On the Shakti as Maya Thread in the Forum

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In the "Shakti as Maya" post in the Forum, the question was asked as

to "why" the world is created the at all in a Tantric context. This

is the paraphrased answer, as I remember it explained to me by the

Sri Vidya scholar Professor D. R. Brooks (Note: he was talking about

Kashmir Shaivism's point of view at the time, but I think the

paradigm can be easily extended in a modified form to Tantric

Shaktism.):

Shakti (or Shiva,if you are a Shaivite) creates the world as a

reflection of Herself. The world is essentially a "mirror" of the

divine. A mirror shows you something about yourself that you could

not otherwise know. The image in the mirror both "is" you and "is

not" you. Extending this metaphor to Shakti, without creating the

world, she would not be able to experience herself in the infinite

ways. When she is not creative, but rather "rests" in her eternal

nature as Parabrahman, she is "full" so to speak, she is one. She

experiences this oneness as a totality. However, Devi is constantly

desiring to experience that oneness as manyness, from whence she will

then desire to experience that manyness as oneness. Thus the world

essentially both is and is not Shakti simultaneously. Thus, the

answer to the paradoxical question of "why" is ultimately itself

a "paradox". The core root of reality is not only a paradox. This

paradox (or, more precisely, these paradoxes) are resolved by Devi

because of her essential freedom, what in Kashmir Shaivism is spoken

about as the svatantrya of Shiva. The Divine is literally indulging

in an ecstatic orgy of experiences of Itself.

Hope this helps and wasn't to rambling.

Om