel and tap into our creativity. I highly recommend it. It’s thanks to this book that this Kundalini Series exists at all.
Reach out and share some of your creative endeavours with me once you begin to invoke the Muse. I’d love to see what comes through you.