Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga

by Sally Kempton

How do you live a life of spiritual awakening as well as outer abundance, inner freedom as well as deep intimacy? How do you serve the world selflessly, yet passionately celebrate your life?The sages of Tantra have known for centuries that when you follow the path of Shakti—the sacred feminine principle personified by the goddesses of yoga—these gifts can manifest spontaneously. Yet most of us, women as well as men, have yet to experience the full potential of our inner feminine energies. When you know these powers for what they are, they heighten your capacity to open spiritually, love more deeply and fearlessly, create with greater mastery, and move through the world with skill and delight. In Awakening Shakti, you will learn how to recognize and bringer of strength, fierce love, and untamed freedomLakshmi, who confers prosperity and beautySaraswati, for clarity of communication and intuitionRadha, who carries the divine energy of spiritual longingBhuvaneshvari, who creates the space for sacred transformationParvati, to awaken creativity and the capacity to loveWith a wealth of meditations, visualizations, mantras, teachings, and beautifully told stories, Awakening Shakti provides a practical guide for activating the currents of the divine feminine in every aspect of your life.“Sally Kempton's new book is a treasure that brings myth, meditation, and everyday revelation together in a way that will allow every woman to embody the divine feminine in her life. Sally enlivens the full spectrum of the goddess—from independent protector, to lover, to dynamic and powerful creatrix. I highly recommend this soon-to-be classic!”—Shiva Rea, yogini“Sally Kempton has given us a mythic manual for a new kind of feminism—a feminism of the soul. And this is a good thing, because humanity needs feminine power now as both a healing tonic and a source of reinvention.”—Elizabeth Lesser, cofounder of the Omega Institute, author of Broken How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Genres: Spirituality, Nonfiction, Self Help, Feminism, Goddess, Philosophy, Meditation

394 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2013

About the author

Sally Kempton is a widely respected teacher of meditation and spiritual wisdom, known for her capacity to kindle meditative states in others, and to help students work with meditative experience as a framework for practical life-change. A former journalist who wrote for Esquire, New York, and the Village Voice, she has spent over four decades practicing, teaching, and writing on meditation and spiritual philosophy. Sally spent 20 years as a swami in a traditional Vedic order of monks. She was deeply trained in the teachings of Kashmir Shaivism and Vedanta under the guidance of her enlightened teacher, Swami Muktananda.

Sally is the author of the best-selling books "Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga" and of "Meditation for the Love of It,” which Spirituality and Health magazine called “the meditation book your heart wants you to read”. Her audio program, Doorways to the Infinite: The Art and Practice of Tantric Meditation, was released by Sounds True in 2014. She is on the faculty at Esalen and Kripalu, teaches meditation on the websites Glo.com, Gaia.com, and Yogajournal.com, and is a contributing editor at Yoga Journal. Sally teaches online courses and seminars on meditation and spiritual philosophy, and leads retreats and workshops in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Reviews

[Laryssa Wirstiuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been very slowly savoring this book for about five months, mostly because I didn't want to get to the end. I learned SO much about Hindu goddesses, and the author presents the information in an accessible and compelling way. Each chapter, which follows the same format, is centered around a specific goddess and includes meditations to help the reader manifest the goddess and her energy. Even if you don't particularly believe in Hinduism or goddesses, a person could benefit from reading this book by exploring personality archetypes. Each person embodies a combination of Hindu goddess archetypes, and it can be helpful when you want to enhance or diminish certain aspects of your personality. I received so much "food for thought" from this book and now have a lot that I want to explore on my own. I didn't do all the meditations on the first read, but I can now refer to ones that I want to do. Very well written and organized. I highly recommend.

[Jennifer Louden · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have any interest in using your imagination to access the sacred feminine, and to explore and develop your feminine power (for men and women) I highly recommend this wise book. It will feed your heart and expand your idea of Shakti, and maybe even give you a little transmission of one or more of the goddesses. Sally is scholar as well as a mystic, and I appreciate the depth of this work.

[Farhana Baki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I participated in a book club with this book, which was my first ever book club. This book was perfect because I am currently studying different pantheons and it allowed me to discuss the content with others. This book offers a fantastic overview of the goddesses of the Hindu religion, allows great meditations on the goddesses, and offers a feminine empowerment that I have not found in other books. I like that there are pictures because it adds to visualizing the goddesses. One of the discussions regarding Lakshimi with the group really astounded me and immediately extinguished my jealousy side. I was able to recognize that there is so much beauty in the world and there is enough to share instead of hoarding it. This opened up more compassion for others. When it comes to this kind of book, I feel you are drawn to it. It is a good one.

[Corrie Ventura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book. I adore the language I discovered in this book that allowed me to explore the essence of these Goddesses and how the energy flows through me, others, and life. I became engulfed in the sustained flow of the divine feminine weaving through the pages. So lovely. I read this book as part of a Yoga Teacher Training Program, so I read it on the teachers time table, not my own. This is definitely one of those books I want to savor and will probably read again and again, taking as much time as I want.

[Sumi Rajesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I happened to chance on this book while browsing for books on tantra, what a find it is!
This book has been a part of my spiritual Journey, I see this as a gift from the goddess since I happened to start reading it during this Navratri, a festival celebrating the goddess in all her forms.
I opted for an audiobook and it is definitely one of the best narrations, I have heard.
Sally writes beautifully introducing each goddess with the mythology behind each of them, moving on to invocations and meditations and modern day examples.. I love the format which is nicely structured for a reader and practitioner with meditations towards the end of each chapter.
This book is an experience and each reader’s take away will be different maybe depending on where they are in life!
I loved it and enjoyed taking everything in, in a relaxed pace. I could absolutely connect to every bit and I feel empowered with the tools that this book offers.
I would really love to know how a male reader takes to this book!
Sally Kempton’s depth of understanding of the subject and her years of practice are very evident in the writing.
This is my best read of 2020!

[Azri · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't get past the first few chapters. I want to try again some day, but I fear I just can't get into it.
As someone else here mentioned, spirituality is a deeply personal thing. Living in India and having deep understanding of Hinduism in every day practice and life, this book seems really... fake to me.

It felt to me, as if the author took elements from a religion she did not understand (or perhaps barely understood) to teach others how to live by her hodgepodge spirituality.
My spirituality is hodgepodge too, but I'm not writing and selling it.

I see that there are so many positive experiences here, so I know that her book has helped many people find a light inside.

[no.stache.nietzsche · Rating 4 out of 5]

This ended up being a very enjoyable and informative book. We were skeptical at first, especially with the quips of overt praise for horrible mainstream political figures such as Hillary Clinton. But we were able to look past the pozzed selfhating liberal white woman vibes, and focus on the concrete and accessible information about various feminine Hindu deities, their relationships with each other and with the masculine, and take from that some valuable context for our continued initial studies of Hinduism. RIP Sally!

[Simran · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is poetry ♥️

[Juliana Wild · Rating 5 out of 5]

Y este viaje con las diosas todavía no termina, siento que este libro me acompañará siempre, como lo hizo durante los últimos 8 meses. La preciosidad del sagrado femenino, del shakti, de lo bello que es ser mujer y vivir a cada una de estas maravillosas diosas hindúes. Agradecida …. ♥️

[Moushmi Banerjee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book a negative 100. How dare you disrespect Maa Durga? Do you have any idea of how powerful Maa Durga is. I couldn’t get past the first chapter. Utter garbage.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

It feels weird to mark this book as complete when I'm actually going to dive into each chapter/goddess once more and make it an extended practice to meditate with / invoke / explore each goddess. Perhaps after that, I'll have a more thorough review - for now, I'll say I absolutely adore this book. It's beautifully written and easy for me to connect with, perhaps because it has come into my life at the exact right time. I'm in love with it!

[Helen Lehndorf · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great beginner's exploration of the main Hindu goddesses and how their archetypal qualities can inspire and inform our contemporary experiences of womanhood.

You don't have to be into yoga to find inspiration in this book. This book is a great 'dipper' - I enjoyed reading it start to finish and I know I will dip back in when I need a bit of creative inspiration from Saraswati or courage from Kali. It has exercises at the end of each chapter which are great for contemplation or journaling.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenally written like all of Kempton's writing. Perfect for any woman looking to grow her spirituality, regardless of denomination. Practical meditation exercises included.

[Cyberpayanee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book to take slowly

[Gin Saya · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books ever. The feminine energies of the world are so fascinating. Even thinking about them just a tiny bit and tapping into them at all can be profound. Definitely recommend!

[Georgia Defontaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this audiobook. firstly, the narrators voice is so soothing and blissful to listen to. She really made me want to listen more just to relax lol. But also the content of the book was so helpful and informative. I recently and abruptly went through a kundalini awakening. I haven’t been practice yoga for a couple of years so I believe it was awakened after I met my twin soul (whatever lol). But I didn’t even understand what was happening until about a month ago and I realized that the voice I heard say my name and “wake up” was Kali. After she said that I felt this electric current going up my spine and for the rest of the night, let’s just said it was traumatic and I thought I was gonna die. I even went to the hospital the next day. This was in February 2024. When I heard about the kundalini awakening that happens with twin flames, I immediately had my 500hr yoga teacher bestie to confirm and she indeed confirmed that what I had been going through was a kundalini awakening. Since then, I have fully awakened a couple of weeks ago, which was the most profound and peaceful feeling i’ve ever experienced. I am also clairaudient so I hear a lot of voices at night. There was one night that was particularly distressing and I was on the verge of a panic attack, but then I heard Kali ma’s confident and unconditionally loving voice whisper “breathe” as she laid her hand on my back. It was the realest voice i’ve ever heard. it was like another person in the room with me. Since then, I have been in the process of learning about hinduism and the different goddesses (although I am definitely a daughter of Kali ma). This book was so so so helpful and i am so grateful it was put in my life. Thank you to the author. truly thank you so much!

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally got round to completing this, I enjoyed the journalling activities and the meditations that I worked through slowly for my own healing journey.
A very good introductory book about some of the goddesses from the Hindu pantheon.
Great for beginners and advanced practitioners alike.
As someone with a lot of knowledge already on this topic, I still found information that was valuable and new to me-- particularly the mantras were a lovely addition that I can add to my own practice.
I also loved how the author has set this book up to be read either solo or utilised by a facilitator for group work. If you enjoy feminine empowerment books or you're a wellbeing teacher wanting to host feminine empowerment workshops or sacred feminine women's circles then this book is for you.
There's also a fun quiz at the back to find out which archetype you're most like, I'm mostly Laksmi and Saravati with a hint of Radha (but then Radha is an avatar of Laksmi anyway). The western equivalent of Laksmi is Aphrodite of which is my patron goddess for my sun sign in Libra. I'm practically a Laksmi woman.

This is a favourite book added to my 'yoga shelf' that I will come back to often.

[Casey Garrett · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book took several months to read as I was trying to absorb the material. There are several meditation and journaling activities that I started off doing, one maybe two at the most per night. By the end of the book I was just zooming through and imaging the mediations as I went along not really stopping to meditate.

While getting my yoga certification we had to plan a yoga flow based off of a yoga goddess, my goddess was Saraswati. Learning a bit about yoga goddesses during my search to create a flow I decided to come back and read more about different goddesses in Sally Kempton's Awakening Shakti.

It is a very interesting book. Sometimes hard to read whether it was the names of the gods and goddesses being similar, or the Sanskrit mantras (also translated to English). There are some goddesses you will more easily identify with while others are harder to relate to. This book is good to gain knowledge but may take a while to read and fully understand the words that Sally has wrote.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: Sally, who died earlier this year, was my dear personal friend for many years, and I cannot but be biased in writing about her work, in part because I have a sense of her and what's "behind" her ideas. She had wanted this delightful book to be entitled Goddesses, but the editors at her publisher went with Awakening Shakti. While that might seem like a small matter, the point (her point on this) is that the ways that omne can invoke the goddesses in one's life can pertain to any and every aspect of one's life, not just "awakening shakti." As a tantrika, she was assuredly interested in shakti! But there's far more to the practice, to the richness of what the goddesses she explores can bring to our lives.

[Rachel Messenger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the thorough descriptions of the goddesses and the plethora of meditations and writing exercises. The only thing I really didn’t like was how much she focused on the breast size of the goddesses and how beautiful they are/aren’t and even listed some examples of women in real life that fit both molds. That feels incredibly superficial to me and threw me off a little bit each time—I would hope a spiritual book would focus less on exterior genetic outcomes and societal standards. It doesn’t come up much but was noticeable enough for me to comment on. Love the book and am very glad for the order and progression of goddess types otherwise!

[Billye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Awakening ShaktiThe Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga by Sally Kempton is an ambitious endeavor. The author does a good job of taking many complicated subjects, distilling them down, and presenting them in a way that is accessible for general audiences in the West. The strength of the work is making these subjects palatable to people who know little or nothing about them. This strength is also the work’s largest weakness. It is a difficult task to bring unfamiliar ideas and make them understandable while revering them at the same time. I learned a lot from this book and I am very happy that I chose the Audible Audio edition and listened to it. The narration performance by Leslie Howard is exceptional and includes chanting and singing along with great Sanskrit pronunciations. The narration performance definitely enhances and greatly supports the material. I would recommend this book to anyone on their yoga journey as one of many sources of information about these subjects and to fans of the author.

[Amber Middlebrook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This content offers a comprehensive exploration of mythic goddesses within the framework of yoga. The audiobook is enhanced by an excellent voice narrator. I have been engaging with this book periodically throughout the year during my walks and drives. I would recommend progressing through the book chapter by chapter, concentrating on the specific goddess you intend to work with and incorporating the provided meditations and practices. In hindsight, I would have allocated more structured time to practicing with this book, as my initial intention was solely to learn from it rather than to actively engage with its practices.

[daemyra, the realm's delight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written and the examples help make the Hindu goddesses more alive. Growing up in the west meant romanticizing the shit out of Greek and Roman myths, so it's nice to have books like Awakening Shakti where you can understand the meaning of gods and goddesses that you not have grown up hearing about. Shiva as Heathcliff is now imprinted in my mind, for better or for worse.

The author comes from a privileged background so sometimes her observations about life show classicism that I don't relate to-these are mainly through random asides.

[Li Yin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very elegantly put together book of tantric metaphysical view of the universe, reality and consciousness as depicted through both goddesses and gods. They are not meant to be worshipped blindly or superstitiously but as personified representations of universal truths or aspects of the universe and the human experience as part of it.

I highly recommend for anyone interested in yoga, tantra, and the roots of all Eastern traditions.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting read about feminine power and energy tied to the Tantric yoga tradition. Wish I had been introduced to the personalities of these deities prior to my trip to India. However, the introduction there was sufficient for me to embrace this read. I don't see myself adopting these as my God(s); however, as I evaluate my responses and reactions to various situations I do so with these deities in mind. And it does make me wonder, who am I most like.......and am I really......

[Veronica Löwenbok · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastisk bok!
Sally Kempton har en oerhörd förmåga att förmedla information på ett rikt och målande sätt, utan att det blir långrandigt eller övermäktigt.
För varje gudinna får vi lära oss om hennes kvalitéer, om minst en yogamyt, samt flera dedikerade meditationer.
Kombinationen av historia och praktiska tips för hur bjuda in varje gudinna i sin yogapraktik är klockren.

[Surbhi Sood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow wow wow.....this book has turned my life upside down. Never thought one book could help me use mythology to transcend into deep meditation. This book helped me inculcate mindfulness into my life while navigating the world of my inner God. Beautiful read, would recommend to everyone alive.......

[Angelika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the book and description of feminine energies in the faces of Goddesses. It was enlightening to discover the different sides of feminine and embrace them as one in a single human body. I was not into practicing the meditations, as they seemed to me more religious practices, but keeping the journals can be good idea and I may come back to some of them.

[Veronika · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a real treasure but not for everyone. It's the kind of book you have to be ready for. I had it in my library for 5 years and when I first picked it up, I was not getting the message. Now that I picked it up again, the pages flew by and all seemed so clear. It's a lot of knowledge assembled there, much that is said and much that is in between the lines.

[Anurag · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent read 2.5/5. Does a good job at explaining principal characteristics of the most important Indian goddesses, and the mythology behind.
However, it leans into mysticism heavily which is unnecessary, but i get where the author is coming from. These parts can be ignored and moved on from for those who don’t believe in these fundamentals.