"Shakti is the supreme, unchanging and spiritual truth that is beyond time and space. Shakti is the essence of chaitanya, or its true self; she neither male, nor female, but is a male-female entity, i.e. pure intelligence. Shakti is otherwise called vimarsha which is the eternal spirit of chaitanya. Shakti is self-existent and all manifest in the form of creation and dissolution. Like the para-Brahman of the Vedanta, this shakti is also pure intelligence. From the [[tantric point of view Shakti and Shiva are but one and the same, thus essentially differing from the Maya of the Vedanta. Shaktism expounds that the manifestation of the non-ego appears as external to shuddatma or pure ego and that chit-shakti is beyond the nescience."