Continued from Part Two. Artwork by Alex Grey.

I: Going back to our previous talk about the chakra systems and nāḍīs. In the Tibetan Tantra channel system, the main three nāḍīs are not crossing but parallel, whereas in Indian systems we can find pictures showing crossed channels, pictures which are quite late, dating to 18th-19th centuries. What do you think about this? Do you think that perhaps the Tibetans preserved an earlier and more correct system?

H: No, both descriptions are found in ancient sources, but the sources that give the most thought to the question describe the channels as alternating (i.e., crossing). This is discussed in a very early source in a lot of detail, so the description that I find most convincing is that the chakras, the energy centres are located where many nāḍīs converge -- so the nāḍīs cross back and forth and the point where they cross is the chakra. So, a chakra is formed by the intersection of many nāḍīs. But for example the pingalā nāḍī is definitely dominant on the right side and idā on the left side. Even though they are intercrossed sometimes they are visualised like as parallel, because the energy of pingalā is so much stronger on the right, and the energy of idā on the left. So, actually I don’t think there is much of a contradiction here.  

I: I studied a little bit of Tibetan practices and always nāḍīs were visualised as straight lines- pingalā was of red colour, idā - moonlight and sushumnā nāḍī was blue like a flame of a burning gas.

H: And that is the same in Shaiva practice, probably they got this tradition from the Shaivas. Abhinavagupta describes this in detail. The inhale comes in through idā nadi and that is the ‘lunar inhale.’ The exhale is the solar; central channel can be white-gold light, blue fire or it can also be orange fire, because the idea is that red and white merge and that makes orange. So, when Sun and Moon merge it becomes Fire. We see this in a technique where you visualise the crescent moon above your head, you inhale down and the moon grows as it comes down and become a full moon in the heart and then it sets and you visualise the sun rising in the heart, like the morning sun rising, exhale the sun up, dissolve it [into infinite space], again visualise the moon, bring it down etc. So, the internal kumbhaka (full moon setting and sun rising; you are supposed to fuse those two energies in kumbhaka) and fire surges up the central channel. This is all in Abhinavagupta.

I: This all sound very similar to Tibetan Tantric tradition.

H: Yes. The more this information is known - such as found in my book! - the Tibetans are going to read my book I hope and say something like - this is almost the same as what we do! And they will realise that these two traditions were side by side, sister and brother, almost no conflict actually.

I: Now, let us talk a little bit about the sexual practices. As you have already mentioned before, in the Western mind the term Tantra is associated with some kind of exotic sex, which is a wrong and oversimplified understanding and yet it still exists. There are numerous advertisements of various exotic Tantric workshops, all connected with sex somehow. So, let us bring light to this matter and explain what part of Tantric tradition is connected with sexual practices? Haṭhayoga Pradīpikā mentions vajroli mudrā, but it is very difficult to understand however the role of this mudrā and many misinterpretations arose. Even in India no one knows exactly and yoga teachers try to avoid this subject, because sex has always been a closed and suppressed matter since the Muslim invasions and this knowledge seems to have been lost over time.

H: Let’s clarify this with reference to three areas: neo-tantric sexual practices, original Tantra and Haṭhayoga. So, what is taught under the name "tantric sex" today, these techniques cannot be found in the original sources and they come from Westerners, hearing about Tantra, making some things up, reading some Taoist material, and they have been doing this for a long time now.  The first person who wanted to teach something like tantric sex was probably Pierre Bernard and Aleister Crowley around a hundred years ago. It seems that Crowley knew about the work of Arthur Avalon, so he heard about “tantric sex” but he had no access to the original sources and made something up and passed it on. So, today we have teachers of so called “tantric sex” and they teach something they have got from their teachers, from their teachers etc. They think it is original lineage, but it in fact started only a hundred years ago. Scholars call this neo-tantra. What is the difference between neo-tantric and original Tantric sexual practices? There is a big difference, because in the original scriptures there are no sexual techniques given at all, meaning there is no description of techniques for how to make sex more enjoyable, last longer, orgasm more intensely, nothing like that, nothing in common with the Kama Sūtra at all. This fact shows how confused modern people are. They think that Kama Sūtra is related to Tantra, which shows immediately that they have no idea what they are talking about. So, we don’t find sexual techniques in the original Tantra, but what we do find is the idea of sexual meditation. It is mentioned in many sources and detailed only in Tantrāloka chapter 29 (amongst the Shaiva sources). And there this beautiful ritual is described, the practitioner must be advanced, this is an advanced ritual with sexual intercourse, but no information is given about how to have sexual intercourse, this is just what you meditate on, you meditate on this [sexual] centre and merge all energy into that centre, instead of having 5 different senses, you should have just one [holistic] sense, the sense that you are a mass of blissful consciousness. The goal of the Kula-yāga, which is the name of the sexual practice, is to become one mass of blissful consciousness. But Kula-yāga doesn’t mean sex per se, it means sexual meditation. The two practitioners and their divine essence all become one in the practice. Some [rare] people instinctively know how to do this, but most people must practice it. So, Abhinavagupta says, and this is the interesting part, you must not practice this with somebody that you desire or lust for, because if you have any desire you will objectify the act, you will objectify the person and if anything becomes objectified, he says, this will not work. See how different this is from neo-tantra. In fact, he says that the default consort is not one’s wife or partner; only the most advanced practitioner could do this with his wife, the woman he is attracted to, because you have to know how to completely drop that kind of physical desire, because the purpose is full awareness and liberation, not pleasure.

In the Haṭhayoga system we have something else going on. Haṭhayoga was interested in preserving and sublimating the sexual energy, which is a different thing. Abhinavagupta doesn’t talk about holding in the semen, in fact you must ejaculate in his practice, because the mingled sexual fluids are then offered to the Deity as the most sacred offering possible, fluid of man and woman together are offered to the Linga as the highest possible offering. But Hatha-yogīs were interested in siddhis that came from retaining all the sexual energy and fluids, so they are interested in raising the bindu, here defined a subtle sexual substance, to the crown of the head. For example, vajroli mudrā and so on are not found in Tantric sources, only in Haṭhayoga sources, and in early Haṭhayoga sources this is the primary concern, how to pull the sexual energy and fluid upwards.

I: Haṭhayoga Pradīpikā  mentions that for the successful performance of vajroli mudrā a yogī should be with a desired woman and have plenty of milk.

H: Here is the difference, because the Kula-yāga, that Abhinavagupta talks about, is a sexual meditation for liberation and in a Haṭhayoga source this usually is for siddhis -- there is also a source for that in Tantra, which I didn`t mention. Almost nobody knows about this source. This is Brahmayāmala-tantra, where the practice is described, which is a very early tantra.

I: I know only Rudrayāmala-tantra.

H: Brahmayāmala-tantra is a way earlier source, mentioned even in the early version of Skanda Purāna. So there is a practice, called "the observance of the razor’s edge." [It is described in a new article by Shaman Hatley.] This is a very different kind of sexual practice.  The ascetic yogī obtains a young woman to help him with this practice by bribing her with as much jewelry he can afford and so she agrees to do this practice with him. He must do this particular mantra and copulate with her, but not ejaculate and if he does ejaculate he has to start all over again and do many mantras to make up for that. This is called “difficult even for gods to practice”, but the goal is siddhi (magical power). It is a kind of a practice, where the woman is not an equal practitioner, whereas in Abhinavagupta`s Kula-yāga the woman is theoretically an equal practitioner, both people are going for liberation, whereas here there is an ascetic using a woman like an instrument, with her permission of course. And throughout the Brahmayāmala the goal is usually siddhi. So this is a very interesting thing, in the Tantric context ascetic yogīs, living like sadhus, were usually going for siddhi, and householder yogīs were usually going for liberation. Very clear division in that sense. So, then in Haṭhayoga we get a strange combination of these goals, you want siddhi but also you want liberation and things get more mixed up, I would say. But in terms of real sexual sādhana getting transmitted, I think this only happened in oral transmission, because it didn’t get transmitted in the texts [at least not the Shaiva ones], and I have never seen an example of sexual sādhana that is authentic to the tradition except for one, which is given by Dharmabodhi of Ādi-yoga [in Loei, Thailand]. With permission of his guru he recorded a CD, were he gives a sexual sādhana, which may go back to the original tradition. Dharmabodhi says that he searched all over India for the real sexual sādhana and finally found a couple of people to initiate him. This nine-hour CD starts as a lecture and then gets practical towards the end. So he describes a very interesting technique, where two practitioners are becoming one, so if they know how to do it right they can become a single energy body and generate a single sushumnā nāḍī between them. So, they are like one being with a sushumnā nāḍī between them, where the woman becomes the idā nāḍī, and the man the pingalā nāḍī. He claims that he has done it so powerfully that they could both see and feel the sushumnā nāḍī appear between them. And again, it has nothing to do with pleasure, it may be pleasurable but that is a side effect. I don’t know any other modern source for authentic sexual sādhana in the tantric tradition. Of course, there are some in [the Buddhist and] Taoist tradition, but that’s different.

I: Let us pass on to the last question about Indian tradition in India and in the West. As I see it, and I have spent a lot of time in India, modern Indians are not so much interested in spirituality, even Hindu worship is gradually becoming less and less important for them. They are more interested in developing the material aspect of their lives, whereas the opposite trend can be seen in the West. Westerners, who have obtained sufficient level of material comfort, they start to feel urge for spiritual knowledge. It seems to me, that spirituality is gradually shifting from India to the West. I have recently read an article, I don’t know whether it is true or not, that nowadays there are more Buddhist monasteries in the US than in Nepal and India. What is your opinion about the future of a spiritual tradition?

H: First of all I would say that we are in the era of globalised culture and thank God for that, because otherwise these spiritual teachings would have been lost, because modern India doesn’t have much interest in them. The reasons for this is extremely complex, but partly is because Indian culture underwent a kind of reset, a reboot with the Muslim conquest and then British conquest; there was such a contraction of Indian religion, meaning that so much knowledge and wisdom was forgotten and lost that the religion became a simplified version of itself, centred on the temple culture and people going to temple, essentially not for spirituality but for good luck. This is a big cultural problem, because the nature of the Indian tradition is that it asserts that the religion is eternal, Sanātana Dharma -- this phrase is misleading, because it implies that our dharma, our religion has been unchanging throughout time, but in fact it has changed enormously. But if you believe it’s unchanging then you do not go back and look for the knowledge that has been lost! And what we see in modern India is that those people who are interested in religion, they know a little bit about it and think that they know everything. Which is, as Abhinavagupta says, the worst form of ignorance. If you know a little bit, but think that it’s pretty much all that there is to know, you are not open to more, you don’t go looking for more. We have an Indian government which is not funding research into India’s past in a substantial way, which was more glorious in the sense that in the old days [pre-muslim conquest], huge amounts of funding were going to pay people to meditate, you know, and to research the inner world. That’s why we have thousands of scriptures, but very few people in modern India are reading them and there is very little interest in them [of course, a small number of people are reading them, but as a percentage of the population it’s negligible]. At the same time, as you said, the interest has been growing in the West ever since Vivekānanda came in 1893. America and Western Europe are most economically successful countries, which is important, because people have made enough money to enjoy the comforts of life and find that they are still not very happy. So, it’s not a coincidence, because India, except for a few people, does not have all the modern comforts and so they want them. The West already has them, so they want spirituality, because they have already discovered experientially that they are not really fulfilled by money and comforts. This is a common idea that money can’t buy happiness, everybody ‘knows’ it but it’s very different to experience it for yourself. And that’s what we are talking about -- you have to have an actual experience. If we look at who is sponsoring this huge growth of Buddhism in the West, it's wealthy educated individuals, who discovered that all their education and wealth didn`t really fulfill them, but when they started doing Buddhist meditation they had a much more rich and beautiful experience of life.

I: And why do you think Buddhism is more popular in the West? I read an article by David Frawley in which he says that many western yoga teachers prefer meditation techniques according to the Buddhist teachings rather than traditional Indian ones. What is your opinion on this?

H: Just as a preface I don’t want to say Buddhism versus India, because Buddhism is Indian in its origin, even Tibetan Buddhism is Indian in its origins. But why modern people turn to Buddhism and especially Tibetan Buddhism? One, is that Buddhism is a religion that seeks converts; Indian traditions that we lump together as Hinduism don’t seek converts and often don’t even welcome converts. So, that’s one important reason. Another important reason is this issue I keep alluding to about the historical shift that happened with lack of state support for the Indian religions. There was that state support for Buddhism in Tibet all the way up until the Chinese conquest of Tibet [in 1956]. What that means is that you have a lot more highly educated practice teachers, you have lineages of scholar-practitioners, so when Westerners who are educated want a practice that is intellectually convincing and sophisticated as well, there are many Buddhist lineages that are intellectually very well-thought-out compared to the Indian lineages. Of course, many practice lineages survived in India under the Muslims and British, but with a greatly reduced and simplified intellectual component. It doesn’t matter for some people and it does for the others, that’s why people like myself are trying to bring back the rich intellectual component to the non-Buddhist yogas, so that they become an attractive option for people. When there are more books like this one that I’ve written that presents this Śaiva Tantric view in a very intellectually sophisticated way -- which is not made up by the way, because this is how it was presented originally, originally it was just as intellectually coherent as the Buddhist view. They were equals in debate, Shaivism and Buddhism, and in fact we see that many times the Shaivas won. We are just bringing that back, so that it becomes a more respectable option, because what you see in India today is just yoga teachers with a very superficial and vague understanding of philosophy and it’s just not very convincing to educated Westerners. Like there is just some pretty language about “we all one with God,” but ultimately you want more than that, you want a better and deeper understanding.

I: And also many Indian yoga teachers are merely trying to create commercial cults.

H: Yes, it’s a huge problem that opportunistic Indian gurus have tainted things for Westerners in many ways. So, we have a lot of work to do to kind of undo that damage, which will slowly happen, I think.

I: Going back to the question about the future of Indian tradition. We have already discussed that in modern India it is oversimplified, but here in the West there is the danger that it will be oversimplified for the commercial purposes. What is your opinion on that?

H: It’s a big problem, because not only is it simplified, it is distorted, because what sells is feeling good. So, you get the “feel-good” kind of yoga, because yoga is the business and that’s what it sells. So, that’s why a few teachers, and hopefully more in the future, are saying that “it’s fine if you feel good and find some teachers that make you feel good about yourself, but ultimately if you want to avoid the pitfalls and actualise your potential in this path you will need the deeper teachings.”  So some people like myself are signaling to Americans that the superficial version of things is not going to take you all the way, you must be in a deep relationship with the teacher in which you receive the deeper teachings that can take you all the way. And if only 1% of the people want that then that’s fine. It’s just that what there was in ancient times and what there should be now is a graduated curriculum. So, in ancient times they said here is the teaching for the masses, like the mythology was for the masses, stories of the gods and stuff, and Abhinavagupta even says that’s for children and simple-minded people -- little stories of the gods with the moral at the end -- fine, but everyone should know that there is another level that they can be initiated into. In Shaivism in ancient times there were 4 levels -- uninitiated and then three levels of initiation. Everyone knew that if they wanted to go deeper, that was available to them, but now we have the problem that people don’t even know what an initiated practice really looks like and they don’t know what is necessary to achieve their goals. So, as we start developing yoga in the West-- it’s absolutely fine to have the commercialised superficial version as long as the deeper version is also available to those who really want it, and that is not determined by how much money they offer but by the dedication of their being. For this to happen and work we must have more teachers that really know what they are talking about, that reserve the higher practices and teachings for their serious students and who only give these higher teachings to somebody who has a really dedicated spirit, someone who can value it, regardless of whether they are rich or poor. I don’t know if the West will be able to develop yoga in this way, but that’s what I’m working for.

Continued from the previous passage on The Nature of God. 

So the beautiful forms of the Divine are conceived by knowing subjects variously—but how could that indicate an actual division [within Its nature]? Is it the case that the fire’s capacity to burn and its capacity to cook mean it has a dual nature? || 70 

Yet we cannot in truth say that [difference] does not exist, for this shining manifestation (bhāsana) includes everything (even apparent duality). So there is some reality to the difference between God and his Power (śakti). || 71 

For Power is that which, due to its oneness [with God], generates an abundance of powers innate to itself; we also call it the Goddess. Though manifesting in this way, her ultimate nature is other [than anything which can be conceptualized in human terms]. || 72 

My commentary: the Goddess appears in many forms, for there are many Powers of Consciousness; all these forms are valid, yet Her ultimate nature is not encompassed by any human conceptualization.

And likewise, through his [power of] freedom, God can and does manifest—with undiminished power—as the 'created entity' [one visualizes] in meditative contemplation (bhāvanā) and other practices, appearing in the mirror of the Knower—the awareness [of the individual practitioner] that is [one with] His own. || 73 

My comm.: We can and do experience the Divine through our spiritual practices, even though they are based in culturally-created forms, because through the power of His freedom (svātantrya-śakti), Divine Consciousness (aka Śiva) appears in the 'mirror' of the individual's awareness, since that awareness is in reality inseparable from Śiva's. Note: my understanding of this verse and the following have benefitted from Mark Dyczkowski's as-yet unpublished translation. See also the parallel passage in Stanzas on the Recognition of God (Īśvara-pratyabhijñā-kārikā I.5.16), which Jayaratha quotes, since Abhinava likely had it in mind: "The Lord, due to His freedom, creates a nondual Self with such forms as Īśvara in [the practitioner's] meditative contemplation and other practices, and thus can carry out practical activity [such as meditation]." (Note that the version of the verse Jayaratha quotes is different from that in the received transmission.) Abhinava comments on this verse (in his ĪPvv, vol. 1, p. 108), saying, "The objective component of differentiated representations created by the Highest DIvinity -- such as Īśvara, the self, etc. -- makes them able to become the object of meditation, worship, teaching and so on, and, on the other hand, their unveiled subjective component ensures the attainment of their true nature."

Therefore, whichever means (lit., 'face') He manifests through—though He remains partless—is a Power (śakti). Thus this succession (krama) from Power to [the Divine Consciousness] which holds [all Powers] is clearly a reality. || 74 

My comm.: Abhinava is clearly referencing the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra here (verse 20), which teaches that Śiva can only be accessed through one of the many forms of Śakti. Though the 'faces' of the Divine, or the methods to access it, are many, it remains One and indivisible (anaṃśa).

And in the sacred Kiraṇa-tantra, [we find this issue addressed] in its question-and-answer section: “Belief (anubhāva) is but a mental construct, [and] the mind cannot approach God; but without knowing God, how could there be [any seeking or giving of] initiation?” The answer follows: “The experience (anubhava) of hunger and the like is not at all a mental construct, for it is not derived from the mind. Though it is not perceptible to the sense of taste or [hearing], one may directly know a tree because it possesses an appearance (rūpa). In the same way, a mental construct [may lead one to] apprehend God [in one of His comprehensible aspects such] as Resonance (nāda), Point (bindu), etc.”  || 75-77 

 The full Kiraṇa passage that Abhinava is referring to here reads as follows: “Garuḍa asked: ‘How can the Śiva-tattva be Void (śūnya), when the Void is not perceptible to the senses, and no reality can [be said to exist if it] be beyond direct perception?’ (1)

The Lord replied: ‘Māyā is to be discarded, and God is to be grasped; the grasper is the soul (puruṣa), it is taught. God is empty (śūnya) of the qualities of māyā, because He is free from Impurity (mala) and the state of being bound (paśu). (2) He is called Void not in the sense of non-existence but in that of being utterly free of the need for anything outside himself. Without sāttvik qualities, He/It would be like a temple without a god. (3) The Point, the Resonance, and Power are all considered [aspects of] the Void. For the sake of stabilizing the mind, there will always be fixed forms [such as this]. (4)

It is beyond the senses, due to being exceedingly subtle; [but] one may know [It] through merging with the subtle Power. The Power of Knowing is held to be the very thing known, because it is [simply] the knowledge of it [there being no actual 'objective' reality]. (5) Can one not have an experience of something beyond the senses? The mind, [or] a belief (anubhāva) is perceptible, just as hunger and thirst are clearly apparent [despite being beyond the five senses].’ (6)

Garuḍa said: ‘A belief arises from a thought (vikalpa), and a thought is mental. Thus, something mental is knowable, something non-mental is formless [and thus not knowable]. Without knowing the Reality [of God], how can a teacher give initiation? That matter/goal must be thoroughly known, and it cannot be thoroughly known [by the mind].’ (7-8)

The Lord said: ‘A thought need not arise for the experience of hunger and [thirst to be known]. A thought has an object for its substrate, but that object need not be something like a pot. (9) A subtle mental construct (vikalpa) may merge with the Power of the Void. Having done so, one is free from otherness. Therefore, one is said to be freed from the mind. (10)

Due to the contact of one’s senses [with their objects], there is cognition, there is [the appearance of] a doer, there is a mind, action, and a sense of self.  God must be attained (śivaḥ sādhyaḥ), [and] the Lord can be understood in this [same way], though it may be through but one quality. (11) Just as a tree can be grasped as directly perceivable, simply through its appearance, though its taste etc. are not known, in the same way, due to the Power of Knowing, the Lord is known through the sense of His reality (tattva-bhāva), though without perception through the normal five senses. . . . (12-13) The Void, which has such a nature, is to be known through one’s Guru, through the scriptures, and in oneself.” (14ab)

It is taught that Śiva has many śaktis, since the great extent of [his] diversity encompasses cosmic powers (kalās), principles of reality (tattvas), and worlds (bhuvanas); phonemes, mantras, and words; [the divine acts of] creation, stasis, dissolution, concealment, grace, and more; as well as the Fourth state. All this is the unfolding of the many Powers of God. || 79 

My comm.: Abhinava here enumerates some of the fundamental categories of Tantrik Śaiva thought. The Sixfold Path of Reality, consisting of kalās, tattvas, worlds, and phonemes, mantras, and words, is discussed on pp. 164-5 of Tantra Illuminated. The Five Acts of God are discussed on pp. 111-123 of the same book; the Fourth State is found on p. 179.

So too the states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and other [states] beyond them—all constitute the abundant mass of 'waves' of the infinite Freedom of that Lord. || 80 

The [Seven Perceivers, i.e.] the Mahāmantreśvaras, the Mantreśvaras, the Mantras, with Śiva at the head [of all them], and the Vijñānākalas, Pralayākalas, and Sakalas (embodied beings), are [also nothing but] all-pervading powers of Śiva alone. || 81 ||

My comm.: The Seven Perceivers are covered in detail in chapter three of my forthcoming book, The Recognition Sūtras. 

Translation of Tantrāloka continues in the next post, which spectacularly concludes Abhinava's discussion of 'the Nature of God' with a secret teaching from a lost Tantra.

A new student in my classes is bringing a 'beginner's mind' and asking fundamental questions, which are never a waste of time. In spiritual circles, no word get bandied about more than 'energy' -- and upon doing some of the assigned class reading, he asked, simply, "What does energy actually mean?" He wrote to me with these examples from our reading:
 
"Here are some of the ways Sally Kempton uses the word (in the Foreword to the Shakti Coloring Book), each of which seems different:

1) 'The deities here represent subtle archetypal energies that exist in the universe and within each of us.' and '[One can] work with the images and sacred sounds as focal points for meditation and, finally, attempt to bring the energy of the deity inside.'
2) 'I began to notice that the yantra evoked certain energies in me.' and 'But at the same time, it emanated a feeling of softness, a palpably sweet energy.'
3) 'Coloring these mandalas and deity drawings can be a profound spiritual practice, which can integrate the separated energies in your psyche and also connect you to their higher octaves.'

Does 'energy' mean different things in these contexts?"

My reply follows: 'Energy' usually translates the Sanskrit word shakti, which also means 'potency, power, capacity.' Literally the word 'energy' means 'the power to do (inner) work' -- both in English (from Gk. energeia) and in Sanskrit. Sometimes the word is used in a sloppy way in spiritual circles, obscuring this fundamental meaning. For example, it is used (improperly, in my view) as equivalent to Sanskrit bhāva, which means 'feeling', 'mental state', or even 'vibe' in English slang. (Such as "this place has a nice energy" which means "I feel good in this place" or "I like your vibe".) In Sally's usage above, #1 uses the word correctly to mean 'spiritual power that can effect inner transformation', while #2 uses it to simply mean feeling or bhāva.  #3 uses it as loosely equivalent to 'deities', aspects of one's being which need to be evoked and integrated in order to effect the inner transformation they are capable of. Certainly there are latent energies in your being that are activated through these practices.

This student wrote back:  "I do not fully understand this. Specifically:

1) What is an 'aspect of my being' here? Is it something like, say, being embodied, or having emotions, or sexuality - simply a part of experience or existence? Or something more?
2) What does it mean to 'integrate' it?
3) What is inner transformation?

If you could illustrate these, perhaps with some examples, I think I would understand much better and more clearly what is meant. (I've heard these words and phrases many, many times, but always without examples or explanations, and I've never understood them properly.)"

Wonderful! I thought. Too few students ask to clarify the fundamentals, and too few teachers address what is already assumed but never adequately understood. My response follows:

There are countless aspects to your being — whether we're talking about your thoughtfulness, your sexuality (which itself subdivides into many aspects like animalistic, infantile, refined, or spiritual sexual expression), your playfulness, your capacity for self-sabotage, your capacity to honor & revere what flows through you, your capacity to experience radical freedom—and infinitely more. You are vast — you contain multitudes! And some of these aspects are already active and expressed to some degree, while others are latent and unexpressed. Some aspects cohere into a subtle pattern we call a deity. For example, Shiva relates your capacity to experience freedom & spaciousness with your capacity to be still & silent — an important coherence that your mind wouldn't necessarily have identified. Pārvatī relates power & discipline with humility & softness, cohering them into a pattern which, when accessed, produces greater benefit to all beings than accessing any of those qualities individually. This one of the primary purposes of the deities: to show us patterns otherwise obscured, empowering patterns we can cultivate.

What we mean by integration is a huge topic, but briefly, there are many aspects of a person's being that do not operate in perfect harmony with the whole because those aspects have been rejected, judged, or demonized (sexuality is a good example, but there are many others, like one's capacity to act naturally & spontaneously, and other positive qualities like enthusiasm, that have been judged and repressed in some people). Any aspect of you that has been rejected (even mildly) becomes partially 'separated' or split off from the governing self-image, and can only be accessed in special circumstances. (In extreme examples of this, a person develops Dissociative Identity Disorder or 'split personalities' -- but we all have a moderate version of this until our yoga is complete.) So these separated/rejected aspects need to be reintegrated.

Other aspects of you are simply latent, lying dormant, yet to be expressed. But when previously latent aspects arise, they don't usually fit with the governing self-image, so they too need to be 'integrated' — which means fully accepted, allowed in, allowed to be part of you (which often necessitates softening or releasing existing static self-images). When this integration occurs with aspects that have been previously rejected, there is often a flood of emotion and/or prāna (life-force energy) that surges through one's being (especially if such integration is sudden rather than gradual), because each such aspect contains pent-up energy not accessible to the whole system as long as it is dis-integrated, energy which then becomes accessible and merges with the whole when it is integrated.

Though this might seem like psychology more than yoga, I am articulating principles found in yogic and tantrik texts (such as chapter 11 of The Recognition Sutras) but rarely elaborated in detail there, partially because they didn't have the systematic vocabulary we now have.

'Inner transformation', then, is this mysterious process of discovering and reintegrating these 'lost' parts of ourselves, as well as tapping into the full vastness of our authentic being through spiritual practice, both of which result in becoming a blissful mass of harmoniously unified awareness (Skt. chidānanda-ghana-svātma) — enabling us to allow unimpeded spontaneous expression of life-energy to flow through us for the benefit of all beings. (Despite the seemingly grandiose language, this can look and feel very simple & sweet.)

Addendum 1: We would be remiss in not adding a comment on that even more misused word commonly heard in spiritual circles, 'energetic'. Many people these days use 'energetic' to mean 'subtle' (Skt. sūkṣma), that is, 'not perceptible to the five senses'.  (I have even heard it used in yogāsana classes to mean 'isometric', presumably because isometric use of the muscles is not perceptible to external viewers.) This is just a misuse. Imagine translating sūkṣma-śakti as 'energetic energy'!  Please no. :)  

Addendum 2: as Ekabhūmi said, we should avoid forming fixed categories based on these teachings on shakti. Forming 'defined, controlled, structured, predictable categories' is problematic because these mental structures (vikalpas) quickly ossify and become petrified, thereby resisting the free flow of the processes we are alluding to here. Words, in this dimension of human experience, can only be pointers, not descriptors.

This is part of a series of posts translating Chapter One of the 1000-year-old masterpiece called 'Light on Tantra' (Tantrāloka). This post continues from the previous post on 'The Nature of God/dess' and concludes the present section. After citing the more conservative, orthodox Saiddhāntika texts (see previous posts), Abhinavagupta now cites a lost Kaula Trika scripture that appears (from the scattered citations we have of it) to have been a mysterious, powerful, even astounding work. This whole section, which climaxes the teaching on The Nature of God, is based on this scripture:

The sacred Triśirobhairava-tantra teaches that the indestructible nature of the entire collection of Principles of Reality (tattvas) is simply the Self, for they have the Self as their essential nature. || 82 

My commentary: the nature of all the thirty-six tattvas (see Tantra Illuminated pp. 124-49) is the Self in the sense that the Self is Awareness (caitanyam ātmā, Śiva-sūtra 1.1) and all phenomena are simply forms of that singular divine Awareness. In other words, everything is internal to Consciousness and nothing but Consciousness.

“The exceedingly subtle collection of Principles situated in the Heart, in the whole body, in the essence-nature (svabhāva), is known [in this tantra] by the word grāma (the 'village' or 'community' or 'collectivity'). || 83 

“Its nature (dharma) is simply the Self, it is taught, [the awareness of which is] flooded with the immortal nectar (amṛta) of Śiva. True insight (jñāna) has its abode in the Light of Awareness (prakāśa), in the Center (madhya) between Being and Non-being, between feeling and absence of feeling, and [between all other pairs of opposites]. || 84 

My comm.: the view of reality from the Center of the Self is very different from all other views. There crystal-clear insight into the ineffable nature of things arises, and we experience everything flooded with śivāmṛta, the divine nectar -- which refers to the experience of awareness blissfully relishing itself in the form of whatever it perceives, moment-to-moment. (Kinda like what this guy describes in his blog.) As the verse implies, one way to access the Center is letting go of attachment or aversion to both of any pair of opposites, such as existence/nonexistence, pleasure/pain, love/loneliness, etc.

“That which must be known is [the state of] abiding in one’s true home, which is a state of seeing free of all obscurations. One who has become ‘stainless’ (= free of mala) by virtue of this pure insight (śuddha-vijñāna) — described as clear naked Reality — is said [in this tantra] to be one whose conduct follows the 'way of the village' (i.e., the collectivity of tattvas)." Everything is achieved for him. || 85-86ab  

My comm.: that-which-must-be known refers always to the goal of spiritual practice, usually equated with God, but here said to be "abiding in one's true home" or "abiding in one's natural state" (sva-sthāna), a state of clear seeing, free of 'stories' and mental projections. 'The way of the village' translates grāma-dharma, which could also be rendered (in this context) as 'upholding the Whole', because of the special definition of grāma noted above. The phrase grāma-dharma-vṛtti is intentionally multilayered: such an awakened being is "engaged in commmunity-dharma"; s/he "moves in alignment with the Whole"; his "activity upholds the Whole". 

Note also that the original text of the Triśirobhairava (as quoted by Jayaratha) has a different reading than the one paraphrased by Abhinava: “. . . an abiding which is said to be an activity (vṛtti), but an activity which is described as [abiding in] the state of the Seer, having recognized one’s own abode (svapadaṃ jñātvā draṣṭṛtvam).” And it adds, before the next line Abhinava quotes, “One should know that fully awakened [state], free from external coverings, liberated from [thoughts of] higher and lower . . .”  The last phrase in the verse above ('Everything is achieved for him') seems to be Abhinava’s addition, if we follow Jayaratha. 

“Abandoning the upper and lower [breaths (prāṇa and apāna)], he should enter [the Center]. He [then] abides in beauty & delight (rāma), situated in the Center. [Then, even while] moving about, staying still, opening or closing [the eyes?], dreaming or in the waking state, running, jumping, toiling, feeling [currents of inner] energy (śakti-vedana), and likewise [in] countless diverse states of mind, feelings, thoughts, and actions, this delight & beauty (rāma) pervades.”  It is God (śiva) [who is] the supreme cause in all this. || 86cd-88 

My comm.: Abhinava plays with the words here, equating rāma with śiva (note that Sanskrit has no capital letters which would distinguish the literal meanings of the words from the names of the deities). 
      The original text (or Jayaratha’s version) of the Triśirobhairava has “Frequenting the upper and lower [breaths], his mind ascends due to [the fusion of] prāṇa and apāna. Abandoning the upper, he should enter [the Center]. Here, by virtue of doing so, he abides in delight.” The Center, yogically speaking, is the central channel (madhya-nāḍī), as Jayaratha suggests. Another text quoted by him at this point teaches that "meditating on it as the Inner Void which is the Goddess causes God to manifest."  On the use of the word rāma, which the Goddess queries, Triśirobhairava explains, “Abiding in rāma (delight/beauty) is proclaimed by Me as [the attainment of] yoga, O Great Queen.” This delight, adds Jayaratha, is "not different from the divine play which manifests the whole universe." The Triśirobhairava teaches “This is known as the 14-fold delight, pervaded by Śiva, the supreme Self, existing within all bhāvas (entities and states of being), and characterized by countless forms.”

“With the mind’s impurities having waned, and due to [his ability to] restrain [the activity of] memory, he meditates on the supreme goal of meditation, [that] which remains steady in [all] coming and going. || 89 

My comm.: The correspondence of this verse with Ramaṇa Maharṣhi's teaching — "Thoughts come and go. Feelings and experiences come and go. Sit and find out what is it that remains." — is startling! Commentator Jayaratha adds that memory is the basis of all thought-constructs. This is a good point — without your memories, who are you? Sit for a moment and sense/feel yourself without reference to your memories. Are you still there? If so, how can your real self be dependent on, or formed from, memories?

“He then attains supreme Śiva, who is called Bhairava, through his japa. Japa is taught to be Śiva’s own form, free from the states of existence and non-existence.” || 90

My comm.: 'Japa' usually means mantra repetition, but here it probably means repeated connection with the ground of one's being: that which remains still & steady as everything else comes and goes. This verse (90) seems to conclude the Triśirobhairava quote (Abhinava almost never tells us exactly when a quote or paraphrase concludes). If so, the following words are his.

Thus, here too, any [apparent] divisions such as [imagining one's true nature to be] ‘distant’ or ‘close’ are conceived out of His Freedom, relying [solely] upon the [absolute] Autonomy of Awareness. Thus, due to the all-encompassing fullness of his Freedom, he accomplishes what seems impossible. Indeed, in what form does the Highest Divinity not shine? || 91-92 

My comm.: "what seems impossible" -- i.e. that God can appear as something that seems not Divine; that one's ever-present true nature can appear to be near or far. The last question is of course rhetorical.

He shines without veils; [yet] veiling his own nature, he appears [to the senses, as whatever is perceived]. He appears veiled and unveiled, [becoming] manifold by joining with differentiation. || 93 

My comm.: the Divine, the ultimate Reality, is simultaneously immediately apparent and yet veiled. The truth of Being is right in front of you (and is you) every moment, yet it can go unrecognized. The paradox is that there is no paradox. Isn't that the damnedest thing? :)

Thus the triad of Powers within the Lord—Willing, Knowing, and Acting—are [collectively] known by another name, that is, Freedom, as was made clear by the gracious Masters [of our lineage]. || 94

Abhinavagupta argues that the highest (= most all-encompassing) śakti is svātantrya-śakti, the Power of freedom or autonomy, because it is the context in which all the other śaktis operate.

This concludes the passage on the Nature of God.  

Next: 'The Divine Name: Bhairava'.

The yogic theory of saṃskāras, or subliminal impressions of past painful or pleasurable experiences, is one of India's most fascinating contributions to our understanding of human psychology. Briefly, when we experience aversion to a painful experience, or attachment to a pleasurable one, then an impression of that experience is laid down in our psyche, which is said to be a 'seed' of experience which will sprout again.

In other words, when we are unable to fully 'show up' for any given experience, a remnant of it is deposited in our psyche — or, in Tantrik theory, in the 'subtle body' which is simply the extension of the psyche. The subtle body is said to interpenetrate and underlie the physical body in the sense that it is a model for explaining how unresolved past experiences shape our relationship to the body (and its health) in the present. In Tantrik psychology, a metaphor of digestion is used — when we are unable to fully 'digest' a given experience, part of the 'energy' of that experience is deposited and will need to be digested later, hopefully before it toxifies and thereby distorts our experience of the people and events in the present.

This description is of course oversimplified. In fact, everyone carries around with them a whole host of saṃskāras from this lifetime and previous lives (since the subtle body does not die with the physical one), and those impressions unconsciously shape our preferences and the assumptions we project onto the people and situations we encounter. The stronger the emotional impact of an experience, the deeper the impression that is formed, until we end up with a whole network of impressions that function as a filter to reality. Some of these impressions are 'toxic' in the sense that they are so strong that they create exaggerated fear responses when no threat (or only a mild threat) is present, or create attachments to people or things that are not actually very healthy for us. 

By means of this 'samskāral net', we project our past-based assumptions, fears, and expectations on the present-moment situation; thus we are not able to 'show up' for the reality of the situation. Since the goal of yoga may be phrased as 'seeing reality clearly', it is of paramount importance to become aware of, and then dissolve, the samskāras that obscure our vision. Samskāra theory is thus far more important to yoga psychology than the theory of karma. Karma, you might say, simply provides the occasions for us to become aware of the samskāric baggage we are carrying (since our karma will definitely create situations in which those samskāras are triggered), and thereby to become aware of what we need to release.

As a result of spiritual awakening, we become more self-aware, and thus more aware of our saṃskāras and how they are distorting our perception. This allows us to compensate for them — for example, instead of blaming a loved one for an emotion that is arising in the present moment, we can see that they are merely the trigger for the activation of an old saṃskāra, and our language begins to shift from statements like 'You don't care about me' to 'I'm triggered right now, and so I don't feel safe with you, even if I am'. In time, as we come to know ourselves, we learn how to see through the veils thrown up by the saṃskāras and discern the difference between present-moment reality and the emotional remnants of the past.

But of course we also want to dissolve the saṃskāras, because even if we are very self-aware, their emotional strength will always trip us up to some degree. Spiritual practice is said to 'burn the seeds' of the saṃskāras so they cannot sprout again. How does this happen? Three things are required: opening up the body, opening up the emotional core, and self-inquiry. The first is addressed by a physical yoga practice (or other deep somatic work) that opens up pockets of 'stagnant energy' in the body, resulting in emotional release.

The second is addressed by a sitting-still-and-listening practice, a specific kind of meditation in which one creates an open space in which unresolved saṃskāras can arise and be released. I use the Sanskrit term bhāvanā for this kind of meditation in which one lets go of techniques and fascination with altered states (trance, bliss, etc.) and sits with the simple open attitude of "I'm willing to see whatever needs to be seen; I'm willing to feel whatever needs to be felt." This kind of meditation requires cultivation. Probably the best book on it is Ādyashānti's True Meditation, which, though it doesn't mention saṃskāras, describes carefully how to cultivate the kind of practice which allows for their release.

Thirdly, critical self-inquiry (ātma-vichāra) is called for: critical not in the sense of judgmental, but in the sense of a careful inspection of your inner being to make sure that you're not in denial (such as when you think you're 'over' something but really you're not). For this third practice, having a wise teacher, coach, or spiritual friend that serves as a mirror is invaluable. Without unflinching self-reflection, the spiritual journey can stall and become stuck in a rut (even if it's a pleasant rut). 

Finally, we can also dissolve saṃskāras in our daily life, whenever they are triggered. (This is really good news.) When a saṃskāra is triggered, it's a golden opportunity: if you can fully be present with the emotion that is arising (fear, pain, or craving, for example), allowing it to pass through without judging it or yourself for having it, then a portion of the samskāra that it is arising from is dissolved. It's important to suspend judgment because all value judgments are a form of resistance to reality, and it is resistance that creates and strengthens saṃskāras. Note that even attachment is a form of resistance, because attachment is (among other things) the feeling "I don't want this to go away" and thus is resistance to the reality of impermanence. Western psychology focuses a lot on pain and its healing — but in yoga psychology, the samskāras arising from our experiences of pleasure need 'healing' just as much; because the attachments we form on their basis are just as obscuring of our ability to experience reality as it is, just as hindering of our capacity to access true joy (ānanda), as the pain-based samskāras of aversion are. 

There's no way out but through. Saṃskāras don't go away by themselves, and until they are dissolved, you are not truly free. Though many lighter saṃskāras are shed at the time of death, the deeper ones carry over into the next life, and the next, until they are healed. This explains why sometimes people experience intense traumatic emotions that seem disproportionate to anything that happened in this life. For example, if you were burned as a 'witch' in a past life, even mild persecution or marginalization in this life will spark an intense emotional response. There are of countless countless less dramatic examples. Past-life saṃskāras are said to explain phobias that don't stem from any this-life experience. But even intense fears can be dissolved, little by little, by cultivating our ability to simply allow them to pass through.

This practice of nonjudgmental allowing not only dissolves saṃskāras, but just as importantly, prevents new ones from being laid down. When we let new experiences and emotions pass through us without clinging to them or resisting them, no saṃskāra is deposited, and we are thereby liberating our future selves as well.

Postscript: having said all that, I'm not particularly in favor of fascination with past lives or past-life regression therapy. Why? Because the Yoga-sūtra, the Bhagavad-gītā, and Tantrik philosophy (my primary sources for this post) all tell us that a yoga practice (which includes bhāvanā-type meditation) will, in and of itself, eventually resolve all samskāras, at a rate determined solely by the clarity of one's intention, the rigor of one's self-inquiry, and the intensity of one's practice. Modalities that depend on experts — like psychotherapy — can be helpful, but are not strictly necessary, because, fortunately, we do not need to remember every painful experience in order to heal it.

The Tantrik analysis of spiritual practice.

One of the key teachings of classical Śaiva Tantra, which influenced much of the subsequent tradition, was that of the three upāyas, or Skillful Means to Liberation. These are three different modes of cultivating liberative awareness; though they are distinct, they all lead to the same goal, that of samāveśa, or continuous immersion into divine Reality.

The goal can be reached, says Abhinavagupta's Light on Tantra, through The Divine Means (śāmbhava-upāya), the method of accessing Divine Consciousness by means of non-conceptual intuition; through The Empowered Means (śākta-upāya), the method that emphasizes working with the energy of beliefs or thought-constructs, and the feelings they produce; or through The Embodied Means (āṇava-upāya), the method that works with the physical body and subtle body through various kinds of yogic practices. More commonly, the goal is reached through practice in all three upāyas, simultaneously or sequentially. In fact, the Tantrik tradition argues that no spiritual path can be complete that emphasizes one upāya to the virtual exclusion of the other two.  

This might explain why many religions do not succeed in producing spiritual awakening: they focus almost exclusively on the rituals and 'good works' of āṇava-upāya (e.g., Catholicism, mainstream Hinduism, or popular Buddhism); or on the centrality of salvific beliefs and positivistic thinking of śākta-upāya (e.g., Protestant Christianity, Vedānta, or the New Age movement); or on non-conceptual modes to shift awareness out of conditioned thought and into direct perception (e.g., some forms of Zen). But rather than use the teaching on the upāyas to critique religion, it is more effective to use it to increase the effectiveness of one's individual spiritual practice, whatever tradition one practices within.

Here is a table with which we can more quickly come to grips with this schema (note refinements that have been made over the version that appears in Tantra Illuminated):

Since Tantrik practice seeks nothing less than a total integration of the disparate parts of our being—i.e., the realization of ourselves as an undivided, unitary mass of awakened consciousness—it makes sense that the tradition discusses Tantrik sādhana as something that must function on all three levels: body (including the 'energy body'), heart-mind, and spirit. Even if we primarily pursue one of the three modalities, it must necessarily come to entail the other two in order to achieve its aim. Thus, as we progress in practice, these three distinct aspects of our being (body-mind-spirit) start to seem less and less distinct, until, as Abhinavagupta says, the nectar of blissful self-awareness floods and overflows the internal dams that divide us, dissolving all distinctions. Then you become an undivided self: you experience yourself as one unified whole, a mass of blissfully self-aware Consciousness (chidānanda-ghana), spontaneously responding with the whole of your being to the whole of each moment of experience.

For more on the three upāyas, see pages 349-403 of Tantra Illuminated. To briefly summarize the discussion found in my book, 'The Divine Means' consists primarily of:

• learning how to open to Grace;
• nonconceptual moment-to-moment awareness of your inner state; and
• internalization of the nonconceptual essence of mantras. 

'The Empowered Means' largely focuses on undermining false or disempowering mental constructs by cultivating views on reality that are profoundly empowering due to being more aligned with the nature of things (vikalpa-saṃskāra). This work ultimately leads to an ability to dissolve mental constructs altogether; in other words, The Empowered Means naturally leads to The Divine Means. Finally, 'The Embodied Means' primarily consists of yoga, in all the forms that are known today (as well as some forms that are not common knowledge). The Embodied Means ultimately leads to increased softness and flexibility in one's opinions and mental constructs; in other words, it naturally leads you toward The Empowered Means. If it doesn't, then according to the Tantrik View, you're doing it wrong. :)

Finally, we should note that the root teaching here is 'do what works, and do everything that works' — upāya could also be translated as 'effective method' or, more precisely, 'situationally-sensitive methodology'. No teacher is effective without an instinctive grasp of upāya, for upāya always takes the principle of 'for whom, and when?' into account. In other words, a given teaching or practice, however true or effective, is right for a certain person at a certain stage of development, and ceases to be true or effective for another person at another stage of development. When an educational system does not grasp this principle, it severely undermines its avowed goals, as a former American public school teacher recently pointed out, in a heartfelt cry that may be summarized as, "What is education without upāya?"

How your view of the Self determines the extent of your liberation 

Indian philosophy is primarily driven by one question: "What am I?" Or, more precisely, "What lies behind the 'me' thought?"
    Over one thousand years ago, a sophisticated school of Tantrik philosophy (called the Recognition school) developed a doctrine that the self has five 'layers' — those of body, heart-mind (chitta), life-force (prāna), void (shūnya), and Consciousness (samvit). We may picture this five-layered self like a Russian doll, except for the crucial fact that each layer is permeated by those interior to it. That is, the heart-mind pervades the body, life-force pervades the heart-mind and body, the void pervades life-force, mind, and body, and the nondual Power of Consciousness pervades the whole. (This teaching is explained beginning on page 92 of my book Tantra Illuminated.)

      In this model, all suffering is said to derive from exclusive identification with one or more of the four outer layers of the self. In other words, the cause of all suffering is not experiencing yourself as you really are. For example, primary identification with the body, expressed in such statements as “I am fat/thin, I am pretty/ugly,” where the 'I' is equated with an impermanent state of body, conceals the true nature of the self as the ever-present awareness which makes possible any and all 'I'-statements. Though body-identification is a major cause of contracted awareness (i.e. suffering), even more common is mind-identification. That means believing that the contents of your mind—your thoughts and feelings—tell you about who you really are, about the nature of your self. This is a critical error, for clear introspection reveals that thoughts and feelings are culturally conditioned and constantly changing, yet there is an inner Knower which witnesses these mental/emotional phenomena, and this Knower has been the same throughout your life. Indeed, without such continuity, there would be no reality behind the term 'I'.  

    In other words, we pay much more attention to the conditioned, ephemeral, fluxing contents of consciousness than to consciousness itself, despite the fact that consciousness is the one constant in our experience and thus the best candidate for our fundamental nature. We are virtually obsessed with the contents of our minds, yet they tell us only about how our mind has been conditioned, and nothing about our real Self.

    However, if we observe not the contents but the form of mental/emotional phenomena, we see clearly that thoughts and feelings are simply vibrations of energy. The field within which they vibrate is Awareness. The strange and self-limiting error that we make is to pay more attention to the contents of awareness, than to the nature of the ever-present field in which they arise and subside. This Awareness, like the light of the sun, equally illuminates and pervades all things without judgment, and is therefore divinized as Goddess Awareness (bhagavatī saṃvit) in nondual Tantra, and metaphorically compared to a loving mother who accepts all her “children"—all the contents of consciousness—equally. 

     Spiritual experience is also explained in terms of this model of the five-layered self. Samāveśa, which means immersion into your true nature, is defined in this way:

• “'Immersion' means experientially realizing that the unconditioned Power of Consciousness is the true Knower and Actor, and that the other layers of the self, such as the mind and body, are merely attributes of that Power.” (Stanzas on the Recognition of the Divine 3.2.12)

This means that the Consciousness which is the core of your being in truth pervades every level of embodiment, and these levels are correctly seen as the dynamic self-projection of that Consciousness into form. In other words, divine Consciousness radiates into manifestation, or coagulates into form, as the progressively denser layers of embodiment (void, prāna, heart-mind, and body). 

    This model of the five-layered self is also the basis upon which Tantrik philosophy critiques other systems of thought and practice. For example, it argues that the Void (śūnya) or transcendent Emptiness taught as the ultimate reality in some Buddhist systems is in fact the penultimate reality. It cannot be the ultimate reality, for by definition it excludes other realities, such as the dualistic perception of the ordinary waking state. The dynamically vibrating Power of Consciousness, by contrast, is all-encompassing, excluding nothing. It is simultaneously transcendent and immanent, just as present in the smell of shit as in the most sublime state of expanded awareness. Only by being centered in that Consciousness as the ultimate reality can one experience one's infinite spacious formless Presence at the same moment that one is participating fully in the everyday details of 'ordinary' life.  

      We may now explain the view of the Recognition school vis-à-vis other schools of Indian philosophy. The argument hinges on the notion that whatever level of the self (or reality) you believe to be ultimate determines how far you can progress in the process of awakening to your true nature.
      The eighth sūtra of The Recognition Sūtras introduces this teaching in this way: “the philosophical positions held by all the various schools are 'roles' adopted by the one Consciousness as the levels of its self-expression.” (tad-bhūmikāḥ sarva-darśana-sthitayaḥ)
     Unusually, other views are here not denigrated or condemned, but rather seen as more or less incomplete levels of the self-expression of the one divine Consciousness. Each view is valid up to a certain point, i.e. within a certain domain, and strays into error only in regarding itself as final and complete. In his commentary on his own sūtra (given above), Rājānaka Kṣemarāja identifies the position of each school in terms of the model of the five-layered self, telling us that:

• since the view of the Materialists is that one’s real identity consists only in the body—qualified by the accidental fact of consciousness, which is a mere epiphenomenon—they master no level of being beyond that of the physical body.

• Others, like the Logicians and some Buddhists, master the mind but remain stuck there, since they believe that 'I' refers to nothing beyond the stream of cognitions.

• Others (such as the haṭha-yogīs) master the prāṇa or life-force but go no further.

• Some Buddhists (e.g. the Madhyamikas) immerse themselves in the level of the Void and remain there.

• Some Vedāntins, because they hold that all that exists is One, touch the Core of Reality but do not penetrate to its absolute dynamic center (since they deny that dynamism is inherent in Consciousness).

      To sum up, the final limit of your progress on the path is determined by the view of reality (and selfhood) that you hold — for you naturally do not seek to go beyond whatever you consider to be the ultimate. The only exception to this rule is made possible by the intervention of the power of Grace (i.e., śaktipāta), which can reveal a deeper reality even to one who doesn’t believe in its possibility. (See the relevant discussion in Tantra Illuminated.)

Kṣemarāja concludes his discussion in this way:

Thus, all these roles of the Blessed Lord — who is Awareness, absolutely One — are manifested through His freedom, and are differentiated by their degree of revelation or concealment of that autonomy. Hence, there is only One Self which pervades all of this. 

As for those of limited views, they have been caused to adopt false identification with various limited aspects of that One through the spontaneous play that expresses the Will of that One.

— excerpted from my forthcoming book, The Recognition Sūtras, a translation and exposition of the Pratyabhijñā-hṛdayam of Rājānaka Kṣemarāja

For a comparison of this teaching to the Vedāntic doctrine of the five koshas, see the next post.

Addendum: Context of this teaching

The Indian religion that worships the one divine Absolute under the name Śiva is called Shaivism.  Practitioners of this religion are called Śaivas. [Includes Śakti, increasing emphasis on her over time.] We have evidence of the existence of this religion (and state support of it) from the beginning of the common era. Around the year 500 ce, a new phase of the religion begins with the revelation of a new body of scripture called tantras. Each of these tantras presented a more-or-less complete system (tantra) of practice conjoined to a well-developed cosmology. Each lineage of teachers would follow a single tantra, supplemented when necessary from related tantras. This phase of the religion, which we call Tantric after its scriptures, centered on an unprecedented doctrine, that of a uniquely powerful ritual of initiation (dīkṣā) which was said to destroy all the karma that stood in the way of the initiate attaining complete liberation from the cycle of suffering in this very life. 

    In time, beginning around the ninth century, a sophisticated Śaiva philosophy arose, inspired by the scriptures and the experiences of practitioners. A spiritual debate ensued between those who interpreted the scriptures dualistically (teaching that God, the soul, and the universe are all distinct), and those who interpreted them nondualistically (teaching a total unity of being, i.e. that the divine Power of Consciousness alone exists). One of the most important nondual Śaiva philosophies to develop was called the Pratyabhijñā or Recognition school.

This image, a poster I've seen in yoga studios, conveniently sums up the confusion in the modern yoga world around the teaching on the five koshas (Skt. kośa) or 'sheaths', also known as the five bodies or five layers of the human being.

The Vedāntic version of this teaching originates in a short passage found in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, reproduced below. The Tantrik version is detailed in my book Tantra Illuminated and in my last blog post. Now, in the interpretation given in the image, the Prāṇa-maya-kośa is the 'energy body' of cakras and nāḍīs, different from the 'emotional body' (Mano-maya-kośa). This is completely wrong from a traditional point of view -- because in the traditional yogic understanding the energy body (sūkṣma-śarīra or puryaṣṭaka) and the mental/emotional body are ONE AND THE SAME.

Therefore, the 'energy blockages' attributed in the image to the Prānic Body and the 'lack of awareness of [habitual] thought patterns and emotional reactions' attributed to the Mental/Emotional Body are one and the same thing stated in two different ways! This is indeed a crucial point to grasp.

Having said that, the creator of the poster should be praised for correctly stating that thoughts and emotions are part of the same sheath or layer; this is true in ALL systems of yoga.

The Prānic Body, then, simply relates to the proper functioning of the five aspects of prāṇa -- for example, burping, farting, digesting, and getting hungry when the body needs food is all due to the movement of prāṇa. The Prānic Body is thus intimately interrelated with the Physical Body (anna-maya-kośa) on the one hand and the Mental-emotional Body (mano-maya-kośa) on the other, which is why it is positioned between the two in the Vedāntic model. (Note how when the mental-emotional body is disturbed, that affects the prāṇa which affects the physical body. An extreme example would be anorexia.)

By contrast, in the Tantrik model, the Prānic Layer is positioned between the Mental-emotional Layer and the Void (see diagram below) -- because that model arranges the layers of selfhood in order of coarse to subtle, ephemeral to permanent, less to more fundamental (and Prāna or Life-force is both subtler and more fundamental than Mind). 

In NEITHER model is the Prānic Layer thought to be the energy body of nāḍīs, cakras, and bindus, since, again, the energy body and the mental-emotional body are one and the same thing (though, as already stated, movement of prāṇa affects the energy body). This, it need hardly be stated, is more in line with modern psychological understanding as well. The energy body, then, is a model for understanding the subtler aspects of our mental-emotional being and how it interpenetrates the tissues of the physical body.

What, in summary, are the other differences between these two parallel models? The Vedāntic model's anna-maya-kośa corresponds exactly to the body (deha) layer in the Tantrik model, but then the two systems diverge. As mentioned above, the Vedāntic model has the prāṇa layer in a different position from the Tantrik model. Furthermore, the Vedāntic model splits the mind into two layers, a thinking-feeling layer (mano-maya-kośa) and a discernment-perception layer (vijñāna-maya-kośa) whereas in the Tantrik model these are both part of the 'heart-mind' layer (citta), which is identical with the energy-body layer (puryaṣṭaka); this, then, is the 'thickest' -- but not the densest -- layer in the Tantrik model.

Finally, the Vedāntic model entirely lacks the Void (śūnya) layer which is so important to the Tantrik model; partially because the original form of Vedānta did not emphasize meditation compared to Tantra. The so-called Void simply refers to the experience of profound silence and stillness deep within, the 'place' of repose in simple spacious openness. Therefore, those yogis who regard meditation as important to their practice would do better to utilize the Tantrik model over the Vedāntic one.

Diagram of the Tantrik model of the 'five-layered self' that I designed for my book. 

So does ānanda-maya-kośa (the 'Bliss Body') in the Vedāntic model correspond to cit or saṃvit, Awareness, the innermost core in the Tantrik model? No! In the Vedāntic model it is the final 'sheath' (kośa), since the (unstated) core of the five sheaths is Ātman or Inner Self. This implies that bliss (ānanda) is not inherent to the ātman, which was a problem for later Vedāntic commentators, since in mature Vedānta, bliss is thought to be inherent to ātman-brahman.

In the Tantrik model, by contrast, the core Awareness is explicitly expressed, and that dynamic core (as opposed to the static one of Vedānta) inherently possesses the Five Powers described on p. 101 of my book, including ānanda. By contrast, the Vedāntic Self does *not* possess the Powers of Will, Knowledge, or Action. It is entirely passive, an inactive Witness. 

Note the arrows in the diagram above, indicating both the dynamism of Awareness and the fact that each layer pervades those exterior to it. In both the Tantrik and Vedāntic models, whatever body/sheath/layer is more interior and essential pervades the layers that are more exterior to it. (See my last blog post as well as the passage cited below.) Diagrams of the koshas found in a Google image search generally fail to convey this key teaching. 

The diagram below (also found in an image search) is more accurate than the one we started with -- in terms of the process of successive interiorization through spiritual practice -- but still does not succeed in representing the key teaching that each successively subtler layer suffuses and pervades the coarser ones.

Having discussed the issue in some depth, let's look now at the original Upanishadic passage that inspired the Vedāntic version of the teaching. Note that this passage was tied to a very ancient Vedic ritual culture that was jettisoned by the mature Vedānta of a thousand years later; so the meaning in the mind of the original author of this passage was considerably different from how it was interpreted in the mature Vedānta philosophy. It is interpreted even more differently in the syncretistic modern Vedānta of today (due, in fact, to the influence of Tantra).

From the Taittirīya Upaniṣad's second chapter (brahma-vallī), c. 500-400 BCE:

"Now, a man here is formed from the essence of food. This here is his head; this is his right side; this is his left side; this is his torso; and this is his bottom on which he rests.

Different from and lying within this man formed from the essence of food is the self consisting of life-breath (Prāṇa), which suffuses that man completely. 
Of this self, the out-breath (prāṇa) is the head; the inter-breath (vyāna) is the the right side; the in-breath (apāna) is the left side; Space element is the torso/core; and Earth element is the bottom on which it rests.

Different from and lying within this self consisting of breath is the self consisting of mind, which suffuses this other self completely. Of this self, the head is simply the Yajus mantras; the right side is the Ṛg mantras; the left side is the Saman chants; the teachings (upadeśa) are the torso/core; and the bottom on which it rests is the Atharva-Āngiras.

Different from and lying within this self consisting of mind is the self consisting of perception/wisdom (vijñāna), which suffuses this other self completely. 
Of this self, faith is the head; truth the right side; the real is the left side; yoga (lit., effective method) is the torso/core; and celebration is the bottom on which it rests.

Different from and lying within this self consisting of perception is the self consisting of bliss, which suffuses this other self completely. Of this self, the head is simply pleasure; the right side is delight; the left side is the thrill; the torso/core is bliss; and the bottom on which it rests is the brahman."

(Based on the translation of Patrick Olivelle)

Banner photo: Kashmīr Valley
 

When studying the writings of nondual Śaiva Tantra, there is one figure who stands out above all others, who appears as the very lynchpin of the tradition, who is the convergence point of much that had come before and the source of much that was to come after: the unparalleled master Abhinava Gupta.

This great Tantrik master was active 980–1020 CE in the Kashmīr Valley: that exquisite paradise on earth where, Abhinava wrote, 'saffron flowers scattered everywhere seem to make the earth into a garden for the worship of the three goddesses', that center of learning and literature 'where everyone is either a poet or a scholar, where even warriors are eloquent!' 

Abhinava’s parents were advanced Tantrik practitioners who conceived him in Kaula ritual; he was thus said to be yoginī-bhū, 'born of an awakened yoginī,' and thereby possessing a special capacity for liberation.

1000 years ago today, Abhinava Gupta sent pen to paper for the last time, completing his last great work, a multivolume commentary on the most profound and erudite philosophical text in Indian history (the Stanzas on the Recognition of the Divine). We know the date because he wrote it at the end of his manuscript: the end of the month of Mārgaśīrṣa, in the year 4090 of the Saptarṣi calendar (corresponding to 1015 CE). Temperatures probably hovered just above freezing in the Kashmīr Valley on that Winter Solstice night.  Why do we still remember and revere this man 1000 years later?  What makes him so powerful, so insightful, that some of us alive today would call him our Guru?

Before we jump in to his life story, let me share with you one of my favorite Abhinava verses of all time, so you can drink from the source; and be sure to read to the end for more treasures (all translations in this blog are my own unless otherwise noted):

"Spiritual experience is what we call it when that Divine Reality which we long for spontaneously unfolds within, without a thought-process, suddenly subordinating who you thought you were—which turns out to be a mere reflection in the 'mirror' of your real nature—and continuously revealing ever greater degrees of its glory within the abundant purity of your sacred Heart." (from Light on Tantra)

He blows my mind and opens my heart. Sometimes I can scarcely believe he really lived. But he did, and I love him so much for it. 

I've already published a blog on his justly famous signature verse, in which Abhinava Gupta managed to weave together the key teachings that he would expound over thousands of Sanskrit verses in five great works, including Light on Tantra and The Essence of Tantra. That he did so while simultaneously honoring the special circumstances of his own birth in that same verse, bowing to the siddha and yoginī who conceived him, makes the signature verse one of the most extraordinary literary achievements of the tradition.

The death of Abhinava’s mother, Vimalā, at a young age contributed to his passion for spirituality. Speaking both of himself and his sister Ambā, who lost her husband early, he wrote: "Among people that are assaulted by the power of fate (lit. 'what must be'), an unfortunate and [seemingly] meaningless incident may lead them to the truth of [spiritual] traditions of deep meaning." 

Abhinava learned Sanskrit from his father, Narasiṃha Gupta, and received initiation into the Kālī-worshipping Krama lineage at an early age from his father’s Krama Guru, Bhūtirāja, who had been a direct disciple of the famous Chakrabhānu (see Tantra Illuminated p. 255). In his early twenties, he wrote his first work, a hymn to the divine powers of consciousness personified as the goddesses of the Krama, which is now unfortunately lost. Then he wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad-gītā, which we do have, a work that shows the young Abhinava as learned but still callow, his words lacking the power, precision, and mature wisdom of his later works. However, in that commentary he quotes from a poem he wrote in which he alludes to his early spiritual experiences:

"Taking refuge in the flow of goddess-consciousness (svarasavāhinī, from the previous verse) that has been brought under its own control and that clearly transcends the physical body, the Fire of Awareness (bodhānala) of its own accord suddenly blazes forth without any fuel, sporting spontaneously, accompanied by thrilling sensations, trembling, and tears." (provisional translation)

Elsewhere he tells us that his first spiritual experience came to him while reading poetry: "while engaged in the intense pleasure of aesthetic emotion from poetic works I was spontaneously seized by an intoxicating devotion to the Lord . . ." (TĀ 37.58, translation by Ben Williams) and perhaps the verse above alludes to that experience.

In time, Abhinava studied with many gurus—more than fifteen Śaiva teachers in all, plus teachers of logic, exegesis, Buddhism, Jainism, and Vaishnavism. He had a passion for learning! He received direct transmission from masters in the Trika, Pratyabhijñā, Krama, and Saiddhāntika lineages, a transmission which authorized him to teach in those lineages. He tells us that it was sweet nectar to offer them the service (sevā) which effected their favor. (TĀ 37.63) He describes himself as a bee, going from flower to flower, collecting the nectar of each of these branches of the tradition in order to make them all into the sweetest honey. (TĀ 13.335) But it was not until he met his true master (sadguru) that his realization was complete. It is said in the Kaula tradition that full awakening can only be transmitted by a guru who has himself attained it. This guru, for Abhinava, was a man named Śambhu Nātha. Their meeting was like that of Rumi and Shams, for Abhinava was already an expert scholar of the scriptures and not lacking in spiritual experience. Yet something was missing: the final descent of grace (śaktipāta), triggering the complete and permanent expansion into all-encompassing blissful nondual awareness, expressed and grounded in embodiment.

Śambhu Nātha, a master of both forms of the Trika (Kaula and non-Kaula), came to Kashmīr from the great śakti-pīṭha or holy place of Jālandhara, in the Puñjab. It was to this master that Abhinava attributed his Self-realization, and thus he praised him before all his other teachers. For example, introducing both his two major works on Tantrik philosophy and practice (Tantrāloka 1.21 and Tantrasāra 1.3), he invites the reader to study the text by saying:

"As an act of divine worship, may all contemplate the lotus of the heart of Abhinava Gupta, its blossom opened by the light falling from the rays of the sun — that is to say, its contraction forever banished by the wisdom descending from the feet of the illuminator, [my master] Śambhu Nātha." (For more on this verse go here.)

 Imaginative depiction of Abhinava Gupta by an unknown artist.

However, we should note that though Abhinava loved all his teachers, in the end it was the inner Guru who reigned supreme in his heart: he describes his enlightenment (more precisely, his abiding in nondual awareness) in these terms: as 'delighting in my own inner being' (svātmārāmaḥ) and relishing 'the sweetness of being in constant service to, and adoration of, Reality itself', using the very same phrase, sevā-rasa, that he previously used with reference to serving his gurus.

Having come fully into his attainment, Abhinava then wrote his mature works. All of these are written from the perspective of the Trika, which was his primary reference point due to the influence of his sadguru Śambhu Nātha. However, Abhinava maintained his commitment to the teachings of the Krama, incorporating these as the esoteric core of his theology. His primary works include his Commentary on the Mālinīvijaya, notable for its mystical explanation of the origin and nature of the Śaiva canon (published as Abhinavagupta's Philosophy of Revelation); his commentary called Unfolding the Thirty Verses of Parā (published as A Trident of Wisdom); his multi-volume commentaries on the philosophical masterpiece Stanzas on the Recognition of the Divine, and most notable of all, his magnum opus, the Tantrāloka — Light on the Tantras. (The last two masterworks have not yet appeared in English, though they are extensively studied in academic circles.)

When discussing why he wrote these works, he said it was for three reasons: out of a desire to serve, because of the command of his sadgurus, and because, as he puts it, "Sometimes, one who wishes to dance must take his own instrument down off the wall." (TĀ 37.71) 

Illustration of Abhinava Gupta by Elke Avis, based on Madhurāja's 11th-century description.

The influence of Abhinava Gupta, while not widespread, went deep. The Kaula Trika/Krama synthesis he presented was compelling enough to have been adopted by a number of other lineages. Not only that, other Śaiva schools, like that of the Śrīvidyā, formulated their thought along the lines of Abhinava and his disciples. This influence was felt even in other Indian religions: the Tantrik Vaiṣṇava scripture called the Lakshmī Tantra clearly borrowed ideas from The Heart of the teachings on Recognition by Abhinava’s disciple Kṣemarāja.

It seems that a native of Madurai, an ancient city of the Tamiḷ country, came 2,000 miles to receive initiation from Abhinava. This man, named Madhurāja, wrote a beautiful description of Abhinava as part of a set of verses he composed for meditation on his guru. The stylized nature of this “pen-portrait” has led scholars to question whether or not Madhurāja really met Abhinava; but I would argue that following standard literary forms in his paean to Abhinava hardly disproves that an actual meeting took place. And we do know for certain that Abhinava’s teachings were known in the Tamiḷ region shortly after his passing. Madhurāja’s description of Abhinava follows, in Paul Muller-Ortega’s translation:

"Out of his deep compassion, [Śiva] has taken a new bodily form as Abhinava Gupta and come to Kashmīr. He sits in the middle of a garden of grapes, inside a pavilion [adorned with] crystal and filled with beautiful paintings. The room smells wonderful because of flower garlands, incense sticks, and oil lamps. It is constantly resounding with musical instruments, with songs, and with dancing. There are crowds of yogīs and yoginīs, realized beings, and siddhas. . . . In the center of the room there is a golden seat from which pearls are hanging. It has a soft awning stretched over it as a canopy. Here sits Abhinava Gupta attended by all his numerous students, with Kṣemarāja at their head, who are writing down everything he says. . . . Abhinava Gupta’s eyes are trembling in ecstasy. In the middle of his forehead is a conspicuous tilaka made of sacred ashes. He has a rudrākṣa bead hanging from his ear. His long hair is held by a garland of flowers. He has a long beard and reddish-brown skin. His neck is dark and glistening with musk and sandalwood paste. Two dūtīs stand at his side holding refreshments [wine etc.]. . . . He wears a silken cloth as a dhoti, white as moonbeams, and he sits in the yogic posture known as vīrāsana. One hand is held on his knee holding a japa-mālā and his fingers make the mudrā that signifies his knowledge of the highest Śiva. He plays on a resonating lute (ektār) with the tips of his quivering fingers of his lotus-like left hand."

Image based on Madhurāja's description, with Dal Lake in the background.

Let us close with three of Abhinava's most beautiful verses. He composed these, he tells us, for use in his own personal daily practice; how fortunate we are that he shared them!  They are brimming with love, devotion, intensified awareness, and poetic feeling.

1. "Those initiated into the inner teaching worship You as the experience of the ultimate joy that flashes into view when they immerse themselves in the radiance that is the true upsurge of creation." (trans. Sanderson) or "Those who know the secret tradition worship You with the vision of supreme nectar that comes into play when they immerse themselves in the radiant light flowing forth from the ultimate state." (my trans.)

2. "Day and night, O Lord, I shall purify the inner worship ground with a shower of the ‘wine’ of aesthetic rapture and then worship You and Your consort in the shrine that is my body, with flowers rich with the perfect fragrance of the Self, contemplating them as one with its reality as I take them in imagination from the priceless chalice of my heart that brims with the liquid nectar of Your bliss." (trans. Sanderson)

3. "I shall place this triple universe with the sap of its diverse experiences on the ‘wine press’ of my heart cakra, and bear down upon it with the weight of insight. The awareness that flows forth is the ultimate nectar that ends [fear of] death, old age, and rebirth forever. With this ultimate offering I shall gratify You constantly, pouring it into the fire of deepest radiance." (trans. Sanderson)

If you're anything like me, you're melting by now, tasting the nectar of awakened consciousness and the grace of the siddhas.  Happy Abhinava Gupta anniversary!  Continued in Part Two: Abhinava Gupta's writings.

The Tantrik Studies blog features many posts by myself on the writings of this great master. In celebration of this 1000th anniversary, I invite you to explore them:

The Power of the Word: Double Meanings in the Tantrāloka 

The Opening Verses of the Tantrāloka

Tantrāloka: On Bondage and Liberation

Tantrik Philosophy for the Layman: What is Liberation?

Tantrāloka: The Nature of Reality

Tantrāloka: The Nature of God

Tantrāloka: The Nature of God/dess

Tantrāloka: God is the Self -- the Secret Teaching of Triśirobhairava

Tantrāloka: The Divine Name -- Bhairava

Tantrāloka: The Divine Names -- Deva, Pati, Shiva

Tantrāloka: Universal Patterns of Energy

Banner photo: Śrīnagara, where Abhinava Gupta lived, with the sacred hill of Śārikā-parvata in the background

This is a follow-up post to "Who was Abhinava Gupta?" In this post I discuss some of Abhinava's major writings, after presenting a new translation of his Fifteen Verses on Awakening (Bodha-pañcadaśikā). I translated from the critical edition prepared by Christopher Tompkins, as well as borrowing a few felicitous phrases from his translation (though we differ on some points).

There is a radiance that remains undimmed through all moments of light and darkness; the One within, the end of all light and all darkness. || 1

That One is the Highest Divinity, the innate essence of all beings and states; for all that comes into being is nothing but the expression of its sovereign Power. || 2

The Goddess (Energy) never wants to be separate from the One who holds Her; they are eternally one Being — as inseparable as fire and its heat. || 3

That Lord is none other than Bhairava, whose role is to sustain (bhṛ) the world;
for through his Power, everything exists as a reflection in the mirror of the Self. || 4

That Supreme Goddess (Parā Devī) is none other than his longing to be intimately aware of his own nature, whose fullness & perfection in all beings is neither trifling nor significant. || 5

This God is eternally eager for the sweetness of love-play with this Goddess; [through it,] the Lord simultaneously accomplishes the wonderfully varied creations and dissolutions [of all the objects of our experience]. || 6

This Absolute [Consciousness] which accomplishes what seems impossible has autonomous sovereign awake awareness as its nature. || 7

It is said that the defining feature of insentience is a limited power of illumination; so Awareness is distinct from insentience by the fact that it is unlimited. || 8

Thus, [the cycles of] creation and dissolution are innate [to Awareness], existing as subdivisions of its innate power of Freedom; as expressions of its true nature. || 9

For within these [cycles] there exist an infinite variety of painful and pleasurable worlds: higher, lower, and parallel [to this one] -- [all] aspects of this [unrestrained power of freedom to create]. || 10

The state of being ignorant of all this is itself a construct of that Freedom. The cyclical flux [of this autonomous Being] is indeed terrifying to those who are unconscious. || 11

By what means [does one overcome ignorance]? Through His grace? Through the power of a mantra? Through the testimony of your guru? Or through the scriptures of the Supreme Lord? || 12

Recognition of the nature of reality is divine liberation. That state of fullness experienced by the awakened ones is taught to be jīvanmukti (living liberation). || 13

(Commentator adds: Liberation is the manifestation of one’s innate freedom, bursting with wonder at the experience of the sense of ‘I’ encompassing everything, i.e. recognition of the nature of reality as unsurpassed consciousness.)

These two states — bondage and liberation — both derive from the nature of the Highest Divinity; they are indivisible — one implies the other — for there can in reality be no division within the Highest Divinity. || 14

Thus one should cultivate & cherish Bhairava, dwelling within the trident-and-lotus-throne whose prongs are the powers of Willing, Knowing, and Acting. || 15

(For notes on the critical edition see below.)

WHO WAS ABHINAVA GUPTA? part two -- HIS WRITINGS

Abhinava lived in the cosmopolitan capital city of Śrīnagar (then called Pravarapura). When his disciples and friends entreated him to write the Tantrāloka, he agreed and accepted their invitation to move out of the capital to a quieter village in the valley, a village where all the inhabitants were faithful devotees of Shaivism ("even children and cowherds render service to God in this place," he enthused). In this unnamed location, in a house provided by a former government minister who had retired to devote himself to religion, Abhinava composed his great work, securing for himself a place in the world of Tantrik spirituality as prominent and significant as that of St. Thomas Aquinas in medieval Christianity.

The purpose of writing the work, he said, was to “teach the truth of the Tantra through logic and revelation. By attaining the light (āloka) of that system, people may engage in all their actions joyously.”

The Tantrāloka is a monumental explication of Tantrik practice and philosophy in over 5,800 verses. It is encyclopedic in its scope though not organized like an encyclopedia, for instead of just enumerating theories and practices, it brings them all into a coherent framework in which everything has its place and everything makes sense in relation to the whole. It is, then, an awesome work of synthesis, which presents to the reader a vision of Śaiva Tantra as a unified system: far-reaching in its scope, powerful in its cohesion, and complex yet clear in its interrelations. To accomplish this synthesis, of course, he has to explain apparent contradictions amongst the scriptures, which were originally addressed to differing audiences in varying periods. He does so by creating a hierarchy of understanding. For example, he explains that dualism is a valid view of reality at one level of understanding and development and that, therefore, God compassionately revealed the dualistic scriptures for those who could not yet comprehend or relate to nondualism. 

Nondualism, then, is both a higher understanding and experience that one can progress to. However, Abhinava argues that his own view is that of paramādvaya or “supreme nondualism.” This is the view that simultaneously encompasses and subsumes both dualism and nondualism, the view that goes completely beyond the notion of “levels of understanding.” It is the inexpressible experience of the totality of reality in which no perspective is excluded, for each is seen as fitting into the pattern of a greater whole. 

However, it is very clear that in Abhinava’s view, one must carefully ascend through ever more refined levels of understanding in order to reach that all-inclusive state of no-levels. One cannot attempt to leap straight to that realm, lest all understanding decay into incoherent relativism. 

The Tantrāloka was such a significant work that Abhinava chose to rewrite it twice, for the benefit of those who were less highly educated in the complexities of Indian philosophy. The first rewrite was The Essence of the Tantras (Tantrasāra), a work mostly in prose with key summary verses at the end of each chapter. The main purpose of the Tantrasāra is to summarize the Tantrāloka, but the ever-fresh Abhinava also adds some new material. I would argue that the Tantrasāra is a more important work for those with a practical interest in the Tantra, for by mostly leaving aside the discourse of intellectual/logical debate that we see in the Tantrāloka, Abhinava was able to write in a more tightly focused and powerful manner, with (in my experience) every phrase resonating with Truth. The tone of the work is precisely what one would expect if, having discovered that the Tantrāloka was too difficult for most people, Abhinava thought to himself, “Okay, let’s get down to the essence (sāra) of what really matters here.” The result feels more like a transmission than a dissertation.  I am happy to announce that I will publish the Tantrasāra in my own translation in 2017.

Following the Tantrasāra, Abhinava composed the shortest recension of this material by taking just the summary verses of the Tantrasāra and giving a short commentary on each. This work is called the Tantroccaya. None of these works is available yet in English apart from the Tantrasāra, which has been recently published by Rudra Press. The first five chapters of the Tantrāloka are published in a good French translation (by Andre Padoux) and the whole work in a flawed Italian translation by Raneiro Gnoli. We expect an English translation from Pandit Mark Dyczkowski soon.

Abhinava’s final major works of Tantrik philosophy were his commentaries on Utpala Deva’s Stanzas on the Recognition of the Lord mentioned earlier. Abhinava also composed a number of exquisite devotional-cum-philosophical poems, such as the Hymn to Bhairava and Fifteen Verses on Awakening (the poem that began this post). 

Finally, we should note that Abhinava was quite a renowned philosopher of aesthetics, writing a number of works on what makes art beautiful and affecting, works that were (for the most part) separate from his spiritual writings. He specialized in the study of poetry, and his most important work in that area was his commentary on Light on the Theory of Suggestion (Dhvanyāloka), an earlier work of profound significance in the study of aesthetics. In Abhinava’s erudite and thoughtful commentary, he analyzes the nature of aesthetic experience in terms of how it comes about, what it signifies, and what are its various dimensions. His exposition of the nine rasas or “flavors of aesthetic experience” has become quite famous. Indeed, his work in this area is better known amongst academic Sanskritists than is his spiritual material.

(Notes to the Bodhapañcadaśikā: Verse 2 accepts the Ed’s reading -bhāvāṇām in pāda a; verse 4 accepts the reading svātmādarśe in pāda c; verse 5 translates in such a way as to avoid deciding between the readings yasya (Ed.) and yasyā (KSTS); verse 10 retains the reading yat from the KSTS over the Ed.’s hi, and retains aṃśāś over the Ed’s īśāś, but accepts the Ed’s reading sukhaduḥkham iti bhavet in pāda d; verse 11 accepts the Ed’s readings of svātantryopakalpitam in pāda b, and jaḍānām yas tu bhīṣaṇaḥ in pāda d; verse 12 accepts the Ed’s reading prasādavaśād in pāda a and upāyataḥ in pāda d; and verse 15 accepts the Ed’s read of icchākryā- in pāda a.)

This is part of a series of posts translating Chapter One of the 1000-year-old masterpiece called 'Light on Tantra' (Tantrāloka). This post continues from the previous one, called God is the Self. In the five verses below, Abhinavagupta seeks to explain why Bhairava is the appropriate name for the nondual Deity of Śaiva Tantra. Of course, Bhairava is a divine name inherited from an earlier, dualistic tradition, so here Abhinava is reinterpreting it in light of the nondual philosophy of his lineage. In India and (especially) Nepāl, Bhairava is worshipped as one deity among many, but Abhinava Gupta uses the name to denote the Absolute Consciousness that is the ground of being, as we will see below. 

This is the first of two sections on the Divine Names. (The next will explain the names deva and pati, 'God' and 'the Lord'.) All words in bold are Abhinavagupta's; bracketed terms are directly implied by the structure of the Sanskrit. Readers should be aware that these verses are examples of the exegetical/hermeneutical science called nirukta, or 'interpretive etymology'. The finest study on nirukta is the book Indian Semantic Analysis, by Eivind Kahrs, which I have cited several times below. 

The Deity is fully indicated with names that are given in scriptures and that conform to [His] reality: He who is Supreme Śiva is [called] 1) Great Bhairava, 2) God (deva), and 3) the Lord (pati). || 95 ||

[He is called Bhairava because] he bears (bhṛ) or holds the universe through nourishing and supporting it — and is borne & held by it; and because his form is the ‘Roar’ (rava), which means he is Self-awareness (vimarśa, = the roar of AHAM). He is also [called Bhairava] because he is the benefactor of those who are terrified (bhīru) by the cycle of suffering. || 96 ||

     Abhinava's commentator Jayaratha (12th cen.) comments as follows: "‘He bears’, that is, he supports and nourishes [the universe], because he manifests it as fused with the ‘screen’ or ‘canvas’ which is his very own Self. 'He is borne', that is, he is [also] sustained and nourished by the universe; because he is manifest in everything, inasmuch as it is he that is embodied as the universe." (translated by Eivind Kahrs, minor amendments by me)  
     That is to say, the universe supports and nourishes him because he is not himself unless embodied. Thus he is equally transcendent and immanent. NOTE: the English word ‘bear’ is actually cognate with Sanskrit bhṛ — both go back to the same ancient Indo-European root. 

E. Kahrs cogently writes in his Indian Semantic Analysis: “Bhairava is aware of himself in this inner language which is the instinct of consciousness, the instinct of the light of reality. So his nature is a constant roaring of the great mantra of ‘I’, AHAM. Thus the term ‘Bhairava’ refers to unconditioned subjectivity as the essence of all phenomena.” 

In the Vijñāna-bhairava, we find this parallel passage (v. 130), which gives a specific practice:  "One will become Śiva by constantly contemplating in mental utterance (uccāra) the term ‘Bhairava’, understanding that it means: “he who sustains everything, he who produces it, who bestows all and pervades everywhere”. (trans. Kahrs, with minor amendments)

Back now to the Tantrāloka:

He is born in the Heart from the 'Roar' (rava)—or intensified awareness—arising from the dread (bhīti) of the cycle of suffering (saṃsāra). He is the one by whom awareness of the [beneficial] fear of mundane existence is manifested through the Descent of [his] Power (śaktipāt). || 97 ||

Jayaratha comments: "The roar which is produced by that [fear] means a crying out to the Lord, or rather, awareness [of Him]. Being born from that [cry or awareness], he is Bhairava. So this means that He is manifest within the Heart – that is, on the level of ultimate reality [within] – of those who call out in terror or those who direct their awareness [to the Lord]. . . . [Furthermore] He is the cause – through śaktipāta – of that roar, that discernment, that awareness of one’s [natural] fear of mundane existence (bhava); hence he is called Bhairava." (translated by Eivind Kahrs, minor amendments by me)

[Bhairava] is He who is manifest in those [yogins] whose minds savor the meditative state which ‘devours time’—that is, those who [through centering their attention in meditation] wither the Principle of Time (kāla-tattva) which impels the celestial bodies (nakṣatras). || 98 || 

The derivation goes like this: [bha (= nakṣatra) + īra (= preraka)] = Time (bhera), + va from vāyanti (= śoṣaṃ kurvanti) = bheravāḥ, meaning the yogins who wither Time and whose lord is Bhairava; they who directly experience Bhairava (prakaṭa = sphurita) — thus Jayaratha explains. In other words, since successful yogis transcend time in meditation, they are bheravas, and thus Bhairava denotes the Reality they experience in that state of pure consciousness. 

The face of Bhairava as worshipped in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepāl.

The Master of the goddesses of one’s own faculties whose ‘roar’ (rava) serves to strike fear (bhī) into the hearts of contracted bound souls — and also of the four inner and outer collective Powers beginning with Khecarī — He is called Bhairava, [for] He is truly awesome (bhīma) in his capacity to break the cycle of saṃsāra. || 99-100b ||

This verse alludes to esoteric Krama teachings, for which see chapter 12 of my forthcoming book The Recognition Sūtras. Jayaratha comments: ‘roar’ = awareness of the phonemic powers arising from the mass of sounds (śabda-rāśi); fear = the fear that gives rise to happiness, misery, etc. Of the four Krama goddesses, Khecarī is the Knower, Gocarī is the mind, Dikcarī the 10 faculties, and Bhūcarī is the field of knowable objects. Each of the four is a 'collective' Power because She presides over subsidiary śaktis (i.e., each is a devatā-cakra).

Thus, with these verbal codes, [the Divine] is celebrated as ‘Bhairava’ in scripture by our teachers. | 100cd |

We see Abhinavagupta's successor Kṣemarāja reiterate some of the niruktas (interpretive etymologies) we saw above, plus adding a couple of special twists, in his introductory verse to his commentary on the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra:

"[Shiva is also called Bhairava] because he is the cause of crying out from fear of remaining in the cycle of suffering (bhava-bhaya), and from that [longing cry] he becomes manifest in the radiant domain of the heart, bestowing absence of fear (abhaya) for those who are terrified; and because he is the Lord of those who delight in his awesome roar (bhīrava), signifying the death of Death! Being the Master of that flock of excellent Yogins who tire of fear [and seek release], he is Bhairava—the Supreme, whose form is Consciousness (vijñāna). As the author of nourishment, he extends his Power throughout the universe!"

A modern painting of the deity Bhairava, by Tejomaya.

Next: The Divine Names -- deva, pati, shiva

This section of the Tantrāloka continues from the previous section on 'The Divine Names'. The last post explained why Bhairava is an appropriate name for Supreme Consciousness; in this set of verses, Abhinavagupta tells us why the names Deva ('God'), Pati ('the Lord') and Shiva ('the Benevolent One') are appropriate. In this, he draws on the ancient practice of nirukta or nirvacana or 'interpretive etymology', which means breaking down a key term to show how its components and/or roots tell us more about the referent of the word (in this case, the nature of Divine Consciousness).

Please remember that though Abhinavagupta is a nondualist, he wrote 'Light on the Tantras' for Shaivas of all stripes -- dualists and nondualists alike. He also wrote it as a compilation of Shaiva Tantrik wisdom up to his time. Therefore, before proceeding to more esoteric doctrines, Abhinava is here explaining the Names of God in a traditional manner -- actually, he gives a subtle nondualist spin on them, while still appealing to those who experience God as separate, the way most Christians do. In fact, he quotes here a Saiddhāntika guru, and the Saiddhāntikas were Tantrikas who had a theology that was very similar to Christianity's. (See Tantra Illuminated p. 217.)  Now we continue with Śrī Tantrāloka:

As a divine play, He surges up [into manifestation] as [an expression of His] pure innate bliss, free of any story of what is desirable and what is not — [and so, because the root div can mean ‘play’ and ‘joy’, He is called Deva ‘the Divine’]. [Because He] exists with a will (icchā) to transcend all, such is His freedom [to do so] — [and so, because the root div can mean ‘urge to transcend’, He is called Deva]. || 101

Though His essential Being is undivided, in everyday life [He manifests] as the various forms of [human] discourse — [and so, because the root div can mean ‘everyday conduct’, He is called Deva]. Because he manifests as all things, he is constantly shining — [and so, because the root div can mean ‘radiant’, He is called Deva]. || 102

Praise of him [is rendered] because everything, from the moment it has a self, inclines toward Him — [and so, because the root div can mean ‘praise’, He is called Deva]. Even in the midst of all [the everyday] duties, there is a ‘movement’ consisting of consciousness which informs all actions and [innately] possesses the qualities of Knowing and Acting — [and so, because the root div can mean ‘movement’, He is called Deva]. || 103

With these nirvacanas, [the term] Deva is explained by our teacher [Bṛhaspati] in the Śiva-tanu-śāstra (the Treatise on Śiva’s Form). | 104ab 

He helps all [beings] by teaching, restraining, protecting, and maturing [them]—thus He is called ‘Lord’ (pati). Being auspicious & beneficial and never inauspicious or malefic (aśiva), He is called ‘the Benevolent’ (śiva).   || 104c-f

Since He manifests in a similar form under the names Rudra, Upendra, and so on, the adjectival words ‘supreme’ or ‘great’ [as in Parama-śiva or Mahā-bhairava] are used to avoid [the implication that we are referring to a] limited [deity]. || 105

Next: The Tantrik View of Reality as Patterned Energy

In this blog, I want to offer a personal insight, one based in the tradition of yoga that I’ve been studying full-time for twenty years, but crystallized and refined in deep inner contemplation over the last few years. It seems to me that this particular insight, when grasped, can be a game-changer in the spiritual life. Like all profound truths, on the one hand it’s very simple, and on the other, its ramifications, if explored, can rock your world.

First a few sentences of context. In yoga philosophy, we find a basic distinction between the body-mind (the realm of prakṛti) and our deepest nature, our fundamental being, our inner divinity if you will ~ the deathless transpersonal power of awareness itself (called variously svarūpa, svabhāva, ātman, cit, etc.). Patañjali (author of the Yoga-sūtra) and other sages argue that nearly all our suffering comes from not understanding the respective natures of the body-mind and our innermost being, and falsely attributing qualities of one to the other. We tend to seek a self, an abiding center, where it can’t be found, identifying ourselves with what we fundamentally aren’t — that is, with the contents of awareness (such as thought, feeling, and bodily sensation) instead of with awareness itself, the inner Knower.

Here, then, is the basic proposition I want to offer you. Though it’s something I’ve personally realized, here it’s stated in the second person, to be more impactful:

You can gain insight into the difference between who you think you are and who you really are by comparing what you think you want with what is — because who you really are always wants ‘what is’ in any given circumstance. Your essence-nature is always in love with reality — it gives itself unconditionally to what is, to the reality of the present moment, however wondrous, dull, or horrific the mind judges it to be. You may not be in touch with your essence-nature, but it’s always there, and always gently, unconditionally, lovingly, giving itself to the reality of whatever’s happening.

Let’s explore how desire operates on these two different levels of your being. The body-mind nearly always wants something that is not currently happening — ranging from desiring a slightly different temperature to longing for a different job or living situation. Your essence-nature, on the other hand, wants what is happening, is in love with what is happening, gives itself to what is happening — it doesn’t even have the capacity to want anything different from what is happening.*  Therefore, if the body-mind aspect of you is currently wanting something it doesn’t have, your essence-nature is simply enjoying the experience of wanting. Since it wants what is, if the body-mind is currently wanting, then essence-nature wants to want; it is content with wanting. 

The point here is that on the spiritual path you don’t actually need to get rid of desire or pretend you're okay with something that you're not. Instead of trying to persuade the body-mind that it doesn’t want what it thinks it wants, we engage in spiritual practice in order to access a level of being where we already are totally content with what is ~ a level on which we feel “all is well, all is well, all manner of things are well,”** including even wanting, grieving, and pain. Pain becomes a thing of sharp beauty when seen in the light of our real nature. 

This is not what our minds are programmed to believe, clearly. The mind believes that getting what it wants is the best thing that could possibly happen — that getting what it (thinks it) wants is the Royal Road to Happiness. By contrast, essence-nature knows that it doesn’t know what the best outcome would be, and it further knows, or rather nonconceptually intuits, that there is no path or trajectory that leads to happiness; that the accumulation of advantages or desired experiences doesn’t actually lead anywhere in particular; and that real joy and contentment comes only from relaxing into your true self, which means relaxing into your natural ability to be with what is.  

Having learned the teaching that the goal of the spiritual life is full surrender and openness to reality, I used to feel horrible about myself for resisting reality. Any state of nonacceptance was made more unpleasant by beating myself up for not accepting things as they are! So it was a game-changer when I realized that true acceptance includes acceptance of my mind's resistance. Instead of trying to change the character of my mind and emotions, I discovered that by sinking to a deeper level of what I am, I naturally came into loving acceptance of my nonacceptance, revealing a unique joy. 

The ability to be with ‘what is’ (सत् sat in Sanskrit) is the highest joy (sacchidānanda, 'the joy of awareness of reality'), and it is intimately linked with a deep trust of life. If I want something, and it doesn't happen, I know I can trust that getting it wouldn’t have been the right thing. Plus, not getting what I think I want is a gift, because it teaches me something about who I’m not. If I didn’t get it, then I know the one wanting was the ego or ‘false self’*** — because my true nature always gets what it wants. After all, it only wants what Life wants, since it is Life. 

Let all that sink in; look out the window and just be with it for a minute.  When you're ready, you can move on to the application of this teaching below.

Though your body-mind seems to want so many things, in reality, its deepest secret desire is to be more like essence-nature; in other words, what it really wants is to stop wanting so darn much. Your mind thinks that the cessation of wanting could only come through fulfilling more of your specific desires, but it's not true: on that path, more desires keep arising almost as soon as the previous ones are fulfilled. However, the deep fullness and contentment the body-mind longs for arises easefully and naturally the more the body-mind receives the impression of essence-nature. Then cessation of the frustrating kind of desire is seen to be the natural result of loving what is more completely. 

So, in summary, essence-nature is already eternally in love with and fulfilled by reality as it is (nityānanda-svarūpa), so spiritual work involves repeatedly touching into your essence-nature and allowing your body-mind to receive, again and again, the imprint of that divine core of being.

In a 1200-word blog post, I can’t explore all the implications of this profound nexus of teachings, but this is what I’ve seen: even the barest beginning of realizing these truths can create deep shifts in how your life manifests. 

You aren’t just a part of the whole — somehow, inexplicably, you are the whole, and what you are manifests the whole world of your experience. You are capable of astonishing beauty, terrible ugliness, and everything in between; the whole world is a mirror, reflecting your real nature back at you. Somehow, mysteriously, opening to the whole of what you are, and learning to love the whole, fundamentally shifts the character of your life, the way the world mirrors you. 

The yoga tradition is unanimous in declaring that if you know yourself as you really are, you will be free — more free than the mind can even imagine. As the sage Kabir said, “If you don’t do anything now to bring about this inner experience, when will you attain it?”

Footnotes:
* Though of course, it doesn’t want it in a static way, meaning that wanting ‘what is’ doesn’t mean not wanting it to change, because change is a fundamental characteristic of ‘what is’.

** A quote from the incredible female poet-saint and mystic, Julian of Norwich. 

*** Unless, of course, it just hasn't happened yet; Life always gets what it wants, but not usually on the  timeline the mind wants or expects.

Photo credit: LBEARD.com

In this post, I'm sharing one of the most powerful teachings from the tradition of Tantra, one that students in my 40-day Awareness Challenge have said is the most impactful for them: the teaching traditionally called the 'Pure Motive'.  This teaching addresses the all-important topic of why we do spiritual practice, and invites us to become aware of those (sometimes unconscious) motives arising from our conditioning that actually undermine the practice and inhibit the attainment of the goal.

Let's look at the three 'impure motives' first, because only then can we understand the power of the Pure Motive. And don't let the word 'impure' rattle you -- here impure really just means ineffective. In Indian folktales, it's said that the milk of a lioness is so powerful, it can only be held in a container of pure gold — any impurities in the container are revealed when the milk eats through the vessel at those points. So a container free of 'impurities' is simply one that is effective at holding the powerful substance. When this metaphor is applied to yoga, the body is the container, the lioness' milk is the transformational energy generated by yogic practice, and the impurities are motivations for practice that are subtly out of aligned with the goal (which is, for all branches of yoga, awakening and liberation). So an impure motive is simply one that is ineffective for attaining the goal.

Having said that, we all begin the practice of yoga (or any form of spiritual discipline) with impure motive. If the practice is to bear fruit, we must in time discover and embrace the Pure Motive. If at this point in the discussion you are skeptical, I don't blame you! Your healthy skepticism will, I'm guessing, dissolve as soon as you understand what the impure and pure motives actually are. 

Impure motive #1: holding a vision of yourself as broken, damaged, or sinful, and doing yoga in order to 'fix' yourself. 

This motive for practice is does not allow the practitioner to attain the goal, because it is based in a view of reality that is fundamentally out of alignment with reality itself. In this paradigm, you think there is something wrong with you as you are, and you look to yoga to solve the problem or 'fix the broken self.' But it's not true — there's nothing actually wrong with you other than the belief that there's something wrong with you, so doing your practice with this motive undermines the practice itself.

In this paradigm, yoga is part of a 'self-improvement project' which is designed to make you 'a better person' because, if you're honest, you think the person you are now is just not good enough. The self-improvement project is doomed to failure since it rests on flawed foundations: a misperception of your real nature. In fact, your essence-nature is already perfect and so needs no improvement, and your body-mind is eternally imperfect and simply needs to be accepted as such. There's nothing wrong with working to refine and improve the body-mind, of course, but if this work is based on the presumption that you need to be different from how you already are to be worthy of love or acceptance, then you're shooting yourself in the foot before you start the race. 

This video explains impure motive #1, and its antidote, in more detail:

Me with head shaved for the new year sharing about the power of Pure Motive.

Let's turn to impure motive #2:

Practicing yoga (or any spiritual discipline) to feel good, to get high, and/or to attain altered states of consciousness, is the second ineffective motive.

'What??', you might be thinking, 'I thought the purpose of yoga was precisely to feel better about yourself and about life! What are you, some kind of yoga puritan?'  Of course yoga, of both physical and mental varieties, makes us feel good, and of course there's nothing wrong with feeling good! But is it the motive for practice?  If it is, the tradition says, the ultimate goal will not be achieved. Why is this?  Because in order to achieve the goal of being fully awake to your true nature (bodha) and free of all falsehood and delusion (moksha) you must necessarily aim your practice at truth, not at pleasure or bliss.  If your practice is aimed at feeling good (subconsciously or not), you will tend to avoid the aspects of the practice that make you more intimate with your pain, sorrow, and grief. And there is no way to become free & awake without a willingness to be intimate with every part of your being. Grasping toward pleasure and avoiding pain has nothing to do with the path of awakening.  However, if you want truth more than anything else, you will experience it — and bliss (ānanda) is a natural byproduct of seeing the truth. If you then attach to the bliss and want it more than truth, the process gets off-track again.

In the paradigm of impure motive #2, the spiritual path is seen as something that leads us to 'higher states of consciousness', a path by which we transcend the mundane and become the transcendent divine beings which we were always meant to be. In fact, as one of my teachers says so cogently, 'fascination with states leads to bondage and dependency.'  This is not a path of becoming a different sort of being, but rather of coming into profound loving acceptance of ourselves as we are. It is not a path of transcending the ordinary, but if seeing the divinity in it. It is not a path of rising above the rest of humanity, but of becoming truly grounded in the real and loving the whole of what is.

Here's the video that explains more about impure motives #2 and 3 and their antidote:

Impure motive #3 is not as common among yoga students, but quite common among yoga teachers (and other kinds of spiritual teachers):

Practicing yoga (or any spiritual discipline) to gain power over others, to 'win friends and influence people', or to bolster the ego through receiving recognition and admiration.

Clearly, that motive does not allow one to attain the goal of the practice. Traditionally, impure motive #3 is seen as a subset of #2, since such power and influence feels good — but is only a pale shadow of the bliss that arises from intimate connection with the truth of your fundamental being.

What, then, is the Pure Motive?  As already explained in the videos above, the Pure Motive antidotes all three of the impure motives and provides a reason for practice that is guaranteed to empower the practice enough for it to bear its full fruit. 

• Walking the path in order to know the truth of your being, out of love for yourself and to benefit everyone is the Pure Motive.
• Walking the path to discover your already existent innate divinity, because that is your natural heart's desire, and to offer the fruit of that discovery to all beings is the Pure Motive.
• To walk the path with reverence and love, simply because it is your nature to do so, is the Pure Motive.

Above I state the Pure Motive in three different ways because there is no single formulation that can perfectly capture it. I invite you to contemplate how these three different formulations each antidote all three of the impure motives. 

Spiritual practice can only be fullly effective with the Pure Motive; but like I said, we all start off with one or more of the impure motives for practice. Therefore, it is traditional to start each practice with the prayer, 'May I have the Pure Motive.'  You shouldn't pretend to have it if you don't — just ask for it, pray for it, long for the sweet nectar of authentically feeling it, and it will come. When it does, all the spiritual practices will suddenly increase in efficacy to a degree which may surprise you.

There is simply no turning point in the spiritual life more powerful than attaining the Pure Motive. May all who read this teaching experience flowing nectar of the Pure Motive!  And may all beings benefit.

Footnote:
* Those who know Buddhist Tantra will recognize that attaining the Pure Motive is equivalent to generating bodhichitta, a mind bent on awakening for the benefit of all beings.

Universal Patterns of Energy: The Tantrik View of Reality
(translation of Abhinavagupta's Tantrāloka, chapter one, verses 106-116; with translator's commentary)

So, by Śiva’s command, I will teach the nature of that-which-must-be known (jñeya) according to [these five sources of wisdom]: my own awareness, valid reasoning, the Lord’s scriptures, and [particularly] the Trika and Krama [lineages]. || 106

1. Traditionally, the first three sources of knowledge given here--logical reasoning, scriptural revelation, and one's own experience--must agree on any given proposition for it to be considered 'true'. 2. Note that Abhinava uses the term jñeya (literally, 'that-which-ought-to-be-known') to mean both God and the Goal of the spiritual path. The following verse shows that here jñeya = God, which of course means transindividual Consciousness in this view.

[According to the Trika and Krama lineages,] He has three [primary] powers — the Higher, Median, and Lower (śaktis), which manifest in Emission, Stasis, Dissolution, and the [transcendent] Fourth, and thus are said to be twelve. || 107

In the Trika lineage there are three primary Goddesses, embodying the three primary potencies (śaktis) of consciousness: Parā, Parāparā, and Aparā, expressing the Powers of Willing, Knowing, and Acting respectively. In the Krama lineage 12 Kālīs are worshipped, and Abhinavagupta sees these as the śaktis that emerge when the three primary Powers are multiplied by the four primary phases of cognition in the Krama, which are Emission, Stasis, Dissolution, and the transcendent ground of the process (the "nameless Fourth") which eternally abides. Each cognition has these four phases, so it is reasonable to argue, as Abhinava does, that when Consciousness 'wants' to express itself in form and movement, it does so in these 12 phases: Emission of Will, Stasis of Will, Dissolution of Will, the transcendent Ground of the Will; Emission of Knowing, and so on. (For more on this, see Tantra Illuminated p. 181.) Of course it is not actually a linear sequence, but a kind of interference pattern (in the Physics sense of that term) of waves of energy, since each of these 12 śaktis is interrelated with all the others. Note that Abhinava specifically uses the term 'waves of awareness' below.

A classic interference pattern. A small number of wave-emitting sources can create a very complex pattern.

However, the 12 Kālīs are visualized in Tantrik practice in a more manageable form: as a 12-spoked Wheel of Fire, with Shiva (or rather Bhairava) as the hub of the Wheel. (This meditation is described on p. 385 and following of Tantra Illuminated)

To the extent that He comprises [these twelve] and his nature is fulfilled [by those powers], Śiva is said to be supreme. Therefore, those who venerate [the Divine] in this way are directly established in That itself and perfected in That alone. || 108

Moreover, the activation of those powers in greater and lesser aspects is said in the scriptures to be due [entirely] to the Power of His Freedom (svātantrya-śakti). || 109

[Thus He is said to be] the One Hero, the Couple, the Triple Power, the Fourfold Self, the one who has Five Forms, or Six Aspects, or Seven, or Eight, or Nine; He who has the powers of the ten directions and the eleven energies (kalā); [and as] Bhairava, the Lord of the Great Wheel of twelve spokes. || 110-111

These 'interference patterns' of energy give rise to countless diverse forms of the One divine Consciousness. This is how Abhinavagupta explains the many forms and aspects of the divine that are worshipped in various Tantrik lineages. The Kaulas venerate the divine Couple, Kuleśvara & Kuleśvarī (Shiva & Shakti); the followers of the Trika venerate the Triple Power (mentioned above); in the Pratyabhijñā philosophy, Consciousness is said to diversify into the Fourfold Self of every human being; in the Siddhānta, five faces of Shiva are worshipped; the Kaubjikas venerate Shiva in nine aspects (navātman) and so on.

Thus the Lord [manifests in forms] as great as the thousand-spoked [Wheel] or even the Universal Wheel of countless ‘spokes’. The Great Lord whose powers comprise the whole universe expands into [these countless forms]. || 112

Moreover, this division [of Divine Consciousness] into these Wheels [of energy] is taught in various places in the scriptures, [each such teaching describing] a complete and coherent system subdivided into [specific] cakras in accordance with the classes [of reality taught in that specific tantra]. || 113

Abhinava here explains that all of the many different cakra systems taught in the scriptures are valid and are not mutually contradictory, because they each map different aspects of the complex pattern of reality. Of course cakras are also the primary centers of the energy body of a human being, because each human being is a microcosm of the Whole, and contains the pattern of the Whole. Western yoga is only aware of one cakra system, and thinks it is the only one, whereas original Tantrik Yoga features many systems, and the practitioner works with a single one of these at a time, dependent on lineage and the type of practice he wishes to pursue.

[For example,] in the doctrine of the Triśirobhairava-tantra [of the Trika lineage], the Lord of wondrously diverse nature has lordship of six cakras, due to his union with [‘wheels’ of] four, six, eight, twelve, sixteen, and twenty-four [powers]. || 114

The tantra here named is a lost scripture of the Trika which Abhinavagupta quotes as an authority on the nature of the DIvine. Though we don't have its energy-body description, several other six-cakra systems have survived in other texts. Each cakra has a certain number of 'spokes' or rays of energy, also visualized as petals of a flower, each being associated with a specific syllable of a mantra or a specific bhāva (mental-emotional state). Each cakra is presided over by a deity in the center.

The names of the goddesses of the cakras are connected with visualizations of gentle or sweet images [of them, and so] vary according to their function, being created [by men] in accordance with their referents. || 115

Somewhat surprisingly, here Abhinavagupta implies (with the word kalpana) that the names of the deities are not absolute or divinely revealed but invented by humans. This invention is not random, however; the names correspond with certain aspects of the realities they denote, which are, as already noted, patterns of conscious energy.

For the ‘inner body’ of the One Lord who is Consciousness is intuitive inspiration (pratibhā). [She] is venerated as the ‘Wheel of the Waves of Awareness’ [in either of two forms]: peaceful, quiescent [and unlimited] or in a different, limited [form]. || 116

One's primary deity can be visualized above the crown of the head or in the heart center. The primary deity is the 'inner body', as it were, of Divine Consciousness, here said to be the power of intuitive awareness, instinctual wisdom, and creative inspiration -- all three phrases translate the Sanskrit word pratibhā (cf. Tantrāloka verse 2). Abhinavagupta's primary deity, then, is Parā Devī, who is said to embody pratibhā. Note that here the Goddess is pictured as the inner core of the masculine deity, Śiva, which is typical in the Krama lineage. 

Pratibhā/Parādevī is to be worshipped inwardly as the samvid-ūrmi-cakra, the ultimate Wheel of the Waves of Awareness. Those seeking liberation visualize Her in a peaceful, sweet, quiescent, unlimited form (saumyā, śāntā, amitā) and those seeking pleasure and powers (bhoga, siddhi) visualize Her in fierce (ghora) form for a specific limited purpose. (cf. verse 1.123) Indeed Parā emanates two lower fierce forms, Parāparā and Aparā, as seen on p. 236 of Tantra Illuminated.

This post presents my translation of the first 13 verses of the Paramārtha-sāra. The title of the work means "The Essence of the Teachings on the Highest Truth" or "The Core of the Teachings on Ultimate Reality". It was written by Abhinavagupta (c. 975-1025), who also wrote the Tantrāloka. The Sanskrit text of this amazing work was first published in Kashmīr in 1916 (by 'published' I mean printed on a printing press and distributed widely and cheaply; prior to that date it existed only in the form of laboriously copied and hoarded birch-bark manuscripts!).

Yet, surprisingly, Abhinavagupta's Paramārtha-sāra is actually a thorough rewriting of a text of the same name, written about 400 years earlier, and attributed by tradition to Patañjali!  The earlier Paramārtha-sāra was a popular text in Abhinava's time, and he was audacious in rewriting it from the nondual Tantrik point of view — and his audacity bore fruit, since his Paramārtha-sāra is better known today. So the history of the text, in brief, is this: someone called Ādiśeṣa, sometimes identified with Patañjali, wrote the original version as a treatise combining Sānkhya and theistic Vedānta in 500 or 600 CE; Abhinavagupta thoroughly rewrote it as a nondual Tantrik treatise in 1000 CE or so; the government of Kashmīr published it from the manuscript sources in 1916; and the text has been translated half-a-dozen times in the last few years, so its study is very much alive today, despite being composed one thousand years ago and published one hundred years ago! 

Though there are other translations available (Bansat-Boudon & Tripāṭhī; Pandit; Barnett; etc.), my translation is perhaps more accessible to practitioners and nonscholars, which is really the only justification I have in offering it, aside from simply being a lover of Abhinavagupta's writing. So here you go!  This post is the first 12% of the text; I hope to get to the rest before the year is out. After each verse is my original commentary; translation and commentary ©2016 Christopher Wallis.

Paraṃ para-sthaṃ gahanād anādim ekaṃ niviṣṭaṃ bahudhā guhāsu |
Sarvālayaṃ sarva-carācara-sthaṃ tvām eva śambhuṃ śaraṇaṃ prapadye || 1 ||

You are unsurpassed fullness, the beginningless transcendent reality beyond Māyā, [yet] You are the One who is seated in the cave of the heart of all the various living beings; the substrate of all, abiding in all things both moving and unmoving; [therefore] I take refuge in You alone, Benevolent One. || 1

Note 1: The commentator Yogarāja (Abhinavagupta's disciple Kṣemarāja's disciple) argues that para (lit., 'supreme') means completely full (pūrṇa) with all five primary Powers (for these śaktis, see p. 101 of Tantra Illuminated).  Note 2: I like how with the pronoun you, Abhinavagupta can indicate his nondual doctrine — he is addressing God, but also the reader's core Self. 

Wandering bewildered through the cycle of suffering beginning with residence in the womb and ending with death [only to begin again], a disciple asked the blessed Lord who is the foundation [of all this] about that which is ultimately true (paramārtha). || 2

The Teacher answered him with the Stanzas on the Foundation [of Reality] (also known as the Essence of Ultimate Reality or Paramārtha-sāra). Here Abhinavagupta gives a summary of that [work] according to the View of Śaivism (śiva-śāsana). || 3

After this three-verse introduction, the work proper begins. 

The four [coexistent] Spheres—Energy, Māyā, Nature, and Earth—have each been brought into being and nourished by the Lord through the overflowing of the magnificence of his own powers. || 4

Note: let us remember that for Abhinavagupta, 'the Lord' refers to transindividual Awareness, the ground of being which is not different from the awareness by which you are perceiving and comprehending these words right now. He writes for a theistic audience and uses unabashedly theistic language, yet in passages that are less introductory, reminds his more serious students that the divinity worshipped in this system is simply nondual Awareness itself.  Note 2: there is a 'sexual' metaphor here in that Energy, Māyā, Nature, and Earth are all feminine words in Sanskrit, and these overlapping 'spheres' arise in union with the 'masculine' Lord. The only point to playing with the inherent gender of the Sanskrit words here is to hint at the fact that phenomenal experience arises through the union of apparently opposite principles, or, one could say, through the dynamic coherence of complementary polarities. 

Within these [Spheres] is this universe, a continuum of wondrously diverse bodies, faculties [of perception and action], and the worlds [they perceive and act within]—and the experiencer of all of this is none other than Śiva himself in embodied form, having [voluntarily] taken on creatureness. || 5

Though there appear to be many consciousnesses, in reality there is only One—one Power of Awareness experiencing the universe that is its own body through countless pairs of eyes, ears, hands, etc. One being looking out through billions of pairs of eyes. That's why it's so powerful to look so deeply into someone's eyes that you connect with the consciousness looking out of them—you're seeing yourself in another form. 

Just as a flawless crystal takes on the appearance of various colors [when held before them], in the same way the Lord takes on the form of gods, humans, beasts, and plants. || 6

Let's make this teaching personal: you are like a flawless crystal reflecting a particular color in that your real nature is perfect divine Awareness, appearing as a human being. 

The following verses (7-11) are some of the most beautiful I've read from Abhinavagupta: I invite you to meditate on their profundity. You can also hear them read to music below. (Apologies for the low quality of the audio clip — it's from a live event.)

In moving water the moon’s image moves, and in still water becomes still. Just so is this Self, [a form of] the Great Lord, [inflected] in the classes of bodies, senses, and worlds. || 7

As the reflected image of the moon appears to be affected by the state of the medium in which it is reflected, the Divine Consciousness appears to be affected by the conditions of embodiment—but the heavenly orb which is the source and cause of the reflection shines undisturbed.

Just as the earth’s shadow, though unseen, is revealed [when] before the moon’s orb, even so this Self, though it in everything, is revealed in the mirror of the mind by means of its recourse to the sensual world. || 8

This is a beautifully poetic way of saying something perfectly simple: in ordinary cognition, the Self-that-is-consciousness is revealed only in relation to a sense-object, such as in the cognition 'I hear a sound'. The cognition 'I', referring to the hearer of the sound, is a reflection (and contraction) of Awareness in the 'mirror' of the mind. The contemplative individual might then be prompted to ask "What is the source or basis of this 'I'?"  For such a person, the 'I'-cognition that arises in the mind is a clue to look back to the basis of the I-sense, revealed in the innermost core of one's being as unparticularized unconditioned unlimited unborn & deathless Awareness itself. 

Just like a face appears in a stainless mirror, likewise this [Self] shines, expressing its radiance, in the mind made transparent by the touch of God’s grace (śaktipāta). || 9

Though your real Self is eternally perfect radiant pure Being, you might perceive yourself otherwise, just as someone looking in a mirror with a dirt mark might think their own face is dirty. Therefore, the faculty of mind requires a kind of 'purification' in order to reflection the nature of the Self accurately. That purification is bestowed by spiritual awakening. Initial awakening is known in Śaiva Tantra as śaktipāta, which means "the descent of Power" or "the touch of Grace." (My PhD thesis focuses on the doctrine of śaktipāta.) The initial awakening of śaktipāta leads inevitably, in time, to full awakeness (bodha), full awareness of one's real nature.

Radiant, completely whole, full of joy due to reposing in itself, abundant with the [powers of] Willing, Knowing, and Acting, utterly replete with infinite power, free of all conceptualization, pure & clear, peaceful, never arising or dissolving: such is the supreme Reality within which appears this entire world [of our experience], consisting of thirty-six principles (tattvas). || 10-11

The Supreme Reality (paraṃ tattvam) is of course transindividual Awareness. All phenomena are internal to Awareness. The world is internal to Awareness. Nothing is external to Awareness. This is your direct experience, not some mystical pronouncement. (Have a look for yourself—have you ever experienced anything external to awareness? Do you have any evidence of anything existing separate from awareness?) Nor is this view of reality necessarily opposed to science: extremely well-respected cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman (U.C. Irvine) says, "I believe that consciousness and its contents are all that exists. Spacetime, matter and fields never were the fundamental denizens of the universe but have always been, from their beginning, among the humbler contents of consciousness, dependent on it for their very being." (From edge.org. Hoffman is working on a mathematical model of universal Consciousness as the basis of reality and ground of being.) 

Abhinavagupta invites you to contemplate the nature of this infinite Awareness that you are with the list of descriptive qualities beginning with 'Radiant' and ending with 'never arising or dissolving'. Though words cannot adequately describe its nature, these words point in the right direction. 

Just as [the images of] various things such as cities and villages reflected in a mirror are inseparable [from it], and yet appear [conceptually] distinct from each other and from the mirror, this world manifests without any separation from the flawless Awareness of Supreme Bhairava, yet [seems] internally differentiated and different from [that divine Awareness]. || 12-13

The commentator Yogarāja explains that the analogy of a mirror is appropriate because the mirror transcends the sum total of its reflected images; that is, the nature of the mirror cannot be fully described in terms of them. Secondly, he says, the mirror is 'pure' in the sense that its essential nature does not need to alter in order to reflect this object vs. that one; you don't need one kind of mirror to reflect a pot and a different kind of mirror to reflect a cloth. Similarly, awareness is all-embracing and infinitely malleable.

My commentary: Abhinavagupta repeatedly uses the metaphor of a mirror in his work, because it is almost a perfect analogy to the nature of Consciousness, since the latter unifies all apparently disparate phenomena. Though all we see in a mirror is light reflected from a single surface, our brains carve up the image and label pieces of it as 'my face', 'chair', 'table', etc.—in fact you're so accustomed to this that you easily forget the fact that you've never seen your own face directly. The reflection is your face, in your mental image of the world. In the same way, though everything is the Light of Consciousness, one easily believes in the appearance of separation amongst the objects one perceives, since perception is interpreted based on concepts that are themselves based on culturally-conditioned distinctions of name and form, when in reality there is only one continuous field of energy. Secondly, you easily believe in the separation of what you perceive from yourself, since you don't notice that what you habitually call 'me' is just the most persistent and proximate reflection in the infinite mirror of your Awareness. In reality, everything you perceive is equally you, since it is all equally internal to your awareness.  

Make sense? No? If not, that's because the mind has a really really hard time grasping a vision of reality that represents a completely different way of experiencing reality from how it was conditioned to see things. I thought about (and thought I understood) the everything-is-consciousness view for many, many years before I actually started experiencing it; and when I did, I was stunned at how totally I had failed to grasp it. The concept just points you in the right direction; only the experience grants real understanding. To close, then, let's consider another verse in which Abhinavagupta uses the mirror analogy, and you can just read it as poetry, tasting its resonance:

"The entire universe shines here within the Self, just as a complex creation [appears] in a mirror. However, awakened Awareness (bodha) consciously articulates the universe in accordance with the nectarean taste of its own self-reflection (vimarśa)—no mirror can do that."  (Tantrasāra chapter three summary verse, in my translation)

Postscript: any readers of this blog who want to go deeper into the teachings and practices of original Śaiva Tantra should go here to find out about our six-month immersion program, The Fire of Transformation.  It is for anyone who feels a longing to immerse in the teachings featured on this blog and is ready to commit to a daily practice and weekly study session. It starts in March, so submit your application soon!

Title page of the 1916 publication of the Paramārtha-sāra (Sanskrit text only).

Cover of the 2011 hyperacademic translation (it has 1,445 footnotes!) of the root-text together with Yogarāja's commentary. A great resource for scholars. 

The six most important things you never knew about the Chakras 

Over the past hundred plus years, the concept of the chakras, or subtle energy centers within the body, has seized the Western imagination more than virtually any other teaching from the yoga tradition. Yet, as with most other concepts deriving from Sanskrit sources, the West (barring a handful of scholars) has almost totally failed to come to grips with what the chakras meant in their original context and how one is supposed to practice with them. This post seeks to rectify that situation to some extent. If you're short on time, you can skip the contextual comments I'm about to make and go straight to the list of the six fundamental facts about the chakras that modern yogis don't know. (See the postscript for a precise definition of 'chakra'.)

First let me clarify that by 'the West' I mean not only Euro-American culture but also the aspects of modern Indian culture that are informed by the Euro-American culture matrix. Since at this point it is nearly impossible to find a form of yoga in India not influenced by Euro-American ideas about it, when I use the term 'Western' I include all the teachings on yoga in India today that exist in the English language. 

Okay, I'll give it to you straight: for the most part, Western yoga understands almost nothing about the chakras that the original creators of the concept thought was important about them. If you read a book like Anodea Judith's famous Wheels of Life or other books inspired by it, you are not reading a work of yoga philosophy but of Western occultism, based on three main sources: 1) earlier works of Western occultism that borrow Sanskrit terms without really understanding them (like Theosophist C.W. Leadbeater's The Chakras, 1927); 2) John Woodroffe's flawed 1918 translation of a text on the chakras written in Sanskrit in 1577; and 3) 20th-century books by Indian yoga gurus which are themselves based on sources 1) and 2). Books on the chakras based on sound comprehension of the original Sanskrit sources exist only in the scholarly world. 

'But does that matter?' yogis ask me. 'I've benefited so much from Anodea Judith's book and others like it, don't take that away from me!' I won't and I can't. Whatever benefit you've received, from whatever source, is real if you say it is.  I'm just here to tell you two things: first, that when modern Western authors on the chakras tell you they are presenting ancient teachings, they're lying—but they don't know that they are, because they can't assess the validity of their source materials (since they don't read Sanskrit). Second, for those who are interested, I'm here to let you know a little bit about what yogic concepts mean in their original context (because I'm a Sanskrit scholar, and a meditator who happens to prefer the traditional forms). Only you can assess whether that is of any benefit to you. I'm not claiming that older is intrinsically better. I'm not trying to imply there's no spiritual value to Western occultism. I'm just approximating the historical truth in simple English words as best I can. So I'll get on with it now: the six fundamental facts about the chakras that modern yogis don't know. (Again, please see the p.s. at the bottom for a definition of what a chakra is.)

1. There's not just one chakra system in the original tradition, there are many.

So many! The theory of the subtle body and its energy centers called cakras (or padmas, ādhāras, lakṣyas, etc.) comes from the tradition of Tantrik Yoga, which flourished from 600-1300 CE, and is still alive today. In mature Tantrik Yoga (after the year 900 or so), every one of the many branches of the tradition articulated a different chakra system, and some branches articulated more than one. Five-chakra systems, six-chakra systems, seven, nine, ten, fifteen, twenty-one, twenty-eight and more chakras are taught, depending on what text you're looking at. The seven- (or, technically, 6 + 1) chakra system that Western yogis know about is just one of many, and it became dominant around the 16th century (see point #4 below). 

Now, I know what you're thinking—'But which system is right? How many chakras are there really?' And that brings us to our first major misunderstanding. The chakras aren't like organs in the physical body; they aren't fixed facts that we can study like doctors study neural ganglia. The energy body is an extraordinarily fluid reality, as we should expect of anything nonphysical and supersensuous. The energy body can present, experientially speaking, with any number of energy centers, depending on the person and the yogic practice they're performing.

Having said that, there are a few centers which are found in all systems—specifically, chakras in the lower belly, the heart, and the crown of the head, since these are three places in the body where humans all over the world experience both emotional and spiritual phenomena. But apart from those three, there's huge variety in the chakra systems we find in the original literature. One is not more 'right' than another, except relative to a specific practice. For example, if you're doing a five-element practice, you use a five-chakra system (see point #6 below). If you're internalizing the energy of six different deities, you use a six-chakra system. Duh, right? But this crucial bit of information has not yet reached Western yoga. 

We've only just started down this rabbit hole, Alice. Wanna learn more?

2. The chakra systems are prescriptive, not descriptive. 

This might be the most important point. English sources tend to present the chakra system as an existential fact, using descriptive language (like ‘the mūlādhāra chakra is at the base of the spine. it has four petals,’ and so on). But in most of the original Sanskrit sources, we are not being taught about the way things are, we are being given a specific yogic practice: we are to visualize a subtle object made of colored light, shaped like a lotus or a spinning wheel, at a specific point in the body, and then activate mantric syllables in it, for a specific purpose. When you understand this, point #1 above makes more sense. The texts are prescriptive — they tell what you ought to do to achieve a specific goal by mystical means. When the literal Sanskrit reads, in its elliptical fashion, ‘Four-petaled lotus at the base of the body’ we are supposed to understand ‘The yogī ought to visualize a four-petaled lotus…’ See point #5 for more on this.

3. The psychological states associated with the chakras are completely modern and Western.

On countless websites and in countless books, we read that the mūlādhāra chakra is associated with survival & safety, that maṇipūra chakra is associated with willpower & self-esteem, and so on. The educated yogi should know that all associations of the chakras with psychological states is a modern Western innovation that started with Jung. Perhaps such associations represent experiential realities for some people (though usually not without priming). We certainly don’t find them in the Sanskrit sources. There’s only one exception I’m aware of, and that is the 10-chakra system for yogi-musicians that I’ve done a blog post on. But in that 13th-century system, we do not find each chakra associated with a specific emotion or psychological state; rather, each petal of each lotus-chakra is associated with a distinct emotion or state, and there seems to be no pattern by which we could create a label for the chakra as a whole. 

But that’s not all. Nearly all the many associations found in Anodea Judith’s Wheels of Life have no basis in the Indian sources. Each chakra, Judith tells us, is associated with a certain bodily gland, certain bodily malfunctions, certain foods, a certain metal, a mineral, an herb, a planet, a path of yoga, a suit of the tarot, a sephira of Jewish mysticism (!), and an archangel of Christianity (!!). None of these associations are found in the original sources. Judith or her teachers created them based on perceived similarities. That goes also for the essential oils and crystals that other books and websites claim correspond to each chakra. (I should note that Judith does feature information from an original Sanskrit source [that is, the Ṣhat-cakra-nirūpaṇa, see below] under the label ‘Lotus Symbols’ for each chakra. I should also note that Anodea is a really lovely person whose work has benefited many. This isn't personal.) 

This is not to say that putting a certain kind of crystal on your belly when you’re having self-esteem issues and imagining it purifying your maṇipūra chakra might not help you feel better. Maybe it will, depending on the person. While this practice is certainly not traditional, and has not been tested over generations (which is the whole point of tradition, really), god knows there’s more on heaven and earth than is dreamt of in my rational brain. 

But, in my view, people should know when the pedigree of a practice is a few decades, not centuries. If a practice has value, then you don't need to falsify its provenance, right?

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4. The seven-chakra system popular today derives not from a scripture, but from a treatise written in 1577.

The chakra system Western yogis follow is that found in a Sanskrit text written by a guy named Pūrṇānanda Yati. He completed his text (the Ṣhaṭ-chakra-nirūpaṇa or 'Explanation of the six chakras', actually chapter six of a larger work) in the year 1577.

In an earlier version of this post, I called the 7-chakra system 'late and somewhat atypical'. But after a few days, I realized that I was mistaken—a simpler version of the same 7-chakra system is found in a 13th-century postscriptural text called the Śāradā-tilaka ('Sarasvatī's Ornament'), though that text does plainly acknowledge that there are multiple chakra systems (such as systems of 12 or 16 chakras). However, most yogis (both Indian and Western) know the 7-chakra system only through Pūrṇānanda’s 16th-century work, or rather, through a relatively incoherent and confusing translation of it, done by John Woodroffe in 1918. Still, the text is important to many lineages in India today. Would it have been without the Woodroffe translation? I doubt it, since there are very few people in modern India who read Sanskrit fluently. 

More important, however, is the fact that the tradition itself regards scriptural texts as infallible and human authors as fallible, so it’s ironic that modern yogis functionally treat Pūrṇānanda’s 7-chakra system as divinely revealed. Personally, I’m not sure that anything written in words can be considered infallible, but if you want to revere a yogic teaching as divinely revealed, it makes more sense to do it with a text that actually claims to be such — like the original Tantrik scriptures (composed prior to 1300). Of course, Pūrṇānanda does base his work on earlier, scriptural sources — but that doesn’t mean that he perfectly understood them (see point #6 below). In summary, then, the seven-chakra system that you know is based on a flawed translation of a nonscriptural source. This by no means invalidates it, just problematizes its hegemony.

Note that Tantric Buddhism (e.g., of Tibet) often preserves older forms, and indeed the five-chakra system is dominant in that tradition (as well as the fundamental three-bindu system). For a typical five-chakra system as found in classical Tantra, see page 387 of my book, Tantra Illuminated.

5. The purpose of a chakra system is to function as a template for nyāsa. 

As far as the original authors were concerned, the main purpose of any chakra system was to function as a template for nyāsa, which means the installation of mantras and deity-energies at specific points of the subtle body. So, though millions of people are fascinated with the chakras today, almost none of them are using them for their intended purpose. That’s okay. Again, I’m not here to make anyone wrong, just to educate the folks who are interested. 

The most outstanding features of the chakra systems in the original sources are these two: 1) that the mystical sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet are distributed across the ‘petals’ of all the chakras in the system, and 2) that each chakra is associated with a specific Hindu deity. This is because the chakra system is, as I said, primarily a template for nyāsa. In nyāsa, you visualize a specific mantric syllable in a specific location in a specific chakra in your energy body while silently intoning its sound. Clearly, this practice is embedded in a culturally-specific context in which the sounds of the Sanskrit language are seen as uniquely powerful vibrations that can form an effective part of a mystical practice that brings about spiritual liberation or worldly benefits through magical means. Invoking the image and energy of a specific deity into a specific chakra is also culturally-specific, though if Western yogis come to understand what those deities stand for, the practice could potentially be meaningful for them as well, though probably never as meaningful as for someone who grew up with those deities as paradigmatic icons emblazoned on their subconscious minds. 

The so-called Cause-deities (karana-devatās) figure largely in every chakra system. These deities form a fixed sequence. From the lowest chakra to the highest, they are Indra, Brahmā, Vishnu, Rudra, Īśvara, Sadāśiva, and Bhairava, with the first and last of these often not appearing, depending on the number of chakras. The last deity in the list of Cause-deities is never the ultimate deity of the given system, for that deity (whoever it is) is enthroned in the sahasrāra on or above the crown of the head (which technically is not a chakra, since chakras by definition are pierced by Kuṇḍalinī in her ascent, whereas the sahasrāra is her destination). Therefore, Bhairava (the most esoteric form of Shiva) is only included in the list of Cause-deities when he is transcended by the Goddess. 

6. The seed-mantras that you think go with the chakras actually go with the elements that happen to be installed in those chakras. 

This is simpler than it sounds. You’ve been told that the seed-mantra (bīja or single-syllable mantra) of the mūlādhāra chakra is LAM. It’s not. Not in any Sanskrit source, not even Pūrṇānanda’s somewhat garbled syncretic account. And the mantra of svādhiṣṭhāna chakra is not VAM. Wait, what? It’s simple: LAM (rhymes with 'thumb') is the seed-mantra of the Earth element, which in most chakra visualization practices is installed in the mūlādhāra. VAM is the seed-mantra of the water element, which is installed in svādhiṣṭhāna (at least, in the seven-chakra system you know about). And so on: RAM is the syllable for Fire, YAM for Wind, and HAM for Space. (All these bījas rhyme with 'thumb'; though I should note in passing that in esoteric Tantrik Yoga, the elemental bījas actually have different vowel sounds which are thought to be much more powerful.)

So the main point is that the fundamental mantras associated with the first five chakras on every website you can Google actually do not belong to those chakras, but rather to the five elements installed in them. This is important to know if you ever want to install one of those elements in a different place. ‘Gasp! I can do that?’ Totally. What do you think might be the effect on your relationships of always installing the Wind element in the heart center? (Remember, YAM is the mantra of Air/Wind, not of the anāhata chakra.) D’you ever notice that modern American yogis have really unstable relationships?  Could that be connected to repeatedly invoking Wind on the level of the heart? Nahhh….. (I can be funny now because only a small percentage of my readers have made it down this far.)  So maybe you want to install some Earth in the heart sometime, cuz grounding is good for your heart. In that case, it’s kinda handy to know that LAM is the Earth element mantra, not the mūlādhāra-chakra mantra. (Note that, traditionally, though the elements can be installed in different places in the body, they can't change their set sequence. That is, they can telescope up or down depending on the given practice, but Earth is always lowest, then Water, etc.)

Furthermore, some of the geometric figures associated with the chakras today also properly belong to the Elements. Earth is traditionally represented by a (yellow) square, Water by a (silvery) crescent, Fire by a downward-pointing (red) triangle, Wind by a hexagram or six-pointed star, and Space by a circle. So when you see those figures inscribed in illustrations of the chakras, know that they actually are representations of those Elements, not of a geometry inherent in the chakra itself. 

This brings me to my last point: even a Sanskrit source can be confused. For example, in Pūrṇānanda's 16th-century text that is the basis of the popular modern chakra system, the five Elements are installed in the first five chakras of a seven-chakra system. But this doesn't really work, because in all the classical systems, Space element is installed at the crown of the head, since that is where the yogī experiences an expansive opening into infinite spaciousness. Space is the element that merges into the infinite, so it has to be at the crown. I would speculate that Pūrṇānanda placed Space at the throat chakra because he lived at a time of increasing dogmatic adherence to the received tradition without critical reflection (a trend which sadly has continued), and the tradition he received was a Kaula one in which the classical Cause-deities got shoved down to make room for later, higher deities (specifically Bhairava and the Goddess), and the elements were uncritically kept fused to the deities and chakras with which they were previously associated. (Having said that, the fact that Pūrṇānanda was drawing on Kaula sources is not obvious, because instead of enthroning the Goddess at the sahasrāra as we would expect in a Kaula 7-chakra system, we find Paramaśiva, probably due to the influence of Vedānta. See the questions and answers below for more on this.)  

So, we’ve barely scratched the surface of this subject. No, I’m not kidding. It’s really complex, as you can gather by taking a look at the scholarly literature, like Dory Heilijgers-Seelen’s work, or Gudrun Bühnemann's. It takes uncommon patience and focus to even read such work, let alone produce it. So here’s what I hope will be the result of this post: some humility. A few less claims to authority when it comes to really esoteric subjects. Maybe a few less yoga teachers trying to tell their students what the chakras are all about. Heck, I’m humbled by the complexity of the original sources, and that’s with twelve years of Sanskrit under my belt.

This is still mostly uncharted territory. So when it comes to the chakras, don’t claim you know. Tell your yoga students that every book on the chakras presents only one possible model. Nothing written in English is really authoritative for practitioners of yoga. So why not hold more gently the beliefs you've acquired about yoga, even while you keep learning? Let's admit we really don't understand these ancient yoga practices yet; and instead of seeking to be an authority on some oversimplified version of them, you can invite yourself and your students to look more clearly, more honestly, more carefully, and more non-judgmentally at their own inner experience. 

After all, everything that every yoga master ever experienced is in you, too.

Like this post but you want something more practical for your spiritual life? Check out this post on the Power of Subtle Impressions (samskāras). Some people have called it 'revelatory'. And please sign up for my newsletter!

Postscript: This post is getting a wider circulation than I'm used to, and some people who don't know me interpret my wry tone as arrogance or sarcasm. In fact, I'm a real softie at heart. Please read my bio so that you can assess my qualifications to make the statements that I do. And if you're in the Bay Area or Colorado, come out to one of my live teaching events! 

Postscript #2: Someone pointed out that I didn't offer an actual definition of a chakra in this post. So here it is: "In the Tantric traditions, chakras (Skt. cakra) are focal points for meditation within the human body, visualized as structures of energy resembling discs or flowers at those points where a number of nāḍīs or meridians converge. They are conceptual structures yet are phenomenologically based, since they tend to be located where human beings experience emotional and/or spiritual energy, and since the form in which they are visualized reflects visionary experiences had by meditators."

An 18th-century image of several chakras, probably from Rājasthān.

Acknowledgements: this post owes much to conversations with Christopher Tompkins about his as-yet unpublished work in the primary sources of Tantrik Yoga. However, I have followed up these conversations with my own investigations, and therefore I take full responsibility for any factual errors that might exist in this post. I hope there aren't any. If you are a Sanskrit scholar and you disagree, please get in touch.  

Here is Chris Tompkins' video course on the topic; much interesting material! ~ 

History and Evolution of the Chakras and the Tantric Subtle Body

Why are there eight 'limbs' of yoga? Can't there be ten? Or fifteen? Yes, there can, and there are.

This week's post parallels last week's in that it alerts the reader to systems of yoga that constitute alternatives to the one that has gone global and exerts an unearned hegemony — that is, the eight-limbed yoga of Patañjali's Yoga-sūtra. Yet all these different systems share some elements in common. Curious to find out what they are? Read on. 

While no one can doubt the historical significance of Patañjali's aṣhṭānga-yoga, before its 19th-century revival it was no more significant than the six-limbed (ṣhaḍanga) yoga that we find in the scriptures of all three branches of classical Tantra (Shaiva, Vaishvana and Buddhist).* The six ancillaries or 'limbs' of Tantrik Yoga are (not necessarily in this order):

• prāṇāyāma (lengthening and regulating the breath)
• pratyāhāra (withdrawing the senses from their habitual foci)
• dhāraṇā (meditative visualization of fundamental realities)
• tarka (discernment between what ought to be held close and what is best laid aside)
• dhyāna (attentive contemplation of one's ultimate object, e.g. the Divine)
• samādhi (absorption arising spontaneously due to prolonged meditation)

The definitions I give of each limb are translated from the original sources (see the notes for sources). Readers who are familiar with Patañjali's aṣhṭānga-yoga will note the absence of the yamas, niyamas, and āsana. Yet these three are always included in Tantrik Yoga, just not as angas ('limbs' or 'necessary components') of yoga, since the yamas and niyamas anyway are applicable to humans in general, not just yogis seeking liberation. In fact, in one key Tantrik text (the Śāradā-tilaka or 'Sarasvatī's Ornament') we find twenty Yamas and Niyamas, double the number Patañjali has! (These are taught in my annual '40-day Awareness Challenge'.)

The most important element in the list above, the pivotal 'missing link' in Patañjali's yoga, is tarka, the cultivation of discernment.** Specifically, this means refining one's ability to discern between what is truly beneficial and what is not, or as beautifully said in the Sanskrit, between what ought to be held close and cherished (upādeya) and what is best laid aside (heya). (NB: in Buddhist sources, the synonym anusmṛti is used instead of tarka.) The category of tarka is so important it deserves its own post.

Since your time is precious, let's skip forward seven centuries to the era of haṭha-yoga, where we find that — lo and behold — now we have a yoga of fifteen limbs!  Where did these 'extra' limbs come from?

You see, by the 15th century, elements of Patañjali's yoga and Tantrik Yoga had merged into the discipline of haṭha-yoga, a simplified but powerful system that was better suited to survival in the Muslim period, when there was no longer state support for yoga of any kind. In the 1700s, we find a description of a fifteen-limbed yoga (pañcadaśāṅga-yoga), which combines Patañjali's eight limbs with a bunch of practices from Tantrik Yoga. I say 'a bunch' instead of 'seven' because in the source text I have in mind (Haṃsa-vilāsa ch. 9), there are actually many more additional elements from Tantrik Yoga that are listed; see the table below (and for more information, see my book Tantra Illuminated pp. 311-15). 

[1.] The five yamas (= those of Patañjali)
[2.] The five niyamas (= those of Patañjali)
        [2a.] The ten niyamas of the Haṭha-pradīpikā
        [2b.] The six obstacles and six aids to yoga of the Haṭha-pradīpikā
[3.] tyāga, renunciation (non-attachment of mind and body to worldly things)
[4.] mauna, silence (speaking only the truth if one chooses to speak at all)
[5.] deśa, an appropriate place for practice
[6.] kāla, appropriate time for practice
[7.] mūla-bandha, the 'root-lock' 
[8.] āsana, posture
[9.] prāṇāyāma, breath control (practiced to purify the nāḍī-cakra)
[10.] deha-sāmya, equanimity of the body
[11.] dṛk-sthiti, steady gaze
        Optional aṅgas:
        [i.] ṣaṭ-karma, the six purifications (see HYP 2.22)
        [ii.] aṣṭa-kumbhaka, eight subtypes of breath retention
        [iii.] nāḍī-śodhana, purification of subtle channels (see HYP 2.78)
        [iv.] the rise of kuṇḍalinī 
        [v.] yogic mudrās and bandhas that awaken kuṇḍalinī
[12.] pratyāhāra, withdrawing the senses
[13.] dhāraṇā, meditative visualization
        [13a.] dissolving the mind in the turya-pada, the state of the Fourth
[14.] dhyāna, meditation on Supreme Divinity
[15.] samādhi, absorption in the above
        [15a.] mukti, liberation due to samādhi
        [15b.] nāda, sonic experiences in samādhi
        [15c.] unmanī, the transmental state
        [15d.] siddhi, paranormal powers

We can regard this list as authoritative for its time because its author, Haṃsamiṭṭhu (b. 1738), studied for a number of years at India's foremost center of traditional learning, Vārāṇasī. He explains the limbs by citing the Haṭhayoga-pradīpikā and various Yoga Upaniṣhads. Curiously, Haṃsamiṭṭhu is presenting a comprehensive examination of the limbs of yoga specifically in order to criticize them, since his idiosyncratic view was that all these yogic practices are irrelevant if one can master the subtleties of sexual yoga — but that's the topic of another post. 

Okay, that's interesting. But what's at stake here for modern yoga practitioners? Plenty. As David White shows in his biography of the Yoga-sūtra, Patañjali's text underwent a major artificial revival in the late 19th century — artificial in the sense that the Yoga-sūtra no longer had a tradition of study in India by then, and hadn't for some centuries. All the teachings and practices from that text that yoga practitioners saw as effective had long since been absorbed into living lineages of Tantrik Yoga and Haṭha-yoga. That's why Haṃsamiṭṭhu, in the 18th century, saw no difference between Pātañjala yoga and Haṭha-yoga.

The upshot of all this is that Patañjali's aṣhṭānga-yoga did not survive into the modern period as an independent system; therefore, to study Patañjali's teachings independently of their absorption into later traditions (as is done in countless yoga teacher trainings today) is to ignore more than 1,300 years of development in yoga.

Anyone wishing to create a stronger textual backbone for their YTT should look to the Haṭhayoga-pradīpikā and related texts, like the Gheraṇḍa-saṃhitā. These now exist in clear and lucid translations available from YogaVidya.com. (I don't get any $ from saying so, I just know there aren't better translations available). Furthermore, Haṭha-yoga scholar James Mallinson and his team will soon release authoritative translations of earlier and more seminal texts, since the EU sees the value of funding research on yoga (!). 

Having lauded Mallinson's work, I should also note that doctoral student Christopher Tompkins argues forcefully that Mallinson fails to acknowledge the degree of indebtedness Haṭha-yoga has to classical Tantrik Yoga (see pp. 311-12 of Tantra Illuminated). This is why I say in my book that "there is no direct connection between Patañjali's pre-Tantrik yoga and the discipline of haṭha-yoga" — since that connection is largely meditated through the massive and complex edifice of Tantrik Yoga. This is a debate which remains unresolved, however. 

Footnotes: 
* This same six-limbed yoga is found in the Maitrī Upaniṣad, which is usually assumed to be the earliest source for it; but there is reason to believe that it is a later interpolation, added to the text precisely to validate the six-limbed yoga for Vaidika brahmins who rejected the Tantras.
** Of course, we find viveka (which also means 'discernment') mentioned in the Yoga-sūtra (2.26 and elsewhere), but it is not given a central place as an anga of yoga.

Acknowledgements and references: This piece is primarily indebted to the pioneering work of Somdev Vasudeva, one of my three primary academic mentors.
⇒ For Śaiva ṣaḍaṅga-yoga, see pages 367 and following of Vasudeva's The Yoga of the Mālinīvijayottara-tantra, IFP/EFEO, 2004. For Buddhist ṣaḍaṅga-yoga, see Günter Grönbold's The Yoga of Six Limbs, 1996.
⇒ For the 15-limbed yoga, see the masterful essay Haṃsamiṭṭhu: 'Pātañjalayoga is Nonsense' by Somdev Vasudeva, in the Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2010. Those who wish to investigate further should note that Haṃsamiṭṭhu presents the 15-limbed yoga specifically in order to criticize it. He favors his version of rājayoga (spontaneous meditation) over the forceful haṭhayoga, and he sees Pātañjala-yoga and haṭha-yoga as being one and the same system. We can presume that this was the common perception of his day because he does not bother to justify the identification.  

In the yoga tradition we encounter a fascinating metaphor: it is said that the milk of a lioness is so potent that no container can hold it except for pure gold. If the golden vessel has impurities, the milk will eat through the vessel like acid at those points, and drain away. In the same way, if the practitioner has too many 'energy leaks' then the spiritual energy (shakti) that is generated through yogic practice will simply leak away again.

Have you ever been to a yoga retreat or meditation weekend that was so inspiring and empowering that you felt sure your life was going to change radically, only to find within days or weeks of returning home that all that extra juice had seeped away, returning you to much the same default state you had before the retreat? If so, you're not alone. This is a very common experience. Because energy leaks. 

Once you know what the main energy leaks are, you can set about plugging them. If you manage to plug most of them, you will experience something astonishing: the very same yogic practices you've been doing all along now seem to generate much more power, energy, prāṇa. In fact, they're not generating more, you're just not leaking it away. 

Systematically addressing these 'leaks' shifts the playing field of spiritual practice radically. Of course, it can take time to address them — but it's time and effort well-spent, that repays its investment more generously than you might imagine. 

So, what are the most common energy leaks? The list below follows one created by Śākta-Śaiva Tantrik teacher Dharmabodhi. I offer here my own short explanation of each major energy leak. 

1. Exhaustion due to overdoing/multi-tasking

Easily the most common energy leak in today's society, overdoing means having a plate that is too full, leaving little time for the relaxation, play, and social bonding that humans evolved with for most of their history. These are not only necessary for health, they create a body-mind container that can hold the energy generated by spiritual practice. By contrast, an exhausted body-mind is riddled with 'holes' out of which that energy drains away. Your conditioned mind might be convinced that you can't afford to do less; but really, you can't afford not to. (And by the way, if you use stimulants [caffeine etc.] every day, you are exhausted, though you might not feel it.) As Dharmabodhi says, “Wake up out of the dream of over-doing. Take responsibility for your runaway life. Closely examine the cultural trance of over-doing, expose it and tune into your own energies instead. Follow a simpler and more natural way of living, [which is actually] a more productive way of living.”

Oh and by the way, however proud you are of your ability to multi-task, it's now been proven that multitasking decreases your effectiveness at all tasks (see the work of John Medina).

Most importantly, according to the yoga tradition, to be healthy and sane one needs to have at least four hours off a day, at least one full day off a week, at least one full weekend off a month, and at least three full weeks off a year. When I say 'off' I don't just mean not being in the office — I mean not checking emails, not thinking about to-do lists, not accomplishing anything. Just being. Unscheduled time, free of agenda, unless it be the 'agenda' to connect with yourself, your loved ones, nature, and/or art. Just look at kids who haven't yet become addicted to glowing screens, if you can find any: they explore the world around them with wide-eyed wonder, and their creative energy flows through vivid imaginative play. We're not meant to lose that. It's part of our natural state. We need that creative energy, that curiosity, that wonder, to feel that life is worth living. You will slowly access more and more of it if you create time for agenda-free connection. 

2. Dis-ease of the physical body

The second energy leak is of course intimately related to the first. When we're overdoing, we develop dis-ease (or full blown disease) quite easily. When dis-ease has set in, it draws our attention and leaks our prāṇa (vitality or life-force). Dis-ease is different from being disabled; someone can be disabled or have a chronic condition without having dis-ease. It all depends on how they relate to their disability (e.g. how much they focus on it, whether they form a self-image out of it, and what mental frame they view it through). 

3.  Excess emotional reactivity

This is a delicate one to discuss. As a cognitive neuroscientist recently wrote, "The ability to regulate one's strength of emotional response is highly adaptive: It stops us from investing too much energy into [certain] things." While there is no degree of emotion that is 'too much' in the Tantrik View, it's important to note that some emotions are generated or amplified by believing in a mentally-constructed ‘story’ about a situation. This very common energy leak can be described as losing contact with your essence-nature, your natural Presence, through buying into a story associated with a strong emotional response, which often results in throwing your energy at someone else (usually the person you blame for your feelings). When you speak in anger and say things you later want to retract ("I didn't really mean that!"), that's a good example of emotional reactivity. When you sit (or move, or dance) with your feelings, neither owning nor disowning them, but just being with them as a form of pure energy, that's the opposite of emotional reactivity. When your assumptions seem like indisputable facts and you're filled with self-righteous indignation, that's emotional reactivity. When you're curious about where these intense emotions are coming from and can laugh at yourself in wonder, that's the opposite. When you buy right into a disparaging comment from a peer and enter a world of hurt, plagued by repetitive painful thoughts ('How could they?' 'What an asshole!' 'I can't believe s/he hates me!' etc.), that's emotional reactivity. When you keep your heart open and let yourself feel the pain in the other person and in yourself, without buying that person's story and perhaps even seeing beauty and opportunity in the pain, that's the opposite.

The opposite of emotional reactivity, then, is really just natural human Presence. To abide in that Presence is the goal of the path. Then strong emotions can arise without the emotional reactivity that harms you and others. Obviously, emotional reactivity deserves a whole workshop to itself. It's intimately related with #9 below. 

4. Losing contact with natural Presence through thought/fantasy/reverie

Those who habitually dwell in the mind-world can hardly imagine how much joy and aliveness is unavailable to them. Unfortunately, that's most of the planet. Being lost in vikalpas (fantasy/reverie/mental images) is a primary way we divorce ourselves from sweet, simple abiding in our natural state. Here we're talking about a) imagining possible future scenarios in which you might be happier (fantasy); b) imagining possible future scenarios in which you might suffer (anxiety); c) remembering past 'good times' through rose-colored glasses and wishing things could be like that again (reverie); and remembering past 'mistakes' and thinking about what you 'could have' or 'should have' done (regret/guilt). (See p. 138 of T.I.) These four are, in the yogic view, simply the most common forms of insanity. Humans are simply terrible at accurately predicting how they'll feel in any given future situation, even when they're convinced otherwise (as Dan Gilbert has proven), and they are also terrible at remembering the past with any accuracy (what you think are accurate memories are largely expressions of your individual psychology, much like dreams woven from elements of past experiences). A fifth version of getting lost in vikalpas is simply focusing intently on data of any kind to buffer your existential angst or distract yourself from what you and others are feeling. Someone doing a crossword puzzle or playing a challenging video game or reading all the news of the day might claim that they are more in the present moment, but they are just as much 'in their head' — and therefore divorced from flowing Presence — as someone lost in thoughts of possible futures or remembered pasts. Inhabiting mental worlds and imagined realities is a significant energy leak for a yogī, and one that is ubiquitous in our society.  

5. Strongly held beliefs or opinions

This is closely related to #4. It can be hard to believe this is an energy leak until you experience for yourself the influx of life-force that comes from finally, deeply admitting the truth that you really don't know anything for sure. That just about all your strongly held beliefs and opinions are either wishful thinking or fearful thinking. That the world is far, far too complex, and the variables far too numerous, for our little brains to justifiably hold a fixed opinion about anything (apart from your own inner experience, perhaps). Note that having beliefs/opinions is not an energy leak; it's gripping tightly to those opinions, unyielding and hard in your attitude rather than soft and open, and being so convinced you're right and you know how things really are (as opposed to the other guy) that is the energy leak. There's a lot more to reality than what any one of us can see; acknowledging that helps you be softer, more open, and therefore better at connecting with others.

6. Unclear relationships / unclear boundaries

Since the entire range of social norms pertaining to all kinds of intimate relationships is in flux in the 21st century, #6 is a pretty big one. Of course, when you're just getting to know someone, it's normal for the nature of the relationship to be undefined. However, hanging out too long in limbo where you're not exactly sure what the other person wants, needs, or feels, but you're hoping they'll come round to your way of seeing the relationship, is a powerful prāṇa-drain. Conversely, being clear about where you're at but keeping the other person in limbo by not committing to a specific form of relationship with clear agreements or boundaries is also an energy leak (because using other people depletes your shakti). 

Obviously, the solution is communication, but few of us know how to communicate our feelings and needs without casting them in the form of a narrative about what the other person is doing wrong (or what you're doing wrong, for that matter). Which doesn't help. Ongoing clarifying dialogue (which doesn't descend into nitpicking, pseudo-psychoanalysis, or finger-pointing) about what you want and what you're okay with, and what your loved one wants and is okay with, is crucial to create the firm foundation for relationships that aren't energy leaks. 

Except sometimes the solution isn't communication; sometimes you hang on to a relationship that is past it's 'expiration date' out of fear or attachment. This is a huge energy leak. The solution is to let go and walk away. If you need support for that, check out Conscious Uncoupling. 

7. Unconscious speech / excessive speech / gossip

Another very common energy leak in our society, this one is difficult to shift because of huge social pressure to conform to how others around us use language. Yet excessive speech is such an energy drain that in Āyurveda it is said to lead to various forms of disease (mainly through exacerbation of vāta dosha). Have you ever noticed that masters of yoga and meditation speak less, and speak carefully? Swāmī Muktānanda once said, "The power of your words increases in direct proportion to the silence that you keep." 

Ideally, before opening a topic of conversation we ask ourselves four questions, the so-called Four Gates of Speech: 1) is it true, this thing I want to say? 2) is it necessary or helpful to speak it? 3) have I found a loving way to say it? 4) is it the right time? (It helps to remember the four key terms: true, necessary, kind, right time). For more on this important topic, see the two chapters on 'Discipline in Speaking' in The Yoga of Discipline. 

So how do you plug the energy leaks? Suggestions and leads have been given above, and these can be supplemented by your own research, your intuitive knowing, and by practicing under a qualified teacher. Specifically, the tradition of Tantrik Yoga has many tools for plugging energy leaks.

There is so much more than can be said about all of these topics than we have space for here! Below you'll find the other seven main energy leaks, which I hope to cover in another post. And if you resonate with what you've read here and want to learn more, please watch these videos. 

(Based on everything I've received from my teachers over 26 years, I made a list of the eight most hazardous pitfalls on the spiritual path, which when addressed are also, in my view, the eight keys to sustainable awakening. The topic of Energy Leaks constitutes just one of these eight. Some of the others are obvious, such as distorted understanding of the student-teacher relationship, and some are not so obvious, like lack of alignment of View, Practice, and Goal, or impure motive for practice. These 'Eight Great Pitfalls' which can become the 'Eight Keys to sustainable Awakening' are discussed in more detail in this video.)

Other energy leaks include:
  8. addictions
  9. other habitual behavior patterns fueled by and further fueling samskāras
  10. mismanagement of sexual energy
  11. submitting to fatalism and disempowering use of divination tools (e.g. relying on astrology, tarot, or psychic readings more than on your innate intuitive capacity)
  12. incorrect performance of spiritual practices (usually due to incorrect instruction)
  13. becoming “possessed” by the energy and thought-patterns of other Realms ('realm' is a technical term in Tantrik psychology)
  14. believing that one's conditioned view of reality is actually the way things are (ajñāna)

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: If you succeed in plugging energy leaks but have not learned to dissolve self-images and have not become conscious of the pitfalls described in the Six Realms teachings (#13 above), then the greatly increased energy and power available to you can magnify latent harmful tendencies as well as virtues. As Dharmabodhi so aptly put it, “Without having dissolved the core patterning of how one sees and 'knows' oneself to be (our self-story/concept) and how one relates, the power released through shakti sādhanā will inflate the already existing [egoic] patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting, often causing harm to the practitioner by sidetracking them with obstacles or skills/successes/powers.” This will be covered in a future post entitled "Does the Practice of Yoga Automatically Make You a Better Person?"

~ May all beings realize their freedom! ~ 

With my practitioner hat on (rather than my academic one), in this post I'm going to explain why spiritual growth doesn't lead to enlightenment; but of course a lot hinges on what we mean by those terms. (Those of you who'd rather watch a video about this than read about it, skip to the end!)

First of all, we should get clear that 'enlightenment' is in many ways more of a Western concept than a traditional Asian one. The Sanskrit word bodha means, depending on the context: being awake, knowing, understanding, wisdom, intelligence, perception, awakening, awareness, blossoming, opening, or expanding. It's an everyday word, not an abstract noun, and it doesn't imply some final state of perfection. When used in spiritual contexts, it connotes being awake to and aware of one's real nature, of the true nature of reality, or both. The English word 'enlightenment' implies (to most people) some kind of super-wisdom and/or a higher state of consciousness that elevates the one who has attained it above the mass of humanity. The Sanskrit word is sweeter, simpler, and humbler: it connotes waking up to the reality of what you really are (and always have been), and becoming generally more aware and open. Abiding in this awake alive open awareness is the goal of the spiritual life as conceived in the Yoga traditions. 

In our culture, however, the pursuit of 'enlightenment' (which really means abiding in direct awareness of reality) has become confused and mixed up with the self-help / self-improvement project. People talk about wanting to grow and become a better person, and often imagine that the terminal point of this growth process is something like enlightenment. This demonstrates a real lack of understanding of the nature of the spiritual path (as conceived in the Asian traditions, anyway). Not only is abiding-awakeness not the endpoint of the growth process, it doesn't even lie in that direction.

What??! 

Look, if you stop and think this through, you'll see it's obvious: according to all the Yoga traditions, your true nature is always already perfect, the core of your being is pure radiant divinity, and you are always already one with the infinite divine Consciousness which gives rise to and supports the entire universe. TAT-TVAM-ASI: you are That, here and now. Therefore, realization of this truth does not depend on any degree of personal growth. Rather, it is a paradigm shift in which you stop identifying with the phenomena within Awareness (e.g., thoughts, emotions, body-image, etc.) and wake up to the fact that you are Awareness itself—the only constant in the ever-changing world of your experience.

And yes, it is possible to become so awake that you never fall back asleep again. You don't become a categorically different kind of person, you just finally see the truth so clearly and completely that you can't unsee it, and thus you dwell in a different paradigm from before. 

Now, despite fanciful stories about 'sudden enlightenment', this doesn't happen overnight. Just as it can take you a while to wake up from physical sleep before you're fully awake and clear, in the same way, once you've touched into the truth of your Being, you have to keep touching in and deepening your awareness of Awareness for months or years before it becomes your default state. In that process, there is a kind of growth that is necessary: reaching a level of maturity where you know what you really want and your daily-life actions reflect your heart's deepest longing. In other words, you have to grow up enough to get out of your own way and make room for the awakening process to unfold. But this kind of growth is a necessary ancillary to awakening, not its cause.

So you have to ask yourself: are you subconsciously holding the belief that abiding in awakeness to your real nature has to wait until you've completed your therapy, or until your life's not a mess, or until you can retire to a forest retreat, or until you've attained samādhi? Are you spending a lot of time and energy on a self-improvement project that yields only incremental gains, without first accessing the source of unconditional love within? If so, you're suffering. And you're not alone. 

This is what looks really weird from where I'm sitting: a lot of people doing self-improvement type spirituality are working really hard to acquire the traits that are natural byproducts of abiding in awakeness (bodha-stha). This is going at it back-to-front. First wake up to what you really are, then integrate that realization into all the aspects of your life. Waking up is actually the easy part compared to integration, but way harder than both is trying to integrate a realization you haven't really had yet. Which is what most people in this game are trying to do.  I know, you've had powerful experiences in which you tasted your divine essence; but this is really not the same as properly waking up out of the belief that your thoughts, memories, and story have anything to do with who you really are. 

It's this simple: you cannot heal the 'broken self' as long as you believe that you are it. Or you can, but it's ridiculously difficult. By contrast, if you wake up to and become centered in your real nature, then you can lovingly address any misalignments in the body-mind that need addressing. If you're willing to do the work of integration, every layer of your being becomes permeated with the powerful energy of awakeness. You start to then embody that awakeness, which is beneficial to all beings. If you don't do the work of integration, even if you're centered in your divine core, you're not really benefitting anyone else.

This is important. Some people wake up to their real nature and then dismiss the body-mind and its problems rather than work with them. This is called 'transcendentalism' by my teachers (and 'spiritual bypassing' by others), because such people seek to simply transcend the body-mind. By contrast, on the Tantrik path, we seek to allow the energy of pure Awareness (chit-shakti) to permeate all the levels of embodiment and aspects of daily life. This is called integration. But again, in order to do that, you have to be able to access the energy of Awareness at will, which takes practice.

So integration is the real spiritual growth, but it has nothing to do with trying to recondition oneself to conform more closely to an ideal found in books on spirituality or in the mouth of a teacher (which is what most people call spiritual growth). Rather, it means doing whatever is necessary to open up the body-mind system in such a way as to allow the energy of awakeness to flow unimpeded and permeate every aspect of your life (when actualized, this is called mahā-vyāpti, the Great Pervasion, in Tantrik Yoga).

Dwelling in the midst of the sea of nectar, with my heart-mind immersed solely in the worship of You [as the substance of every experience], may I attend to all the common occupations of man, savoring the ineffable in every thing. ~ Utpala Deva

This process of integration-and-embodiment involves a lot of looking. When you hold up a thought or self-image and look at it in the Light of Awareness (again, assuming you have access to that Light), you can clearly see to what degree it is misaligned with your deepest nature and discard it (by definition, they're all misaligned to some degree; but the less misaligned thoughts can be useful for a particular purpose). For most people, this doesn't happen automatically; they need to actually do the work of looking & discarding; or, in the case of saṃskāras or unresolved experiences, looking & digesting; this is a crucial distinction. This explains why some people can be 'enlightened' but unintegrated; and if they become teachers, they usually cause harm. There's a difference between having access to the Light of Awareness (prakāsha) and doing the work of seeing what does and doesn't reflect that light in its fullness (this is called vimarsha, or self-reflection).

Someone who has done a lot of vimarsha and has therefore shed their self-images and digested a lot of their unresolved experiences dwells in a state of freedom called moksha. Such a person is called jīvan-mukta, liberated while still in the body. This is significantly less common than awakening or even abiding-awakening. It is the ultimate goal of the spiritual life, but it's not an attainment since nothing has been attained; rather, something has been lost. It's a state of being truly unburdened and free. But even this is not a terminal state, since there's always more saṃskāras that can be digested and more integration that can be done. Still, there is a tipping point beyond which you could never go back to the state of bondage and delusion. Passing this tipping point is what caused the Buddha to say simply and humbly, kṛtyaṃ kṛtam: that which needed to be done is now done. 

What would it look like for you to drop all self-improvement projects based in a sense of unworthiness and spend your practice time learning how to access and abide in your already-perfect innermost Self? This is not as easy as it sounds, since it means going beyond enjoying a feel-good idea of your own divinity and accessing the real deal, which humbles and softens you more than it exalts and affirms you ('you' here meaning the body-mind-personality complex). 

What if you stopped trying to be a 'better person' and simply learned how to fully embody the being you already are?

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By speaking to important misunderstandings of the goal and clarifying the nature of the path (according to tradition, my teachers, and my own experience) this post addresses #1 in my list of the Eight Great Pitfalls on the spiritual path: that is, lack of alignment of View, Practice, and Goal. Alignment of these three, by the same token, is #1 in my list of the Eight Keys to sustainable Awakening. I'll be posting on all Eight going forward (I already posted on #2, Energy Leaks.)

Do you want to understanding the awakening process in more detail, avoid a major pitfall, and ensure alignment of View, Practice, and Goal?  In the Trika lineage of Tantrik Yoga, we find an important teaching about three primary phases to the awakening-and-liberation process. In the first phase, you awaken to your divine core or real Self or 'soul', then integrate that awakening (which entails shedding a critical mass of what's not alignment with your 'soul').

In the second phase, you awaken to your oneness with the entire universe, your seamless unity with the whole field of energy, then integrate that awakening. In the third phase, you awaken to the formless ground of being, the field of absolute potential 'beyond' manifestation (yet permeating it), then integrate that awakening. (To be more accurate, you don't awaken to the formless ground, it wakes up to itself through you, and 'you' dissolve. No more you; only the One.) In Sanskrit, these three phases are called:

• āṇava-samāveśa ~ immersion into your soul-essence or innermost Self
• śākta-samāveśa ~ immersion into the whole field of energy
• śāmbhava-samāveśa ~ immersion into the ground of being

When a person intentionally or unintentionally tries to reach phase two before phase one, or phase three before either, the results can be messy. It's more or less impossible to sustain and integrate phase two or three without stabilizing the prior phase(s), the tradition argues. This explains why so many people who experience unity-consciousness (phase two) or the absolute void (phase three) can't seem to integrate the experience in a sustainable or healthy way. It's crucial to be stabilized in your absolute center (phase one, 'Soul Immersion') if you want to actualize phase two or three in a sustainable manner. (Not that it's about 'wanting' it; you're either called further or you're not.)

I've gone on long enough here ~ if you want to learn more, please watch the video below. It addresses giving up the self-improvement project and the three phases of awakening in more detail. 

And if you want to participate in a six-month program designed to actualize 'Soul Immersion' go here for more info (it starts in two weeks!).