u/kuds1001

Pleased to announce that Dr. Swastik Banerjee, who has studied under some of the foremost teachers of Kashmir Śaivism today, will be teaching a text studies series on the Parāpraveśikā in concert with Modak Academy. This text, attributed to Ācārya Kṣemarāja, is one of the best foundational texts to enter into the KS philosophy.

To learn more details, please attend this session and/or reach out to the organizer at the provided contact information:

Time: Tuesday, 18 August · 8:00–9:00pm IST

Location: This Google Meet link.

Day-by-day, this sub continues to grow and more people are learning about Kashmir Śaivism, which is truly incredible to see! As a result, variants of the same questions often come up fairly frequently. Because there are these common questions, confusions, needs, etc. it would be really valuable to create a FAQ page for the sub, that has well-researched and clearly articulated systematic responses to these questions. That way, as people enter into the tradition, they can get the best possible answers to the questions that may be on the top of their mind.

To help create the FAQ page, please share the questions you think could be worth addressing in a FAQ page and/or any resources you've seen that do a good job of addressing them.

Thanks to everyone for participating in this sub, which now has over 5,000 members. Together, it has become one of the best spaces online for people to make their entry into the living tradition of Kashmir Śaivism!

It's wonderful that Vivek Nath, the close student of Mark Dyczkowski ji and a very gifted teacher of Śaivism, Sanskrit, and more, has published his long-awaited translation and commentary on the Pratyabhijñāhṛdaya of Ācārya Kṣemarāja. The Pratyabhijñāhṛdaya is a text meant to introduce people to the philosophy of KS, but it is far more than just an introductory text. It's an incredibly profound text that has almost all of what one needs to seriously understand and practice in this tradition. See below for the official announcement.

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We are very happy to announce Vivek Nath's new English book, Pratyabhijñāhṛdaya – The Heart of Self-Realisation, the first volume in the English Śaivaśikṣā series.

For our community, this long-awaited publication completes an essential part of the textual foundation of  Kashmir Shaivism.

The book brings together Vivek's many years of study, teaching and practice and was deeply shaped by the years he spent with our beloved Markji, Dr Mark Dyczkowski. Vivek was a close disciple of Markji and often lived and studied with him at Narad Ghat in Varanasi. The language and light of Markji's scholarship, together with his commitment to bringing these teachings into living practice, continue to shine through its pages.

The Pratyabhijñāhṛdaya unfolds the teaching of direct recognition at the heart of Kashmiri Śaivism: the awareness through which we perceive, think and live is none other than the divine Self.

The volume presents Vivek's own translations of the sūtras and of Kṣemarāja's classical commentary, together with extensive explanations and grammatical notes. Each sūtra is accompanied by practical guidance, leading from philosophical understanding into contemplation and spiritual practice. Audio recordings help readers learn and recite the Sanskrit text. The book also includes a detailed section on "spiritual breathing" as taught by Markji.

Written in clear and accessible language, it is intended both for readers approaching the tradition for the first time and for practitioners wishing to enter more deeply into these teachings. Throughout, philosophical insight is joined with contemplation and devotion, inviting readers to encounter the teaching as a living spiritual path.

We are also planning an English-language Anuttara Trika Kula course on the Pratyabhijñāhṛdaya with Vivek.

It would have been a moment of great joy and quiet pride for Markji to see the work of his closest student flourish and continue to illuminate the path of all of us.
 
The book is dedicated to Rājanaka Mark Dyczkowski "with love and gratitude".

"The relationship of recognition is grounded in love."
 
The English edition is now available:
 
Europe
International

A glory to the Śivaviprakula, he was conversant with not just Saṃskṛta, Tamil and English but also French and also studied Śāstras in the traditional way.

One of his most contributions to the Siddhānta was that he translated into English multiple Āgamas:

1. Kāmikāgama—Kriyāpāda—Pūrva & Uttarabhāgas

2. Raurava (Vidyāpāda/VP, partial)

3. Mātaṅga (VP, partial)

4. Mṛgendra

5. Pauṣkara (VP, partial)

6. Sarvajñānottara (VP, Yogapāda/YP)

7. Kiraṇa (VP, YP, Kriyā & Carya pādas)

He made all of the above freely available online through his collaborative effort with Himalayan Academy.

Many of us were first exposed to the Siddhānta and got to appreciate the beauty of the Sampradāya thanks to his translations.

May Śiva bless us with everlasting faith in the Siddhānta through His now abhivyakta-sāmya with Śivībhūta Ācārya and may He give Ācārya’s family His anugraha to bear this loss.

Source: GhorAngirasa

A beautiful and moving short 2024 film by Diego Marcos showing Swamiji's Ashram.

We are excited to announce an upcoming dialogue between Ācārya Sthaneshwar Timalsina and Dr. Bernardo Kastrup: "The World Is Your Body: Consciousness, Embodiment, and Dynamism." This groundbreaking event will bring two of the world's leading exponents of Kashmir Śaivism and Western Idealism into dialogue. Tickets are absolutely free, but you must register to receive a link to the live dialogue. The recording will become available to all at a later date.

Date and Time: July 14 at 1 PM EDT

Link for registration: https://dandelion.events/e/g71v4

If there were some material cause for bondage, then liberation could be earned through accumulation of meritorious purifying actions or through some step-by-step technique of breath retention (kumbhaka), physical locks (bandhas), and so on. But there is no such cause of bondage, because our own nature is that of Śiva: always-already liberated. It is not enough, though, to recite experientially-empty slogans that "There is nothing to do! For everything is already perfect, all is already liberated." It very well may be so, but until you recognize that for yourself, in your own direct experience, then surely there is something to do. And that something is to recognize.

We are never outside of recognition. When in debate, we put forth our thesis to prove to others (parārthānumāna), but this five-stage proof is the exact same truth we must recognize for ourselves to attain liberation: “because I possess Śakti, which is the very quality of Śiva, then I am Śiva.” It's the same very structure in our foundational text, the Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā of Utpaladeva, which offers this thesis in the first verse and returns to it in the final verse, having proven it. It's in the arguments we make with our interlocutors. We ask them how recognition, even everyday recognition that "this is the pot that used to be over there" is possible if consciousness is just a string of self-aware moments or a passive witness to them. Consciousness must stretch across moments and have the power to synthesize them, if it is to achieve recognition of the past in what's present. Our arguments about recognition are a call toward recognition: "Look! Recognize how your very own consciousness has the power, the śakti, of synthesis. You possess that śakti, and so you are Śiva!"

Recognition is a subtle thing. Utpaladeva tells us he gained his recognition somehow (kathaṃcid), not of his own actions, nor from inaction, but from grace. And having received this grace, he writes and teaches out of compassion: to benefit (upakāram) all the living beings (janasya). As it is through grace, a śakti of Śiva, that one recognizes, the recipient of grace feels nothing but compassion to help the world share in this recognition. As Abhinavagupta explains in Tantrāloka (2:39–40): most people go about their daily tasks with only a concern for themselves, but those who attain recognition and are full of the state of Śivahood (bhairavī-bhāva-pūrṇaḥ) have only one task left to do: to act for the benefit of the world (loka-kartavya). Kṣemarāja too wrote his Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam out of compassion: to benefit those who are still young and tender of understanding (sukumāra-matayaḥ), who are graced, but not yet ready for the hardship of studying the philosophical texts. Knowing that recognition is difficult to attain, he acts further out of compassion, offering even more methods from the tradition that are not pure Pratyabhijñā, but still part of the Śaiva tradition. He does so because if more methods are given, the likelihood increases that at least one will work for a person.

The methods of Pratyabhijñā are indeed subtle. We come to recognize that even in our constrained dimension, our limited scale and scope of space and time, we continue to enact the śaktis of Śiva, we continue to perform his great Five Acts (pañca-kṛtyāni). We illuminate objects in our consciousness (ābhāsanam) and relish them for some time (raktiḥ), until we withdraw them back into ourselves (vimarśanam), which can generate doubts that constitute the seeds for saṃsāra (bījāvasthāpanam) or can resolve fully into a state of oneness with consciousness, such that one enters the state of grace (anugraha). Saṃsāra is the condition of ignorant doubt of our own powers. Liberation is the recognition that we constantly enact the five powers. Other methods, known from the Vijñānabhairava or Svabodhāyamañjarī aim for the expansion of the center (madhya-vikāsa). It is dualistic thought (vikalpa) that gives objects the sense of being external to consciousness, impinging upon it. Such methods identify the center in an object, like the gap between two thoughts or two breaths, which provides a space in which that center can expand into the center-of-all: re-encompassing the totality of all objects back within the sphere of consciousness. That gap is the space within which Śakti operates as grace.

No matter which method we select, we return to grace. In this tradition, we see that grace is not bestowed by some external deity, but is a śakti of Śiva which one also participates in, even as a limited being. So even with the question of grace, the recognitive structure re-emerges: in the end, the Śiva whose grace was needed for liberation turns out to also be one’s own inner nature. Upon receiving such grace, one feels only compassion that the rest of the world might share in this recognition. Recognition is the ground truth of our Śivahood, the method for realizing that truth, and the experience of having realized it. We are thus never outside of recognition. This is the grace. May it give us compassion.

On the day of birth of Ācārya Abhinavagupta, let's hear some of the quotes and insights he's shared that have resonated most with you and changed your outlook on art, life, sādhanā, and more.

JONARAJA INSTITUTE OF GENOCIDE & ATROCITIES STUDIES (JIGAS)
Abhinavagupta Chair cordially presents

Mahamaheshwara Abhinavagupta Jayanti Celebration

Special Podcast Series

Join us for an insightful conversation on the life, philosophy, aesthetics, and enduring civilizational legacy of Abhinavagupta, one of Kashmir's greatest philosopher-sages.

Speaker: Sanjay Raina
Host: Sunil Raina Rajanaka
Head, Abhinavagupta Chair, JIGAS

This special podcast seeks to revisit the profound intellectual and spiritual contributions of Mahamaheshwara Abhinavagupta, whose insights continue to illuminate philosophy, aesthetics, spirituality, and cultural consciousness.

Join us in celebrating the timeless wisdom of Kashmir's luminous thinker and civilizational icon.

Tuesday, 23 June 2026 8pm (IST) Onwards

Watch LIVE on Facebook: Jonaraja Institute https://www.facebook.com/jigas.india

A chance to hear one of the world’s leading scholars speak on Abhinavagupta. Don’t miss it! (Time zone is for India: adjust accordingly).

Today we mourn the loss of Dr. Shashi Shekhar Toshkhani, who was among the most respected scholars of Kashmir’s cultural and intellectual heritage. A poet, philosopher, linguist, researcher, and public intellectual, he belonged to a family deeply rooted in learning and scholarship, and he carried that inheritance with extraordinary diligence. His work ranged across literary, ritual, historical, religious, and artistic dimensions of Kashmir, but was always animated by a singular devotion: to preserve the civilizational memory of the Kashmiri Paṇḍit community and to transmit it with accuracy, dignity, and love.

Among his most enduring contributions are his writings on Kashmiri Paṇḍit rites, rituals, language, literature, and spiritual traditions, particularly including his writing on Lal Ded, the great KS mystic and poetess, and his efforts to document the lived practices of a community scattered by exile. (You can see several of the covers of his books in the images attached to this post and are highly encouraged to read them!).

In the decades following the forced exodus of KPs in 1990, Dr. Toshkhani became much more than a mere scholar: he became a living repository of the tradition, who could guide seekers and scholars alike into the true heart of the Kashmir they were forced to flee. He was a top-notch scholar and also exceedingly humble, making himself and his knowledge available to all who sought it. His celebrated poetry also gave voice to the silent pain, resilience, and longing of his people, and will continue to speak for generations.

With his passing, the KP community has lost one of its finest minds and one of its most faithful custodians of civilizational continuity. He understood that a civilization survives not just through book knowledge, but through living knowledge: rituals remembered, words preserved, meanings explained, and younger generations taught to recognize the depth of what they have inherited. His scholarship will endure, his words will endure, and his love for Kashmir will endure. May his noble soul attain mokṣa. Oṃ Śānti.

I'm delighted to announce a new course being taught by a senior student of Mark Dyczkowski ji: Dr. Kaustubh Das. In addition to extensive draining under Markji, Kaustubh has a PhD in Yoga and Tantric studies and received initiation into the Sahajiyā tradition of Bengal. It is incredible to see how Markji's kula is flowering in terms of the offerings from his students to continue the mission of learning KS. This will certainly be a valuable and accessible way for all to enter into the living tradition.

To learn more, please visit https://tantricstudies.net/

Background

Tantra is one of the most widely misrepresented and least understood dimensions of Indian contemplative traditions.

Stripped of its philosophical context, its practices have been absorbed into contemporary yoga culture as technique without understanding - or sensationalized beyond recognition in popular media.

Meanwhile, sincere practitioners of yoga find themselves making physical progress yet unable to shake the feeling that something profound and essential remains beyond their grasp. What modern yoga misses out on is the deep way that the practices of hatha yoga are derived from the philosophy and practice of tantric yoga.

This course exists to address that gap. Drawing on the textual corpus of Kashmir Śaivism and grounded in living initiatory tradition, it offers a clear, rigorous, and experientially grounded introduction to what tantra actually is.

The Course

A clear, rigorous, and experientially grounded introduction — rooted in scripture, lived practice, and initiatory lineage. Drawing on the textual corpus of Kashmir Śaivism — the Siva Sūtras, Spanda Kārikā, Īśvarapratyabhijñā Kārikā, Vijñānabhairava Tantra, the Tantrāloka of Abhinavagupta, and many others the course offers a complete philosophical map of the Tantric vision of consciousness and the body. ― The approach is non-sectarian. The philosophical framework is drawn primarily from the nondual Kashmir Śaiva tradition, but the understanding developed here is designed to deepen practice in any lineage or tradition. The course is not for those looking for quick results. It is for those willing to look deeper.

This long-awaited text, which Markji taught us in his kula so patiently and lovingly one verse a week from start to finish, will soon be published, perhaps in the coming few days. It is the first translation to include both of the foundational commentaries. Just the most incredible news!

Edit: The book is now available here (or your local Amazon site) for purchase. The Indian edition is forthcoming from Harmony Books.

Sometimes, as people first explore KS, often in conjunction with reading other interesting modern theories of consciousness and generic non-duality teachings, I've found a not-too-common-but-not-altogether-uncommon tendency for some people to mix up these teachings and mistake the KS teachings for solipsism.

The mistake they make is a simple one to make: when one sees the phrase "śivo'haṃ," that "I am Śiva," they understand the "Śiva" correctly as the universal consciousness replete with its inherent cosmic energies to will, to know, to act, to conceal, and to reveal; but do not understand the "I." They think that their personal constructed empirical self, their day to day experience, is what they must recognize as identical to that Śiva, and that they, from their individual specific locus of experience, as Dinesh or Sandy sitting on their bed, have created that bedroom and the entire world around them. Just like we fall asleep and a whole dream world arises in our individual minds, so too is our waking world a product of that same individual mind. This is solipsism and is a major mistake.

To be sure, there are some traditions that will try to deny the intersubjective shared reality that we experience during our waking life. That will insist it's an illusion, and perhaps an illusion that we create as individuals. (Because to recognize a shared basis for it would also be to contradict its status as illusion). The KS view is more profound than that. It shows us, through practice, how just as our dream-self and its reciprocal dream world arises in our personal consciousness, our waking-self and its reciprocal waking world arise in Śiva consciousness. KS does not reinforce the isolated individual consciousness of our waking experience, but returns that consciousness to its transcendent universal state.

Taken to its culmination, this is an experience so powerful that even a few seconds of it, this intense unfathomable fullness of being the totality, mark the end of any and all further seeking. Swami Lakshmanjoo was forever changed after he had this experience in ways that we should perhaps discuss sometime soon, as they remain mostly in the oral teachings rather than in the published books.

For now, the point is that we are not here to reinforce the individuality of our waking consciousness by pretending the waking world is its dream, but to recover that universal consciousness which first transcends all the states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and then reinhabits them: not as illusions that arise, but as active manifestations of the inherent cosmic energies of that universal consciousness. These manifestations are incredible and varied, and appear differently for different types of bodies, from insects to humans to gods, but they are not personal illusions. They are genuinely intersubjective, which is what makes them so full and capable of eliciting wonder.

The Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā of Ācārya Utpaladeva (3:2:16–17) in just two verses makes this clear: that while our dreams mistakenly seem to be something other than our individual consciousness, the waking world is defined by its stability and intersubjective knowability, being shared by different beings. Here are those verses, as translated by Paramaguru Balajinnātha Paṇḍita:

>मनोमात्रपथेऽप्यक्षविषयत्वेन विभ्रमात् ।
स्पष्टावभासा भावानां सृष्टिः स्वप्नपदं मतम् ॥ १६ ॥
mano-mātr-apathe 'py akṣa viṣayatvena vibhramāt ।
spaṣṭāvabhāsā bhāvānāṃ sṛṣṭiḥ svapna-padaṃ matam ॥

In the dream state, the clear manifestation of objective existence, which is brought about only through the mind but, through misapprehension, seems to be brought about by the senses, is taken as actual existence.

>सर्वाक्षगोचरत्वेन या तु बाह्यतया स्थिरा ।
सृष्टिः साधारणी सर्वप्रमातॄणां स जागरः ॥ १७॥ 
sarvākṣa-gocaratvena yā tu bāhyatayā sthirā ।
sṛṣṭiḥ sādhāraṇī sarva-pramātṛṇām sa jāgaraḥ ॥

The creation that proves to be externally stable, on the basis of being commonly known to all knowing subjects through all their senses, is the waking state.

For more on this error as it's come up in the Trika triadic context on this sub, see here.

When starting out on the path of Kashmir Śaivism, it is very easy to default into generic non-duality thinking, thinking that ironically creates a duality between the "high" forms of practice that are internal, pure contemplation, and transcendental vs. the "low" forms that are more external, ritual, and embodied/immanent: thinking that often prompts people to seek to embrace the former and discard the latter. It is easy also to read verses from, say, the Vijñāna Bhairava outside the context of the broader tradition and seek justification to readily discard external rituals. But, people often forget, the Vijñāna Bhairava literally begins with the Goddess describing how she's studied all the tantras and engaged in many of the esoteric mantras and practices and only then does Bhairava teach her about transcendence of ritual.

What's the point? The point is not primarily whether you perform rituals or not, but for you to eradicate the false distinction in your mind between the higher and lower, external and internal, transcendent and immanent practices, the entire duality between the "non-dual" practices and the "dualistic" practices, and the sense of superiority that can come with attachment to the transcendent practices and ignoring of the immanent. KS is not a practice or philosophy of just transcending, but of returning back from transcendence to embody all the variety of immanent forms, and some of those most beautiful forms are embodied within ritual practice.

I remember very well asking my guru this very question from time to time in various forms: when I'm in the transcendent state, why do you tell me to continue the ritual practices? Why not just dwell in that state? It took me a long time to finally understand what he was teaching and I hope anyone who reads this will learn more quickly than I did!

To that end, I'd like to share a little gem from Ācārya Abhinavagupta's Tantrasāra (Ch. 13). It addresses exactly this objection from those who are attached to the transcendental states, and provides the KS response for why we continue to do external rituals like nyāsa, pūjā, and so on. He explains that the transcendent state of Bhairava-consciousness is indeed waveless, but there is an impulse to creation within its wavelessness, such that he manifests all the endless variety of immanent forms. And so one should learn to unite the immanent forms with the waveless consciousness, and then continue on doing both external and internal pūjā practices.

>tenaitadanavakāśam yadāhuḥ: ataraṅgarūḍhau labdhāyāṁ punaḥ kiṁ tattva-sṛṣṭi-nyāsādineti

Thus, there is no space (anavakāśam) to make the argument: “Once one has become established in the “waveless” (ataraṅga) state [of identity with Bhairava], what use can there be in further performing the ritual placement (nyāsa) of the tattvas in the order of emanation (sṛṣṭi) and so on?”

>tāvaddhi tadataraṅgaṁ bhairava-vapuryat svātmanyavabhāsita-sṛṣṭi-saṁhāra-vaicitrya-koṭi

[We respond as follows:] That waveless (ataraṅga) [state] is indeed (tāvat) the very body (vapus) of Bhairava which has radiated (avabhāsita) within itself (svātmani) tens of millions (koṭi) of emanations (sṛṣṭi) and reabsorptions (saṁhāra) of wonderful variety (vaicitrya).

>evam anyonya-malaka-yogena parameśvarībhūtaṁ prāṇa-deha-buddhyādi bhāvayitvā bahirantaḥ-puṣpa-dhūpa-tarpaṇādyair yathāsambhavaṁ pūjayet

Thus, by the yoga of reciprocally integrating the two (anyonya-melaka-yogena) [i.e., the waveless state of Bhairava and the wonderful variety he radiates], a practitioner, having contemplated their prāṇa, body, intellect, and so on as becoming the Supreme Goddess (parameśvarī-bhūtaṁ), should perform puja [both] externally (bahis) and internally (antar), using flowers (puṣpa), incense (dhūpa), libations (tarpaṇa), and so on, as much as is feasible (yathāsambhavaṁ).

The Abhinavagupta Institute of Advanced Studies warmly invites you to a special and deeply meaningful screening of Mark Dyczkowski’s exploration of the 13 Śākta temples of Kerala.

This work holds particular significance, as it documents his final field visit, making it a rare and precious offering for all who cherish the traditions of Śākta Tantra and Indian spiritual heritage.

We invite you to join us not only for the screening, but also for an engaging discussion that will follow—an opportunity to reflect, share insights, and honor a remarkable scholar’s lifelong dedication.

Topic: In Search Of Kha
Date and Time: May 9, 2026 09:00 PM Mumbai, Kolkata, New Delhi

Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 869 5123 3162
Passcode: 972657

Your presence will greatly enrich this gathering.