THE PURE UNIVERSE
(śuddhādhvan)
The so-called Pure Universe comprising the top five tattvas is Not A Place; it is the divine Reality that pervades the whole of the manifest universe.
The top five tattvas are essentially a description of God/dess.
Though divided into five levels, they are all aspects of The Divine and are referred to as phases of God’s awareness.
The differences between them are differences of perspective and emphasis.
To reach any of the five tattvas of the Pure Universe is to attain complete liberation and awakening.
The differences between them are differences of perspective and emphasis.
To reach any of the five tattvas of the Pure Universe is to attain complete liberation and awakening.
TATTVA #5: PURE MANTRA-WISDOM
(Śuddha-vidyā)
(Śuddha-vidyā)
The level of Pure Wisdom is also the level of mantra (besides meaning “wisdom,” vidyā is also the feminine word for “mantra”).
The wisdom spoken of here is not any type of intellectual knowledge but rather the various phases of Śiva-Śakti’s self-awareness expressed in the form of the seventy million mantras— all the mantras that have ever existed or will ever exist.
For the Tantrik tradition, mantras are actually conscious beings, analogous to angels in the Western religions.
Someone who attains liberation on the level of tattva #5 becomes a mantra-being.
The wisdom spoken of here is not any type of intellectual knowledge but rather the various phases of Śiva-Śakti’s self-awareness expressed in the form of the seventy million mantras— all the mantras that have ever existed or will ever exist.
For the Tantrik tradition, mantras are actually conscious beings, analogous to angels in the Western religions.
Someone who attains liberation on the level of tattva #5 becomes a mantra-being.
We know that this doctrine, that mantras are conscious, was taken seriously because the texts tell us that if A Guru grants initiation into The Tantra to someone who subsequently falls from The Path, then that guru must perform a special ritual to apologise to The Mantras for putting them to work needlessly.
It is absolutely crucial to understand that in this tradition A Mantra, its Deity, and its Goal are all one and the same.
Thus, for example, Lakṣmī’s mantra OṂ ŚRĪṂ MAHĀLAKṢMYAI NAMAḤ is the Goddess Lakṣmī in sound form; it is her sonic body.
Nor is her mantra something separate from the goal for which it is repeated, i.e., to cultivate abundance, for it is the very vibration of abundance (and, as well, the other qualities of Śrī: elegance, charm, grace, beauty, prosperity, and auspiciousness).
So, all the various “deities” of Indian spirituality exist on the level of the Śuddha-vidyā tattva as phases of Śiva-Śakti’s awareness, the many facets, if you will, of the One jewel.
Further, there are countless mantra-beings on the Śuddha-vidyā level that do not correspond to known Indian deities; perhaps we can suppose that the deities of all spiritual traditions exist on this level, insofar as they can be understood as having sonic forms.
One who reaches liberation on this level sees the entire universe as a diverse array of energies, but with a single essence.
She sees no static matter, experiencing everything as interacting patterns of vibration.
The wonder of that which she sees takes precedence over her I-sense, though there is unity between them: “I am this!” (idam evāham).
The divine Power that corresponds to this level is kriyā-śakti, the Power of Action.
This is so because the primary characteristic of mantras is that they are agents of transformative change, i.e., of action.
TATTVA #4: THE LORD (Īśvara)
This is the level of the personal God, God as a being with specific qualities, that is, the Deity that can be named in various languages (whether the name be Kriṣhṇa, Allāh, Avalokiteśvara, YHWH, etc.)
This is the level of reality that most monotheistic religions presume to be the highest. Īśvara is a generic, nonsectarian term for God (also found in Patañjali’s Yoga-sūtra).
This level is associated with jñāna-śakti, The Power of Knowing, for Īśvara holds within His being the knowledge of the subtle pattern that will be used in the creation of the universe. He empowers His regents on tattva #5 (who are really aspects of Himself) to stimulate the primordial homogenous world-source (Māyā, tattva #6) with this pattern, “churning” her so that she begins to produce the differentiation of the lower tattvas, starting with the contractions called the kañcukas (#7 and below, see “the five shells”).
At the level of Īśvara there is a balanced equality and identity between God and His incipient creation. The Sanskrit phrase said to express the experience of reality at this level is aham idam idam aham, or “I am This; This am I.”
There is a fascinating and purely “coincidental” parallel here with the self-declaration of the God of the Hebrew Bible, who when asked for His Name (at Exodus 3:14), replied simply, ehyeh Asher ehyeh, “I am That I am.”
In Śaiva Tantra, it is not only God who exists at this level; so do any beings who have reached that same awareness.
Thus the difference between Īśvara and other beings abiding at tattva #4 is one of office, not of nature.
TATTVA #3: THE EVER-BENEVOLENT ONE (Sadāśiva)
The word “God” is no longer applicable here, for this level transcends any form of a Deity with identifiable names or attributes.
This is the level on which only the slightest subtle differentiation has just begun to emerge between the absolute Deity and the idea of the universe, the universe that S/he will create out of Him/Herself.
Thus, it is the level of icchā-śakti, the divine Will Power, the creative urge or primal impulse toward Self-expression.
The Sanskrit phrase said to express the experience of reality at this level is aham idam, “I am this,” or “This incipient totality is my own Self,” where there is identity between the Divine and the embryonic universe held within it.
The sense of “I” has clear priority, wholly enveloping the “this”; so all beings who attain unity-consciousness with emphasis on the “I” pole abide at this level.
The Sadāśiva-tattva is the first movement into differentiation, for at the level of tattvas #1 and 2, there is absolute nonduality. Abhinava Gupta tells us that the Divine at this level is called Sadāśiva, “eternally Śiva,” to remind us that even as a universe begins to come into being through the power of the Will, the Absolute loses none of its divinity, it is “still Śiva,” which of course also means “still blessed.”
Historically, Sadāśiva is also the name of the high deity of one form of Śaiva Tantra, a form that was later surpassed by the worship of the conjoined and co-equal pair of Śiva-Śakti.
He is also pictured as the form of Śiva that sprouts the five faces that speak the five streams of sacred scripture.
Thus Sadāśiva is sometimes considered the first ray of divine compassion.
TATTVA #2: POWER / THE GODDESS (Śakti)
In the traditional tattva hierarchy, Śakti is #2, but in the nondual schools, care is taken to emphasize that Śiva and Śakti switch places, for they are two sides of the same coin.
That is, neither Śiva nor Śakti has priority—it is a matter of which aspect is dominant in any given experience.
The word śakti literally means “power, potency, energy, capacity, capability.”
In NŚT, all powers are worshipped as goddesses, or rather as forms of the Goddess (Mahādevī).
Śakti can no more be separated from Śiva than heat can be separated from fire.
All forms of energy are Śakti, and since matter is energy (as the Tāntrikas well knew), the whole manifest universe is seen as the body of the Goddess, and the movements of all forms of energy are Her dance.
The various aspects of Śakti are covered in detail above.
The term śakti is often used to specifically denote spiritual energy, or God’s transformative power.
In the scriptures, this meaning is often conveyed with the special term rudra-śakti, which refers to the primal, awe-inspiring divine Power that flows through us in spiritual experience.
An infusion of this divine Power is called rudra-śakti-samāveśa, where samāveśa refers to the spiritual experience comprising an expansion of consciousness, a dissolution of the boundaries between self and other, a sharing of self-hood with God and/or with the whole universe, and often an blissful influx of energy.
TATTVA #1: THE BENEVOLENT ONE (Śiva)
In the context of NŚT, Śiva is not the name of a god.
Rather, the word is understood to signify the peaceful, quiescent ground of all Reality, the infinite silence of transcendent Divinity, or, in the poet’s phrase, the “still point at the center of the turning world.”
While Śakti is extroversive, immanent, manifest, omniform, and dynamic, Śiva is introversive, transcendent, unmanifest, formless, and still. Śiva is the absolute void of pure Consciousness.
(To be more accurate, Consciousness is never absolutely still, so on the level of the Śiva-tattva, there is what Abhinava calls kiṃcit-calana, an extraordinarily subtle movement, an imperceptible and exquisitely sweet undulation.)
(To be more accurate, Consciousness is never absolutely still, so on the level of the Śiva-tattva, there is what Abhinava calls kiṃcit-calana, an extraordinarily subtle movement, an imperceptible and exquisitely sweet undulation.)
The word śiva is traditionally interpreted as “that in which all things lie (śī).”
Thus Śiva is the ground of being, that which gives reality its coherence.
His nature is beyond any qualities and is, therefore, difficult to express in words, but in Essence of the Tantras, Śiva is described as the coherence and unification of all the various śaktis.
His nature is beyond any qualities and is, therefore, difficult to express in words, but in Essence of the Tantras, Śiva is described as the coherence and unification of all the various śaktis.
Thus, He is called śaktimān, the one who holds the Powers, or rather “holds space” for their unfolding.
However, since Śiva is literally nothing without the Powers of Consciousness, Bliss, Will, and so on, it is usually Śakti who is worshipped as the highest principle in NŚT.
Śiva is that which grounds and coheres the various powers; He is the Lord of the Family (kuleśvara), the center axis of the spinning wheel of Powers.
As the coherent force, Śiva hardly has an insignificant function, but as he is not an embodiment of potency himself, he is less likely to attract worship in a spiritual system that is focused primarily on the empowerment of its adherents.
The previous paragraph defined Śiva primarily as spaciousness, the hosting space for the energy that is Śakti.
This space/energy polarity is the one given in a Trika text called Vijñāna-bhairava, among other sources.
We should note that in other contexts, the roles are defined differently.
We should note that in other contexts, the roles are defined differently.
For example, the influential Recognition school (a subset of the Trika) defines Śiva-Śakti as the two complementary aspects of one divine Consciousness: Śiva is the Light of Manifestation (prakāśa), also known as the Light of Consciousness (cit-prakāśa), and Śakti is blissful Self-reflective awareness (vimarśa).
This pairing is sometimes concisely abbreviated as cid-ānanda (Awareness-Bliss).
In this way of understanding Śiva-Śakti, He is the illuminative power of Consciousness that manifests and shines as all things, and She is the power by which that same Consciousness folds back on itself and becomes self-aware and thus can enjoy itself.
In this way of understanding Śiva-Śakti, He is the illuminative power of Consciousness that manifests and shines as all things, and She is the power by which that same Consciousness folds back on itself and becomes self-aware and thus can enjoy itself.
While new students of the Tantra often want a simple, cut-and-dried definition of the polarity of Śiva-Śakti, the tradition does not offer one.
Indeed, as this paragraph has shown, we get different definitions within the very same school.
These need not be seen as contradictory, however, for the ultimate reality of Śiva-Śakti transcends all thought; the diverse explanations are just varying orientations or angles of approach to that one
Reality, serving different students in different contexts.
In another schema, that of the radical Krama school, Śiva disappears entirely, for there the two aspects of the One are represented as different facets of one Goddess: the indescribable Void of absolute potential, the formless ground of all reality (Śiva’s usual role) is represented as the dark and emaciated, terrifyingly attractive Goddess Kālī, who devours all things and makes them one with Herself; and the infinite Light that encompasses all things and beings with loving compassion and insight is represented as white and full-bodied Goddess Parā, overflowing with boundless nectar.
But, Abhinava Gupta stresses, these apparent opposites (black and white, empty and full) are simply the two forms of the one great Goddess.
The Krama school simply wishes to avoid the inevitably dualistic implications of the image of Śiva-Śakti as two beings joined together.
How to reconcile these different presentations?
The answer is simple: they need no reconciliation, for they are each perfectly fitted to the system in which they occur; and the absolute Reality beyond words can be represented by any of these schemas or by none.
It is important to note that the term Śiva or “God” never loses its importance in this tradition.
Some might construe the more refined philosophies of NŚT as atheistic because they wholly repudiate the notion of God as a separate person, “a guy in the sky,” or indeed as anything separate from your essence-nature as dynamic free Awareness.
Yet it is significant that these very traditions continue to use the term “God” and its synonyms (such as maheśvara, “the Great Lord,” and parameśvara, “the Supreme Divinity”).
It seems to me that they do not want to dispense with the love and devotion that is inspired in so many by this personalizing of the Absolute.
They want a path of intimate relationship.
At the same time, remember that the tradition gives us a beautiful nondual definition of the word “God,” one worth repeating:
...in actuality it is the unbounded Light of Consciousness, reposing in its innate Bliss, fully connected to its Powers of Willing, Knowing, and Acting, that we call God. (Essence of the Tantras)
It is in the context of this definition that we may understand such scriptural statements as “Nothing exists that is not God.”
Indeed, as this paragraph has shown, we get different definitions within the very same school.
These need not be seen as contradictory, however, for the ultimate reality of Śiva-Śakti transcends all thought; the diverse explanations are just varying orientations or angles of approach to that one
Reality, serving different students in different contexts.
In another schema, that of the radical Krama school, Śiva disappears entirely, for there the two aspects of the One are represented as different facets of one Goddess: the indescribable Void of absolute potential, the formless ground of all reality (Śiva’s usual role) is represented as the dark and emaciated, terrifyingly attractive Goddess Kālī, who devours all things and makes them one with Herself; and the infinite Light that encompasses all things and beings with loving compassion and insight is represented as white and full-bodied Goddess Parā, overflowing with boundless nectar.
But, Abhinava Gupta stresses, these apparent opposites (black and white, empty and full) are simply the two forms of the one great Goddess.
The Krama school simply wishes to avoid the inevitably dualistic implications of the image of Śiva-Śakti as two beings joined together.
How to reconcile these different presentations?
The answer is simple: they need no reconciliation, for they are each perfectly fitted to the system in which they occur; and the absolute Reality beyond words can be represented by any of these schemas or by none.
It is important to note that the term Śiva or “God” never loses its importance in this tradition.
Some might construe the more refined philosophies of NŚT as atheistic because they wholly repudiate the notion of God as a separate person, “a guy in the sky,” or indeed as anything separate from your essence-nature as dynamic free Awareness.
Yet it is significant that these very traditions continue to use the term “God” and its synonyms (such as maheśvara, “the Great Lord,” and parameśvara, “the Supreme Divinity”).
It seems to me that they do not want to dispense with the love and devotion that is inspired in so many by this personalizing of the Absolute.
They want a path of intimate relationship.
At the same time, remember that the tradition gives us a beautiful nondual definition of the word “God,” one worth repeating:
...in actuality it is the unbounded Light of Consciousness, reposing in its innate Bliss, fully connected to its Powers of Willing, Knowing, and Acting, that we call God. (Essence of the Tantras)
It is in the context of this definition that we may understand such scriptural statements as “Nothing exists that is not God.”
But here we are anticipating the next segment: for “beyond” even tattva #1 is that which unfolds all the tattvas, from 1 to 36, within itself as the expression of its blissful self-awareness.
