Shakti in Taoism

[Guest guest]

> , " jagbir singh "

<adishakti_org> wrote:

> >

> >

> > Dear Semira,

> >

> > Definitely and without question the Divine Message will triumph

> > over the organization itself. In future more and more people

> > will embrace its central message of evolving into the eternal

> > spirit that all religions, holy scriptures and prophets have

> > since time immemorial upheld. The Divine Message is a spiritual

> > sanctuary, a beacon of hope, joy, peace of eternal life to all

> > humans. The Shakti/Holy Spirit/Ruh/Aykaa Mayee is the Divine

> > Feminine that gives Self-realization/Birth of Spirit/Baptism of

> > Allah/Opens Dasam Dwar for humanity to enter the Sahasrara/

> > Kingdom of God/Niche of lights/Inner Sanctuary within where

> > Brahman/God Almighty/Allah/ Waheguru resides as THE LIGHT.

> > Semira, not only the current Sahaja Yoga organisation but all

> > religious organizations as well have merely been intended as

> > temporary vehicles and starting points for the Divine Message.

> >

> > jagbir

> >

> >

> > , " jagbir singh "

<adishakti_org> wrote:

>

> By the way things are moving the Adi Shakti will eventually

> triumph. All we need to do as Her bhaktas is to stand our ground

> and not yield an inch because Truth always triumphs. Years of

> silence from religious regimes is the sure sign that the Devi and

> Her Divine Message to all humanity cannot be challenged, and will

> eventually be victorious in Her battle against the evil forces.

> All we need to do is to fearlessly announce the Truth. Shanti,

> Shanti, Shanti.

>

 

 

Shakti in Taoism

 

The belief in Shakti or the Divine Power as distinguished from the

Divine Essence (Svarupa), the former being generally imagined for

purposes of worship as being in female form, is very ancient. The

concept of Shakti in Chinese Taoism is not merely a proof of this

(for the Shakti notion is much older) but is an indication of the

ancient Indian character of the doctrine. There are some who

erroneously think, the concept had its origin in " Sivaic mysticism, "

having its origin somewhere in the sixth century of our era. Lao-tze

or the " old master " was twenty years senior to Confucius and his

life was said to have been passed between 570-490 B.C. A date

commonly accepted by European Orientalists as that of the death of

Buddha (Indian and Tibetan opinions being regarded,

as " extravagant " ) would bring his life into the sixth century s.c.,

one of the most wonderful in the world's history. Lao-tze is said to

have written the Tao-tei-king, the fundamental text of Taoism. This

title means Treatise on Tao and Tei. Tao which Lao-tze calls " The

great " is in its Sanskrit equivalent Brahman and Tei is Its power or

activity or Shakti. As Father P. L. Wieger, S. J., to whose work

(Histoire des Croyances Religieuses et des Opinions Philosophiques

en Chine, p. 143 et seg. 1917) I am here indebted, points out, Lao-

tze did not invent Taoism no more than Confucius (557-419 B.C.)

invented Confucianism. It is characteristic of these and other

Ancient Eastern Masters that they do not claim to be more

than " transmitters " of a wisdom older than themselves. Lao-tze was

not the first to teach Taoism. He had precursors who, however, were

not authors. He was the writer of the first book on Taoism which

served as the basis for the further development of the doctrine. On

this account its paternity is attributed to him. There was reference

to this doctrine it is said in the official archives (p. 743). The

pre-Taoists were the analysts and astrologers of the Tcheou. Lao-tze

who formulated the system was one of them (ib. 69). The third

Ministry containing these archives registered all which came from

foreign parts, as Taoism did. For as Father Wieger says, Taoism is

in its main lines a Chinese adaptation of the contemporary doctrine

of the Upanishads ( " or le Taoisme est dans ses grandes lignes une

adaptation Chinoise de la doctrine Indienne contemporaine des

Upanisads " ). The actual fact of importation cannot in default of

documents be proved but as the learned author says, the fact that

the doctrine was not Chinese, that it was then current in India, and

its sudden spread in China, creates in favor of the argument for

foreign importation almost a certain conclusion. The similarity of

the two doctrines is obvious to any one acquainted with that of the

Upanishads and the doctrine of Shakti. The dualism of the

manifesting Unity (Tao) denoted by Yin-Yang appears for the first

time in a text of Confucius, a contemporary of Lao-tze, who may have

informed him of it. All Chinese Monism descends from Lao-tze. The

patriarchal texts were developed by the great Fathers of Taoism Lie-

tzeu and Tchong-tzeu (see " Les Péres du systéme Taoiste " by the same

author) whom the reverend father calls the only real thinkers that

China has produced. Both were practically prior to the contact of

Greece and India on the Indus under Alexander. The first development

of Taoism was in the South. It passed later to the North where it

had a great influence.

 

According to Taoism there was in the beginning, is now, and ever

will be an ultimate Reality, which is variously called Huan the

Mystery, which cannot be named or defined, because human language is

the language of limited beings touching limited objects, whereas Tao

is imperceptible to the senses and the unproduced cause of all,

beyond which there is nothing: Ou the Formless, or Tao the causal

principle, the unlimited inexhaustible source from which all comes,

( " Tao le principe parceque tout derive de lui " ) Itself proceeds from

nothing but all from It. So it is said of Brahman that It is in

Itself beyond mind and speech, formless and (as the Brahmasutra

says) That from which the Universe is born, by which it is

maintained and into which it is dissolved. From the abyss of Its

Being, It throws out all forms of Existence and is never emptied. It

is an infinite source exteriorizing from Itself all forms, by Its

Power (Tei). These forms neither diminish nor add to Tao which

remains ever the same. These limited beings are as a drop of water

in Its ocean. Tao is the sum of, and yet as infinite, beyond all

individual existences. Like Brahman, Tao is one, eternal, infinite,

self-existent, omnipresent, unchanging (Immutable) and complete

(Purna). At a particular moment (to speak in our language for It was

then beyond time) Tao threw out from Itself Tei Its Power (Vertu or

Shakti) which operates in alternating modes called Yin and Yang and

produces, as it were by condensation of its subtlety (Shakti

ghanibhuta), the Heaven and Earth and Air between, from which come

all beings. The two modes of Its activity, Yin and Yang, are

inherent in the Primal That, and manifest as modes of its Tei or

Shakti. Yin is rest, and therefore after the creation of the

phenomenal world a going back, retraction, concentration towards the

original Unity (Nivritti), whereas Yang is action and therefore the

opposite principle of going forth or expansion (Pravritti). These

modes appear in creation under the sensible forms of Earth (Yin) and

Heaven (Yang). The one original principle or Tao, like Shiva and

Shakti, thus becomes dual in manifestation as Heaven-Earth from

which emanate other existences. The state of Jinn is one of rest,

concentration and imperceptibility which was the own state (Svarupa)

of Tao before time and things were. The state of fang is that of

action, expansion, of manifestation in sentient beings and is the

state of Tao in time, and that which is in a sense not Its true

state ( " L'etat Yin de concentration, de repos, d'imperceptibilité,

qui fut celui du Principe avant le temps, est son êtat propre.

L'etat Yang d'expansion et d'action, de manifestation dans les êtres

sensibles, est son êtat dans le temps, en quelque sorte impropre " ).

All this again is Indian. The primal state of Brahman or Shiva-

Shakti before manifestation is that in which It rests in Itself

(Svarupa-vishranti), that is, the state of rest and infinite

formlessness. It then by Its Power (Shakti) manifests the universe.

There exists in this power the form of two movements or rhythms,

namely, the going forth or expanding (Pravritti) and the return or

centering movement (Nivritti). This is the Eternal Rhythm, the Pulse

of the universe, in which it comes and goes from that which in

Itself, does neither. But is this a real or ideal movement?

According to Father Wieger, Taoism is a realistic and not idealistic

pantheism in which Tao is not a Conscious Principle but a Necessary

Law, not Spiritual but Material, though imperceptible by reason of

its tenuity and state of rest. ( " Leur systéme est un pantheisme

realiste, pas ideâliste. Au commencement était un étre unique non

pas intelligent mais loi fatale, non spirituel mais matériel,

imperceptible a force de tenuité, d' abord immobile. " ) He also calls

Heaven and Earth unintelligent agents of production of sentient

beings. (Agent non-intelligents de la production de tous les étres

sensibles.) I speak with all respect for the opinion of one who has

made a special study of the subject which I have not so far as its

Chinese aspect is concerned. But even if, as is possible, at this

epoch the full idealistic import of the Vedanta had not been

developed, I doubt the accuracy of the interpretation which makes

Tao material and unconscious. According to Father Wieger, Tao

prolongates Itself. Each being is a prolongation (Prolongement) of

the Tao, attached to it and therefore not diminishing It. Tao is

stated by him to be Universal Nature, the sum (Samashti) of all

individual natures which are terminal points (Terminaisons) of Tao's

prolongation. Similarly in the Upanishads, we read of Brahman

producing the world from Itself as the spider produces the web from

out of itself. Tao is thus the Mother of all that exists ( " la mére

de tout ce qui est " ). If so, it is the Mother of mind, will, emotion

and every form of consciousness. How are these derived from merely

a " material " principle? May it not be that just as the Upanishads

use material images to denote creation and yet posit a spiritual

conscious (though not in our limited sense) Principle, Lao-tze, who

was indebted to them, may have done the same. Is this also not

indicated by the Gnostic doctrine of the Taoists? The author cited

says that to the cosmic states of Yin and Yang correspond in the

mind of man the states of rest and activity. When the human mind

thinks, it fills itself with forms or images and is moved by

desires. Then it perceives only the effects of Tao, namely, distinct

sentient beings. When on the contrary the action of the human mind

stops and is fixed and empty of images of limited forms, it is then

the Pure Mirror in which is reflected the ineffable and unnamable

Essence of Tao Itself, of which intuition the Fathers of Taoism

speak at length. ( " Quand an contraire l'esprit humain est arrêtê est

vide et fixe, alors miroir net et pur, il mire l'essence ineffable

et innomable du Principe lui-meme. Les Pêres nous parleront au long

de cette intuition. " ) This common analogy of the Mirror is also

given in the Kamakalavilasa (v. 4) where it speaks of Shakti as the

pure mirror in which Shiva reflects Himself pratiphalati vimarsha

darpane vishade). The conscious mind does not reflect a material

principle as its essence. Its essence must have the principle of

consciousness which the mind itself possesses. It is to Tei, the

Virtue or Power which Tao emits from Itself ( " ce Principe se mit a

êmettre Tei sa vertu " ) that we should attribute what is apparently

unconscious and material. But the two are one, just as Shiva the

possessor of power (Shaktiman) and Shakti or power are one, and this

being so distinctions are apt to be lost. In the same way in the

Upanishads statements may be found which have not the accuracy of

distinction between Brahman and its Prakriti, which we find in later

developments of Vedanta and particularly in the Shakta form of it.

Moreover we are here dealing with the One in Its character both as

cause and as substance of the World Its effect. It is of Prakriti-

Shakti and possibly of Tei that we may say that it is an apparently

material unconscious principle, imperceptible by reason of its

tenuity and (to the degree that it is not productive objective

effect) immobile. Further Wieger assures us that all contraries

issue from the same unchanging Tao and that they are only apparent

( " Toute contrariété n'est qu' apparente " ). But relative to what? He

says that they are not subjective illusions of the human mind, but

objective appearances, double aspects of the unique Being,

corresponding to the alternating modalities of Yin and Yang. That is

so. For as Shamkara says, external objects are not merely

projections of the individual human mind but of the cosmic mind, the

Ishvari Shakti.

 

We must not, of course, read Taoism as held in the sixth century

B.C. as if it were the same as the developed Vedanta of Shamkara

who, according to European chronology, lived more than a thousand

years later. But this interpretation of Vedanta is an aid in

enabling us to see what is at least implicit in earlier versions of

the meaning of their common source -- the Upanishads. As is well

known, Shamkara developed their doctrine in an idealistic sense, and

therefore his two movements in creation are Avidya, the primal

ignorance which produces the appearance of the objective universe,

and Vidya or knowledge which dispels such ignorance, ripening into

that Essence and Unity which is Spirit-Consciousness Itself.

Aupanishadic doctrine may be regarded either from the world or

material aspect, or from the non-world and spiritual aspect. Men

have thought in both ways and Shamkara's version is an attempt to

synthesize them.

 

The Taoist master Ki (Op. cit., 168) said that the celestial harmony

was that of all beings in their common Being. All is one as we

experience in deep sleep (Sushupti). All contraries are sounds from

the same flute, mushrooms springing from the same humidity, not real

distinct beings but differing aspects of the one

universal " Being " . " I " has no meaning except in contrast with " you "

or " that " . But who is the Mover of all? Everything happens as if

there were a real governor. The hypothesis is acceptable provided

that one does not make of this Governor a distinct being. He (I

translate Father Wieger's words) is a tendency without palpable

form, the inherent norm of the universe, its immanent evolutionary

formula. The wise know that the only Real is the Universal Norm. The

unreflecting vulgar believe in the existence of distinct beings. As

in the case of the Vedanta, much misunderstanding exists because the

concept of Consciousness differs in East and West as I point out in

detail in the essay dealing with Cit-Shakti.

 

The space between Heaven and Earth in which the Power (Vertu,

Shakti, Tei) is manifested is compared by the Taoists to the hollow

of a bellows of which Heaven and Earth are the two wooden sides; a

bellow which blows without exhausting itself. The expansive power of

Tao in the middle space is imperishable. It is the mysterious Mother

of all beings. The come and go of this mysterious Mother, that is,

the alternating of the two modalities of the One, produce Heaven and

Earth. Thus acting, She is never fatigued. From Tao was exteriorized

Heaven and Earth. From Tao emanated the producing universal Power or

Shakti, which again produced all beings without self-exhaustion or

fatigue. The one having put forth its Power, the latter acts

according to two alternating modalities of going forth and return.

This action produces the middle air or Ki which is tenuous Matter,

and through Yin and Yang, issue all gross beings. Their coming into

existence is compared to an unwinding (Dévidage) from That or Tao,

as it were a thread from reel or spool. In the same way the Shakta

Tantra speaks of an " uncoiling. " Shakti is coiled (Kundalini) round

the Shiva-point (Bindu), one with It in dissolution. On creation She

begins to uncoil in a spiral line movement which is the movement of

creation. The Taoist Father Lieu-tze analyzed the creative movement

into the following stages: " The Great Mutation " anterior to the

appearance of tenuous matter (Movement of the two modalities in

undefined being), " the Great Origin " or the stage of tenuous

matter, " the Great Commencement " or the stage of sensible

matter, " the Great Flux " or the stage of plastic matter and actual

present material compounded existences. In the primitive stage, when

matter was imperceptible, all beings to come were latent in an

homogeneous state.

 

I will only add as bearing on the subject of consciousness that the

author cited states that the Taoists lay great stress on intuition

and ecstasy which is said to be compared to the unconscious state of

infancy, intoxication, and narcosis. These comparisons may perhaps

mislead just as the comparison of the Yogi state to that of a log

(Kashthavat) misled. This does not mean that the Yogi's

consciousness is that of a log of wood, but that he no more

perceives the external world than the latter does. He does not do so

because he has the Samadhi consciousness, that is, Illumination and

true being Itself. He is one then with Tao and Tei or Shakti in

their true state.

 

Shakti in Taoism

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas11.htm

 

 

 

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

by Arthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe), [1918]

Chapter 1: Indian Religion As Bharata Dharma

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas01.htm

Chapter 2: Shakti: The World as Power

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas02.htm

 

Chapter 3: What Are the Tantras and Their Significance?

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas03.htm

 

Chapter 4: Tantra Shastra and Veda

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas04.htm

 

Chapter 5: The Tantras and Religion of the Shaktas

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas05.htm

 

Chapter 6: Shakti and Shakta

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas06.htm

 

Chapter 7: Is Shakti Force?

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas07.htm

Chapter 8: Cinacara (Vashishtha and Buddha)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas08.htm

 

Chapter 9: The Tantra Shastras in China

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas09.htm

 

Chapter 10: A Tibetan Tantra

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas10.htm

 

Chapter 11: Shakti in Taoism

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas11.htm

 

Chapter 12: Alleged Conflict of Shastras

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas12.htm

 

Chapter 13: Sarvanandanatha

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas13.htm

 

Chapter 14: Cit-Shakti (The Consciousness Aspect of the Universe)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas14.htm

 

Chapter 15: Maya-Shakti (The Psycho-Physical Aspect of the Universe)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas15.htm

 

Chapter 16: Matter and Consciousness

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas16.htm

 

Chapter 17: Shakti and Maya

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas17.htm

 

Chapter 18: Shakta Advaitavada

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas18.htm

 

Chapter 19: Creation as Explained in the Non-dualist Tantras

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas19.htm

 

Chapter 20: The Indian Magna Mater

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas20.htm

 

Chapter 21: Hindu Ritual

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas21.htm

 

Chapter 22: Vedanta and Tantra Shastra

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas22.htm

 

Chapter 23: The Psychology of Hindu Religious Ritual

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas23.htm

 

Chapter 24: Shakti as Mantra (Mantramayi Shakti)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas24.htm

 

Chapter 25: Varnamala (The Garland of Letters)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas25.htm

 

Chapter 26: Shakta Sadhana (The Ordinary Ritual)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas26.htm

 

Chapter 27: The Pañcatattva (The Secret Ritual)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas27.htm

 

Chapter 28: Matam Rutra (The Right and Wrong Interpretation)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas28.htm

 

Chapter 29: Kundalini Shakta (Yoga)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas29.htm

 

Chapter 30: Conclusions

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tantra/sas/sas30.htm