The Serpent Power. Arthur Avalon

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СКАЧАТЬ of the body in which it is enshrined. Spirit remains the same; the body changes. The manifestation of consciousness is more or less limited as ascent is made from the mineral to man. In the mineral world Chit manifests as the lowest form of sentiency evidenced by reflex response to stimuli, and that physical consciousness which is called in the West atomic memory. The sentiency of plants is more developed, though it is, as Chakrapāni says, in the Bhānumatī a dormant consciousness. This is further manifested in those micro-organisms which are intermediate stages between the vegetable and animal worlds, and have a psychic life of their own. In the animal world consciousness becomes more centralized and complex, reaching its fullest development in man, who possesses all the psychic functions, such as cognition, perception, feeling, and will. Behind all these particular changing forms of sentiency or consciousness is the one formless, changeless Chit as it is in itself (Svarūpa), and as distinguished from the particular forms of its manifestation.

      As Chit throughout all these stages of life remains the same it is not really developed. The appearance of development is due to the fact that is now more and now less veiled by mind and matter. It is this veiling and projection by the cosmic consciousness (Shakti) which creates the world. What is it, then, which veils consciousness and projects the world-show?

      The answer is Shakti as Māyā. Is Shakti the same as or different from Shiva or Chit? It must be the same, for otherwise all could not be one Brahman. But if it is the same it must be also Chit or Consciousness. Therefore it is Sachchidānandamayī{126} and Chidrūpinī.{127}

      And yet there is, at least in appearance, some distinction. Shakti, which comes from the root Shak, “to have power,” “to be able,” means power. As She is one with Shiva, She as such power is the power of Shiva or Consciousness. There is no difference between Shiva as the possessor of power (Shaktimān) and power itself. The power of consciousness is consciousness in its active aspect. Whilst, therefore, both Shiva and Shakti are consciousness, the former is the changeless static aspect of consciousness, and Shakti is the kinetic active aspect of the same consciousness. The particular power whereby the dualistic world is brought into being is Māyā-Shakti, which is both a veiling (Āvarana) and projecting (Vikshepa) Shakti. Consciousness veils itself to itself, and projects from the store of its previous experiences (Sangskāra) the notion of a world in which it suffers and enjoys. The universe is thus the creative imagination (Srishtikalpanā, as it is called) of the Supreme World-thinker (Īshvara). Māyā is that power by which things are “measured”—that is, formed and made known (Mīyate anena iti māyā). It is the sense of difference (Bhedabuddhi), or that which makes man see the world, and all things and persons therein, as different from himself, when in truth he and it and they are the one self. It is that which establishes a dichotomy in what would otherwise be a unitary experience, and is the cause of the dualism inherent in all phenomenal experience. Shakti veils consciousness by negating in various degrees Herself as consciousness.

      Before the manifestation of the universe, Being-Consciousness-Bliss alone was—that is, Shiva-Shakti as Chit and Chidrūpinī respectively. Consciousness not exercising its power, Consciousness alone changelessly was. In this the quiescent state of the Ātmā or Self, Shakti being latent, is one with it. The Devī in the Kulachūdāmani Nigama{128} says: “I, though Prakriti, lie hidden in Consciousness-Bliss.” Rāghava Bhatta says:{129} “She who is eternal (Anādirūpā) existed in a subtle state, as it were Consciousness, during the great dissolution.”

      This is Parashiva, who in the scheme of the thirty-six Tattvas is known as Parāsamvit. This is the perfect experience and perfect universe. By this latter term is not meant any heaven in the sense of a perfected world of forms. The perfect universe is Shakti herself in Her own nature as consciousness experienced by Shiva as consciousness. As the Upanishad says, “The self knows and loves the self.” It is this love which is bliss or “resting in the self,” for, as it is elsewhere said, “Supreme love is bliss” (Niratishaya-premāspadatvamānandatvam). If, however, there be one Changeless Consciousness there is no manifestation. If, again, we assume some other than Consciousness as cause of the universe, then the Monistic (Advaita) truth is destroyed, as in the dualistic Sāngkhya, which assumes, in addition to and independent of the Purusha consciousness, the Prakritiun consciousness as the material cause (Upādānakārana) of the world. All Indian Monism, therefore, posits a dual aspect of the single consciousness—one the transcendental changeless aspect (Parāsamvit),{130} and the other the creative changing aspect, which is called Shiva-Shakti Tattva.{131} In Parāsamvit the “I” (Aham) and the “This” (Îdam), or universe of objects, are indistinguishably mingled in the supreme unitary experience.{132} In Shiva-Shakti Tattva Shakti, which is the negative aspect of the former, Her function being negation (Nishedha-vyapāra-rūpā Shaktih), negates herself as the Îdam of experience, leaving the Shiva consciousness as a mere “I,” “not looking towards another” (Ananyonmukhah aham pratyayah). This is a state of mere subjective illumination (Prakāsha mātra){133} to which Shakti, who is called Vimarsha,{134} again presents Herself, but now with a distinction of “I” and “This” as yet held together as part of one self.

      At this point, the first incipient stage of dualism, there is the first emanation of consciousness, known as Sadāshiva or Sadākhya Tattva, which is followed by the second or Īshvara Tattva, the Lord. Some worship predominantly the masculine or right side of the conjoint male and female figure (Ardhanārīshvara). Some, the Shāktas, predominantly worship the left, and call Her Mother, for She is the great Mother (Magna Mater), the Mahādevī who conceives, bears, and nourishes the universe sprung from Her womb (Yoni). This is so because She is the active aspect{135} of consciousness, imagining (Srishtikalpanā){136} the world to be, according to the impressions (Sangskāra) derived from enjoyment and suffering in former worlds. It is natural to worship Her as Mother. The first Mantra into which all men are initiated is the word Mā (Mother). It is their first word and generally their last. The father is a mere helper (Sahakāri-mātra) of the Mother.{137} The whole world of the five elements also springs from the Active Consciousness or Shakti, and is Her manifestation (Pūrna vikāsha). Therefore men worship the Mother,{138} than whom is none more tender,{139} saluting Her smiling beauty as the Rosy Tripurasundarī, the source of the universe, and Her awe-inspiring grandeur as Kālī, who takes it back into Herself.

      In the Mantra side of the Tantra Shāstra, dealing with Mantra and its origin, these two Tattvas emanating from Shakti are known as Nāda and Bindu. Parashiva and Parāshakti are motionless (Nihspanda) and soundless (Nihshabda).

      Nāda is the first produced movement in the ideating cosmic consciousness leading up to the Sound-Brahman (Shabdabrahman), whence all ideas, the language in which they are expressed (Shabda), and the objects (Artha) which they denote, are derived.

      Bindu literally means a point and the dot (Anusvāra), which denotes in Sanskrit the nasal breathing (°). It is in the Chandrabindu nasal breathing placed above Nāda (

). In its technical Mantra sense it denotes that state of active consciousness or Shakti in which the “I” or illuminating aspect of consciousness identifies itself with the total “This” as the yet dualistically unmanifest state of the universe.{140} It subjectifies the “This,” thereby becoming a point (Bindu) of consciousness with it. When consciousness apprehends an object as different from itself it sees that object as extended in space. But when that object is completely subjectified (such as to ourselves our own mind) it is experienced as an unextended point. This is the universe experience of the Lord experiencer as Bindu.{141}

      Where does the universe go at dissolution? It is withdrawn into that Shakti which projected it. It collapses, so to speak, into a mathematical point without any magnitude whatever.{142} This is the Shivabindu, which again is withdrawn into the Shiva-Shakti-Tattva which produced it. It is conceived that round the Shiva Bindu there is coiled Shakti, just as in the earth center called Mūlādhāra Chakra in the human body a serpent clings round the self-produced Phallus (Svayambhulinga). This coiled Shakti may be conceived as a mathematical line, also without magnitude, which, being everywhere in contact with the point round which СКАЧАТЬ