Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra, str. 165

CHIT-SHAKTI

“ Windless Atmosphere (Vasudeva), existing only as it were in the form of “darkness” and “emptiness” (that is of unmanifested formlessness). So the Mahanirvana Tantra speaks of Her “dark formlessness .’ Inthe Kulachtidamani Nigama Devi says (IL. 16-24)—‘‘I, though in the form of Prakriti,rest in consciousness-bliss” (Ahang prakritiripa chet chidananda-parayana). Raghava Bhatta in his commentary on the Sharada Tilaka (Ch. 1) says ‘She who is eternal existed in a subtle (that is, unmanifested) state, as it were Chaitanya. during the final dissolution (Ya anadirfiipa chaitanyadhyasena mah4pralaye sikshma sthita). It would be simpler to say that She is then what She is (Svariipa) namely consciousness, but in creation that consciousness veils itself. These terms “ formless ”, “subtle”, dark”, “ empty ” all denote the same unmanifested state in which Shakti is in undistinguishable union with Shiva, the formless consciousness. The Pancharatra (Ahirbudhnya Samhita, Ch. TV), in manner similar to that of the other Agamas, describes the supreme state of Shakti in the dissolution of the Universe as one in which manifested Shakti “ returns to the condition of Brahman (Brahmabhavam brajate). ‘‘ Owing to complete intensity of embrace ” (Atisangkleshat) the two all pervading ones Narayana and His Shakti become as it were a single principle (Ekam tattvam iva). This return to the Brahman condition is said to take place in the same way as a conflagration, when there is no more combustible matter, returns to the latent condition of fire (Vahni-bhava). There is the same fire in both cases but in one case there is the activity of combustion and in the other there is not. It follows from this that the Supreme Brahman is not a mere knowing without trace of objectivity. In It the Aham is the Self as Chit and the Idam is the Self as Chidrfipini. There is Atmarama in which the Self knows and enjoys the Self, not in the form of external objects, but as that aspect of consciousness whose projection all objects are, Shakti is always the object of the selfand one with it. For the object is always the self, 147