Five Śaktis of the Divine - CHIT

Cit Śakti: The Power of Pure Awareness

What if the deepest part of you is not the body, the mind, your emotions, your thoughts or even your experiences?

What if there is something within you that has been quietly aware of all of it? In the Tantric tradition, Cit Śakti is the divine power of pure consciousness, the power to be aware.

It is the awareness that knows the body is moving, the breath is flowing, thoughts are arising and emotions are changing. It is the silent witness behind every experience.

We spend much of our lives completely identified with what we experience.

“I am stressed.”

“I am angry.”

“I am happy.”

“I am successful.”

But yoga invites us to look more deeply.

If you can observe your thoughts, then you are not simply your thoughts. If you can witness your emotions, then there is something within you that is aware of those emotions. If you can observe the changing experiences of your life, what is it that remains present through all of them? This is the doorway into Cit Śakti.

Cit Śakti in Practice

Meditation is one of the clearest ways to begin exploring this power. You sit, become still and watch. A thought arises. You notice it. A sound appears. You hear it. A sensation moves through the body. You feel it. The mind becomes busy, then quiet.

You observe it all.

The practice is not necessarily to stop experience. It is to recognise the awareness in which experience is happening. Even during Āsana, this awareness can be cultivated. You feel the body moving while remaining aware of the breath, the sensations and the movements of the mind.

Gradually, we begin to experience a subtle shift: I am not only experiencing life. I am aware of the experience of life.

Cit Śakti in Daily Life

This awareness changes the way we live. When we are identified with anger, we become anger. When we are identified with fear, fear determines our actions. But when awareness is present, there is space.

We can experience anger without becoming it. We can experience fear without allowing it to control us. We can experience joy without desperately trying to hold onto it.

This is freedom.

Not freedom from experience, but freedom within experience. The world continues to move, change and unfold, but something within us becomes increasingly steady.

Resting as Awareness

The Tantric tradition ultimately points beyond the cultivation of awareness towards recognising our fundamental nature as awareness itself. We don’t have to create Cit Śakti. We don’t have to become aware.

We are already aware.

The practice simply reveals what has been present all along. As the mind becomes quieter and identification begins to loosen, we can rest more deeply as the witness, the consciousness that is present through every changing experience.

This is why practice matters. We are not practising to become someone else. We are practising to recognise what we already are.

Cit Śakti is the power of pure awareness, the capacity to rest in consciousness while life continues to move through us.

And perhaps this is where the journey of the five Śaktis ultimately leads:

To act with Kriyā.

To see with Jñāna.

To direct our will through Icchā.

To discover the freedom of Ānanda.

And finally, to recognise the awareness in which it all arises:

Cit.