Shakti and Shakta: Essays and Addresses on the Shakta Tantrashastra c19.18

c19.18

Important practical results follow from the adoption of this view of looking at the world. The latter is the creation of Îshvara. The world is real ; being unreal only in the sense that it is a shifting passing thing, whereas Âtmâ as the true Reality endures. Bondage is real, for Bondage is Avidyâshakti binding consciousness. Liberation is real for this is the grace of Vidyâshakti. Men are each Centres of Power, and if they would achieve success must, according to this Shâstra, realize themselves as such, knowing that it is Devatâ which thinks and acts in, and as, them and that they are the Devatâ. Their world enjoyment is His, and liberation is His peaceful nature. The Âgamas deal with the development of this Power which is not to be thought of as something without, but as within man’s grasp through various forms of Shakti Sâdhanâ. Being in the world and working through the world, the world itself, in the words of the Kulârnava Tantra, *becomes the seat of liberation* (Mokshâ-yate Samsâra). The Vîra or heroic Sâdhaka does not shun the world from fear of it. But he holds it in his grasp and wrests from it its secret. Realizing it at length as Consciousness the world of matter ceases to be an object of desire. Escaping from the unconscious driftings of a humanity which has not yet realized itself, He is the illumined master of himself, whether developing all his powers, or seeking liberation at his will.