The document discusses theories about the Absolute or ultimate reality from various philosophical and religious perspectives. It describes the Absolute as having two aspects: 1) the unmanifest, transcendent aspect which is pure being, consciousness, and bliss, and 2) the power of self-manifestation which causes creation of finite existence. Creation occurs through the Absolute's own innate joy and spontaneity (lila) to experience individualization while remaining unchanged. Traditions explain creation as the Absolute's free will or delight in self-expression through myriad forms.

1. From Transcendent Unmanifest to
Manifestation
Sat
Chit
The Absolute's Power of Self-Manifestation
The Godhead Absolute - Infinite Good

2. At the beginning and essence of everything, as an
expression of the Unmanifest Absolute, is the first
principle, the Manifest Absolute Reality; infinite,
eternal, unitary, perfect, blissful, self-sufficient, and
unchanging.
It is not a Person, it is not God, or Christ or
Jehovah or Allah or Krishna or Buddha. God only
comes later. But neither is the Unmanifest mere
void or nonbeing. It is undifferentiated Reality, but
a plenum of Being.
The Greek philosopher Parmenides saw the
Absolute as pure changeless Being: the Indian
mystic Shankara as not only Being but
Consciousness and Bliss as well; the Tantrics of
the Kashmir Shaivite school as non-dual
consciousness; the Buddhist dialectician Nargajuna
as the negation or emptiness (Shunyata) of all
conceptual characteristics;
the Sufis as Ahadiya (unity), the Taoists as the
essential being or "way" behind all things; the
Jewish philosopher Spinoza as God; and some
recent "New Age" theorisers who have been
inspired by the discoveries of modern physics,
incorrectly refer to it as "Energy". All agree that
the Absolute is eternal, infinite, indestructible, and
uniform. It is the one Being to which all else owes
its existence and from which all else flows.
From Transcendent Unmanifest to Manifestation

3. The Unmanifest Godhead (i.e. the Manifest
Absolute) pertains to the eternally pre-existent
modes or qualities of the Absolute. Following the
terminology of Indian philosophy, these are
described as Sat-Chit-Ananda, of the nature of
infinite Being, Consciousness, and Bliss.
Each of these levels or stages, while remaining
eternally transcendent, also constitute stages of
progressive manifestation. So the infinite Ananda
decides, through its own Lila, its own innate joy
and spontaneity, to become a dynamic Being, to
undertake one step further towards
individualisation, even though this project would
lead ultimately to separation from the Source,
finitude, and suffering. For that is the nature of the
Divine Play (Lila); it is - from the transcendent
point of view - spontaneous bliss and joy even in
what may appear to our limited perception to be the
most unhappy circumstances.
This sequence of unfolding of the Supreme
Godhead could perhaps be given as follows:
"Non-
being"
UNMANIFEST-
UNMANIFEST
(Infinite Latency)
"Infinite MANIFEST

4. Being" ABSOLUTE
(Prakasha
predominant)
SAT
CHIT
CHIT-TAPAS
ANANDA
"Infinite
Godhead"
NOETIC
ABSOLUTE
(Vimarsha
predominant)
"God"
MANIFEST
GODHEAD (Noetic
Worlds)
"Creation"
FINITE
EXISTENCE
The Kosmos
Sat (Existence)
It is meaningless to speak of pure Being or pure
Existence in the abstract sense. To say that
Existence exists is a tautology. Existence, in order

5. to have meaning, must be predicated by some
entity, otherwise it is merely an abstract idea [7]
Existence, in the sense of SAT, can be taken to
mean that Absolute Existence or Absolute Reality
that is eternal, infinite, changeless, and
differenceless, and the Ground and Essence and
Self-nature (Sanskrit - Svabava) of all things and
beings. Buddhists refer to It as Shunyata) -
"Emptiness" because it is empty of all distinctons.
The equivalent Indian Vedantic term is Nirguna
Brahman - the "Absolute without qualities". But it
can also be referred to as a plenum or fullness - in
Sanskrit purna, which in the context of the Divine
refers to fullness or perfection (so for example it is
said that Krishna was a "purna avatar" or complete
incarnation of the Divine); in Greek pleroma,
which in Gnosticism means the transcendent
perfect World or totality of Light and Divinity.
Chit (Consciousness)
Consciousness in the ordinary sense of the
consciousness of a finite being is dualistic - one is
conscious of this thing or that, one's consciousness
exists in relation to something else; it is "con"-
sciousness. Usually on the physical level it is
dependent on, or can only function through, a
specific structure, a brain and nervous system, or at
least a psyche.

6. The Absolute Consciousness however is not
dependent on or related to anything else. It
transcends all psycho-physical beings, and all
subject-object relationships. It is the self-
luminious, transcendent, unchanging, eternal,
infinite Awareness, that is behind all states of
consciousness, all experience, all existence, all
realities, even inanimate matter. As the Advaita
Vedanta says, the one Self or Atman remains the
same in waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep
(i.e. in all states of consciousness). It is the one "I",
one Self, one Atman, one Existent, the basis and
essence of all Reality and all beings, untouched by
the phenomena it experiences, just as the blue sky
is untouched by the clouds that pass in front of it.
As the Kashmir Shaivites point out, Cit cannot be
proved by any logical means, for all means of
proof are dependent on and owe their existence to
it, and so cannot prove their own source, just as you
cannot jump over your shadow (when you move,
the shadow also moves) [8]. Similarily, it is
impossible to disprove Cit, for those materialists
and sceptics who try to disprove consciousness by
logical means have to use that very consciousness
itself, just as someone who uses his toungue to say
"I don't have a tongue". As the 10th century
Kashmir Shaivite philosopher Kshemaraja puts it in
his commentary on the Shiva-Sutras,

7. "Every appearance owes its existence to the light of
consciousness. Nothing can ever have its own being
without to the light of consciousness. Being experienced, it
is of the nature of consciousness itself, because of its being
identical with that light" [9] .
When the Manifest Absolute, which is beyond all
qualities and description, takes on qualities, while
still remaining eternal and unchanging, the result is
the Noetic Absolute.
If there were only the Absolute alone in Its
Transcendent pure nature, then there could be no
Manifestation, not even a Transcendent
Manifestation. Consciousness would always
remain just Consciousness; the Unmanifest always
the Unmanifest.
But in addition to its quiescent Transcendent
aspect, The Absolute also has a Creative aspect,
which is Its Own Power of Self-Manifestation,
which the Tantrics refer to asShakti. Without
Shakti, that is, without the dynamic aspect of the
Supreme, there is no Creation.
So the Absolute Reality is made up of two
fundamental modalities; the quiescent, which is the
Manifest Absolute in Its own essential, perfect,
unchanging, nature, and the dynamic, which is the
Absolute's own Power of self-focus and self-

8. manifestation. As Jaideva Singh explains, "Shakti
is nothing separate from Shiva, but is Shiva
Himself in His creative aspect" [p.9]. It is, as Sri
Aurobindo puts it, "a self-held or self-gathered
dwelling of the eternal Awareness in itself" [ The
Life Divine, p.582]
The following table lists some terms for these two
aspects of the Manifest Absolute
The Polarity of the
Creative Absolute
the Absolute
in Itself
The creative power
of the Absolute
Gnosticism Fore-Father Barbelo
Iamblichus One - "Limit" Many - "unlimited"
Tantra in general Shiva Shakti
Kashmir Shaivism
Prakasha Vimarsha
Chit Ananda
Neoconfucianism Wu Chi Tai Chi
Kabbalah Hesed Geverah
Sri Aurobindo Chit Tapas
It may be asked why the Absolute - the
Parabraman-Paramatman - which is perfect,
eternal, infinite, needing nothing, desiring nothing,
throw itself out into the multiplicity of worlds and
forms, and all the imprefection and suffering that
finite existence entails.
A number of explanations have been proposed, and
no doubtless all are correct, because each

9. represents one facet of an answer that in its totality
transcends reason and the ability of the human
mind to apprehend.
As the tenth century Kashmir Shaivite author
Kshemaraja puts is:
"The absolute Citi [or Shakti] of its own free will is the
cause of the Siddhi [literally, "perfection"; in this context
the process of emanation, maintenance, and withdrawl] of
the universe"
[ Pratyabhijnahrdayam : The Secret of Self-
recognition, translated by Jaideva Singh p.46 (Motilal
Banarsidass, Delhi, 1980)]
While the concept of plenitude can sometimes lead
to detreminsim, it does not have to be so. Sri
Aurobindo rejects the explanation that it is
compelled by its own nature or plenitude or
"potentiality of movement and formation" to
Create. "It is true that it has this potentiality, but it
is not limited, bound, or compelled by it; it is
free. If then, being free to move or remain
eternally still, to throw itself into forms or retain

10. the potentiality of form in itself, it indulges its
power of movement and formation, it can only be
for one reason, for delight." [Sri
Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p.91].
This "delight" is of course not ordinary human
delight (which is but a dim reflection of a
reflection), but Divine, Absolute Delight or
Ananda, the self-delight or Ananda of the Supreme
Godhead. For if we look at World-Existence in its
relation to the Ananda or self-delight of the eternal,
"we may regard, describe, and realise it as Lila, the play,
the child's joy, the poet's joy, the actor's joy,...of the Soul of
things eternally young, perpetually inexaustable, creating
and re-creating Himself in Himself for the sheer bliss of
that self-creation...Himself the play, Himself the player,
Himself the playground"
[Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p.103],
Likewise in Shakta Tantra, the reason given for
Creation (the self- transformation of the One
Absolute into the Many) is because the Swabhava
or absolute Self-nature of the Supreme Existence-
Power (or Shakti) is Lila, or Play, or more literally
free spontaneous activity. Hence, as Arthur Avalon
(psuedonym of John Woodroffe) explains,
"Lalita, or "Player", is a name of the (Supreme) Mother as
She who Plays and whose Play is World-Play. She is both
Joy (Ananda-mayi - literally, "made of Bliss") and Play
(Lila-mayi - "made of Play")."

11. [Arthur Avalon, Sahkti and Shakta, p.422 (Dover
Publications, NY, 1978)].
It does not really matter that sometimes Lila is
identified with Krishna, at other times with the
Supreme Mother. These are just different
names. The Divine is in Itself Unitary, but when It
translates Itself down into human consciousness it
aquires the appearance of separate and even self-
contradictory aspects. Religious sects err by each
claiming that the aspect they have chosen is the
only one. In fact, it is necessary to move beyond
all such relative positions if one is to get any
intimation at all of the Supreme.
Theistic religions often refer to the nature of the
Creative Absolute, or "God" as they call It, as being
Love. I would prefer to interpret Love as the purest
essence of the principle of manifestation, the
supreme Shakti. This Love is not the weak
sentimentalism and soppy emotionalism that
humans usually mean by the word. It is the
Supreme Self-Giving. As Sri Aurobindo's co-
worker the Mother explains,
"Love is universal and eternal; it is always manifesting
itself and always identical in its essence...Love, the eternal
force, has no clinging, no desire,....(It is) the divine
intensity of self-forgetfulness, the capacity of throwing
oneself out entirely, making no restriction and no
reservation, as a gift, asking nothing in exchange...."

12. [The Mother, Conversations, pp.77-9 (Sri Aurobindo
Ashram Press, Pondicherry, 1982)]
The Sequence of Realities - the primary Hypostases
Following then the above hierustic or metaphorical
arrangement, and taking care not to consider this a
dogma or hard fact, we can say that Reality, which
is ineffable, expresses Itself in terms of several
fundamental modes or aspects, each of which is
infinite and is co-essential with the others. There is
expression, focus, and manifestion, but not the
limitation, for limit and duality only comes about in
the temporal manifetsation, and even that, taken as
a whole, is not limited. This can be represented in
terms of the following diagram

14. This shows the original unity of the Absolute in Itself (top
circle) or Unanifest Absolute, which polarises
into Shiva (non-dual consciousness-awareness)
and Shakti (the Self-Expression or Power or Activity or
Self-Awareness of that consciousness-awareness) (middle
circle), which constitutes the Transendent Manifest
Absolute or Godhead, which in turn leads to both the
Temporal and the Eternal Manifestation (lower circle),
representing the Logos or Dynamic Absolute