Shaktism understands reincarnation as the ongoing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (saṁsāra), governed by the cosmic power of the Divine Mother, Śakti. All arising, sustaining, and dissolving of beings occur through Her energy, so that each embodied existence is an expression within Her vast play (līlā). The individual soul (ātman or jīva) transmigrates through various forms, and this movement is never outside Her conscious order. In this vision, the universe is not a random sequence of lives but a purposeful unfolding held within the Mother’s awareness.

Karma shapes the specific circumstances of each rebirth, yet this law is not merely mechanical; it is the Divine Mother’s justice and wisdom in operation. Shaktism also emphasizes Her grace (kṛpā), which can support and accelerate spiritual maturation across lifetimes. Thus, while past actions set the stage for future births, the Mother’s compassionate intervention can help loosen karmic bonds and guide the soul more swiftly toward realization. She is at once the power that binds through māyā (illusion) and the power that offers the key to freedom.

The deeper purpose of repeated births is understood as educative and transformative. Through pleasure and suffering, gain and loss, the soul gradually awakens to its essential unity with Śakti, and, by extension, with Śiva–Śakti as the supreme reality. Each lifetime becomes an opportunity to refine devotion, deepen wisdom, and purify the tendencies that obscure this recognition. Devotional relationships with the Divine Mother, once formed, are believed to continue across incarnations, with Her guidance accompanying the devotee from one birth to the next.

Liberation (mokṣa) in Shaktism is the cessation of this cycle of reincarnation through union with the Divine Mother, often expressed as union with Śiva–Śakti. This is attained through wholehearted devotion to Her, along with mantra, ritual worship, and inner yogic practice, by which the devotee comes to realize non-separation from Her. When this realization is complete, rebirth is no longer necessary, because the soul has fulfilled the very purpose for which it wandered through countless lives. In this way, Shaktism presents reincarnation not as a mere fate to be endured, but as the Mother’s own process for leading every being back to conscious oneness with Herself.