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III. VIII]
Power (śakti), awakens the soul from its eternal sleep of delusion. And this is done through the instrumentality of a preceptor (guru) during the cosmic process, or directly without any such medium during the cosmic dissolution. The former is called sādhikaraṇa-dikṣā (initiation through medium), and the latter niradhikarana-dikṣā (initiation without medium). Dikṣā removes the paśutva (animality) of the soul and restores it to its pristine sivatva (divine nature). The corrupting power of mala is destroyed by dikṣā even as the killing power of poison is destroyed by incantation or antidotes, although the mala quâ an innocuous appendage is still there.1 The karmans accumulated in the past are destroyed and the karmans that might occur in the future are rendered impossible owing to the absence of their conditions. The karmans which are responsible for the present life, however, are to, be exhausted by experience. As a potter's wheel goes on revolving, even after the jar has been produced for which it was set in motion, on account of the momentum, exactly so the present body continues to survive on account of the traces of past merits and demerits that are responsible for the present life. And on the fall of the body the soul shines in its eternal and all-comprehensive consciousness as siva even as a lamp illumines all directions after the jar that covered it has been destroyed.2
AVIDYA IN THE SAIVA SCHOOL
Monistic Saivism
In the monistic school of Saivism, the Supreme Reality is Paramasiva the Absolute whose nature consists of pure consciousness and freedom.3 This Supreme Principle of free unimpeded consciousness reveals itself in the form of infinite worlds. By its twofold functions of self-concealment (sva-gopana) and self-limitation (svasankoca) it conceals its own nature and manifests itself in different forms, both subjective and objective.
In the process of manifestation, sometimes the aspect of consciousness is dominant over self-limitation and sometimes the aspect of selflimitation is dominant over consciousness. The dominance of consciousness, again, can be natural (sahaja) or acquired through effort (samadhi-prayatnoparjita). The natural dominance of consciousness may, again, be with or without the expression of power (parāmarśa) inherent in it. In the former case, the resultant subject is known as vidyapramātā. In the latter, it is vijñānākala. When the self-limitation
1 Ibid., kārikā 87 and commentary (pp. 89-90).
2 bhagne ghate yatha dipaḥ sarvataḥ samprakāśate
dehapāte tatha că "tmā bhati sarvatra sarvadā.-Ibid., p. 92.
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3 Cf. citih svatantra viśvasiddhi-hetuḥ-Pratyabhijñāhṛdaya, p. 2.
4 Cf. cid eva bhagavati svaccha-svatantra-rupā tat-tad-anantajagadātmanā
sphurati-Ibid., p. 3.
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