186. Nirapāyā
She [is of] no danger Herself. She does not create dangers or dangerous situations to Her devotees. The Caṇḍi Saptaśatī says about Devi: “Those whose are dependent on Devi for succour know no danger. In fact, they become sources of spreading fearlessness among those that come in contact with them.”
She cannot be transcended. Being transcendental Herself, She cannot be transcended; there is nothing beyond Her. Transcendence involves going into a higher dimension, where the view or the perspective is different. Sometimes it means negation of the object transcended. This is so because going beyond the limits of the objects is to go into the regions where the object is no longer there, or that the object is negated. The object itself may or may not be included in the definition of transcendence.
Earlier we have discussed how a four-dimensional view of the world as an invariant object does not change the time. This is so because time is transcended there. Since time terminates everything, every living form, and time itself is transcended in the four-dimensional view, such a view is action-less and it cannot be transcended any further.
How many dimensions are required to explain in an irreducible way the Universe that we observe? There are different views on this. Some say four dimensions are enough. Some contend that five are required. Some others believe that seven are the dimensions. If we are to correlate the cakras with the dimensions, then seven is probably the answer.
It is believed that the spaces we live in have measure i.e., they are measurable and all points in the space are interconnected. That means it is possible to move one point to another from anywhere to anywhere on a continuum.
It is not possible to move so that we say that such a space is immeasurable. Topological interconnectedness is one of the properties that we believe in as being a characteristic of the space.
The nature of transcendence is not easy to explain nor is it easy to experience. It is the stepping into a totally unknown territory without any support, without any possibility of the term to the normal mode of existence. In a sense, death separates the transcendent from the imminent. For the philosopher, death and transcendence are important functions. There seems to be a sudden departure of the soul into some unknown region.
In the Kaṭhopaniṣad, Nāciketa asks the God of Death about the nature of transcendence. The God of Death, Yama, tries every trick at his disposal to wean and lure Nāciketa away from the solution to this sensitive and prickly question. He offers him a million years of life, wealth untold, as many girls for wives as there are grains in the sand near the oceans for his enjoyment. Nāciketa rejects all these with a question, “Are they permanent?” He says: "If they are not permanent, I do not want them." Finally, the God of Death gives him a taste of transcendental life experience which is beyond all possible worlds to be explained, or for all possible minds to grasp.
Source: Śrī Amṛtānandanātha Sarasvatī "Sudhā Syandinī Bhāṣyaṃ" Typed Manuscript
(an incomplete commentary on Lalitā Sahasranāma)
