Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

ch eet all Ra a SLA

PREFACE

is as much their work as mine. I, in particular refer, my reader to the series of Articles on the Mantra Shastra which I wrote for the ‘‘ Vedanta Kesari” now reprinting and to the “Serpent Power” shortly to be published. In this last there is given, for the first time, the rationale of Yoga through the Kundalini Shakti, the outlines of which are indicated in Chapter 16 of this volume.

The Shakta Tantra is a Sadhana Shastra of Monistic Advaitavada) Vedanta. It is to me a profound and powerful system, and its doctrine of Shakti or Divine Power is one of the greatest evolved, through spiritual intuition, by the human mind which, according to its teaching, isa manifestation of the Divine Consciousness Itseif (Shiva). Its fundamental principles, some of which it shares with other Indian faiths, form a complete answer to the ignorant assertion recently made, for political purposes, in a leading English journal, that this country has never evolved during the whole course of its History any spiritual concept capable of uplifting a nation. Whata capacity for failure! But what can stir and lift man if the doctrine that he 7s Power (Shakti) can not do so? As he has made his past, he can make his future; he and none other.

The Doctrine is laid on grand lines and what is not, in this Vast Land of great distances ?

I write this on a high plateau in Palamow and look across a wide stretch of tall grass with tips of waving silver, the home, until about nine years age (when the place was opened up), of the wild bison. The green and silver of the Prairie is splashed here and there with patches of orange flower, which the blazing sun jewels with its points of light. The near distance shows the water of a mountain tarn and two clumps of trees—the groves of worship of the ancient Kolarian peoples. Here a sparse remnant adore today as did their ancestors thousands of years ago. Of Brahmanism or other Aryan faith, there is no sign. Beyond, the grassland rises to meet the great length of a

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