The Śrī Cakra
Words and sentences are auditory forms informing us about creation, maintenance, and dissolution. Similarly, a highly coded visual geometrical structure exists. It is called a Śrī Cakra (the Circle of Grace). It is the genetic code of the cosmos, the individual, and the microcosm. Meditation on it has revealed many truths to seers; it is itself revealed in meditation. It is a symbol of all creation, including its unitive (subjective) and diverse (objective) aspects. The seer is always one. The seen are many. The Śrī Cakra is the abode of cosmic awareness. We now discuss the substructures of the Śrī Cakra, starting from the center outward.
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The Śrī Cakra starts with a center, the Bindu, a dimensionless point. It is the seer; never seen.
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Surrounding that is the first triangle, the seen, which includes the seer.
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Surrounding that there are eight triangles.
6,5. Surrounding that there are two sets of ten triangles each. -
Surrounding that there is the fourteen-triangle figure.
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Surrounding that there is an eight-petalled lotus.
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Surrounding that there is a sixteen-petalled lotus.
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Surrounding that there are three circles and a square enclosure with three lines in it. The square enclosure has four entrances.
These are the main circles or subsets of the Śrī Cakra. The Śrī Cakra is composed of three sets of three. Looking from outward to inward:
The first three—the square, the sixteen-petalled lotus, and the eight-petalled lotus—constitute Sṛṣṭi, the creative aspects of awareness.
The fourteen-cornered figure, the ten-cornered figure, and the other ten-cornered figure represent Sthiti, maintenance.
The eight-cornered figure, the triangle, and the center point represent Laya, reabsorption.
The Bindu
The center of every experience is yourself. That is Śiva, called the invariant point, Bindu. The word bindu means three things: point, seed, and mind. All that is experienced is Śakti.
The function of Śiva is to unite you into the cosmic being that you are.
The function of Śakti is to separate you from being Śiva, to bring experience to that awareness—flow and movement in time.
Śiva is awareness full of experience that does not flow in time. It is frozen experience without evolution. The first movement (in time and space) is the creation of an interval—an interval between the knower and the known, between the seer and the seen, between that which is aware and that of which it is aware: caitanya and jaḍa. Jaḍa is what you are seeing, which you are not penetrating. It is something that somehow separates itself from itself, and this separation manifests as an interval between seer and seen.
This interval can be compared to the distance between a point and its image in a mirror. A point is dimensionless. When reflected, it appears as if it is another point unto itself. Thus the first point, the second point, and the distance between these two points exist—connected by space (distance) and time (the time required by light to cover that distance).
Once the space-time interval is formed, something must have the property of movement. Time is that which has the characteristic of movement. This statement is not absolutely true, but it is a good first approximation. (It is equally proper to say that space, not time, has the property of movement.) However, our experience tells us that time moves and space does not, and this experience is valid in a sufficiently large number of cases for us to accept that it appears to be true. This law breaks down as one approaches the velocity of light. That is where relativistic theory takes over.
The space-time interval is the first creation. That manifests as interaction between space and time, and out of the rotation of space around time, matter is formed.
The Bindu, the center point, is unique. It is dimensionless. It is awareness, but it is not even aware of itself. Therefore, it cannot even be called a creator. It is a liṅga, a characteristic of invariance. It is awareness and non-awareness combined. What you see and what you are are combined in that.
Knowledge and ignorance are combined in that. It is not negatable. It is invariant to negation.
If you have knowledge alone, and you negate it, you have ignorance.
If you have ignorance alone, and you negate it, it becomes knowledge.
But when you have the sum of the two, and you try to negate the sum, knowledge moves over to ignorance and ignorance moves over to knowledge—so the total is unchanged even when denied.
It cannot be denied. It is self-evident. It is your own knowledge that you exist. It does not have to be proved to you.
Awareness has this property of self-proving: svaprakāśa. Awareness is self-illuminating; it does not need another light to show its existence. It is proof unto itself. That pure awareness is God.
What is to be enlightened? Our own ignorance.
What is ignorance? Seeing the world as different from oneself.
When illumination is present, this difference is not there.
Absorption of the interval back into the point is the function of Śiva.
Creation of the interval is the function of Śakti.
They are opposites of each other.
Śiva kills your individuality to make you the cosmic being. In being a killer, Śiva gives you birth into cosmic consciousness. Śakti tries to limit your cosmic consciousness into individual consciousness, and therefore Śakti appears to give life. Śiva appears to give death.
What we interpret as death is cosmic awareness.
What we interpret as life is cosmic death.
These are the functions of the two creators, Śiva and Śakti. They are co-creators. They have equal potency and equal powers.
This is the Śiva-Śakti identity.
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