Philosophy and Religion / Arthur Avalon: Mahamaya

Sir John Woodroffe and Pramatha Natha Mukhyopadhyaya

Mahamaya. The World As Power: Power As Consciousness (Chit-Shakti)

Chapter IX. Chit and Its Involution

The study of Perfect Experience has necessarily to start on the basis of man’s own experience, and it is no false “anthropomorphic” metaphysic which models the Cosmos essentially on the lines discoverable in himself. In metaphysic no more ultimate and surer basis can be thought of. “What is here is there”.¹ Apart from spiritual intuition giving direct apprehension of the Reality-Power, what is open to logical thinking is, first, to attempt a faithful rendering and analysis of man’s own consciousness (so far as this may be possible), and thereupon form an idea of the Reality-Power as manifesting in and through ourselves; and then, secondly, to extend and apply this conception of Reality to the interpretation of Life, Matter and the World-system generally. Now, the conception of Reality thus extended either suits (i.e., explains) the World-Order, or does not suit it. If it does not suit, the inference is not that metaphysical enquiry has failed because it has started at the wrong end (i.e., the Self and its experience), but that there has been superficiality or other defect in the rendering and analysis of Self-experience, so that, the premises being vicious have vitiated the conclusions. In fact, the enquiry, to be final, has, according to this doctrine, to be started at one end only, and that end is the Self. We may indeed begin with Life or with Matter or with Force; but the enquiry will yield results neither intelligible nor final, till it be tested, revised, supplemented and understood by an enquiry into the experience of the Self. That experience is the ultimate and unquestioned “Fact”; everything else has to make good its title by its bearing upon that Fact; apart from such reference, actual or possible, atoms, ethers, forces and the rest, howsoever perfectly they may be expressed by mathematical formulae, are nothing else than abstract ideas “without local habitation and name”.

It is in man’s self that he touches the foundations of the view that Reality is ultimately Consciousness as Chit which by its own Power makes an object of itself, and elaborates this object into a world of correlated Centres of Matter, Life and Mind; and that in such elaboration Chit does not suffer its essence, that is, Being-Consciousness-Bliss² to be either abrogated or changed. That is so in man’s own experience: Chit becoming varied experience and yet remaining Pure Chit always.

It is, again, in his own experience that man must find the key to discover the meaning of the Cosmic Principles called Tattvas. Principle is one and it is Chit: but it has different phases and aspects of world -manifestation, such as unveiled and veiled; alogical and logical; extra-temporal and temporal; and so on. With reference to such phases, and in describing and explaining them, we have one Principle “evolving” as many. The Philosophy of Shakta Vedantism and Shaiva non-dualism is the enunciation and statement of the mutual relationships of what are called the Thirty-six Tattvas.³

Now, the Principles, in their broad outlines, can be discovered in normal experience, and, in detail, can be known and verified by yoga, or supernormal experience, which is not an absolutely new order of experience, but is experience more unveiled, more fully recognised and “accepted” than man’s normal, pragmatic experience.

Experience is an alogical, undefined Universe. It is Pure Consciousness, but is not only that: it has a varied content. It is subjective, but is so only when, and in so far as, it has been “dissected” by a logical operation. It involves all categories or Forms of Thought, but, in its fulness, is not covered by any of them. It is pragmatic, that is, having reference to practical ends, but is so, only as considered as a “section,” not as the complete “Fact”. Correct intuition will not even allow our saying that “Chit is in us”; the fact is that we, as centres of specific action and reaction, are in Chit which by its Power appears as such centres.

Man for the sake of the ends of his pragmatic life, disowns his Self which is Chit. But suppose he essays to be it. Then it is, and is recognised as, Alogical, the Whole⁴ beyond the six Limitations,⁵ and transcending all categories, though involving them. It is so, and is so recognised or intuited, if man is able to completely withdraw the Veil,⁶ and so, do away with all pragmatic limitations, even what is called “central reference”.

Now, what is the import of the revelation of this Experience?

(1) Since it is unveiled and free from all limitations, it may be called both Pure and Perfect. It is the Whole⁷ and absolutely pure.⁸

(2) Since it is alogical and indefinable, it cannot be called a Tattva which means Reality-Power defined in a particular way, that is, as regards a phase or aspect. It is therefore beyond⁹ (though involving) all (i.e., 36) Tattvas.

(3) It is Being, Consciousness, Bliss,¹⁰ but the aspects are not “sundered” or thought apart. It is the manifesting Principle¹¹ as well as object and manifestation,¹² Chit as well as Power, but these are in indistinguishable unity. Something reveals and something is revealed, but there is no logical separation of the one from the other. It is Para Samvit or Chit which is Perfect Experience of which the Ether of Consciousness¹³ is an undistinguished phase.

Suppose, now, we proceed to think about this alogical Whole of Experience. We ask ourselves: What is it? What is there in it? We see that it is Consciousness stressing as a universe of experience. This is the fullest account we can render of the Fact. We see also that Consciousness and Its Stress or Power is one and not two, though we think them apart. Consciousness, in our review, is the Manifesting Principle,¹⁴ and Its stressing is the content or object of manifestation.¹⁵ But the former is also Power, and the latter is also manifestation (since it is abstraction to say that manifestation is one thing and its “content” or object is another; and though it may be possible in yoga to have experience as Pure Manifestation without any special content,¹⁶ in that case, Manifestation becomes its own content; and in other cases where there is special content¹⁷ this latter as manifested is the indivisible concrete fact which abstraction splits into manifestation and manifested). Hence Shiva-tattva and Shakti-tattva are one. And yet now, from the standpoint of our thinking, manifestation¹⁸ and manifested¹⁹ exist like two seeds contained in a grain of gram.²⁰ It is also pure²¹ because though our thinking has now distinguished the indistinguishable and thought about the alogical and unthinkable, (1) it has not yet set apart one aspect from the other aspect and looked upon them as distinct Principles (i.e., there is as yet no duality), (2) nor has it yet hedged round and veiled the Complete Fact, accepting parts only and rejecting or ignoring others.

The manifested²² is the fact of Consciousness being a content or object and making a content or object of itself. (This is depicted in the symbolism of the Kamakalavilasa²³ as the reflection of the Self in a mirror).

Suppose next, we essay to give to ourselves a summary statement of the illumining-illumined, this Shiva-Shakti experience. What is the most general category under which we may (approximately of course) subsume this experience? By what name may we call it, though absolutely, unnamable it be? The category which most nearly subsumes and expresses the whole of man’s experience is—“I” (Aham). This “I” should, however, be distinguished from what is pragmatically known and used as “I” which is but a comparatively limited section of experience, referred to a centre, i.e., Ego, and sharply contrasted with a vaster non-ego or not-self, known and used as “Idam” or “This”. What it may be asked is all this manifestation as experience? And the first and most comprehensive answer is—It is “I”.²⁴ In this, Consciousness or Manifestation makes a content or object of Itself—the Primary Object. And since we have called this fact the illumined,²⁵ the Primary Object may be called the I-experience.²⁶ Its logical correlate is, of course, “This,”²⁷ but in the primary stage, the This is as yet latent, implicit: we know and describe our entire Being-Experience as “I,” and nothing but that. In pragmatic thought, “I ” is Subject in relation to “This” as Object; but in this primary representation of Experience, “I” as concrete consciousness makes an object of itself, as, relatively speaking, in the pragmatic sphere also, we sometimes make an object of “I” or Ego. And since in the primary presentation, “I” is all-inclusive, leaving no margin for a correlate “This,” Power as Vimarsha, in so far as it functions to present this latter, may be supposed to be negative.²⁸

Shiva-tattva is then the presentation (primary in the logical line, but approximate and secondary in relation to Para-Samvit which is alogical) of Experience as an exclusive “I,” the associate Shakti-tattva so operating as not to present the other logical pole—“Idam” or “This”. It is “pure” in the sense that though experience is not here partitioned into “I” and “This,” the Whole (with nothing veiled or subtracted) is thought of as “I”. The province of “This” not being rejected, is covered by the all-inclusive concept, “I”.

Next, in the seamless experience thus intuited as “I,” a seam or fissure is seen to appear—the Polarity of I²⁹ and This,³⁰ but the latter “Pole” is as yet, very faintly or hazily, folded up with the “I”. There is as yet (1) no clear differentiation or projection of the latter Pole;³¹ and (2) no distinct blossoming³² of it. The This’³³ is faintly perceived by the ‘I’³⁴ as part of the one Self, the emphasis being therefore on the “I” side of experience.³⁵ There is representation of, and warrant for, this in man’s own ordinary experience. This second logical stage is called Sadashiva-Tattva. It is the stage of the subject-object relation.³⁶ The This is however here the self and not non-self, in which the stress is on the first. It is also pure³⁷ (approximately so, when compared with Para-Samvit or the alogical Whole), in the sense that, though polarity is here introduced, experience is still intuited as a whole and not in this aspect or that only. The limitations (Maya and “her progeny” contracting experience) have not yet commenced to exist and operate.

An appeal to normal experience will shew that when the above stage has been reached, attention or regard swings from “Fact conceived as I” to “Fact conceived as This.” This, evidently, is not the Fact (i.e., the Universe of Experience) becoming veiled in one “section” or aspect, and revealed in another. The Fact as a whole was there (approximately, because we were logically operating on the alogical) in the state of I-emphasis,³⁸ as it is now in the state of This-emphasis.³⁹ But of the two polar concepts, “I” and “This,” the former was emphatic in the first, and the latter emphatic in the second. The emphasis or regard plays between these poles. The same complete “Universe” is differently regarded (viz., as “I” and as “This”) in the two cases. The Universe has not been sectioned yet, and has not been laid upon any “basis”⁴⁰ other than consciousness. There is as yet no double framework, one for the Self and the other for the Not-Self. This is Ishvara-tattva. It also is pure.⁴¹

Then, as a preliminary to the “disruption” of the Universe of Experience into Self and Not-Self, Purusha and Prakriti, thought of as independent of each other, we have a state of experience in which the “Universe,” still remaining (approximately) entire and still regarded as laid upon the one⁴² non-dual basis of Consciousness, is conceived both as ‘I’ and This,’⁴³ the emphasis being laid on both. In normal experience, too, the like of this is seen when man’s “Fact” is equally and indifferently regarded as “I” and “This“. “I” and “This” here are not the “I” and “This” of ordinary pragmatic thought which refers to different “sections” of experience, and, in the case of external perception, lays them upon a dual and independent basis (e.g., Mind and Matter).

This is Sadvidya or Shuddhavidya Tattva. It is also pure⁴⁴ and the last of the pure Tattvas.⁴⁵ After this the operation of Maya,⁴⁶ Kanchukas and duality⁴⁷ begins, concealing and limiting the dimensions of the Universe, and sharply dividing it into Self⁴⁸ and Not-Self,⁴⁹ setting them up as independent Principles. Commencing from this stage, their reign extends over the evolution of the lower Tattvas;⁵⁰ and we have, further, the emergence of the order of Time and that of Space, which prior to this were not evolved.

Broadly speaking, then, we have two aspects and two stages in the second aspect: (1) the aspect as Alogical Whole; and (2) that of the transcendentally⁵¹ logical Shiva-Shakti-tattva and its unmanifested⁵² stages down to Sadvidya-tattva; and (3) the empirical pragmatic manifested stage of the Psycho-physical Potential⁵³ down to solid matter.⁵⁴ The Sangkhyan Prakriti is one, but in Advaita Shaiva philosophy, many. Between (2) and (3) there is a transitional, dual-non-dual⁵⁵ or difference-and-not-difference⁵⁶ stage during which Maya (the Principle of Difference),⁵⁷ the five (“Sheaths”)⁵⁸ and Purusha or the individual self are evolved.

The main outlines of the order of stages of Cosmic Evolution,⁵⁹ are, as indeed they must be, traceable in the evolution of men’s own experience, if he essays to uplift, as far as possible, the Veil hiding from his pragmatic eye, the real and total content and import of his life and existence. The more he removes the veil, the larger and deeper become the content and import of Chit operating in, and as, himself. The question, evidently, is: What is that content and that import of Chit in the “limit,” that is, when the veil has been completely uplifted? That “limit” is Consciousness as It is in Itself or Para-Samvit. The main “lines” of the evolution of the microcosm are also, in the “limit,” the lines of the evolution of the macrocosm. Those “lines,” are: (a) A neutral, undifferentiated, nonpolarized condition (the Alogical); (b) a condition of potential differentiation or polarization, in which, the Substance still remaining undivided, there is emphasis on one “pole” or on the other (the condition of Fundamental Movement);⁶⁰ and (c) the condition of actual dissociation of the poles, and resultant splitting up of the non-dual Substance into dual and Manifold. The Supreme Point⁶¹ must be implicit in the second stage, since we cannot have “poles,” potential or differentiated, and stressing upon and between them, without Power focussing itself into a Point.⁶² Bindu is manifestly operative in the third or differentiating and multiplying stage.

Now, Matter (believed to be constituted by Positive and Negative charges of electricity) may be, and by some has been, conceived as evolving from the Mother Stuff (e.g., Ether) substantially in the manner described in (a), (b) and (c)—a neutral state; a potentially polar (but undissociated) stressing state; and a dissociated (though configurated), stressing state of electrons and protons constituting an atom of Matter. The non-nucleated protoplasm; the nucleated protoplasm in which the sex-difference is still implicit; the organised plant or animal tissue in which the sexes gradually dissociate themselves (in some plants, for example, though the sexes are dissociated, they are still parts of the same organism); these prove the “lines” or stages in vital evolution. Or, without reference to sex difference, we might trace the “lines” more simply thus: first, non-nucleated protoplasm in which the nucleus may be implicit; second, the nucleated protoplasm often involving another nucleus within itself, stressing, under the conditions of nutrition, etc., to “divide” itself; third, the divided cell of protoplasm, each with its own independent nucleus. In experience, too, knowledge begins with an undifferentiated state; evolves the poles (first associated and co-substantial) of “I” and “This”; dissociates the poles and makes independent substances of them. The study of even a common act of perception, if not allowed to be swayed and cramped by pragmatic considerations, will show that this is so. Man’s experience has three broad forms. Cognition, Feeling-attitude and Volition; each is, or tends to become, polar; thus cognition is of this object or of that; feeling is either pleasure or pain; volition is either attractive or repulsive.⁶³ Now, intuition is relied on to show that a neutral, non-polar condition is the basis and background of each of these three pairs of poles. Cognition of this or that is based upon, and branches off from, a generic cognition;⁶⁴ pleasure and pain are based upon, and shoot out from, a “mother-stuff” of feeling which is veiled bliss;⁶⁵ and attraction and repulsion⁶⁶ presuppose, and may reveal, a placid background of quiescence.⁶⁷

So the “lines” of the Grand Cosmic Evolution, as traced before, are repeated in the details of creation.

And, all that exists, all whether as Mind, Life and Matter, are forms and products of the one fundamental Substance-Power which is Chit-Shakti, or unlimited Being-Consciousness as Power which is also Bliss.

Footnotes

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