The real power behind this manifest universe is Shakti (Divine creative energy)
Our lives depend entirely upon Shakti, which grants us vitality, feeling and awareness
The real power behind this manifest universe is Shakti or the energy of the Goddess, which is Brahman´s force of expression and manifestation. Shakti or the power of creation controls everything that occurs within her field. The formless Brahman beyond creation has no concern about this realm or anything that we do within it. It can neither help us nor hinder us in any way. From its point of view, there never has been any birth or death, individual or cosmos, bondage or liberation. Even our seeking of liberation has no meaning for it.
Our lives depend entirely upon Shakti, which grants us vitality, feeling and awareness, through which we operate on all levels and can set in motion both our outer actions and inner sadhana or spiritual practice. Shakti controls the entire manifestation, just as electricity allows all appliances to work. She rules over the processes of birth and death and the unfoldment karma. She provides our souls with the bodies and minds and the worlds in which to experience life. All that we eat, breathe, perceive, feel or know consists of some portion of her energy and an aspect of Her dynamic processes that surround us on every side. All that we seek to acquire for sustenance, happiness, knowledge or growth is part of Her and comes from Her.
Yet Shakti also controls the way beyond manifestation, the return to Brahman. Even to seek Brahman, to seek what is beyond Shakti, we must work with Shakti. Shakti provides us the power of meditation and the discriminating insight through which we can transcend time and space. This means that the best means for both spiritual realization and for gaining all the other goals of life is to worship Shakti, to work with and for the Goddess. There is no other way as effective, if there is any other way at all. If the Brahman is the goal, the Shakti is both the path and the power to traverse it. We can awaken and follow her current to Brahman, or remain asleep and get caught in her outside streams that move in different directions.
Therefore, the issue is not Brahman, which is beyond everything, but Shakti that manifests everywhere. Shakti is all around us, flashing forth in everything, whether we recognize Her play or not. The issue is how to gain the grace of that Shakti - How to ally ourselves with the right Shaktis to facilitate our development as a soul.
extract from essay The Primacy of Shakti by Dr. David Frawley