Introduction to Tantra Sastra - Aghori

ŚIVA AND ŚAKTI 17
all animals and inorganic things, the universe with all
its beauties is, as the Devī Purāṇ a says but a part of
Her. All this diversity of form is but the infinite manifestation
of the flowering beauty of the One Supreme
Life, 1 a doctrine which is nowhere else taught with
greater wealth of illustration than in the Śākta-Śāstras
and Tantras. The great Bharga in the bright Sun and
all devatas, and indeed, all life and being, are wonderful,
and are worshipful but only as Her manifestations.
And he who worships them otherwise is, in the words of
the great Devī-bhāgavata, 2 “like unto a man who, with
the light of a clear lamp in his hands, yet falls into some
waterless and terrible well.” The highest worship for
which the sādhaka is qualified (adhikāri) only after
external worship 3 and that internal form known as sādhāra,
4 is described as nirādhārā. Therein Pure Intelligence
is the Supreme Śakti who is worshipped as the
very Self, the Witness freed of the glamour of the manifold
Universe. By one’s own direct experience of Maheśvari
as the Self She is with reverence made the object
of that worship which leads to liberation. 5
1 See the Third Chapter of the Śāktānanda-taranginī, where it is said
“The Para-brahman, Devī, Śiva, and all other Deva and Devī are but one, and
he who thinks them different from one another goes to Hell.”
2 Hymn to Jagad-ambikā in Chapter XIX.
3 Sūta-saṃ
hitā, i.5.3, which divides such worship into Vedic and Tāntrik
(see Bhāskararāya’s Commentary on Lalitā, verse 43).
4 In which Devī is worshipped in the form made up of sacred syllables
according to the instructions of the Guru.
5 See Introduction to Author’s “Hymns to the Goddess.”