Aditi - The Infinite Consciousness

The word aditi is constituted of two components: a & diti. The sound ‘a’ here is a negative prefix meaning ‘not’. The word ‘diti’ is derived from a lost root ‘di’ which means to cut, split or separate or divide. (Please remember that the fundamental experience associated with the seed-sound da is a forceful motion which splits, divides, separates). So, diti refers to division, split, separation, duality etc. The word aditi (na not diti divided) refers to that which is indivisible. So aditi is the undivided consciousness. In the Vedic tradition Aditi is identified as the mother of gods, the infinite mother, the supreme Prakriti, in opposition to diti, the divided consciousness from whom all the daityas or demons are born.

The Gods are born from Aditi in the supreme Truth of things, the Dasyus or Danavas from Diti in the nether darkness; they are the Lords of Light and the Lords of Night fronting each other across the triple world of earth, heaven and mid-air, body, mind and the connecting breath of life.
-(Sri Aurobindo, Volume: 15 [CWSA] The Secret of the Veda, Page: 232)

Aditi is the infinite consciousness and is the source of all cosmic forms of consciousness from physical upwards. She is one and self-luminous, free from duality.

The word aditi can also be derived from the root ad meaning ‘to eat’. ‘To eat’ also means: ‘to swallow’, ‘to envelope’, ‘to encompass’, ‘to embrace’. So, in this sense aditi is ‘the all encompassing or enveloping consciousness’; the vast infinite consciousness having the power to clothe itself in finite forms.

The word aaditya, derived from aditi, means born from or belonging to aditi. The other word equivalent to aaditya is aditija meaning aditi-born.

Aditi is full of gods, aditih devataamayee. Each goddess is a form of Aditi, the infinite Conscious-Force, the executive Energy, the Will or Law, the Maya, the Prakriti, Shakti which is behind all happenings. This supreme Energy formulates itself in different forms like Durga, Lakshmi, Sarasvati, Kali etc. as the Mother of the worlds.

Aditi the infinite, the undivided is the mother of the Gods, Diti or Danu, the division, the separative consciousness the mother of the Titans; therefore the gods in man move towards light, infinity and unity, the Titans dwell in their cave of the darkness and issue from it only to break up, make discordant, wounded, limited his knowledge, will, strength, joy and being. Aditi is originally the pure consciousness of infinite existence one and self-luminous; she is the Light that is Mother of all things. As the infinite she gives birth to Daksha, the discriminating and distributing Thought of the divine Mind, and is herself born to Daksha as the cosmic infinite, the mystic Cow whose udders feed all the worlds.
-(Sri Aurobindo, Volume: 15 [CWSA] The Secret of the Veda, Page: 473)

Sri Aurobindo further says:

Aditi is the infinite Light of which the divine world is a formation and the gods, children of the infinite Light, born of her in the Ritam, manifested in that active truth of her movement guard it against Chaos and Ignorance. It is they who maintain the invincible workings of the Truth in the universe, they who build its worlds into an image of the Truth.
-(Sri Aurobindo, Volume: 15 [CWSA] The Secret of the Veda, Page: 475)