Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

CHAPTER IV SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

HAKTI who is in Herself pure blissful Consciousness (Chidrfipini) is also the Mother of Nature and is Nature itself born of the creative play of Her thought. The Shakta faith, or worship of Shakti, is, I believe, in some of its essential features one of the oldest and most widespread religions in the world. Though very ancient, it is yet, in its essentials, and in the developed form in which we know it to-day, harmonious with some of the teachings of modern philosophy and science; not that this is necessarily a test of its truth. It may be here noted that in the West, and in particular in America and England, a large number of books are now being published on “ New Thought,” “ Will Power,” “ Vitalism,” “ Creative Thought,” “ Right Thought,” “Self Unfoldment,” “Secret of Achievement,” “ Mental Therapeutics” and the like, the principles of which are essentially those of some forms of Shakti Sadhana both higher and lower. There are books of disguised magic as how to control others (Vashikarana) by making them buy what they do not want, how to secure “ affection’ and so forth which, notwithstanding some hypocrisies, are in certain respects on the same level as the Tantrik Shavara, as a low class of books on magic are called. Shavara or Chand4la are amongst the lowest of men. The ancient and at the same time distinguishing character of the faith is instanced by temple worship (the old Vaidik worship was generally in the home or in the open by the river), the cult of images, of Linga and Yoni (neither of which it is said

were part of the original Vaidik practice), the worship 63