Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

mounting hill-forest, dark green against the blue of distance, in which other Hill tops beckon forward the curious mind with their lure of mystery. And this lure is all around, for the upland is girdled some fifteen hundred feet below with wooded valleys, valleys on the East black with great Sal forests, which, as those of the upland, are the haunt of bear, tiger and sambur,—wild forests, lit only here and there by rare open spaces, and the glinting stream and white sands of the Koel River. Beyond the valleys, and all around the upland are a circle of Hills rising on the East wave upon wave. Here man, who has not known himself and his greatness seems nought, and Nature all, a feeling which deepens as night falls on the earth with quick assault, the dark dome of heaven sparkling with the light of countless rising stars, fading again at Dawn as the Visible Devata, the resplendent joyous Sun, the Eye of Vishnu, arises from out the “ Eastern Mountain.”

Such a vast scene is but one of many in this, itself vast, secular, and awe-inspiring land. Such a view we may imagine was displayed before the eyes of the incoming Aryan peoples. Upon them the influence of the Soul fell, filling them with awe. The Spirit, manifesting in this sacred earth, at length revealed Itself in their minds. Within them arose the Inner Sun, which is the Light of all, unveiling to the eye of mind truths hidden in its subtle garb of thought. These tenuous veils again fell away, when, by the intuition of the forest-sages, was realised the Spiritual Ether of Consciousness, whose Mother-Power (Shakti) as Will, Thought and Action ever personalizes as the life of this magnetic stretch of earth which is India, as the world of which it is an head-ornament, and as (in the words of the Indian Scripture) the countless other universes, which are but the dust of Her Sovereign Feet.

NETURHAT, 77th October Delt aN