r/KashmirShaivism

This is an interview with Kashmiri Pandit Pran Nath Kaul ji, who grew up as a child in a family steeped in Kashmir Śaivism, being long-time devotees of Swami Lakshmanjoo. He's widely recognized as a living embodiment of the teaching and a true master of our day. You can see the joy, intensity, and depth of understanding in his very mode of being. What a treat!

Please share your comments and questions and reflections here.

A Little Context

I’ve been following non-dual philosophies such as Kashmir Shaivism and Advaita Vedanta for quite some time, and for the past two months, I’ve been working on this website as a way to explore and present these ideas.

If you come across any bugs, inconsistencies, or things that could be improved, please don’t hesitate to point them out. I’d genuinely appreciate the feedback.

I’m also reposting this because GitHub was down today, and I didn’t want that to affect your experience with the website.

Thanks for checking it out, and I hope you enjoy exploring it. 🙏

Few years ago I read The Doctrine of Vibration by Mark Dyczkowski and I remember reading a passage on the image of the dancing Shiva where every element was explained in light of Kashmir Shaivism. I remember going "woah" when it all clicked.

But years have passed. I cannot easily find that paragraph. I am reading the book again, but it will take time until I find it again for sure. Maybe I read it somewhere else entirely...

Can someone explain it to me in the same fashion please?

I am reading The Secret Supreme and I see that along with perfectly clear philosophy that I agree with there are things to be accepted based on faith.

For example, it says if someone has fullest possible realization the body cannot follow that and the person dies, but is still perceptible to students but not in worldly realm.

Or that some reincarnate in heaven then may or may not reincarnate back into a body.

These things seem like an unnecessary addition to a clear grounded philosophy.

Are these supposed to be accepted in order to be a Kashmir Shaivist, or are they optional?

How do you feel about these things? The miracles too.

I was checking out the "getting started" section of this subreddit, which recommends a lot of the work of Bettin Bäumer, Mark Dyczkowski, Sthaneshwar Timalsina, Thakur Jaideva Singh, Lakshmanjoo, etc., but I noticed under the section on "Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam of Kṣemarāja," Wallis's The Recognition Sutras was left out. In fact, while writing this question, a message popped up stating, "A defining feature of this sub is its strong focus on authenticity, which ensures accurate teachings and combats appropriation of the tradition. Your post references an organization or figure flagged as not being an authentic representative of the living tradition and lineages of Kashmir Śaivism." So could someone share here what exactly is wrong with his work? I can understand how he lacks transmission, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate his work as a translator. Would someone share what is wrong with his translations, etc? Because an article Wallis wrote summarizing Sanderson's own assessment of the history of Kashmir Shaivism compared to other tantric traditions, including Buddhist tantra, is cited with approval.

I am not trying to start an argument, nor am I a follower or student of Christopher Wallis. I just want to genuinely understand not just which authorities are trusted on this sub, but why some are, and others aren't. I appreciate any feedback!

​

I was wondering whether I could receive some recommendations for where to start reading from, learn the philosophy and the practices of Kashmiri Shaivism

The point of this post is to establish a set of questions by which contemporary teachings of Kashmir Śaivism may be examined, particularly where they arise outside established sampradāya, and to ask whether their language preserves the epistemological, ontological, and soteriological precision of the tradition.

Kashmir Śaivism is increasingly presented through a vocabulary of “awareness”, “presence”, “direct experience”, “openness”, “effortlessness”, “awakening”, and “recognition”. Such language can communicate genuine aspects of the tradition, yet it can also shift highly technical philosophical categories into the idiom of contemporary spirituality. This becomes especially important when one encounters teachers whose formation, authority, interpretive method, and relationship to an established sampradāya require independent examination. The appropriate response is neither reflexive dismissal nor credulous acceptance. It is philosophical interrogation. When a modern teacher says that recognition is something one “notices”, that an “opening” occurs through relaxation, that the real illusion consists in believing oneself separate, or that body, desire, thought and limitation are simply expressions of consciousness, the serious student should ask what precisely these statements mean within the epistemological, ontological and soteriological architecture of Kashmir Śaivism. What is being asserted? By which pramāṇa? According to which textual and commentarial authority? Through which lineage? With which technical distinctions preserved? And what happens to the doctrine when its Sanskrit categories are translated into the phenomenological vocabulary of “experience”, “presence”, and “awareness”?

Consider the formulation:

> “Recognition is not something you achieve. It is something you notice. Already here. Already present.”

The apparent simplicity conceals a considerable epistemological problem. The verb “notice” ordinarily presupposes an intentional relation between a cognising subject and something disclosed to that subject. There is a noticer, something noticed, and an act or event of noticing. Once this grammar is imported into pratyabhijñā, however, the fundamental question becomes unavoidable: what precisely occupies the position of the noticed?

If the answer is “awareness”, then awareness has acquired the structural status of an object. A subject stands in relation to awareness, turns towards it, apprehends it, and subsequently identifies that apprehension as recognition. The philosophical burden then becomes the explanation of the subject that performs this noticing. Is that subject itself awareness? If so, what distinguishes its cognition of awareness from awareness's intrinsic self manifestation? What distinguishes noticing awareness from awareness being self aware?

This is precisely where the conceptual precision of prakāśa and vimarśa becomes indispensable. Consciousness is luminous, yet its luminosity is inseparable from its reflexive self apprehension. The issue therefore concerns something categorically different from the discovery of an already existing object called “awareness”. Pratyabhijñā concerns recognition of one's own nature. The decisive movement is consequently epistemic and ontological at once: the subject recognises what it already is.

The difference may appear subtle in English. Philosophically, it is enormous.

“I notice awareness” gives us a cognition whose intentional structure can be analysed.

“Consciousness recognises itself as itself” gives us an account of reflexive consciousness.

The first invites the question of how an individual knower gains access to awareness. The second requires an account of self revelation, reflexivity, and identity. The vocabulary of contemporary spirituality often moves between these two structures without marking the transition.

That transition is precisely where rigorous Śaiva inquiry must begin.

The same difficulty appears in the language of “direct recognition”. The appeal to directness possesses considerable rhetorical force because it appears to circumvent conceptual mediation. Yet epistemologically, “direct” remains radically underdetermined. Direct in what sense? Non conceptual? Immediate? Reflexive? Pre linguistic? Self luminous? Phenomenologically vivid? Scripturally sanctioned? Produced by śaktipāta? Established through a particular upāya?

A practitioner can experience silence, spaciousness, luminosity, absorption, intense presence, cessation of discursive thought, expansion of bodily awareness, or a profound sense of unity. None of these descriptions by themselves establishes their metaphysical interpretation. The proposition “I experienced an opening” belongs to one epistemic order. The proposition “this opening is the recognition of Śiva” belongs to another.

Consequently, the central question cannot be avoided:

What exactly is the ontological status of this “opening”?

Is it a modification within cognition? Is it an alteration in the manifestation of vikalpa? Is it a manifestation of Śakti? Is it a phenomenological disclosure generated through an upāya? Is it a moment of śaktipāta? Is it the manifestation of a previously obscured capacity? Is it a change in the contracted subject? Or is “opening” simply a metaphor describing a certain mode of experience?

Each interpretation carries different consequences for the theory of liberation.

Suppose the opening is a modification of cognition. It belongs to the field of changing mental phenomena. In that case, what establishes its identity with the eternal nature of consciousness?

Suppose it is a manifestation of Śakti. Then one must specify the relation between that manifestation and the svātantrya of Śiva.

Suppose it is śaktipāta. Then what theological and soteriological account determines its occurrence?

Suppose it is recognition itself. Then what distinguishes it from a cognition whose content is “I am consciousness”?

The issue is therefore far more demanding than the question of whether an experience feels authentic.

This leads directly to the question of pramāṇa.

What is the pramāṇa by which you establish that what has opened is Śiva?

The question has considerable force because contemporary experiential discourse frequently permits an unexamined passage from phenomenological immediacy to metaphysical identification. A person undergoes an experience and subsequently interprets it through a doctrinal vocabulary. Yet the occurrence of an experience and the determination of its ontological significance remain conceptually distinct.

The question therefore concerns the precise status of the cognition itself. An experience may possess immediate and undeniable phenomenological presence while the determination of what that experience signifies remains a further epistemic act. One may answer that pratyabhijñā is aparokṣa, immediate and self revealing. Yet this makes the question more precise, rather than settling it: what constitutes the cognition as pratyabhijñā? What differentiates recognition of Śiva from an extraordinary state of absorption, luminosity, expansion, silence, or nonconceptual awareness? If the cognition is said to be self validating, what is it about its own structure that discloses Śivatva rather than simply an unusual condition of consciousness? The decisive question therefore concerns the criterion by which an immediate cognition is recognised as recognition itself.

The occurrence of an experience of boundless awareness establishes that such a cognition has occurred for the subject. The further determination that this cognition is pratyabhijñā, and specifically the recognition of Śivatva, requires an account of what constitutes its distinctive epistemic form. The decisive question therefore becomes: what makes a cognition pratyabhijñā? A cognition accompanied by the thought “I am Śiva” possesses determinate conceptual content. An absorption in undifferentiated awareness possesses another character altogether. The Pratyabhijñā account requires an explanation of the cognition in which the previously contracted subject recognises its own identity with Śiva. What makes this recognition epistemically distinctive?

The category of pramātṛ is especially significant. Who is the experiencer? If the individual practitioner is presumed to be the experiencer, then the finite subject has already been granted epistemic primacy. Yet pratyabhijñā concerns the recognition of that very subject as Śiva. The subject cannot therefore be treated as a philosophically transparent datum.

This brings paśutva into the centre of the discussion.

An insistence upon paśutva can appear strange within contemporary nondual pedagogy precisely because the category exposes the distance between ontological identity and epistemic condition. The paśu is Śiva in essential identity, while experiencing contracted knowledge and contracted agency. The philosophical problem therefore cannot be reduced to an erroneous proposition such as “I believe I am separate”. The structure of limitation itself requires explanation.

What is contracted in the paśu?

Is it knowledge?

Agency?

Self apprehension?

The range of possible action?

The capacity for complete identification?

The apprehension of unity within differentiation?

The mala theory belongs to the account of how the infinite subject assumes the contracted condition of finite knowledge and agency without introducing a second ontological principle.

This is why the statement “the real illusion is believing that we are separate” requires considerable elaboration. Belief is one possible manifestation of limitation. It does not exhaust the category. The Śaiva account concerns mala, māyā, kañcuka, contraction, limited knowledge, limited agency, and the constitution of finite subjectivity. The question is therefore how bheda becomes operative within the experience of the paśu, how differentiation belongs to Śiva's own manifestation, and how recognition transforms the structure through which differentiation is apprehended.

The philosophical tension becomes especially visible when liberation is described through psychological vocabulary:

> “Less control. More presence. Less tension. More openness.”

As contemplative advice, this may possess practical value. As a theory of liberation, it requires specification. What is the relationship between relaxation of volitional effort and svātantrya? What is the relationship between reduced mental constriction and vikalpa? What is the relationship between tranquillity and recognition? Can the cessation of tension establish Śivatva, or can it merely produce a particular psychological condition?

The distinction matters because a tranquil mind remains a particular state of cognition. Recognition concerns the identity of the subject.

A practitioner may experience profound calm and retain the structure of the finite knower. A practitioner may experience intense conceptual activity while recognising the nature of the subject. The phenomenology of mental quietude therefore cannot simply serve as the criterion of pratyabhijñā.

This is also why the contemporary opposition between effort and effortlessness requires greater philosophical precision. Śaiva thought possesses a sophisticated theory of kriyāśakti and svātantrya. Śiva's freedom manifests as activity, manifestation, concealment, revelation, cognition, agency, differentiation, and recognition. Consequently, “effortlessness” cannot simply mean the absence of disciplined activity. The question is what kind of agency is being transcended and what kind of agency is disclosed.

If Śiva is intrinsically svatantra, then the liberated subject should possess a transformed relation to agency rather than a mere reduction of effort. If recognition reveals the subject as Śiva, what happens to kriyāśakti? Does agency disappear, become spontaneous, become universalised, or become recognised as Śiva's own activity? These are substantive philosophical questions.

The same precision is required by the contemporary description of Śaiva manifestation as “vibration”, “play”, or “the free expression of consciousness”. These phrases can gesture towards spanda, līlā, and svātantrya, yet each term possesses a technical history. What does spanda mean in the context of the Spandakārikā and its commentaries? Is it temporal movement, pulsation, dynamism, self manifestation, reflexive activity, or something more fundamental? What exactly is gained when spanda becomes “vibration”? Which philosophical relations survive the translation?

Likewise, saying that body, desire, thought, imagination, and limitation are expressions of consciousness raises rather than resolves the fundamental problem. If limitation is an expression of Śiva's freedom, what precisely constitutes bondage? If bondage itself belongs to Śakti, what distinguishes the paśu from the liberated subject? If every manifestation is Śiva, why does recognition possess soteriological significance? If the difference concerns epistemic contraction, what transforms that contraction? If the difference concerns mala, what is the relation between mala and Śiva's freedom?

The answer cannot consist simply in saying that “everything is consciousness”. That proposition is the beginning of the philosophical inquiry.

A further difficulty arises from the use of Sanskrit commentary alongside meditative instruction. A teacher may translate a Sanskrit text, explain its commentarial tradition, and then provide “guidance towards direct recognition”. The crucial hermeneutical question concerns the relationship between these activities. Does the Sanskrit determine the phenomenological interpretation? Does contemporary experience determine the reading of the Sanskrit? What safeguards prevent an interpreter from selecting passages according to the experiential expectations of a modern audience? Which commentator establishes the doctrinal meaning? Which sampradāya provides the interpretive continuity?

This question becomes particularly important for Bodha-pañcadaśikā, and other short texts from the corpus associated with Kashmir Śaivism. A short text can appear extraordinarily direct when detached from the philosophical system surrounding it. Fifteen verses can become fifteen “pointers”. A complex doctrine can become an experiential invitation. The resulting pedagogy may be compelling, yet the epistemological burden remains: by what hermeneutical principle is the text being rendered into this contemporary experiential vocabulary?

The central issue, then, concerns transmission.

Traditional sampradāya provides more than institutional ancestry. It supplies constraints upon interpretation. It preserves technical vocabulary, commentarial relations, pedagogical sequence, criteria of competence, and distinctions between philosophical exposition and soteriological instruction. A modern teacher operating outside such a structure therefore assumes a substantial hermeneutical responsibility. Every translation becomes an interpretation. Every simplification selects certain dimensions of the tradition and suppresses others. Every experiential instruction establishes an implicit theory of cognition.

The question is consequently less whether a modern formulation “sounds like Kashmir Śaivism”. The more rigorous question concerns whether the conceptual relations constitutive of the system remain intact.

What is pratyabhijñā in relation to prakāśa and vimarśa?

What is paśutva in relation to mala?

What is mala in relation to māyā?

What is limitation in relation to svātantrya?

What is recognition in relation to cognition?

What is experience in relation to pramāṇa?

What is an “opening” in relation to the ontological status of Śiva?

What establishes the identification of an experience with Śiva?

What distinguishes awareness being noticed from consciousness being intrinsically self aware?

The fundamental danger of contemporary translation lies in converting metaphysical and epistemological categories into phenomenological descriptions. Pratyabhijñā becomes something one “notices”. Paśutva becomes a psychological belief in separation. Māyā becomes an illusion of separateness. Spanda becomes vibration. Svātantrya becomes spontaneity. Śaktipāta becomes grace. Liberation becomes openness. A rigorous Pratyabhijñā inquiry proceeds in the opposite direction. It asks what the experiencer is, what consciousness is, what constitutes valid cognition, what constitutes limitation, what recognition is, and by what means the subject is recognised as Śiva. Only within that structure can an experience be interpreted as recognition.

That is why paśutva deserves sustained emphasis. The paśu is Śiva under conditions of contraction. The ontological identity already obtains, the philosophical problem concerns the conditions under which that identity is experienced through finite cognition and agency. Recognition therefore acquires its significance precisely because the question concerns the contracted subject's apprehension of its own Śivatva.

“Already here” is an opening formulation. “Notice it” is a pedagogical instruction. The philosophical question begins afterwards: what is “it”, who notices it, what constitutes the cognition, what has changed, what remains unchanged, and by what epistemic authority is that cognition identified as Śiva?

Only here does the question of recognition become genuinely worthy of the name Pratyabhijñā.

The question, finally, is whether the language of contemporary recognition preserves the philosophical relations by which Pratyabhijñā means recognition of Śiva, or whether those relations have been replaced by the phenomenology of an experience called ‘awareness’.

I’m not sure whether I’m looking for a religion at all, but from what I’ve encountered so far, this seems closest to the truths I’ve come to through my own experiences.

I’d really appreciate some insight into a dream I had. In it, there were two versions of me. One was meditating in pursuit of power, while the other was meditating to deepen a relationship with Creation, Shiva, Source, or whatever name you prefer. Neither one felt inherently wrong.

Lately, I’ve also been experiencing a strong buzzing or energetic sensation throughout my body. Even after I eat, it intensifies and sometimes if not most of the time I hear loud tones in my head that change pitch.

In another experience, I was shown that my heart was my true treasure. It was filled with gold, jewels, and kingly crowns decorated with serpent imagery. In a separate dream, I appeared as half man and half serpent, with a human upper body and a serpent lower body.

Part of me wonders whether seeking power through meditation is wrong, and whether I should instead focus on loving and connecting with the “true me”.. Creation, Shiva, Source, or however it might be understood within this tradition.

I’d be grateful for thoughts from people who are more familiar with this religion or spiritual path, especially regarding the symbolism of the serpent, the heart, and the two forms of meditation. This is all very new to me, and I’m still figuring out whether I consider myself religious at all.

Here I don’t mean to offend Trika or masters of Trika, I just want to deepen my understanding. For sure everyone understands.

Hello, I wonder, why does shiva allow so much suffering in the world?

I know that the answer is „shiva’s play” or „enjoyment of contraction” or „shiva is above morality”, but all these answers make sense only if you are not suffering.

It is simply impossible to say that it is shiva’s play when my child dies on my hands (don’t worry I don’t have a child I am just trying to ilustrator something). It is impossible to say that it is enjoyment of contraction when my family is murdered in some war, and it is impossible to say that shiva is above morality when I am tortured or soemthing.

You get what I am saying? In practise, if any of us faced such dificulties it is impossible to justify evil with „shiva’s play”. If murder, rape, pedophilia, cancer if all this is shiva’s play, then shiva must be very childlish.

Now, someone might say „but don’t you enjoy video games? Don’t you like horror movies? Don’t you enjoy movies about violence and video games with shooting etc? The same is the case for shiva - he is just playing the game and enjoying it, just like you are enjoying playing Elden Ring”.

But here is my objection: we enjoy video games, even the most brutal ones, we enjoy movies even the most drastic ones, and we read books even the most cruel ones, we enjoy such things only because WE KNOW IT IS A GAME.

Just see what happens when we forget that it is just a movie or just a video game. What happens then? During video game we begin to tilt and get irritated, when watching a movie we get seriously depressed. Some people forget that this is just tv, it is just a soccer match, and they jump of the window, or they fight and kill.

So analogically, if shiva really enjoyed this game called life, he would always remember that it is a game.

Now, someone could object in this way: “you are speaking just from limited ego point of view. From shiva’s point of view, there is no suffering and just his vibration. All this is his play from his point of view, even cancer and murder etc”.

But my counterargument is this: “according to trika, everything is shiva. Everything is real. Which means, the sensation of being limited ego is real. So this is not just play, it is real. If even imaginery things like milk of the bird are real, then for sure experience of intense suffering. So this means that shiva must be a childlish masochist, that enjoys being tortured and then liberated and like this for eternity. It simply sounds like a toxic relationship, with constant ups and downs. When you are in toxic relationships you get lots of fun, but also lots of suffering. Similiar it is in life. So this would mean that shiva has toxic relationship with himself”.

Now, someone might object this in this manner: “but you are speaking again from limited point of view. From the perspective of realised master, everything is bliss. You might not understand it, as you speak from your limited ego. But once pratyabhijna happens, everything is clear, and we assure you that shiva is not a psychopath. Shiva is absolutely free, he does everything, also bad things. From limited ego point of view it is not moral, but from realised master point of view, all this is just vibration of shiva. Once you realise your true nature, you realise that you have always had it. So you realise that you never actually were separate from shiva”.

My counterargument is this: “alright, but who decides whether you are enlightened or not? According to trika, the answer is: grace. Those who have grace of Lord shiva are enlightened, and those who not, are ignorant. Ok. But this is extremely unfair. Ofcourse this is just my limited point of view, but what else do I have? So this enlightened master is free and happy just because there is grace in him/her. Why everyone can’t be soaked in grace? Hm? Why not? Because shiva’s enjoyment would be lessened? If shiva’s enjoyment would lessened, then such shiva is no shiva, as he is dependant on suffering to experience bliss. This would mean that shiva isn’t independent.

What I am trying to say is this: some people are very fortunate, they have money, happiness and healthy bodies, other people are less fortunate, they live in war zones, they are sick and unhappy (for whatever reason). None of these are in their control, where is justice in this? Before anyone says “shiva doesn’t have to be just”, well, then if shiva doesn’t need to be just, if he doesn’t need to be good, if he doesn’t need to be compassionate, then he doesn’t deserve our worship. Then shiva is simply alive, but brutal and cold force of nature/consiosuness. He is divine, but is he full of love? In my view, no, he is not. If shiva was compassionate, then he would stop this mess ASAP. He wouldn’t allow a fly to suffer. But as we see, shiva doesn’t care much.

We hear stories about enlightened beings that have unlimited powers, that they can create and destroy galaxies etc. Well, in my view, there never was any being like that, because still most people are not liberated. If there was a one yogi who has such power, he would liberate the whole universe! For sure! Because, why not? What could he loose? He wouldn’t allow have nothing to loose, so he would do it, unless he would be scared of loosing his liberation or something. But your liberation for the liberation of the whole world is a small price to pay, don’t you think? Anyway, in the world where everyone is enlightened such a yogi would grow extremely fast, as presence of so many jivanmuktas would uplift him fast. So in my view there never was such a yogi.

But if really there were such yogis, then it is clear, that they loose compassion once they become realised or attain unlimited siddhis. In such case, I am not sure why liberation would be worth to achieve”.

Here some could object: “but you are speaking like shiva is separate from you. Understand that shiva is not some Christian god sitting in heaven he is literally you, and this letters and this place here etc. He is not doing suffering to innocent, no, he is doing the suffering, he is suffering, and he is innocent suffering creature! Grace of shiva is your own grace, you have to initiate yourself, don’t wait for some outside force to initiate you”.

But my objection is: “if this were the case, that I can initiate myself, that everyone is literally shiva, so it is their own grace that liberates them, then let’s be real: everyone would be liberated. Why on earth would someone choose to suffer? Now someone could object that we have no access to shiva point of view, but this makes no sense, as according to trika we are shiva right now, even if we are the most identified with ego, then still, we are shiva. Perpsepcive of shiva is not separate from our perspective, otherwise there would be dualism. So if all people were literally shiva, they would imitate themself immiediatly, but it doesn’t happen so they cannot be shiva in real sense, they can be shiva in pure philosophical sense, just like I am a Milky Way right now.

I am a Milky Way galaxy, am I not? I am. Milky Way is extremely vast and powerful, and techniqually I am Milky Way galaxy, just like my hair is my body. But what such knowledge changes in practise? It is pure philosophy, the internesting information that I am a milkyway gives me nothing at all.

Now someone might say “it shouldn’t be just intellectual knowledge, it should be real experience”, but I argue that no one ever had such experience without loosing empathy. If someone really had experience of being a Milky Way, they would immiediatly heal our planet of suffering and crime and sickness, provided that they have empathy still.

So these are my serious doubts about this philosophy. I would be happy if someone well versed in Trika could show me where I make logical mistakes, where my understanding is not correct etc. Please, someone show me where I am wrong!

Do any practitioners here feel it important to represent the lineage by wearing traditional attire? Perhaps some feel it important to represent Shaivism via visual representation. Trishul, jewelry, necklaces, etc.

If so what do you wear? Pheran, dhoti, kurta, chadar, etc?

Even if the entire structure of the world could be expressed mathematically—as information and transformation—the purpose of knowledge would remain incomplete until that knowledge became realised knowledge. In Kashmir Śaivism, the ultimate aim is not merely to construct an accurate representation of reality, but to recognise the very consciousness in which that representation, the observer, and the observed arise. Mathematics may describe the relations between the observer, the observed and the process of observation, but Pratyabhijñā occurs when their apparent separation is recognised as a manifestation of one Cit, whose essential nature is Prakāśa-Vimarśa—self-luminous consciousness aware of itself.

Such knowledge, in the absence of realisation will only bring further degradation as it will be used only physically and in absence of morality. Hence, i believe many here( bhu भू :) with such knowledge remain hidden because it has to be realised and not proved.

Thus, however complete the mathematical description of manifestation may become, it remains knowledge about reality until the knower recognises:

I am not merely an observer situated within this structure; the power by which the observer, observation and the observed appear is Śiva's own Svātantrya, and that consciousness is my own Self. However, question is not merely this, it is also, the highest level of achievement with a human body. Something tells me, some levels of KS are not humanly possible.

Even after such examination the body remains and hence the realisation of knowledge remains unresolved. A complete resolution of knowledge will collapse the world in singularity.

Until this recognition occurs, knowledge may explain the world, but its deepest intention remains unfulfilled.

I find that the LJA audio recordings for Swamiji’s Bhagavad-gita and Paramarthasara are supremely potent and are like samadhi in a bottle. I find it interesting that these were recorded at the end of his life when his realization of oneness with Parabhairava had reached its peak.

In all honesty though all of Swamiji’s recordings are supremely potent.

They bestow floods of ananda.

Can one use rudraksha mala for Devi mantra?

I'm reading some poetry and found this verse:

The breath enters with the sound 'ham'

and exits with the sound 'so'

Become aware of the space where 'ham' merges inside

and 'so' merges outside.

That is the space of the Self.

Well years ago when I was doing So'ham a lot I might have gotten this idea but then through not doing much sadhana with So'Ham for a long while, forgotten it. But when I read about So Ham many times, I got caught up in this idea of a "GAP" between Inhale and Exhale that is like impossible or at least annoying or difficult to catch "because it was a space in Time". But what this Verse is saying is... I guess its simply space inside and space outside. I know about the "Dvadashantas" but that concept doesn't really help me.

Hello everybody,

Thank you for this wonderful resource!

I come from a background in Mahayana Buddhism (years ago) and several years of study of the Advaita Tradition, which I find very rich and subtle, albeit frustrating in its account of Maya.

I am in the process of reading The Secret Supreme, following the indication found on this sub.

It is certainly a complex system! And it looks like that book is merely scratching the surface.

Anyhow, I was reading about the adhvas, and the Author says :

"The word adhvan means “path.” Here, path has a twofold meaning: it is either that path on which you tread, or that path which you must dispose of, must discard. You have either to tread on the path or discard the path. You can dispose of this path only by the grace of your Master. And when you dispose of this path, you reach the state of Parama Śiva.

There is no question of realizing God through treading on this path. You may tread for centuries and centuries and still you will be treading. So you must discard this path, dispose of it. When you do dispose of the path, that is also called adhvan. Disposing of it, however, can only be done by the grace of the Master, who is the embodiment of Parama Íiva."

What is meant here with "to discard?" I thought that this was ampping of the metaphysical layers that form reality itself, can they be "discarded" at all?

The the text proceeds explaining that there are three of these adhvas:

Bhuvanādhva, which I understand comprising any material universe in existence, as the complete aggregate of all the objects and laws allocated in space and time.

Tattvādhva, which, to my undertanding, comprises the gross elements constituting the Bhuvanadhva and the pre-phenomenal chain of cuasation that gives rise to manifested reality

kalādhva, here I start to get seriously confused: this is said to be formed by a set of "enclosures", applied to the Tattvadhva, and the text proceeds to describe which encloseres encompasses which tattva. What I don't understand is what these enclosures are for. For example

" In pratiṣṭhā kalā you find the twenty-three tattvas from jala tattva, the element “water,” up to and including prakṛiti tattva."

what is the significance of this grouping? The text doesn't seem to elaborate on this.

Thank you!

I know this is probably not the best place to ask because it’s not directly related to Trika but I am looking for some good very beginner books to recommend for someone just getting into meditation and introspection.

Something like the Vijnana Bhairava would be far too advanced and confusing for them

Do you think that any beginner meditation book is okay? They really have no prior experience to even sitting in a meditative posture

Where Utpala doesn’t want moksha, nor even to be Shiva’s worshipper. Utpala just wants the intoxication of love.

Tangentially, as a Shaiva, I adopt that worldview in my own way. I don’t care if others believe in God or not. Jesus or Krishna. I don’t care if others offer a ghee lamp clockwise or counterclockwise. I just want love in my heart. (And I hope others have love in their hearts too.)

That’s it. The Shivastotravali is the sweetest thing Ive ever tasted. Hearing Swamiji sing it is a treasure that I wouldn’t sell for anything in this world.