The Secret Doctrine of Goddess Lalita
(Sri LalitaAṣṭottara Rahasyārthamu)
43: svasthā 44: ēkākinī
She who abides in Herself; She who is free from all afflictions.
She who is the lone one.
Complete abidance in the Self (svasthā) is the nature of Devī. As pure Consciousness, She stands alone by Herself. Since She alone IS, She can be found only in Herself. For countless births, we have been asleep in ignorance, unaware of Her presence. Gaudapada in Mandukya kārikā (1-16) writes: “When the jīvā or the individual soul sleeping (i.e., not knowing the Reality) under the influence of beginningless māyā is awakened, it, then, realizes (in itself) non-duality, beginningless and dreamless.”
When a question arises as to where is māyā located, the Upanishad answers that māyā is located in Her expansion, the phenomenal world.
Although Devī abides in the phenomenal world, we fail to see Her. We see Her manifestation, the microcosm (body/mind, etc.) and macrocosm (earth/space, etc.), but fail to see Her un-manifested presence. Because we see the transient world only, we think Devi is also transient. We fail to recognize Her as the unchanging reality. Since the mind is always outward-facing, it only sees multiplicity. If the mind turns in-wards and sees the unchanging reality, duality (ignorance) will vanish, just like the darkness in the presence of light. Devī will appear as svasthā, Pure Consciousness, free of all afflictions. Since Pure Consciousness is our own nature, we too will be free of all afflictions (svasthā).
When we attain svasthā, we realize that the Self as Pure Consciousness is ever present and that the Self alone IS. Devī is ēkākinī, the lone one. Since She alone IS, there is no scope for anything else to be. Even though She is ēkākinī, due to Her power of illusion (māyā), She can appear as many. Her appearance as many is the world we perceive. nāma-s such as bahurūpa and vividhākārā also indicate the same. Since it is the undifferentiated śakti only that appears as the world, the world is unreal.
Instead of grasping Devī as the One Consciousness that pervades everything, we see Her fragmented into family and possessions. Obsessed with names and forms, we spend our entire life transacting with names and forms. Although our true nature is undifferentiated Consciousness, we see ourselves differentiated into body and mind. Hence, Devī always appears distant and out of reach.