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TANTRA
man to serve and conjure the gods of the community had rested in the high rank of his case in that community, whereas the eligibility of the Tāntric devotee reposed in the ripeness of his mind and power of experience. "The Brāhman who is a descendent of a Rși, or holy sage," we read in the Satapatha Brāhmaņa, “is all the gods." 04 "I am the Devī and none other," thinks the Tāntric devotee. “I am Brahman who is beyond all grief. I am a form of Saccidānanda whose true nature is eternal Liberation." 66
The idea of the godhood of the individual is thus democratized in the Tantra, because understood psychologically instead of sociopolitically. As a result, the entire context of the public Indian faith has been reinterpreted. The rites and religiosity of contemporary India exhibit in every trait the profound influence of this Tāntric view; indeed, they have been for centuries more Tántric than Vedic. In spite of vestigial remains of the archaic snobbism of caste, native Indian life is shot through with the radiance of a realization of universal divinity. In contrast to the attitude of Job who cried out to Yalıweh: "What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him?" the Indian, by shattering his ego, equates himself with God, transcends God, and is at peace in the knowledge of himself as Brahman. "The Mother is present in every house," writes Rārprasād. “Need I break the news as one breaks an earthen pot on the floor?" 04 Satapatha Brāhmaṇa 12. 4. 4. 6.
Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta, p. 81.
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