---
type: Concept
bundle: shakta-darshana
bundle_version: "0.8.0"
id: cit-shakti
title: "Cit-Śakti — चित्शक्ति"
iast: "Cit-Śakti"
devanagari: "चित्शक्ति"
description: "Consciousness-power: the doctrine that consciousness (cit) and power (śakti) are one reality, not a substance plus its capacity; citi as the self-existent awareness whose very nature is to manifest; the philosophical core of Śākta-Trika metaphysics; NOT 'the power of the mind', NOT psychic ability, NOT consciousness as an emergent property with causal powers."
darshana:
  - Trika (Kashmir Shaivism)
  - Śākta
school_scope: "Most systematically developed in the Pratyabhijñā school (Utpaladeva, Kṣemarāja); presupposed across Śākta metaphysics. Vedāntic cit (upanishadic-core v0.6, sat-chit-ananda) is cognate but sits in a different analysis: Advaita reads ultimate consciousness as actionless, Trika reads it as inherently active. Documented, not adjudicated."
text_source: "Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam 1 (citiḥ svatantrā viśvasiddhihetuḥ)"
tags: [cit-shakti, citi, consciousness, trika, shakta, metaphysics]
not:
  - term: "the power of the mind (mental faculties, willpower)"
    why: "Cit is not the mind. In every Dharmic taxonomy this bundle touches, mind (manas, buddhi, citta: see dharma-foundation v0.1) is an instrument WITHIN manifestation, while cit is the consciousness that illumines the mind itself. Cit-śakti is a claim about ultimate reality's nature, not about cognitive horsepower."
    instead: "Define cit-śakti as consciousness-power: the doctrine that ultimate consciousness is inherently powerful (self-manifesting) and ultimate power is inherently conscious; two words, one reality."
  - term: "psychic powers / manifestation ability (law-of-attraction usage)"
    why: "New Age usage reads 'consciousness-power' as the individual's ability to manifest outcomes by thought. The doctrine runs the other way: citi, the absolute consciousness, manifests all things including the individual; the individual does not wield citi. The law-of-attraction reading is the doctrine inverted and privatized."
  - term: "consciousness as emergent property with causal powers (philosophy-of-mind frame)"
    why: "In the Pratyabhijñā analysis citi is svatantrā (absolutely independent) and the cause of all manifestation (viśvasiddhi-hetu); it emerges from nothing and depends on nothing. Mapping it onto emergentism or panpsychism debates imports a physicalist ontology the doctrine explicitly denies. Flag the difference; do not blend the frameworks."
related:
  - /concepts/prakasha-vimarsha.md
  - /concepts/shakti.md
  - /concepts/shiva-shakti.md
  - /concepts/spanda.md
  - /concepts/pratyabhijna.md
timestamp: "2026-07-01"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Cit-Śakti -- चित्शक्ति

**Not:** mind-power, psychic ability, emergent consciousness

## What It Actually Means

Cit-śakti (consciousness-power), or citi in the Pratyabhijñā texts' preferred feminine form, names the identity at the base of Śākta-Trika metaphysics: consciousness is not a passive witness that happens to have power attached, and power is not a blind force that happens to be conscious; there is one reality whose nature is awareness-in-act. The opening sūtra of the Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam states the doctrine whole: citiḥ svatantrā viśvasiddhihetuḥ, "Consciousness, absolutely free, is the cause of the accomplishment of the universe." Everything else in the system (prakāśa-vimarśa, spanda, the 36 tattvas) unpacks that sentence.

The contrast that gives the doctrine its edge is with any view on which the ultimate is actionless: Sāṃkhya's puruṣa (pure witness, all activity assigned to prakṛti) and Advaita's actionless Brahman are the classical interlocutors. Trika's claim: a consciousness that could not act, express, or know itself would be indistinguishable from nothing; freedom (svātantrya) and power are not additions to consciousness but its definition. This is the philosophical form of what the theology says as "Devī" (see [shakti.md](shakti.md)).

## Audience Metaphor

People imagine consciousness as a security camera: perfectly passive recording. Cit-śakti says consciousness is live rendering: the scene exists in being displayed, and the displaying is not an add-on to the display engine; it is what the engine is. A camera that records nothing is still a camera; a renderer that renders nothing is not a renderer. The tradition bets the universe on the second model.

## Citations

1. Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam 1 with Kṣemarāja's auto-commentary -- see [references/pratyabhijnahridayam.md](../references/pratyabhijnahridayam.md)
2. Cross-bundle: sat-chit-ananda.md (upanishadic-core v0.6) -- the Vedāntic cit, cognate but differently analyzed
3. Cross-bundle: purusha (yoga-darshana v0.2) -- the actionless-witness model this doctrine defines itself against
