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162 Saiva Philosophy in some Important Texts [CH. bondage and liberation, everything depending upon the karma of the individual. It is quite possible that in some schools of Saivism this dynamism of God was interpreted as His magnificent grace, and these people were called the Mahā-kāruņikas. Anugraha, or grace, thus extends to the process of creation. If it were ordinary grace, then it could have been only when the world was already there. This anugraha activity includes creation, maintenance, destruction, blinding the vision of the individuals, and finally liberating them. Śrīkumāra explains the situation by holding that the act of blinding and the act of enlightening through liberation are not contradictory, as the latter applies only to those who have self-control, sense-control, fortitude, and cessation from all enjoyment, and the former to those who have not got them). God thus is responsible for the enjoyable experiences and liberation of all beings through His fivefold action. His consciousness (cit) is integrally connected with His activity. Though God is of the nature of consciousness and in that way similar to individual souls, yet God can grant liberation to individual souls with powers which the individual souls themselves do not possess. Though God's consciousness is integrally associated with action, it is indistinguishable from it. In other words God is pure thoughtactivity.
The sakti or energy of Siva is one, though it may often be diversely represented according to the diverse functions that it performs. Śrīkumāra points out that the original form of this energy is pure bliss which is one with pure consciousness. For the creation of the world God does not require any other instrument than His own energy, just as our own selves can perform all operations of the body by their own energy and do not require any outside help. This energy must be distinguished from māyā. Taking māyā into consideration one may think of it as an eternal energy, called bindu-māyā which forms the material cause of the world4.
anugrahaś cātropalaksanam. Ibid. * Tattva-prakāśa, kārikā 7. 3 Ibid. Commentary on Tattva-prakāśa, kārikā 7.
. kārya-bhede'pi māyādivan nāsyāḥ parināma iti darśayati tasya jadadharmatvät. adyām pradhāna-bhūtām samavetām anena parigraha-śaktisvarūpam bindu-māyātmakam apy asya bāhya-sakti-dvayam asti. (Aghora-śivācārya's commentary, Adyar manuscript). Srikumāra, however, thinks that Siva as
