Tag: Shakti

Sacred Texts: Shiva Sutras and the Heart of Self-Recognition

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Shiva Sutras

(Revealed by Vasugupta in the 8th to 9th century A.D.)

NAMO.

1. Chaitanyamatma.
(chaitanya{m}·atma)

Unrestricted awareness is the ground of existence.

2. Jñanam bandha.
(jñana{m} bandha)

Knowledge is bondage.

3. Yonivarga: kalashariram.
(yoni·varga: kalā·sharira{m})

The source of the classes of sound: the measure of the body.

4. Jñanadhishthanam matrika.
(jñana·dhishth·anam matrika)

Creating through the classes of sound is the Eightfold Mother, knowledge without understanding.

5. Udyamao Bhairavah.
(udyama{o} Bhairava)

Bhairav* is an upswell gushing forth.

(*the terrible form of Shiva that represents universal consciousness and creative power together, having absolute freedom of knowledge and activity)

6. Shaktichakrasandhane vishvasamhara.
(shakti·chakra·sandhan{e} vishva·samhara)

When all the powers are merged in focused awareness, the universe disappears.

7. Jagratsvapnasushuptabhede turyabhogasambhava.
(jagrat·svapna·sushupta·bhede turya·abhoga·sambhava)

The states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep are grounded in the fourth state, turya.

8. Jñanam jagrat.
(jñana{m} jagrat)

Knowledge obtained through the senses by direct experience is the waking state.

9. Svapno vikalpa.
(svapna{o} vikalpa)

Mental activity and mind constructs are the dreaming state.

10. Aviveko mayasaushuptam.
(a·viveki{o} maya·sushupta{m})

The unconscious, undiscerning state is deep sleep.

11. Tritayabhokta viresha.
(tri·taya·bhokta viresha)

The enjoyer of the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep is master of his senses.

12. Vismayo yogabhumika.
(vismaya{o} yoga·bhumika)

The stages of yoga are a wonder.

13. Iccha shaktir uma kumari.
(iccha shakti{r} uma kumari)

The power of will is the splendour of the bride.

14. Drishyam shariram.
(drishya{m} sharira{m})

Everything visible is the body.

15. Hridaye cittasamghattad drishyasvapadarshanam.
(hridaya{e} citta·samghatta{d} drishya·svapada·darshan{am})

When the heart merges with the individual mind it gives a glimpse of one’s true place.

16. Shuddha-tattva-sandhanad va apashushakti.
(shuddha-tattva-sandhana{d} va apashu·shakti)

When meditating on pure being, the binding power is absent.

17. Vitarka atmajnanam.
(vitarka atma·jñana{m})

One-pointed awareness is knowledge of the Self (Atma).

18. Lokananda samadhisukham.
(loka·ananda samadhi·sukham)

The joy of one’s true place is blissful absorption.

19. Shaktisandhane sharirotpatti.
(Shakti·sandhan{e} sharira·utpatti)

Union with Shakti begets the body.

20. Bhutasandhana-bhutaprithaktva-vishvasamghatta.
(bhuta·sandhana-bhuta·prithaktva-vishva·samghatta)

Joining elements, isolating elements, merging with the universe.

21. Shuddhavidyodayachakrashatva-siddhi.
(shuddha·vidya·udaya·chakra·sattva siddhi)

With pure knowledge arises mastery over all powers.

22. Mahahriadanusandhanam·mantraviryaanubhava.
(maha·hridaya·anu·sandhana{m}·mantra·virya·anu·bhava)

Merging with the Great Heart is the source and strength of all mantra.

23. Cittam mantra.
(citta{m} mantra)

The mind is mantra.

24. Prayatnah sadhaka.
(prayatna sadhaka)

The effort of the aspirant.

25. Vidyasharira-satta mantrarahasyam.
(vidya·sharira-satta mantra·ra·hasyam)

The divine body of knowledge is the secret of mantra.

26. Garbhe cittavikaso vishishtavydiasvapna.
(garbha{e} citta·vikasa{o} vishishta·vydia·svapna)

The mind unfolding from its source is unreal compared to the true knowledge revealed in dreams.

27. Vidyasamutthane svabhavike khechari Shivavastha.
(vidya·samutthan{e} svabhava·avika{e} khechari Shiva·avastha)

Highest knowledge arises as the cream of self-knowledge, the celestial state of Shiva.

28. Gururupaya.
(guru{r} upaya)

By means of the Guru.

29. Matrikachakrasvabodha.
(matrika·chakra·svabodha)

Assembly of mothers its own understanding.

30. Shariram havih.
(Sharira{m} havih)

The body is oblation to be offered.

31. Jñanam annam.
(jñana{m} an·na{m})

Knowledge is food to be devoured.

32. Vidyasamhare taduttha-svapna-darshanam.
(vidya·samhara{e} taduttara{ha}-svapna-darshana{m})

Once true knowledge withdraws, then it is glimpsed in dreams.

OM NAMO NAMAHA.

Shiva Sutras, verses 1 – 32 of 77 (translation only)

1. Unrestricted awareness is the ground of existence.

2. Knowledge is bondage.

3. The source of the classes of sound: the measure of the body.

4. Creating through the classes of sound is the Eightfold Mother, knowledge without understanding.

5. Bhairav* is an upswell gushing forth.

6. When all the powers are merged in focused awareness, the universe disappears.

7. The states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep are grounded in the fourth state, turya.

8. Knowledge obtained through the senses by direct experience is the waking state.

9. Mental activity and mind constructs are the dreaming state.

10. The unconscious, undiscerning state is deep sleep.

11. The enjoyer of the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep is master of his senses.

12. The stages of yoga are a wonder.

13. The power of will is the splendour of the bride.

14. Everything visible is the body.

15. When the heart merges with the individual mind it gives a glimpse of one’s true place.

16. When meditating on pure being, the binding power is absent.

17. One-pointed awareness is knowledge of the Self (Atma).

18. The joy of one’s true place is blissful absorption.

19. Union with Shakti** begets the body.

20. Joining elements, isolating elements, merging with the universe.

21. With pure knowledge arises mastery over all powers.

22. Merging with the Great Heart is the source and strength of all mantra.

23. The mind is mantra.

24. The effort of the aspirant.

25. The divine body of knowledge is the secret of mantra.

26. The mind unfolding from its source is unreal compared to the true knowledge revealed in dreams.

27. Highest knowledge arises as the cream of self-knowledge, the celestial state of Shiva.

28. By means of the Guru.

29. Assembly of mothers its own understanding.

30. The body is oblation to be offered.

31. Knowledge is food to be devoured.

32. Once true knowledge withdraws, then it is glimpsed in dreams.

_________

* Bhairav : the terrible form of Shiva, universal consciousness and creative power together, with unlimited freedom of knowledge and activity.

** Shakti : power ; capitalized, the absolute power present in the universe, the source of all manifestation and activity. As Shiva-Shakti, universal consciousness and creative power together form the indivisible Bhairav who is the ground of all existence.

Pratyabhijñahridayam: The Heart of Self-Recognition

(Short treatise on metaphysics and returning to the source by resting in the center, transmitted by Kshemaraja in the 9th to 10th century A.D.)

1. The divine power of absolute consciousness, Citti (fem.), by Her own free will causes the manifestation, maintenance and withdrawal of the universe. She is the means of reaching Her and the final goal.

2. By the power of Her own will she unfolds the universe upon Her own screen.

3. That the universe is manifold is due to the differentiation of reciprocally adapted objects and subjects.

4. The individual, in whom citti or consciousness is contracted, also has the universe in a contracted form.

5. Citti Herself, descending from the uncontracted state of cetanya becomes citta, individual consciousness, inasmuch as She becomes contracted in conformity with the objects of consciousness.

6. The individual experiencing the sphere of limitation consists of citta, which is also only Citti.

7. And though Cit [masc.], or Shiva, is one, He becomes twofold, threefold, fourfold and of the nature of seven pentads.

8. The positions of the various systems of philosophy are only various roles of that.

9. In consequence of its limitation of power, reality, which is all consciousness, becomes the sufferer, covered by impurities.

10-11. Even in this condition, he carries on the processes of the five acts like Shiva: emanating, withdrawing, maintaining, concealing and revealing, also called Grace — these five.

12. To be a sufferer, a “samsarin,” means to be deluded by one’s own powers because of ignorance of that fact.

13. On acquiring full knowledge of it, citta becomes Citti by returning to the state of cetanya.

14. The fire of Citti, even in the contracted state of citta, though covered, partly burns the fuel of the known.

15. In reasserting Her power, She makes the universe Her own.

16. When the bliss of Cit is attained, there is stability in the identity with Cit even while the body and other objects are experienced. This is the state of jivanmukti, a soul who is liberated while still alive.

17. By the development of the center there is the acquisition of the bliss of Cit.

18. The means of developing the center are the tantric methods: stopping the formation of mind-constructs by becoming absorbed in the heart; withdrawing the senses back into the center; focusing on the center while staring at some object without moving; internal repetition of sounds; kundalini methods such as fixing the kundalini power between the eyebrows; resting the attention at a point between two thoughts; and other methods.

19. By immersing oneself in the center over and over again and dwelling on the bliss of Cit upon returning to normal consciousness, one stabilizes the state of resting in the Self.

20. Then, as a result of resting in the Self whose essence is cit-ananda, consciousness-bliss, and whose nature is the power of great mantra, one attains the powers of Shiva.

The Heart of Self-Recognition (in narrative form)

Absolute Power of Consciousness

            The divine power of absolute consciousness, Citti (fem.), by Her own free will causes the manifestation, maintenance and withdrawal of the universe. She is Her own means of reaching Her and the final goal. By the power of Her own will she unfolds the universe upon Her own screen.

Appears as Many

            That the universe is manifold is due to the differentiation of reciprocally adapted objects and subjects. The individual, in whom citti or consciousness is contracted, also has the universe in a contracted form.

            Citti Herself, descending from the uncontracted state of cetanya, becomes citta, individual consciousness, inasmuch as She becomes contracted in conformity with the objects of consciousness. The individual experiencing the sphere of limitation consists of citta, which is also only Citti.

            And though Cit [masc.], or Shiva, is one, He becomes twofold, threefold, fourfold and of the nature of seven pentads. The positions of the various systems of philosophy are only various roles of that.

            Reality, which is all consciousness, in consequence of its limitation of power becomes the sufferer, covered by impurities. Even in this condition, he carries on the processes of the five acts like Shiva: emanating, withdrawing, maintaining, concealing and revealing, also called Grace — these five. To be a sufferer, a “samsarin,” means to be deluded by one’s own powers because of ignorance of that fact. On acquiring full knowledge of it, citta becomes Citti by returning to the state of cetanya.

Returns to Self

            The fire of Citti, even in the contracted state of citta, though covered, partly burns the fuel of the known. In reasserting Her power, She makes the universe Her own.

            When the bliss of Cit is attained, there is stability in the identity with Cit even while the body and other objects are experienced. This is the state of jivanmukti, a soul liberated while still alive.

By these Means

            By the development of the center there is the acquisition of the bliss of Cit. The means of developing the center are the tantric methods: stopping the formation of mind-constructs by becoming absorbed in the heart; withdrawing the senses back into the center; focusing on the center while staring at some object without moving; internal repetition of sounds; kundalini methods such as fixing the kundalini power between the eyebrows; resting the attention at a point between two thoughts; and other methods.

            By immersing oneself in the center over and over again and dwelling on the bliss of Cit upon returning to normal consciousness, one stabilizes the state of resting in the Self. Then, as a result of resting in the Self whose essence is cit-ananda, consciousness-bliss, and whose nature is the power of great mantra, one attains the powers of Shiva.

F. Max Müller on Vedanta

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Vedanta means the completion of the Veda, which was the sacrificial and ritualistic faith of the horse-worshipping Aryans who conquered the Indus Valley around 1,500 B.C.

Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900) was the first European scholar to publish complete translations of the Rig Veda and the principal Upanishads in English, as well as the Vedanta Sutra of Adi Shankara (8th c.) which finally systematized Vedanta down to its minutest details, and therefore provided Europe with a much more complete picture of this Hindu philosophy and religion than had been available hereto. His influence on Victorian England was huge, and he was instrumental in founding the study of comparative religion as an academic field, and in developing the idea of the inseparable relation of language and culture.

F. Max Müller in middle age, year unknown. Credit: unknown

The brief introduction constructed below was extracted from lectures Müller gave on Vedanta in 1894 and designed to be as brief and pithy as possible. Since this is the dominant system of philosophy in India, and also in yoga and “spiritual” schools worldwide, I present it here in Müller’s own words. As refreshing and liberating as its ideas might seem to a person familiar only with the major monotheistic religions, in my opinion its view of reality is rather primitive and dated. In support of this statement, I have inserted critical comments in brackets throughout.

What Is Vedanta?

In India the prevailing philosophy is still the Vedanta. The most extraordinary feature of this Vedanta philosophy consists in its being an independent system of philosophy yet entirely dependent on the Upanishads — nay, chiefly occupied with proving that all its doctrines, to the very minutest points, are derived from the revealed doctrines of the Upanishads. In these Upanishads not only are all sacrificial duties rejected, but the very gods to whom the ancient prayers of the Veda were addressed are put aside to make room for one Supreme Being, called Brahman.

The same Upanishads had then to explain the true relation between Brahman, Supreme Being, and the soul of man. The soul of man was called Atman, literally the self, also Jivatman, the living self. After the substantial unity of the living or individual self with the Supreme Being or Brahman had been discovered, Brahman was called the Highest Self or Paramatman.

These terms were not new technical terms coined by philosophers. Some of them are very ancient and occur in the oldest Vedic compositions, in the hymns, the Brahmanas, and finally in the Upanishads. The etymology of Brahman and Atman is extremely difficult, and this very difficulty shows that both of these words, from the point of view of historical Sanskrit, belong to a prehistoric layer of Sanskrit (i.e., these terms are older than Sanskrit).

Significance of the Veda

I have often pointed out that the real importance of the Veda will always be the opportunity which it affords us of watching the active process of the fermentation of early thought. The growth of the divine idea is laid bare in the Veda as nowhere else. We see in the Vedic hymns the first revelation of Deity, the first expressions of surprise and suspicion, the first discovery that behind this visible and perishable world there must be something invisible, imperishable, eternal or divine.

[Must there be?]

Nearly all the leading deities of the Veda bear the unmistakable traces of their physical character. Their very names tell us that they were in the beginning names of the great phenomena of nature, of fire, water, rain and storm, of sun and moon, of heaven and earth. We see before our eyes the bright powers of heaven and earth who became the Devas, the Bright Ones.

We see how these individual and dramatic deities ceased to satisfy their early worshippers, and we find the incipient reasoners postulating One God behind all the deities of the earliest times. This was the final outcome of religious thought, beginning with a most natural faith in invisible powers or agents behind the starting drama of nature, and ending with a belief in One Great Power, the unknown.

Philosophy of Vedanta

The fundamental tenet of the Vedanta school consisted in contending that the existence of matter has no essence independent of mental perception, that existence and perceptibility are interchangeable terms, that external appearances and sensations are illusory and would vanish into nothing if the divine energy which alone sustains them were suspended even for a moment. To the Brahmans, to be able to mistrust the evidence of the senses was the very first step in (their) philosophy.

[But why mistrust the senses? Why was this chosen as the foundation of Vedanta “philosophy” — a word whose original Greek meaning is “love of truth”? So Vedanta has postulated a more real world, eternal and unchanging, and has rejected the sensory phenomenal world as “illusory” and unreal, the product of Avidya (ignorance or delusion). And so dualism crept into their thought, about which we shall read more as we progress.]

From the Maitrayaniya Upanishad:

Thoughts alone cause the round of a new birth and a new death. Let a man therefore strive to purify his thoughts. What a man thinks, that he is. This is the old secret. (VI, 34)

Exactly the same idea is expressed by Buddha in the first verse of the Dhammapada (the collected words of the Buddha). Buddha’s hostility toward the Brahmins has been very much exaggerated, and we know by now that most of his doctrines were really those of the Upanishads.

Man is immortal as soon as he knows himself, that is, as soon as he knows the eternal Self within him. Subject, for the Vedantists, is not a logical but a metaphysical term. It is, in fact, another name for Self, or for whatever name has been given to the eternal element in man and God. As soon as the Self is conceived and changed into something objective, Avidya (“absence of true knowledge”) steps in, the illusory cosmic life begins, the soul seems to be this or that, to live and to die — while as subject, it can be touched by neither life nor death, it stands aloof, it is immortal.

If the Hindu philosopher is clear on any point, it is this: that the subjective soul, the witness or knower, or the Self, can never be known as objective but can only be itself, and thus be conscious of itself. We can only know ourselves by being ourselves. If other people think they know us, they know our phenomenal self, never our subjective self, which can never be anything but a subject — it knows, but it cannot be known.

Problems with Vedanta

Soon, however, a new question arose: Whence come all these upadhis or (limiting) conditions, this body, these senses, this mind and all the rest? And the answer was, from Avidya.

The Vedantist sees the work of Avidya everywhere. He sees it in our not knowing our true nature, and in our believing in the objective world as it appears and disappears. He guards against calling this universal Avidya real, in the sense in which Brahman is real, yet he cannot call it altogether unreal, because it has at all events caused all that seems to be real, though it is itself unreal.

[Here the argument starts to fall apart.]

Its only reality (Avidya’s, that is) consists in the fact that it has to be assumed, and there is no other assumption possible to account for what is called the real world (emphasis added).

[Is there no other assumption possible to account for what is called “the real world”? First the Upanishads posit a more real world, eternal and unchanging, but are then faced with the problem of explaining the sensory phenomenal world — the physical world, the world as it is, as we perceive it, the world we inhabit. So the only “assumption possible” is that the world we see and inhabit is not real, in the sense that the “real” world is real (here they qualify it), all the while missing the fact that this “real” world was born as an idea in the mind of man. Without this assumption, the whole philosophy falls apart.

[Because man does not perceive correctly, he misses the real world and falls under the spell of a world he himself creates, the illusory one. This is dualism par excellence, unfortunately found in what is termed Advaita (“without two,” usually translated as Nondual) Vedanta, and its presence in this philosophy is the reason I call primitive and dated. A yet finer conception of nondualism is possible (as we shall see elsewhere), one that does not posit and distinguish between real and unreal worlds.]

Adi Shankara, boy genius, is said to have completed his writings by age 16 and died at 32, having bested in debates the brightest minds of his time. One of India’s most revered saints, Shankara systematized Vedanta in the 8th century. Painting by Srinivasa Rau.

The Triumph of Shankara: Vedanta in a Nutshell

Avidya, however, is not meant for our own individual ignorance, but as an ignorance inherent in human nature — nay, as something like a general cosmic force, as darkness inevitable in the light, which causes the phenomenal world to seem, and to be to us, what it seems and what it is.

Hence Avidya came to be called Maya, original power (also Shakti, “power”), the productive cause of the whole world. This Maya soon assumed the meaning of illusion, deception, fraud — nay, it assumed a kind of mythological personality.

[To me it seems that all the undesirable remnants of this philosophy, such as the “productive power” that leads to deception and fraud, were personified as the female principle (Shakti) and rejected in favor of the male (Brahman).]

However, the word Maya never occurs in the principal Upanishads in the same sense a Avidya, though in some of the later Upanishads it has taken the place of Avidya.

[Maya as a deceptive veil thrown over the world to conceal its true nature, leading to suffering and rebirth, is also a central concept in Buddhism.]

In some places, certain latent powers or shaktis (“powers”) are ascribed to Brahman in order to account for the variety of created things in each period. But this is strongly objected to by Shankara, who holds that the universe, though it has all its reality in and from Brahman, is not to be looked upon as a modification — for Brahman, being perfect, can never be changed or modified, and what is called the created world, in all its variety, is and remains with the Vedantist the result of a primeval and universal turning aside or perversion caused by Avidya.

Brahman, as Shankara says, though ignorantly worshipped, remains unaffected by our inadequate conceptions. He is not tainted by our ignorance, as little as the sun is tainted by the clouds that pass over it. Nay, we may learn in time that as the human eye cannot look upon the sun except when covered by those passing clouds, the human mind cannot possibly conceive God except behind the veil of human language and human thought. The phenomenal Brahman is therefore nothing but the real Brahman, only veiled in time by Avidya.