âtmâ and Mûla-prakṛiti and is herself hidden, there is a natural tendency to regard her only as the one or the other. Throughout the DevíBhagavata, for instance, she is now identified with the Self, mentioned under the epithet of Shiva, and now with Mûla-prakriti. Thus Shakti, personified, is made to say: "Always are He and I the same, never is there any difference betwixt us. What He is, that am I; what I am, that is He; difference is due only to perversion of thought." But the distinction is also pointed out at the same time: "He who knows the very subtle distinction between us two, he is truly wise, he will be freed from samsâra, he is freed in truth."1 Again it is said: "At the beginning of creation, there were born two shaktis, viz., prâṇa and buddhi, from samvit, consciousness, wearing the form of Mûla-prakriti." 2 Of course it is true, in the deepest sense, 2 सदैकत्वं न भेदोस्ति सर्वदैव ममास्य च । आवयोरंतरं सूक्ष्मं यो वेद मतिमान् हि सः 1 मूल प्रकृतिरूपिण्याः संविदो जगदुद्भवे ॥ III. vi. 2, 3. IX. 1. 6, 7. that Shakti is not different from the Absolute, but only its very nature, svabhâva, and, as Mulaprakriti is included in the Absolute, therefore Shakti may also be identified with Mûla-prakriti, without which it cannot manifest and truly would not be. At the same time it is desirable and profitable to make the distinction-even though a distinction without a difference-from the standpoint of the limited, wherein thought must be, and has deliberately to be, taken in its 'perverted,' successive and partial form. In the Bhagavad-Gitâ,1 also, Krishna speaks of his daivî mâyâ, 'difficult to cross,' 'difficult to escape and transcend;' his sat unfa, प्रकृति, daivî prakriti, divine nature or power; and again of his two prakritis, aparâ, the lower, and, parâ, the higher, describing the former as consisting of the various elements which the Sâñkhya describes as issuing from Mûla-prakṛiti, and the latter as being the life of the Jîvas that upholds the world. The meaning of such passages would probably be easier to follow if what has been said above as to the nature of the Self, the Not-Self, and the Energy which is born of, or, rather, is, the necessity of the nature of these two, is borne in mind. As avidyâ, this primal 1 Bhagavad-Gita. vii. 14; ix. 13; vii. 5. Energy turns more towards the Not-Self and becomes the aparâ-prakṛiti, which name is used to cover not only the force which leads the Jîva outwards, but also the manifestations of the Not-Self which it especially brings out and into which it leads the Jîva. As vidyâ, it turns more towards the Self, and is the parâprakriti, the source of life, nay; which, as consciousness, in the Self of the Not-Self, is life, and so includes all Jîvas. As the two together she is daivî-prakṛiti, in which vidyâ and avidyâ coalesce into the mahâ-vidyâ, regarded not as knowledge, but rather as the Shakti, the Energy, which utilises allknowledge, for the carrying on of the worldprocess. N CHAPTER XII. THE DVANDVAM-THE RELATIVE (continued). (C.-ii.) SHAKTI-ENERGY AND NEGATION—AS THE CONDITION OF THE INTER-PLAY BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE NOT-Self. In the last chapter we dealt with the affirmative aspect of the Negation, as the energy which links together in an endless chain of causality the factors of the succession of the worldprocess, as the necessity of the whole which appears as the cause of each part, the relation of cause and effect between all the parts. We turn now to the negative aspect of the Negation, wherein it appears as the condition, or conditions, of the interplay between the Self and the NotSelf, the conditions in which the succession of the factors of the world-process appears and takes place. A little reflection will show that cause and condition are only the positive and negative aspects of the same thing. A cause may be said to be a positive condition, and a condition a negative cause. Let not the objection be taken here that we are transporting, by an anachronism, the notions of our life at the present day to a primal stage wherein pure ultimates and subtle undeveloped essentials of the universe only should be discussed. It has been pointed out over and over again that there is no gradation, no development in time, from the abstract to the concrete. The two underlie and overlie one another and are co-existent. And even were it otherwise, that which appears in development must have been in the seed all along. The world-process is in and is the Absolute. Metaphysic only endea vours to trace each abstract and concrete fact of our life, taking it, as it stands before us, back into its proper place in the Absolute, in the changeless whole, and so freeing us from the night-mare of change. Therefore taking the words 'cause' and 'condition' in the sense in which we find them used to-day, we may legitimately try to show that these senses correspond to aspects of the ultimates. We find, then, as just said, that a cause and a condition may be regarded as the positive and the negative aspects of whatever is required to bring about an event. Other ways |