Page:A Collection of Esoteric Writings.djvu/220

206 represented by the general aspect of the holy city, whose two Sanskrit names—Kaci and Varanaci—will yield a mine of truth to the earnest inquirer. It is not for us to elucidate the point; for the present it will suffice to suggest to the reader a fruitful field of inquiry, where each will be rewarded according to his earnestness and spiritual penetration.

"What is Kaci?

"The question has been answered in a well-known treatise by a celebrated mystic, Satya Gnáná Nanda Tirtha Yati. He says that Kaci is the supreme power of the great God Siva who is the undifferentiated bliss, consciousness, and being.* Siva or Peace here represents the fourth or unmanifested state of the universe. He is the Chidakaca, his other name being Vyoma or space, the small circle or dot which is placed on the top of the Sanskrit mystic, symbol Om (ओओम् [sic]). What releationrelation [sic] it has to the force located in the human body above the eye-brows, and represented by the dot over the crescent moon, the mystic knows very well. Kaci is called the goddess who embodies consciousness and bliss, and is the same as the Sakti or power to whom the sacred verses of Shankarácharya—Ananda lahari—are addressed. The great teacher says that if Siva is not united to Sakti he cannot produce even a flutter of well-being. Sakti is adorable of Hari, Hara and Viranchi. By once turning the key of the symbology here adopted we find that Hari or Vishnu is the dreaming state of the universe, the first differentiated aspect of the darkness, the destroyer or remover Hara. Although Hara is usually taken as a loose synonym for Siva, it is here used with the deliberate object of implying that the transcendental state of the universe, emblematized by Siva, is beyond the state of the destroyer, as the turiya state is beyond the sushupti. Siva is Para-nirvana, while Hara is Nirvana. It is easily intelligible how to the popular mind no distinction is observable between Nirvana and Para-nirvana,