Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra, S. 155

CHIT-SHAKTI

of Eastern thought, which asserts itself to be in possession of an experimental method by which the condition of pure consciousness may be realised. The question is, thus, not one of mere speculation, but of demonstration. This state, again, is believed by the East to be not a dull and dreary condition a dry abstraction or reductio ad absurdum of all which imparts to our living its worth and significance. Not at all; since it is the first Principle from which all existence proceeds. It is reasonable, therefore, it is contended, to assume that all which life possesses of real worth exists in the Source of life itself. Life is only a mode of infinite beatitude, which is pure Being and Consciousness in all its metaphysical grandeur, an absolutely ununderstandable condition which no imagination can depict and no categories can reach and possess.

Owing to the necessarily negative character of some of the descriptions of the Supreme Brahman we find such questions “ How can it differ from a nullity ?” (Dialogues on Hindu Philosophy,” 259 by Rev. K. M. Banerjee): and the statement of the English Orientalist Colonel Jacob (whose views are akin to those of others) that Nirvana is an unconscious (sic) and stone-like (sic) existence.” Such a misconception is the more extraordinary in that it occursin the work of an author who was engaged in the translation of a Vedantic treatise. These and many similar statements seem to establish that it is possible to make a special study of Ved&nta and yet to misunderstand its primary concepts. It is true that the Brahman is unconscious in the sense that It has not our consciousness; for if so, It would be Jiva and not Paramatma. But this is only to say that it has not our limitations. It is unlimited Chit. A stone represents its most veiled existence. In its Self it is all light and selfillumining (Svaprakasha). As Shruti says (Katha Up. 5-15), “All things shed lustre by His lustre. AJ] things shine because He shines.” All things depend on It: but It has not to depend on any thing else for Its manifestation, It is

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