The Central Triangle
From the point (Bindu) you have two points and the interval between them. From one you are moving into three, and this triad is symbolized by the central triangle of the Śrī Cakra. The triangle is the creation of the interval. Since space, time, and matter (created by the curving of space around time) are all ways of looking at this interval, we know that Sṛṣṭi, Sthiti, and Laya—creation, sustenance, and reabsorption—are all the same, but appearing to function differently under the power of the triangle.
Expansion of the Bindu into the triangle is the projection of cosmic awareness into separateness through a wave-like phenomenon. It is a limitation. It is called Māyā. The symbol of Māyā is the seed letter Hrīm. Hrīm means Hara (Śiva) + Hari (Viṣṇu) + Viriñci (Brahmā). Hara is the symbol of unity and time (interval measured in time). Hari is the symbol of duality and space (interval measured in space). Viriñci is the symbol of creation and matter (interval measured in spacetime).
You can also think of them as the past, the present, and the future. The future is dying to create the present moment, and the present is dying to create the past. The future is being pushed into the present, and the present is being pushed into the past. That is what time is doing when it is moving: it is manifesting the future and pushing the present into the past.
Looking at it another way, you can say the present is the creation of the future, and the past is the creation of the present. Again, you see the identity of two ways of looking at the same process.
Let us then say that there is some power inherent in awareness itself to know itself, and that power manifests as if there is a mirror. The mirror is so pure that you are not even aware that it is in front of you. So what you are seeing is a reflection of yourself. That mirror is called your mind, or the cosmic mind. In the cosmic mind, God reflects his or her own image and reflects upon it.
God is neither male nor female nor neuter. All genders are included. Everything, everyone, is included in the manifested state. This is true not only of cosmic intelligence, but also of individual intelligence. Your mind is a mirror in which you are seeing yourself reflected.
No matter how complicated the world seems to be, it is only yourself that you are seeing. No matter how varied it looks—trees, birds, males, females, things, land, sea, sky, sun, moon, stars, galaxies—none of these things existed if you did not exist. For billions of years you did not exist. Where was this world then?
Existence is awareness. Deny existence itself. Then can there be awareness? Thus, existence implies awareness. Awareness implies existence too, self-evidently. Since these two imply each other, they contain each other. Therefore, they are not two separate entities, but one and the same entity.
Existence is called Śiva.
Awareness is called Śakti.
Śiva is therefore called Sthāṇu (unmoving).
Their unity creates the flow of experience, and the flow of experience is called Bliss—Ānanda, or Sat-Cit-Ānanda. You can say that the three points of the central triangle are Sat, Cit, and Ānanda.
You can define this in terms of creation, sustenance, and destruction, or in terms of the seer, the seen, and the act of seeing, or the measurer, the measured, and the act of measuring. All these are meanings and associations of this triangle.
If there is a centrifugal power in awareness that explodes the point into a triangle, there must also be a centripetal power that implodes the triangle back into the point.
We have discussed so far the point and the triangle of the Śrī Cakra. These are the most fundamental structures. This itself is a great Yantra: a point from which the universe comes out spiraling and transforms itself into a triangle. It is one of the first-seen diagrams, called Tripurā Bhairavī.
The triangle is called the Yoni, the source, the gate through which everyone comes into being. It is the “I,” the Kāma-kalā, the desire for variety, the desire for life to experience existence.
“I” plus “A,” the Śakti and Śiva, the triangle and the Bindu, is the creative power behind the cosmos. This is the explosive, expansive power of awareness. To shift itself away from its point of focus is called Hrīm, and a call back to the center is called Śrīm. Both are great powers. Śrīm undoes what Hrīm does. Hrīm creates individuation, limiting cosmic awareness to individual awareness. Śrīm removes limitations, and the individual is exploded into cosmic awareness. Thus Hrīm and Śrīm are inverse operators.
Om (= A + U + M) is the name of God. We say “Om Hrīm Śrīm” as a mantra to imply that the world came out of God and is going back to God. Hrīm is the power that makes the point into the triangle, and Śrīm is the power that collapses the triangle back into the point.
Interestingly, Om consists of the seed letters A + U + M. A cyclic permutation U + M + A reads as Umā. Om is the name of Śiva, and Umā is the name of Śakti. These are two ways of looking at the same entity. If we begin with existence (A), it looks like Śiva. If we begin with awareness (U), it looks like Śakti.
The Eight-Triangle Figure
Expansion of Hrīm is expressed in terms of the eight groups of letters in Sanskrit starting with a, ka, ca, ṭa, ta, pa, ya, sa. There is a striking correlation between the numbers of successive triangles in the Śrī Cakra and the numbers found in electron shells of atomic structure: 1, 3, 8, 10, 10, 14. Considering the importance of both the Śrī Cakra and atomic structure, this correspondence cannot be dismissed as mere chance.
Filled Electron Shells — Śrī Cakra — Indian Philosophy
(1s)² (2s)² = 4
Center and three points of triangle: Seer, Seen, Seeing
(2s)² (2p)⁶ = 8
Eight-cornered figure: sounds of creation, words of God, life
(3d)¹⁰ = 10
Inner ten-cornered figure: five elements, five properties
(4d)¹⁰ = 10
Outer ten-cornered figure: five senses, five motors
(4f)¹⁴ = 14
Fourteen-cornered figure: fourteen worlds of experience
This completes the creation of the elements. The Śrī Cakra represents the microcosm of atoms, the individual, and the cosmos. It represents the source of the cosmos and the gateway to individual life. It is a symbol at three levels.
The expansion process continues: space and time interact, creating matter. This expansion is shown as eight triangles, each representing a form of Sarasvatī.
Each triangle is a Yoni. Yoni means a source, a gate, from which life comes. You can also interpret Yoni as the cause for time to flow. In human terms, Yoni is the vulva, the gate through which life’s journey begins, causing time to flow for an individual. Death is also a Yoni; it causes time to stop for an individual. The cosmos becomes an individual through the Yoni of birth; an individual becomes cosmos through the Yoni of death.
The flow of time is a predecessor–successor relationship: this precedes that, this is the cause of that. The present moment is the cause of the future moment. This continuous relationship of cause to effect is the movement of time. Movement of time is called Karma.
You sow the seed; you reap the fruit accordingly. It is very important to realize that your Karma, the way you experience life, is not determined by you alone; all life together has a very big part in it. Therefore, respect for life is part of good Karma.
As time creates life, time also destroys life. Thus She is Gaurī, the universal mother, the vulva. She is also Kālī, the destroyer, the funeral pyre. Both aspects are combined into one triangle.
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| inner |
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The Ten-Cornered Figures — Inner and Outer Sets
The process of cosmic explosion through interaction of space and time continues. The cosmos expresses itself in terms of the five elements, or five states of aggregation: solid, liquid, plasma, gaseous, and vacuum. Their properties are sound, touch, form, taste, and smell. These five elements and five properties constitute the inner ten triangles.
The outer ten triangles constitute individuation from the cosmos: the five sensory and five motor organs.
Imagine this paper as a field of consciousness. Draw a pot. Once you draw a pot, you can say there is an inside and an outside, even though inside is connected with outside.
Draw an arrow going into the pot. You say: knowledge is coming from outside to inside.
Draw an arrow going from inside to outside. You say: action is going into the world.
If the boundary is removed and only the arrow remains, you cannot say whether it is going inside or outside. Knowledge and action are the same.
Thus, the fundamental equation:
Knowledge = Action (K = A)
This equation is valid only when the boundary is absent.
This means manifestation occurs only when body awareness is lost. As long as consciousness is limited to body awareness, K ≠ A. When K becomes A, body awareness must dissolve. This is called the Digambara state. That is where Siddhis manifest.
Siddhi means K = A. Thought and manifestation are one. No gap, no interval.
The necessary and sufficient condition for any Siddhi is loss of body awareness.
This is why Devi holds the five arrows (the five senses) separate from the bow (the mind). She does not string them together. This represents decoupling of mind from sensory disturbance.
Memory must also be decoupled. Then the mind itself dissolves. Then you flow in cosmic awareness.
As you move outward from the Bindu of the Śrī Cakra, you move farther from being the cosmos and closer to being an individual.
Creation can be described in three explosions:
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Explosion of the interface (seeing): eight triangles
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Explosion of the outer universe: inner ten triangles
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Explosion of the inner self (ego): outer ten triangles
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