The Serpent Power. Arthur Avalon
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 (
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 it is coiled, is compressed together with it, and forms therefore also one and the same point. There is one indivisible unity of dual aspect which is figured also in the Tantras{143} as a grain of gram (Chanaka), which has two seeds so closely joined as to look as one surrounded by an outer sheath.{144}
To revert to the former simile, the Shakti coiled round Shiva, making one point (Bindu) with it, is Kundalinī Shakti. This word comes from the adjective Kundalī or “coiled.” She is spoken of as coiled because She is likened to a serpent (Bhujanggī), which, when resting and sleeping, lies coiled; and because the nature of Her power is spiraline, manifesting itself as such in the worlds—the spheroids or “eggs of Brahmā” (Brahmānda), and in their circular or revolving orbits and in other ways. Thus the Tantras speak of the development of the straight line (Rijurekhā) from the point which, when it has gone its length as a point, is turned (Vakrarekhā angkushākāra) by the force of the spiraline sack of Māyā in which it works so as to form a figure of two dimensions, which again is turned upon itself, ascending as a straight line into the plane of the third dimension, thus forming the triangular or pyramidal figure called Shringātaka.{145} In other words, this Kundalī Shakti is that which, when it moves to manifest itself, appears as the universe. To say that it is “coiled” is to say that it is at rest—that is, in the form of static potential energy. This Shakti coiled round the Supreme Shiva is called Mahākundalī (“The great coiled power”), to distinguish it from the same power which exists in individual bodies, and which is called Kundalī or Kundalinī.{146} It is with and through the last power that this Yoga is affected. When it is accomplished the individual Shakti (Kundalī) is united with the great cosmic Shakti (Mahā-kundalī), and She with Shiva, with whom in truth She is one. Kundalinī is an aspect of the eternal Brahman (Brahmarūpā Sanātanī) and is both Nirgunā and Sagunā. In Her Nirguna aspect She is pure consciousness (Chaitanyarūpinī) and bliss itself (Ānandarūpinī, and in creation Brahmānandaprakāshinī). As Sagunā She it is by whose power all creatures are displayed (Sarvabhūtaprakāshinī).{147} Kundalī Shakti in individual bodies is power at rest, or the static center round which every form of existence as moving power revolves. In the universe there is always in and behind every form of activity a static background. This is one of the profound truths of the Shākta Tantras, which, as later explained, is borne out by recent discoveries of modern science. The one consciousness is polarized into static and kinetic aspects of conscious energy for the purpose of creation. This Yoga is the resolution of this duality into unity again.
The Indian Scriptures say, in the words of Herbert Spencer in his “First Principles,” that the universe is an unfoldment (Srishti) from the homogeneous (Mūlaprakriti) to the heterogeneous (Vikriti), and back to the homogeneous again (Pralaya or dissolution). There are thus alternate states of evolution and dissolution, manifestation taking place after a period of rest. So also Professor Huxley, in his “Evolution and Ethics,” speaks of the manifestation of cosmic energy (Māyā Shakti) alternating between phases of potentiality (Pralaya) and phases of explication (Srishti). “It may be,” he says, “as Kant suggests, every cosmic magma predestined to evolve into a new world has been the no less predestined end of a vanished predecessor.” This the Indian Shāstra affirms in its doctrine that there is no such thing as an absolutely first creation, the present universe being but one of a series of worlds which are past and are yet to be.
At the time of dissolution (Pralaya) there is in consciousness as Mahākundalī, though undistinguishable from its general mass, the potentiality or seed of the universe to be. Māyā potentially exists as Mahākundalī, who is Herself one with Consciousness or Shiva. This Māyā contains, and is in fact constituted by, the collective Sangskāra or Vāsanā—that is, the mental impressions produced by Karma accomplished in previously existing worlds. These constitute the mass of the potential ignorance (Avidyā) by which Consciousness veils itself. They were produced by desire for worldly enjoyment, and themselves produce such desire. The worlds exist because they in their