The Sacred Cycle of Life
The Five Acts of Shiva, an ancient Tantric teaching, offers us a beautiful way of understanding the ever-changing nature of our lives. It is this theme that our classes will explore throughout the coming month.
Pañcakṛtya
In Non-Dual Shaiva Tantra, Shiva, sometimes described as Prakasha, the light of consciousness, is not simply a deity somewhere outside of us. Shiva represents universal consciousness itself (the ground of reality, the light through which everything is revealed and known).
This consciousness is said to express itself through five continual acts:
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Srishti – Creation
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Sthiti – Sustenance or Maintenance
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Samhara – Dissolution
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Tirodhana – Concealment
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Anugraha – Grace or Revelation
These aren’t events that happen once. They are movements continually unfolding within nature, within our bodies and within the circumstances of our lives.
Imagine an acorn falling from an oak tree
There is a moment when the acorn must leave everything it has known. It falls to the earth, its familiar form eventually beginning to break apart.
We can recognise this as Samhara – dissolution
As human beings, this is often where we struggle. When something falls apart, an identity, relationship, career, belief or version of ourselves, our instinct can be to resist the breaking open. We may distract ourselves, deny what is happening or rush towards creating something new before we have allowed ourselves to experience and integrate what is ending.
Nature, however, doesn’t rush the process.
The acorn falls beneath the soil and disappears into darkness.
This is Tirodhana – concealment
One of my teachers beautifully described this as an “auspicious squeeze.” The periods of life when things feel contracted, uncertain or dark can sometimes become blessings in disguise. Not because suffering itself needs to be romanticised, but because when our usual ways of navigating life no longer work, we can be invited to look more deeply within ourselves.
And somewhere within that darkness comes…
Anugraha – Grace, revelation, recognition
The acorn begins to remember what it has always contained. An oak tree, and perhaps our journey isn’t so different. Tantra suggests that spiritual awakening is less about becoming something we aren’t and more about recognising what has always been present beneath the layers of concealment. We remember our essential nature.
From that recognition comes Srishti – creation
New roots form. A shoot begins reaching towards the light. Something new wants to emerge.
And then Sthiti – sustenance
We nourish what has been created. Roots deepen. Branches strengthen. Eventually, the tree comes into bloom, until, inevitably, something changes again. The cycle continues.
The beauty of the Five Acts is that they allow us to recognise that none of these stages constitute failure. We cannot permanently remain in creation or bloom. Dissolution belongs. Darkness belongs. Concealment belongs. Revelation belongs.
Perhaps our practice, then, isn’t about trying to remain forever in the light
It is learning to recognise the sacred pulse moving through all of it. To know when something needs nurturing and when something needs releasing. To allow ourselves to descend when life asks us to descend, and to recognise when it is time to rise again.
And perhaps, like the acorn, we discover that the darkness wasn’t taking us away from ourselves at all. It was part of the journey home.
Throughout September, we’ll explore each of these Five Acts through movement, breath, meditation and ancient wisdom, recognising their rhythms not only within our yoga practice, but within the wonderfully messy, ever-changing experience of being human.
Explore the Five Acts of Shiva in class this September!
Yoga classes in Colchester
Tamsio Health Hub, CO7 7BN
Soothe: an anchored, somatic style yoga flow, Thursdays 6pm-7pm
Glow: an enlivening & dynamic yoga practice, Thursdays 7.15pm – 8.15pm
Book Ahead and Save Money!
Book 8 classes = £16 discount
Book 6 classes = £9 discount
Book 4 classes = £4 discount
drop-in £12 per class
Book via my website booking page or bookwhen.
