Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra, str. 158

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

changing attribute of some form of Becoming. Supreme Being (Sat) is a unity without parts (Nishkala). Supreme Feeling-Consciousness (Chit) is immediacy of experience. In the Jiva, Consciousness of Self is set over against the notself; for logical thought establishes a polarity of subject and object. Thus the undifferentiated Supreme Consciousness transcends, and the Supreme Bliss (ParamAnanda) is beyond, the changing feelings of happiness and sorrow. It is the great Peace (Sh4nta) which, in the words of the Hangsopanishad. (V. 12, Ed. AnandAshram a, XXIX., p. 593) as of the New Testament, passes all worldly understanding. Sachchidananda, or Pure Being, persists in all the states of Becoming which are its manifestation as Shakti. It is a continuous, partless, homogeneous Unity universally pervading the manifested world like ether or space, as opposed to the limited, discontinuous, discrete character of the forms of “ matter” which are the products of its power or Shakti. It is a state of quiescence free of all motion (Nihspanda), and of that vibration (Spandana) which, operating as the Primordial Energy, evolves the phenomenal world of names and forms. It is, in short, the innermost Self in every being—a changeless Reality of the nature of a purely experiencing principle (Chaitanyam Atma) as distinguished from whatever may assume the form of either the experienced, or of the means of experience. This Chit in bodies or Chaitanya underlies as their innermost Self all beings. The Chit or Atma as the underlying Reality in all is, according to VedAnta, one, and the same in all : undivided and unlimited by any of them, however much they may be separated in time and space. It is not only all-pervading, but all-transcending. It has thus a two-fold aspects: an immanent aspect as Shakti (Power), in which It pervades the universes (Saguna Brahman); and a transcendental aspect, in which It exists beyond all Its worldly, manifestations. (Nirguna Brahman). Chit, as it is in itself, is spaceless and timeless, extending beyond all limitations of time and 140