Siva & Shakti
Everything is the manifestation of the ecstatic union of Siva and Shakti. Siva and Shakti are inherently One. They are not two who “become” One.
Siva and Shakti are the background of everything.
Tantric worship means to bring all together. It is a concrescence, everything retracted or collected into One. Maya pulls it apart, you see, so your sadhana helps to bring it together, as it is. This is also called “gathering back the scattered mind.”
[Cosmology and philosophy help to understand the worlds of matter and mind by breaking them down into sections for study.] When people study various systems of cosmology or philosophy it tends to make them forget the Oneness behind everything. This is even more true of secular subjects and lower knowledge.
Tantra says the world is real on the level that it occurs. Relativity is Reality in a temporary mode.
We must learn the yogic art of transmuting poison into Nectar. There is the path of grace, but self-effort is needed to clear impurities in the mind so as to get God’s attention. Self-effort and Grace go hand in hand. One important point is understanding and performing niskama karma, work/effort that is free of the desire for results.
High love is where each person is only interested in the good of the other.
Seek your true Nature, not a soul mate. If you perfect yourself then you will attract a dharmic partner, or the door to monasticism will open, or the ability to live on the fringe of the world and its doings as a vanaprastin. All three of these stations of life far surpass a person who is stuck in their imagination — searching for a “soul mate” when there is really only One Soul in existence.