The commentaries on the Shiva-Sûtra contain invaluable materials on the technique of breath control or prânâyâma, which is more sophisticated than that expounded in the Yoga-Sûtra. Especially interesting is the teaching that associates different forms of delight, or bliss (ânanda), with the contemplation of the various types of life force (prâna) in the body. The doctrine of the “ascent” (uccâra) of the life force as subtle vibration is connected to complicated speculations about the mystical sound “matrices” (mâtrikâ), which are the root of all mantras.
This and other forms of the ânava discipline are found, for instance, in the Vijnâna-Bhairava, a muchloved scripture probably composed in the seventh century C.E.. This text has been called an initiatory manual for those advanced yogins who desire to explore the Yoga of delight (camâtkâra), the play of Consciousness within itself. Bhairava (“Fear-Inspiring”) is another name of Shiva, who fills the sinner with dread and the mystic with awe.
A further developmental stage of the tradition of Northern Shaivism is present in the Spanda-Sûtra and its commentarial literature. The Spanda-Sûtra, also called Spanda-Kârikâ, is generally ascribed to Vasugupta as well, though some traditions name his disciple Kallata as its composer. The technical term spanda is explained as “a quasi-movement.” It is not successive motion as we encounter it in space-time, but an instantaneous vibration in the transcendental Reality itself, which is the source of all manifest movement—perhaps what physicist David Bohm styled “holo-movement.” Spanda is the ecstatic throbbing of the Shiva- Consciousness. This notion is in striking contrast to the static interpretation of Selfhood in Classical Yoga, where the Self is merely an eternally disinterested watcher of events in the body-mind. This new dynamic concept was no doubt invented to account more adequately for the higher realizations experienced by the adepts of Shaiva Yoga.
The Pratyâbhijna School
The third phase or camp of Northern Shaivism is represented by the Pratyâbhijna or “Recognition” school, founded by Somânanda (ninth century C.E.), a disciple of Vasugupta. The two key scriptures of this school are the Pratyâbhijna-Sûtra of Utpala, a pupil of Somânanda, and the several commentaries of Abhinava Gupta, a tenth-century adept who was also a remarkably prolific writer. Abhinava Gupta composed some fifty works, including his Tantra-loka11 (“Light on Tantra”), a work of encyclopedic proportions on the philosophy and ritual of gamic Shaivism. Madhurâja Yogin, a pupil of Abhinava Gupta, left us this devotional portrait of his guru:
His eyes are rolling with spiritual bliss. The center of his forehead is clearly marked with three lines, made with ashes. His luxuriant hair is tied with a garland of flowers. His beard is long, his body rosy. He is dressed in silk, white like the rays of the moon, and is seated in the heroic posture on a soft cushion placed on a throne of gold. He is attended by all his pupils, with two female devotee- messengers standing by his side.12
Local tradition has it that, after completing his final commentary on the Pratyâbhijna system, Abhinava Gupta, accompanied by 1,200 disciples, entered the Bhairava cave near the Kashmiri village of Magam and was never seen again. He is remembered even today as a fully realized adept (siddha). Abhinava Gupta and many of the other great masters of Northern Shaivism are wonderful illustrations that mystical aspiration and philosophical acuity can be successfully combined.
One of the most popular manuals of the Pratyâbhijna school is the Pratyâbhijna-Hridaya (“Heart of Recognition”), written by Râjanaka Kshemarâja, a disciple of Abhinava Gupta. It is evident from this and Abhinava Gupta’s own writings, as well as other related scriptures, that the Pratyâbhijna practitioners were well acquainted with Yoga, not least Kundalinî-Yoga. They are important sources for our understanding of the early developmental phase of Hatha-Yoga.
The Pratyâbhijna school gets its name from its principal doctrine that liberation is a matter of “recognizing,” or remembering, that our true identity is not the limited body-mind but the infinite Reality of Shiva. In their analysis of existence, the Pratyâbhijna masters arrived at the following thirty-six categories or principles (tattva):
Shiva, the ultimate Reality, which is pure Being-Consciousness.
Shakti, the power aspect of the ultimate principle, which is not really separate from Shiva but merely appears so from the unenlightened point of view. Shakti is the transcendental source of the entire manifest and unmanifest cosmos. The yogin experiences Shakti as bliss (ânanda).
Sadâ-Shiva (“Eternal Shiva”), or Sadâkhya (“Ever-Named,” from sadâ or “ever” and âkhya or “named”), is the will aspect of the One Being. In the scale of yogic realizations, this elevated principle is the ecstatic experience of “I am this,” in which Consciousness encounters itself vaguely as an object.
Îshvara (“Lord”), is a further progression of the psychocosmic evolution, where the objective or “this” (idam) side of the universal Consciousness is still more accentuated. The ecstatic experience on this level is now “This am I” rather than “I am this.”
Sad-Vidyâ (“Being-Knowledge”) or Shuddha- Vidyâ (“Pure Knowledge”) is ecstatically experienced as a perfect balance between the subject (“I”) and the objective (“this”) aspect of the universal Consciousness.
Mâyâ (“Illusion”) is the first of the so-called “impure” (ashuddha) principles, because it relativizes existence through the agency of its five functions, known as “jackets” (kancuka). They are referred to as “jackets” because of their concealment of the truth that there is only the One Being-Consciousness, which is Shiva. These five functions are (7-11):
Kalâ13 (“Part”), which stands for secondary, or partial, creatorship.
Vidyâ (“Knowledge”), which signifies limited knowledge as opposed to omniscience.
Râga (“Passion”), which is desire for limited objects rather than universal bliss and satisfaction.
Kâla14 (“Time”), which stands for the reduction of eternity to the temporal order, divisible into past, present, and future.
Niyati (“Destiny”), which refers to the law of karma as opposed to the eternal freedom and independence of the Divine.
Purusha (“Male”), which is the individuated being, the source of subjective experience, resulting from the activity of the mâyâ- tattva. The purusha is here different from the purusha of Classical Yoga, which Patanjali conceives as being utterly transcendental.
Prakriti (“Nature”), which is the matrix of all objective aspects of manifestation. Unlike Classical Yoga and Classical Sâmkhya, Kashmiri Shaivism proposes that every purusha has its own prakriti.
14-36. The remaining principles are identical to the twenty-four principles (tattva) known in the Sâmkhya tradition, namely the higher mind or, as I prefer to call it, the wisdom faculty (buddhi), the I-maker (ahamkâra), the lower mind (manas), the five cognitive organs (jnâna-indriya, written jnânendriya), the five conative organs (karma-indriya, written karmendriya), the five subtle elements (tanmâtra), and the five coarse elements (bhûta).15
“One should always remain fully awake, viewing the ‘pasture’ [i.e., the world] through wisdom. One should superimpose everything upon the single [Self]. Then one cannot be troubled by another.”
—Spanda-Kârikâ 3.12
Yoga is understood as a gradual ascent to the transcendental Source, which involves the progressive penetration of the various layers of illusion that are created by the mâyâ principle. While success on the spiritual path depends on the guidance of a realized master, ultimately it is the grace of Shiva that bestows liberation on the deserving practitioner.
The mysticism of northern Shaivism holds great attraction for the Westerner interested in India’s wisdom because it is well argued in rational language. In recent years, northern Shaiva teachings have been brought to Europe and America by the late Swami Muktananda, an adept of the Siddha tradition. He empowered numerous Westerners through the method of shakti-pâta (“descent of power”), either through his touch or his mere glance.
Joseph Chilton Pearce reported the following incident:16
A young heart surgeon from Florida, who was disturbed by the hard emotional attitude in his profession, met Swami Muktananda during a meditation intensive. Muktananda grabbed him by the bridge of the nose and held on. In that instant, the young doctor experienced himself as a “body of blue energy.” Then he had a visionary experience of his right arm clinging tightly to the branch of a tree. He felt his fingers being pried loose from the branch. Then something snapped inside him. He experienced himself entering Muktananda’s head. In his words, “there I found myself in an immense vâcuum—an infinite space. A wave of emotion swept up from my belly and I wept for fifteen minutes or more.” Afterward, he felt “cleaned out” and peaceful. Pearce called this a “classical account of Shaktipat,” which turned the young surgeon’s life around, granting him the empathy for his patients he had been hoping for.
Lallâ—Love Poetess Extraordinaire
In addition to the various schools of Shaivite philosophical mysticism, Kashmir also produced a small number of Shiva-worshiping poets. Foremost among them is the woman mystic Lallâ (or Lal- Ded), who lived in the fourteenth century C.E. On the metaphysical basis of the Trika system, Lallâ pursued the discipline of Laya-Yoga, which revolves around the awakening of the occult kundalinî-shakti, or serpent power. The method by which she achieved complete surrender to Shiva was the well-tried path of meditative recitation of the sacred syllable om combined with breath control and concentration. In one of her verses, written in melodious Kashmiri, Lallâ hints at having accomplished the process of Kundalînî-Yoga:
After crossing the six forests [i.e., psychoenergetic centers of the body], the lunar part was trickling down. Nature was sacrificed with the breath/wind (pavana). With the fire of love I scorched my heart. Thus I attained Shankara [i.e., Shiva]. (38)
Other verses in her Lallâ-Vâkya suggest the same: Lallâ was a Self-realized adept who knew firsthand the secrets of Laya-Yoga, which culminates in the dissolution (laya) of the individuated self into the transcendental Self. Thus in one stanza (51) she speaks of having recognized the Self, Shiva, within herself: “When I saw Him dwelling within me, I realized that He is everything and I am nothing.”
Although Lallâ speaks of her longing for Shiva in the days prior to her realization, she eschews emotional language and prefers to use the lofty metaphors of metaphysics. We know nothing about Lallâ’s life, though tradition remembers her as having wandered naked in the cold climate of her homeland. This is hardly credible, since in her poetry Lallâ herself speaks of the necessity for clothing and feeding the body properly. Perhaps the nudity attributed to her is a symbol of her profound surrender to Shiva, which stripped her of all egoic motivation.
SOURCE READING 13
Shiva-Sûtra of Vasugupta
According to the Shaiva tradition of Kashmir, the Shiva-Sûtra was discovered by Vasugupta, who probably lived in the latter half of the eighth century C.E. There are different accounts of how the secrets of this Sûtra were revealed to Vasugupta, but they all mention that he was instructed in a dream. We know from Patanjali’s Yoga-Sûtra (1.38) that yogins take their dreams seriously. The Shiva-Sûitra is the fountainhead of the sacred literature of Kashmiri Shaivism.
Book I
The Self (âtman) is [pure] Consciousness (caitanya). (1.1)
[Finite] knowledge is bondage. (1.2)
The source [of the manifest world together with its] collocation [of manifest effects] is embodied in [limited] activity (kalâ). (1.3)
Comments: Kalâ (to be carefully distinguished from the word kâla or “time”) is finite or conditional activity, which is one of the five “coverings” or “jackets” (kancuka) of mâyâ, the power of world illusion. The others are vidyâ (limited knowledge), râga (attachment), kâla (time), and niyati (causality). By contrast to finite activity, the creativity of the Self is absolute and incomprehensible to the unenlightened mind.
The matrix [of sound] is the foundation of [conditional] knowledge. (1.4)
Comments: The Sanskrit word mâtrikâ (“matrix” or “little mother”) refers to the Sanskrit alphabet with its fifty letters, which are thought to be primal sounds.
The [spontaneous] flashing-forth (udyama) [of the transcendental Consciousness] is Bhairava. (1.5)
Comments: Bhairava is God Shiva, here in the sense of the absolute Reality underlying phenomenal or conditional existence.
Upon [ecstatic] union with the “wheel” (cakra) of powers, [there comes about] the abolition of the universe [as a distinct object of consciousness], (1.6)
[Even] during the differentiation [of consciousness into the three modes of] waking, dream sleep, and deep sleep, [there is continuous] emergence of enjoyment of the Fourth [i.e., absolute Reality]. (1.7)
The waking state (jâgrat) [consists in conditional or finite] knowledge (jnâna). (1.8)
Dream sleep (svapna) [consists in] imagination (vikalpa). (1.9)
Deep sleep (saushupta) [corresponding to] illusion (mâyâ) [consists in complete] nondifferentiation (aviveka). (1.10)
The heroic lord [i.e., the enlightened being] is the [conscious] enjoyer of the triad [of waking, dream sleep, and deep sleep]. (1.11)
Comments: The Sanskrit commentaries explain the word vîra, here translated as “heroic,” as referring to the senses, so that the viresha (vîra-îsha) is metaphorically the lord over the senses. Indeed, the enlightened being, who identifies with supreme Consciousness, is the master of the senses and the mind. This spiritual attainment is referred to as svâcchanda-yoga or “union with the self-dependent [Reality].”
The stages of Yoga are a wonder (vismaya). (1.12)
The power of will (icchâ-shakti) [of the enlightened being] is Umâ [or] Kumârî. (1.13)
Comments: Umâ is the divine Consort, or transcendental Power, of the Absolute, Shiva. Kumârî. the “Virgin,” is the same Power in its playful aspect as the creatrix or destroyer of the universe. The meaning of this aphorism is that the enlightened adept’s will coincides with the divine Will, wherefore he is capable of all kinds of extraordinary feats.
[In the state of ecstatic union] the world (drishya) [becomes the adept’s] body. (1.14)
Through the confinement (sumghâta) of the mind (citta) in the heart, [there comes about the transcendental] vision of the world [and its] sleep [i.e., the void]. (1.15)
Comments: The word svâpa, or “sleep.” stands here for the absence of all objects. Even this void becomes transcendentaliy illumined or “animated” by the enlightened adept, as is made clear in aphorism 3.38.
Or through [conscious] union with the pure Principle (tattva), [the enlightened adept becomes] free from the power [that restricts] the “beast” (pashu) [i.e., the fettered personality]. (1.16)
Self-knowledge [consists in] awareness (vitarka). (1.17)
Comments: Here the term vitarka is a technical expression denoting the adept’s transconceptual awareness. The word has a different meaning in Patanjali’s Yoga-Sûtra.
[For the enlightened adept] worldly bliss is the delight of ecstasy (samâdhi). (1.18)
Upon [ecstatic] union with the [transcendental] Power [as explained in aphorism 1.13, the enlightened adept obtains the capacity for] the creation of [any kind of] body. (1.19)
[Other paranormal abilities that may spontaneously appear in the enlightened adept are:] combining the elements or separating the elements, and compacting the universe [as a whole]. (1.20)
Through the emergence of pure wisdom, [the adept acquires) the power of lordship over the “wheel” [of all other powers). (1.21)
Through [ecstatic] union with the “great lake” [i.e., the transcendental Reality, the adept gains] the experience of the potency (vîrya) of mantras. (1.22)
Book II
The mind [of the adept] is a mantra. (2.1)
Comments: The adept’s mind is continuously potentized and polarized relative to the transcendental Reality, Shiva. Therefore it can be said to be analogous to
a mantra, which esoterically is explained as “that which protects (tra) the mind (man).”
[Spontaneous] application is efficacious. (2.2)
Comments: Constant abidance in and as the Real is the means of realization, or enlightenment, just as the constant repetition of a mantra leads to success.
The secret [hidden in all] mantras is the Being (satta) embodied in wisdom. (2.3)
Expanding the mind relative to the “womb” (garbha) [i.e., the finite world, amounts to no more than] a dream lacking differentiated knowledge. (2.4)
Upon the [spontaneous] emergence of wisdom, [there occurs a great “seal” (mudrâ) known as] khecârî, [which is] the state of Shiva. (2.5)
Comments: The term khecârî means literally “she who moves in the space [of supreme Consciousness].”
The teacher (guru) is the means [of ultimate realization]. (2.6)
Insight into the “wheel” [i.e., spectrum] of matrices [of sound is obtained through the teacher’s instruction]. (2.7)
[The adept’s] body is an oblation [poured into the fire of the transcendental Reality]. (2.8)
[Finite] knowledge is [merely] food. (2.9)
Comments: The meaning of this aphorism is that finite knowledge is instrumental on the phenomenal plane but of no ultimate usefulness. Wisdom, however, guides adepts to enlightenment and they use their finite being—the body-mind—as an oblation that is offered up in a final gesture of self-transcendence.
Upon the recession of wisdom [in the case of an aspirant], the vision [of the world is like] a dream arising from that [wisdom]. (2.10)
Comments: Even after wisdom recedes, there is an afterglow that continues to inform the yogin’s vision or experience of the world.
Book III
The Iphenomenal] self (âtman) is the mind (citta). (3.1)
[Finite] knowledge is bondage. (3.2)
Comments: This aphorism reiterates aphorism 1.2.
The Yoga Tradition Page 53