GRADUAL UNFOLDMENT OF SAKTI in SIDH-SIDHANT PADHATI

 

The first chapter of Gorakhnath's Siddha-Siddhdnta-Paddhati is 

devoted to the exposition of the gradual self-unfoldment of Sakti, 

immanent in the transcendent nature of Siva, the Supreme Spirit, leading 

step by step to the manifestation of the magnificent Cosmic Body of Siva 

and the diverse orders of individual bodies within it. 

From our foregoing discussions it must have been evident that 

Gorakhnath and his school are supporters of what is generally called 

Satkdrya-vdda. They maintain that the world of effects exists before its 

actual production in an unmanifested (avyakta) state in its Material 

Cause (Upadana-Kdrana), and they hold that the Spiritual Power of Siva 

or the Supreme Spirit in His dynamic aspect is the Material Cause (as 

well as the Efficient Cause) of this cosmic system, which appears to our 

phenomenal experience as a vast material world. From the view-point of 

Sat-Kdrya-Vdda they assert that all the diverse orders of realities of this 

material world exist, before their manifestation in the effect-forms, as 

undifferentiated from one another and hence altogether unified in the 

nature of their ultimate Material Cause, viz. the Divine Power, Which also 

being then -actionless exists as perfectly identified with the Supreme Spirit, 

Siva. Siva-Sakti has then no outer self-manifestation. Siva does not in 

that state even experience Himself as the Owner of Sakti or as a Dynamic 

Personality. Siva, with Sakti absolutely immanent in and identified with 

Him, exists as differenceless and changeless Pard-Sambit or Pure Sat-Cid- 

Ananda. From the metaphysical stand-point this is conceived as the 

eternal transcendent nature of the Ultimate Reality, the Supreme Spirit, 

and from the phenomenal empirical or temporal stand-point this is con- 

ceived as the pre-creational (Sristeh prdk) state or the state of Mahd- 

Pralaya (absolute dissolution) of the cosmic order. Creation and Dis- 

solution have reference to the phenomenal world of diversities; 'before' 

and 'after* have reference to time and change. Before creation and after 

dissolution of the phenomenal world, only the Ultimate Reality, i.e. the 

Supreme Spirit, exists in His own self, in His transcendent nature. Nothing 

else exists. There is no evidence of even space and time. But the facts 

of creation and dissolution indicate that the vija (seed) of this world must 

exist in the nature of that Non-dual Spirit even before creation and after 

dissolution and that this vija must exist in the form of the Power of the 

Spirit, the Power Which has no self-expression in that state and is 

therefore absolutely identical with the Spirit.