She is seen as one and as many: as it were, but one moon reflected in countless waters.
She exists, too, in all animals and inorganic things, since the universe, with all its beauties, is, as the Devī Purāṇa says, but a part of Her. All this diversity of form is but the infinite manifestations of the flowering beauty of the one Supreme Life--a doctrine which is nowhere else taught with greater wealth of illustration than in the Śākta Śāstras and Tantras. The great Bharga in the bright sun, and all Devatā, and, indeed, all life and being are worshipful, and are worshipped, but only as Her manifestations.
And he who worships them otherwise is, in the words of the great Devībhāgavata, "like unto a man who, with the light of a clear lamp in his hands, yet falls into some waterless and terrible well." It is customary nowadays to decry external worship, but those who do so presume too much. The ladder of ascent can only be scaled by those who have trod all, including its lowest, rungs. The Śaktirahasya summarises the stages of progress in a short verse, thus: "A mortal who worships by ceremonies, by images, by mind, by identification, by knowing the self, attains kaivalya." Before brahma-bhāva can be attained the sādhaka must have passed from pūjābhāva through hymns and prayer to dhyāna-bhāva. The highest worship for which the sādhaka is qualified (adhikāri) only after external worship, and that internal form known as sādhāra is described as nirādhāra. Therein Pure Intelligence is the Supreme Śakti who is worshipped as the Very Self, the Witness freed of the glamour of the manifold universe. By one's own direct experience of Maheśvarī as the Self, She is, with reverence, made the object of that worship which leads to liberation.
