Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra, page 160

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

being. Consciousness as such, (that is, as distinguished froia the products of Its power or Shakti), is never finite. Like space, it cannot be limited, though, through the operation of its power of self-negation or May4-Shakti, it may appear as determined. But such apparent determinatiozs do not ever for us express or exhaust the whole consciousness, any more than space is exhausted by the objects in it. Experience is taken to be limited because the Experiencer is swayed by a pragmatic interest which draws his attention only to particular features in the continuum. Though what is thus experienced is a part of the whole experience, the latter is felt to be an infinite expanse of consciousness or awareness in which is distinguished a definite mass of especially determined feeling.

As Chit is the infinite v/enum, all limited being exists in it, and it exists in all such beings as the Spirit or innermost and true Self and as Shakti it is their mind and body. Wheu the existence of anything is affirmed, the Brahman is affirmed, for the Brahman is Being itself. This pure Consciousness, or Chit is the Paramatma Nirguna Shiva who is Being-Consciousness-Bliss (Sachchidananda). Consciousness is Being. Param&tma, according to Advaita Vedanta, is not a consciousness of being, but Being-Consciousness. Nor it is a consciousness of Bliss, but it zs Bliss. All these are one in pure Consciousness. That which is the nature of Paramatmé never changes, notwithstanding the creative ideation (Srishtikalpané) which is the manifestation of Shakti as Chit-Shakti and M&y4-Shakti. It is this latter Shakti which, according to the Shakta Tantra, evolves. To adopt a European analogy which is yet not complete, Param&tma is God-head (Brahmatva). Shakti, or Saguna Atma, is God (ishvara). Each of the three systems Sangkhya, M&ayavada, Vedanta, and Tantrik monism agrees in holding the reality of pure consciousness (Chit). The question upon which they differ is as to whether unconsciousness is a second independent reality, as Sangkhya alleges; and, if

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