Why this Universe has been created?

(from "Self Realization In Kashmir Shaivism" by Swami Lakshman Joo"):

 tasyaivaiṣā parā devī svarūp-āmarśanotsukā /

pūrṇatvaṁ sarva-bhāveṣu yasya nālpaṁ na cādhikam  // 5 //

5. The collective state of the universe is His supreme Energy (sakti), which He created in order to recognize His own nature. This Sakti, who is the embodiment of the collective state of the universe, loves possessing the state of God Consciousness. She is in the state of ignorance, remaining perfectly complete and full in each and every object. [Bodhapanchadashika 5]

Why has He created this supreme Energy in His own nature? He has done this for one reason – to recognize His own nature. This whole universe is nothing more than the means by which we can come to recognize Lord Siva.

You can recognize Lord Siva through the universe, not by abandoning it, but by observing and experiencing God Consciousness in the very activity of the world. If you remain cut off from the universe and try to realize God Consciousness, it will take centuries. But if you remain in universal activity and are attentive to realizing God Consciousness, you will attain it very easily. So, in the universe there is ignorance and there is a way to get rid of this ignorance. This is the way of meditating in the activity of the world.

Lord Siva creates this external universe for the sake of realizing His own nature. That is why this external universe is called Sakti, because it is the means to realize one’s own nature. When He was solely Siva, He was in His full splendor of God Consciousness. He did not recognize His own nature because it was already there. But He wants His own nature to be recognized. And yet, because it is already there, there is nothing to recognize.

Swami Lakshman Joo

Therefore, in order to recognize His nature He must first become ignorant of His nature. Only then can He recognize it. Why should He want to recognize His nature in the first place? It is because of His freedom, His svatantrya (independence). This is the play of the universe. This universe was created solely for the fun and joy of this realization [1].  It happens that when His fullness overflows, He wants to remain incomplete. He wants to appear as being incomplete, just so He can achieve completion.

This is the play of His svatantrya – to depart from His own nature in order to enjoy it again. It is this svatantrya that has created this whole universe. This is the play of Siva’s svatantrya. This process is also known as unmesa and nimesa. Unmesa is the flourishing of that God Consciousness and nimesa is the withdrawal of that God Consciousness. Unmesa is expansion and nimesa is contraction. Siva contains both of these states within Himself simultaneously.

At the time when His nature overflowed, Sakti [2] was in His own nature. Then He had to separate Sakti from His nature. In that state of separated Sakti, Siva also exists. However, in that state Siva is ignorant and wants, as He did before, to have the fullness of His knowledge.

The evidence that, while being in the state of ignorance, Siva was already filled with knowledge is found in the fact that, at the moment He realizes His own nature and is filled with knowledge, He has the experience that the state of knowledge was already there [3].  So there was never really any separation. Separation only seemed to exist.

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[1] This differentiation, which is the universe, has come out because of the overflowing of the ecstasy of God Consciousness. The ecstasy of God Consciousness overflows and the external universe flows out from His own nature.

[2] In the state of God Consciousness Sakti is complete, and in the state of ignorance Sakti is also complete. And yet, Sakti relishes possessing the state of God Consciousness. In each and every object She is complete, and in each and every object this completion is neither too little nor too much. In this external world, this completion is the same as it was in the state of the fullness of God Consciousness and the same as it was before the creation of the universe.

[3] While experiencing an object, which is also in ignorance, in the field of ignorance, this experience is also full. But Siva does not know this fullness and He does not know that He is full. He only knows this fullness at the time of realizing His own nature. And, when he realizes His own nature, this memory comes to His mind, “I was already full, so why was I meditating?”