IX. 1. 6, 7.

I 68 THE SCIENCE OF PEACE.
that Shakti is not different from the Absolute, but only its very nature, svabhava, and, as Mula- prakriti is included in the Absolute, therefore Shakti may also be identified with Mula-prakriti, without which it cannot manifest and truly would not be. At the same time it is desirable and profitable to make the distinction — even though a distinction without a difference — from the standpoint of the limited, wherein thought must be, and has deliberately to be, taken in its ' perverted,' successive and partial form.
In the Bhagavad-Gita?- also, Krishna speaks of his f ^ *ireT daivi maya, ' difficult to cross,' ' difficult to escape and transcend ; ' his f qft HosfflT, daivi prakriti, divine nature or power ; and again of his two prakritis, ^r lower, and *TCT, para, the higher, describing the former as consisting of the various elements which the Sankhya describes as issuing from Mula-prakriti, and the latter as being the life of the Jivas that upholds the world. The meaning of such passages would probably be easier to follow if what has been said above as to the nature of the Self, the Not-Self, and the Energy which is born of, or, rather, is, the necessity of the nature of these two, is borne in mind. As avidya, this primal
1 Bhagavad-Gttd. vii. 14; ix. 13; vii. 5.
SHAKTI-ENERGY. 169
Energy turns more towards the Not-Self and becomes the apara-prakriti, which name is used to cover not only the force which leads the Jiva outwards, but also the manifestations of the Not-Self which it especially brings out and into which it leads the Jiva. As vidya, it turns more towards the Self, and is the para- prakriti, the source of life, nay ; which, as consciousness, in the Self of the Not-Self, is life, and so includes all Jivas. As the two together she is daivi-prakriti, in which vidya and avidy£ coalesce into the maha-vidya, regarded not as knowledge, but rather as the Shakti, the Energy, which utilises all- knowledge, for the carrying on of the world- process.