Insight Editions · No. 357
Vijnanabhairava
Divine Consciousness: A Treasury of 112 Types of Yoga
Rudrayamala Tantra · translated by Jaideva Singh
The Vijnanabhairava Tantra in Jaideva Singh's translation: the Devi's question about Bhairava's nature and the 112 dharanas that answer it, from the pauses of the breath, sound and void to delight, the gap between thoughts and the inward meaning of ritual. All 163 verses, the introduction, a glossary and a graded practice path, with critical notes.
A study guide to Vijnanabhairava or Divine Consciousness: A Treasury of 112 Types of Yoga, in the translation by Jaideva Singh (Motilal Banarsidass). Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the author or publishers. Please read and buy the original.
CORE CLAIM
Bhairava, undivided consciousness, is one's own Self and cannot be described, only realised when thought-constructs fall away. Any experience held with full awareness, a breath, a sound, a void, a delight, a sudden shock, can open onto it: 112 doorways, of which one is enough.
SCOPE
Jaideva Singh's Preface and Introduction, the frame dialogue (verses 1 to 23), all 112 dharanas (verses 24 to 138) and the closing dialogue on japa, worship and the breath-mantra (verses 139 to 163), with a glossary, a master synthesis and a graded practice path: about 33,000 words.
KEY FIGURES
Bhairava and Bhairavi (the speakers); commentators Kshemaraja (verses 1 to 23), Sivopadhyaya and Bhatta Ananda; Abhinavagupta and Jayaratha; translator Jaideva Singh, taught word by word by Swami Lakshman Joo.
BEST FOR
Readers who want the practical manual of Kashmir Saivism method by method: the pauses of the breath, sound and void, delight as doorway, the gap between thoughts, and the inward meaning of ritual, with an honest critical lens throughout.
How to Use This Guide
The Vijnanabhairava is the most practical text of Kashmir Saivism. It does not argue. It asks one question and answers it 112 times. The goddess Bhairavi asks her consort Bhairava: what is your true nature, and how can it be realised? Bhairava first rejects the familiar answers (the powers of the letters, the nine forms, the three heads, the subtle sounds of the mantra) and then states that his highest state "can neither be indicated nor described in words"; it can be known only when one is "completely free of all thought-constructs". Then he gives 112 dharanas, methods of concentration or contemplation, each a different doorway into that thought-free state: the pause at the end of the breath, the void within the spine, the sound of a stringed instrument, the moment before sleep, the joy of meeting a friend, the empty sky, a sneeze, a great fear, a sudden memory, a long stare at a wall. The diversity is the teaching. Any experience, held with full awareness, can open onto Bhairava, the undifferentiated consciousness that is one's own Self.
How This Guide Is Organised
The book has a short Preface and a dense Introduction (pp. vii to xxx), the frame dialogue (verses 1 to 23), the 112 dharanas (verses 24 to 138), and a closing dialogue on mantra, worship and the fruits of practice (verses 139 to 163), followed by a glossary and indexes. This guide follows the same order.
- Front matter and Introduction: one section each for the Preface, the date and commentators, the meaning of the title, and the bases of the dharanas (prana, japa, bhavana, void, vastness, intensity, mudra), then the key concepts (ksobha, vikalpa, madhyavikasa, sunya, the stages of pranava, and the final verse).
- The frame dialogue (verses 1 to 23): the Devi's questions, Bhairava's rejection of the standard answers, and his statement of the highest state.
- The 112 dharanas, grouped by theme in small runs of verses. Each group has The Core Argument (what the verses say, with Singh's translation quoted), Teaching Notes (Singh's explanations, numbered), an Insight paragraph, a critical lens ("A note for readers:"), Key Terms and, for selected groups, a Reflection.
- The closing dialogue (verses 139 to 163).
- Glossary, Master Synthesis (with an honest assessment), A Graded Practice Path and a Closing Note.
Bold text marks Singh's key formulations and the most important ideas. Quotation marks are Singh's English; page references are to his book.
Three Voices
The book has three layers. The Tantra itself, a set of short Sanskrit verses probably compiled before the eighth century. Kshemaraja's commentary, which survives only for the first 23 verses, and the later commentaries of Sivopadhyaya and Bhatta Ananda, which Singh judges to be coloured by Advaita Vedanta and does not translate. And Jaideva Singh, who studied the text "word by word" with Swami Lakshman Joo and adds notes that classify each dharana as anava, sakta or sambhava. Lakshman Joo's influence is direct: Singh says he incorporated "slightly different readings yielding better sense" at a few places "as suggested by Svami Laksmana Joo". This guide keeps the three voices distinct.
the Vijnanabhairava became one of the most widely read Indian spiritual texts in the West through a much freer rendering, "Centering", by Paul Reps, printed in "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones" (1957), and through Osho's lengthy talks on it ("The Book of Secrets"). Those versions reduce each dharana to a one-line instruction and remove the Saiva setting. Singh's edition is the first scholarly English translation, and reading it shows how much of the context (prana, kundalini, mantra, the doctrine of Bhairava and Bhairavi) the popular versions left out.
Dedication and Preface (pp. v to vii)
The book is dedicated "to Svami Laksmana Joo, who unsealed my eyes". The Preface is short. "Vijnanabhairava is a very ancient book on Yoga. It closely follows the basic principles of Saivagama. It contains 112 types of yoga. There is hardly any other book on yoga which has described so many ways of approach to Central Reality that is present in each man as his essential Self." The English translation "is being provided for the first time". The text is mainly that of the Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies, with a few readings changed on Lakshman Joo's advice. Each verse is given in Devanagari and Roman script, followed by a translation and notes.
Teaching Notes
1. Read the philosophy first. Singh advises: "Since the yogas recommended in the book are based on the tenets of the non-dualistic Saiva Philosophy, the reader will do well to read the author's Introductory Portion of either the Pratyabhijnahrdayam or the Siva-sutras before taking up the study of the present book." This book is the practical third volume of a set.
2. Taught word by word. "I express my sincerest gratitude to Svami Laksmana Joo who has kindly taught this book to me word by word."
Singh's advice is sound. The Vijnanabhairava can be read as a list of meditation tricks, and has been, but almost every dharana assumes a picture of reality (consciousness as the only reality, the world as its self-expression, the breath as its first transformation) that the other two books explain. Readers who have used this guide series on the Pratyabhijnahrdayam and the Siva Sutras will find most of the vocabulary already familiar.
Singh's statement that this is the first English translation is correct for a complete scholarly version. Lakshman Joo's own oral commentary on the text was later published as "Vijnana Bhairava: The Practice of Centring Awareness" (1st edition 2002), and other translations have followed. Because Lakshman Joo shaped both Singh's version and his own, readers comparing them will find a common lineage reading rather than independent ones.
Importance, Text and Date (pp. ix to xi)
Singh opens with a distinction. In India there have been "two main ways of approach to Reality": vivekaja marga, the path of discrimination, and yogaja marga, the path of union or integration. "Patanjala yoga and Sankara Vedanta have adopted the Vivekaja marga by which the Purusa or Atma is isolated from Prakrti (in the case of Patanjala Yoga) or from Maya (in the case of Vedanta)." Singh notes that "yoga" in Patanjali "does not mean union; it means samadhi", as Vyasa's commentary says ("yuji samadhau"). "Saivagama has adopted the Yogaja marga in which the goal is not isolation of the Self... but the integration of the individual Self to the Universal Self or Bhairava and the realization of the universe as the expression of His Sakti." "The ideal of Saivagama is not the rejection of the universe but its assimilation to its Source."
Teaching Notes
1. Its standing. Abhinavagupta calls it an Agama, the Sivavijnanopanisad and the Rudrayamalasara; Yogaraja calls it the Saivopanisad; Kshemaraja quotes it "at many places" in his Siva Sutra commentary. "It has been acknowledged by the great exponents of Saivagama as a very authentic work on yoga."
2. The commentaries. The Kashmir Series edition has an incomplete commentary of Kshemaraja (up to verse 23) and complete ones by Sivopadhyaya and Bhatta Ananda. After verse 23 the edition says: "after this, the commentary is by Sivopadhyaya". "It is not known whether Ksemaraja did not live to complete his commentary, or whether his commentary after the above verse has been lost."
3. Singh's judgement of the later commentators. "Sivopadhyaya is greatly influenced by Samkara Vedanta. So his commentary is not reliable. Bhatta Ananda is even more avowedly a follower of Samkara Vedanta." Neither is translated.
4. Dates. The text claims to be the quintessence of the Rudrayamala Tantra, whose authentic text "is not available". The earliest reference is in Vamananatha's Advayasampatti-varttika; if Vamananatha is the poetician Vamana of King Jayapida's court (779 to 813), "Vijnanabhairava was very well known in the 8th century A.D. Perhaps it may have been compiled a century earlier." Kshemaraja is placed in the tenth century; Bhatta Ananda's colophon puts him in the seventeenth; Sivopadhyaya's in the eighteenth.
5. A manual, not a ritual text. Tantras generally contain rituals, mantras, yantras, mudras, postures, initiations and yoga. "Vijnanabhairava is purely a manual of mystic practices in accordance with Saivagama."
the vivekaja and yogaja distinction is the key to everything that follows. A path of discrimination says "I am not this, not this", and withdraws from the world to find the pure witness. A path of integration says "this too is my own consciousness", and finds the Self in the world. The Vijnanabhairava belongs to the second kind, which is why its methods so often use the senses, pleasure, emotion and ordinary activity rather than turning away from them.
the contrast Singh draws is real but simplified. Advaita Vedanta also teaches that the world is not other than Brahman once known, and Patanjali's system ends in a state of freedom that many readers find compatible with life in the world. Equally, many of the Vijnanabhairava's own methods (attention to the void, withdrawal of the senses, "neither this nor that") work by discrimination. The difference is one of emphasis and final vision, not a clean opposition. Singh's dismissal of the two later commentators for following Sankara is also a lineage judgement: a Vedantin reading of this text is a legitimate historical fact about how it was received in Kashmir, not simply an error.
The dating also deserves care. A citation by a "Vamananatha" whose identity with the poetician is uncertain gives at most a plausible eighth-century terminus. Most scholars accept a date before Abhinavagupta (about 975 to 1025), since he quotes it, and many place its composition in the seventh to eighth century. The connection to the lost Rudrayamala is the text's own claim.
Key Terms
- Vivekaja marga: the path of discrimination.
- Yogaja marga: the path of integration or union.
- Dharana: here, any method of concentration or yoga.
- Rudrayamala: "union of Rudra and his Sakti"; the lost Tantra of which the text claims to be the essence.
The Meaning of Vijnanabhairava (pp. xi to xiii)
The title has two words. Bhairava, in Kshemaraja's Udyota, "is an acrostic word consisting of the letters bha, ra, and va; bha indicates bharana or maintenance of the universe; ra indicates ravana or withdrawal of the universe; va indicates vamana or projection, i.e. manifestation of the universe." Abhinavagupta (Tantraloka III.283 to 285) describes three aspects: the manifester, Bhairava "in His cosmic essence in whose consciousness the entire universe... is reflected", and Bhairava "as prasama in whose flame of mahabodha... everything is dissolved". To the mystic, Bhairava is "that Ultimate Reality in which prakasa i.e. Light of Consciousness and vimarsa or Eternal Awareness of that Light are indistinguishably fused".
Vijnana is Bhairava's essential nature: "bodha or mahabodha, cit or caitanya the main characteristic of which is svatantrya or absolute freedom".
Teaching Notes
1. The mirror. "The entire manifestation consisting of subject and object is a mere reflection in this vijnana. Just as a city in a mirror appears as something different from the mirror, though it is nothing different from the mirror, even so the universe though appearing different from vijnana is nothing different from it."
2. Bhairava's answer (verses 14 and 15). "Paravastha (the highest state) of Bhairava is free of all notions pertaining to direction (dik), time (kala), nor can that be particularized by some definite space (desa) or designation (uddesa). In verity that can neither be indicated nor described in words. One can be aware of that only when one is completely free of all thought-constructs (vikalpas). One can have an experience of that bliss in his own inmost Self." "That state of Bhairava which is full of the bliss of non-difference from the entire world (bharitakara) is alone Bhairavi or Sakti of Bhairava."
3. Fire and its burning. "Just as there is no difference between fire and its power of burning, even so there is no difference between Bhairava and Paradevi." Paradevi is called Saivi mukha, "means of approach to Siva".
"Vijnanabhairava" could be translated "Bhairava who is consciousness" or "consciousness that is Bhairava". The name already contains the teaching. The terrifying deity of Saiva iconography (Bhairava with his garland of skulls) is reinterpreted as pure awareness, and his "terror" (Singh's note on verse 1: "the terrible one who destroys the ego") becomes the dissolution of the limited self. This move, from a fearsome god of the cremation ground to an inner state, is characteristic of how Kashmir Saivism absorbed older Kapalika and Kaula traditions.
the acrostic etymology (bha-ra-va) is a nirukta, a sacred "hermeneutic etymology", not a historical one. The name Bhairava is linguistically related to bhiru and bhaya, "fear". The tradition knew this (hence "the terrible one") and layered the creative meaning on top. As with the etymologies in the Siva Sutras, the meaning is contemplative, not philological.
Dharanas, Upayas and the Goal (pp. xii to xiv)
In reply to the Devi's question "By what means can this highest state be realized?", Bhairava describes 112 dharanas. In Patanjali, dharana means "fixation of mind on a particular spot". "In Vijnanabhairava it is used in the wide sense of fixation or concentration of mind or yoga." So "112 types of yoga or means of communion with Bhairava have been described in this text."
Teaching Notes
1. What yoga is not. "Unfortunately, no word has been profaned so much in modern times as yoga. Fire-walking, acid-swallowing, stopping the heart-beat, etc. pass for yoga when really speaking they have nothing to do with yoga as such. Even psychic powers are not yoga. Yoga is awareness, transformation of the human consciousness into divine consciousness."
2. The four upayas. Communion is classed under anupaya, sambhava, sakta and anava. Singh's notes indicate for each dharana which it is. Anupaya, "no means", is interpreted by Jayaratha as isat upaya, "very little means": "Just a casual hint by the guru... is enough for the advanced aspirant." The others "are, however, not watertight compartments. The aspirant has to pass from the anava to sakta and finally from the sakta to the sambhava state."
3. Every kind of technique. The text uses "postures, mudras or gestures, development of pranasakti, awakening of kundalini, mantra japa..., bhakti (devotion), jnana..., meditation, bhavana (creative contemplation)". It even uses "techniques of very non-formal nature, e.g., looking vacantly at the dark night, high mountains, watching the condition of consciousness in a see-saw movement, the condition of consciousness before falling asleep, intently looking at a vase without partition". The 112 are given "ad modum recipientis" (according to the mode of the recipients), "so that any technique that may suit a particular aspirant may be adopted by him".
4. The goal. Identification with Bhairava, "undifferentiated universal consciousness which is the heart (hrdaya), nectar (amrta), Reality par excellence (tattva or mahasatta), essence (svarupa), Self (atman), or void (sunyata) that is full". It involves four processes: "(1) Perfect interiorization... (2) Passing from vikalpa or the stage of differentiating, dichotomizing thought-construct to nirvikalpa stage of thought-free, non-relational awareness. (3) Disappearance of the limited pseudo-I or ego... and the emergence of the Real Universal I (purnahanta)... (4) Dissolution of citta or the individual mind into cit or universal Consciousness."
"ad modum recipientis" is the real genius of the book. Instead of claiming one method fits all, it offers a library. A person who finds breath-work agitating might find sound or vastness or devotion natural; someone who cannot sit still might find that walking, eating or the moment of waking is their door. The common element is not the technique but the result: a moment when thought-construction stops and awareness is aware of itself.
Singh's complaint about yoga being "profaned" by fire-walking and heart-stopping (written in 1979) applies even more strongly now, when yoga in most of the world means a fitness practice. His definition, "yoga is awareness", is a useful corrective. It is worth noticing, though, that the text itself is not purely about awareness: it includes kundalini, mantra syllables, supernatural powers and an Agamic cosmology. "Yoga is awareness" is Singh's and Lakshman Joo's distillation, and a good one, but it is a modernising emphasis.
The Bases of the Dharanas (pp. xiv to xxi)
Singh lists seven bases of the dharanas: prana, japa, bhavana, sunya (void), vastness, intensity of experience, and mudras and asanas.
Teaching Notes
1. Prana. Between body and mind "there is prana which serves as a link between the two. Prana is not mind; it is insentient, but it is not like gross physical energy. It is subtle biological energy which catches the vibrations of the mind and transmits them to the nerves and plexuses and also physical vibrations to the mind. By controlling the mind one can control the prana, and by controlling the prana, one can control the mind." In Saivagama, prana "is not something alien to samvit... but the first evolute of samvit": "prak samvit prane parinata", "consciousness is at first transformed into prana". The word has three senses: life-force; specific biological functions; and breath. "In this context the word prana is used for the breath that is exhaled, and apana is used for the breath that is inhaled."
2. The first dharana. "The very first dharana (verse 24) utilizes the two poles of respiration, viz. dvadasanta, a distance of twelve fingers from the nose in the outer space where prana or exhalation ends and hrt or the centre inside the body where apana or inhalation ends."
3. Uccara and nada. Uccara, the natural upward movement of prana, expresses itself as nada, "subtle, inarticulate, or unmanifest" sound, called varna. The Svacchanda: "There is none who sounds it voluntarily, nor can any one prevent its being sounded. The deity abiding in the heart of living creatures sounds it himself." Abhinavagupta: "As it is ceaseless, it is called anahata i.e. unstruck." Its main forms are the srsti bija (sa, exhalation) and samhara bija (ha, inhalation).
4. Hamsa and kundalini. Verses 155 and 156: the breath goes out with sa and in with ha, so every being recites hamsah 21,600 times a day; "Such a japa... is quite easy to accomplish; it is only difficult for the ignorant." There are two ways to use it: anusandhana, prolonged awareness of the automatic process, and conscious recitation as so'ham or aum. In ordinary japa, sound moves from vaikhari (spoken) through madhyama (mental) towards pasyanti and paravak, reversing the descent of creation. "After constant practice of japa for some years, an extraordinary thing happens. A time comes when the japa does not depend on the will... It becomes an ajapajapa." Then prana and apana are "equilibrated; the kundalini now awakens"; the current rises in the susumna; anahata nada is heard; at the brahmarandhra "nada ceases; it is then converted into jyoti (light)".
5. Bhavana. Following Abhinavagupta's Tantrasara: since "vikalpa is the very nature of mind", the aspirant "should mentally seize one suddha or pure vikalpa, viz. of the highest I-consciousness, of the real Self as being Siva". "Bhavana is creative contemplation. Imagination plays a very large part in it. One has to imagine oneself with all the faith and fervour at his command that he is Siva." The pure vikalpa eliminates the others, then "the suddha vikalpa also ceases". Abhinavagupta's steps: a sadguru initiates; then sattarka, "not logic-chopping, but training the mind in harmonious consonance with the truth"; then bhavana, "a total dedication of the mind to one central thought, a nostalgia of the soul, a spiritual thrust towards the source of one's being". Verse 49 lays down the bhavana of the Self; verse 54 the dissolution of the tattvas in reverse order.
6. Void and vastness. Verses 39, 40, 45, 58 and 122 contemplate the void. Verse 60: "experience of a vast, extensive space without any trees, etc. has no definite, concrete object as alambana or support for the mind. In such a condition, the vikalpas... come to a dead stop, and supersensuous Reality makes its presence felt."
7. Intensity of experience. "Even in the intensity of sensuous experience, one can have the experience of the Divine, provided one is careful to track the joy felt on such occasions to its source." Verses 69 and 70 use sexual union: "It should be borne in mind that this example is given only to illustrate the intensity of experience in union. From physical union, one's attention has to be directed to spiritual union. This does not advocate sexual indulgence." Singh quotes a long passage on Tao and love from the journal Arya (1915), reprinted in "Mother India" (1979): "Seek not thy happiness in a woman... she is the Force which awakens in thee the Rhythm of Tao, but by herself she is only a poor creature like thyself. And thou art for her the same revelation as she is for thee." Verse 71 (seeing a friend) is visual joy, 72 taste, 73 sound.
8. Mudras and asanas. Verse 77 describes mudras; verses 78, 79 and 82 postures.
the seven bases map neatly onto the senses and faculties: breath (prana), speech (japa), imagination (bhavana), absence (void), space (vastness), feeling (intensity) and the body (mudra, asana). Nothing human is excluded. The bhavana passage is especially honest: it admits that the practice begins with imagination, a deliberately cultivated thought "I am Siva", and trusts that the imagined thought will eventually dissolve into what it points to. Modern psychology would call this a form of identity-level visualisation, and it is the same as the Sakta method of the Siva Sutras.
several points need care. First, the account of kundalini (equilibrated currents, rising through cakras, sound becoming light) is presented as fact. It is a traditional map of experience that many practitioners report in some form, but its physiological claims are untested, and kundalini practices can produce real psychological distress in some people; this is well documented in clinical literature on "spiritual emergencies". Second, the Tao passage Singh quotes, from Sri Aurobindo's journal Arya, is a European-style literary meditation (it is in fact a translation from a French work), not a Chinese source; its presence shows the Aurobindonian circle Singh was reading in. Third, Singh's insistence that the sexual verses do "not advocate sexual indulgence" is a modern reassurance. Historically, some Kaula traditions did use ritual sexual union. Singh's reading represents the internalised, contemplative interpretation that Abhinavagupta and later Kashmir Saivism made dominant.
Key Terms
- Prana / apana: here, exhaled / inhaled breath; generally, the life-force.
- Dvadasanta: the point twelve fingers from the nose where exhalation ends.
- Uccara: the upward movement of prana.
- Anahata nada: the unstruck inner sound.
- Ajapajapa: spontaneous, automatic recitation.
- Bhavana: creative contemplation.
- Vaikhari, madhyama, pasyanti, para: the four levels of speech.
Ksobha, Vikalpa and Madhyavikasa (pp. xxi to xxiv)
Three concepts "have to be clearly grasped". Ksobha "means mental agitation, disquiet, turmoil". Verse 74 says "wherever there is tusti or mental satisfaction or joy, there the mind should be fixed". In all such joys "the fixation of the mind should be without ksobha". "When one is deeply moved by some beautiful object... the attitude should be 'This beautiful tabernacle houses Siva who is my own essential Self.'" If one is "carried away by sense-pleasure, he cannot have the proper dharana". The Spandakarika: "When the mental turmoil disappears, it is only then that the highest state is attained."
Teaching Notes
1. Vikalpa. "Vikalpas are various mental counters through which man carries on the business of life." "In vikalpa mind sets a limit to one particular thing or idea, and differentiates it from the rest." Each has "two aspects; the positive aspect consists of the idea that is selected, and the negative consists of the rest that are set aside". Vikalpas "are relational, i.e. there is always a subject-object relationship". "Reality is non-relational... Therefore vikalpas are unable to grasp Reality." But one suddha vikalpa, "the thought that I am Siva", eliminates the rest, then disappears.
2. Madhyavikasa. "When the prana or exhalation arising from the centre of the body does not return from the dvadasanta... for a split second and the apana or inhalation... does not return from the centre for a split second, this is known as madhyadasa. By intensive awareness of this madhyadasa, there is madhya vikasa or the development of the middle state." It can occur through the pauses of breath (verse 25), dissolution of vikalpas (verse 26), retention (verse 27), the methods of Pratyabhijnahrdayam sutra 18, or "the gap between two thoughts when one thought ceases and another is about to arise".
3. The centre. Kshemaraja, on Pratyabhijnahrdayam sutra 17: "Samvit or the Universal Consciousness is the centre of every thing, for everything depends on it for its existence. In the empirical order samvit is at first transformed into prana... it abides principally in the madhya nadi... When the pranasakti in the central channel develops or when the central Universal consciousness develops in any other way, one acquires the bliss of universal consciousness and becomes liberated while living."
the instruction about ksobha is the key to reading every pleasure-based dharana in the book. The point is not to intensify desire but to be moved without being agitated: to let beauty, joy or love fill the mind while recognising, at the same time, that the delight belongs to one's own awareness. That is a delicate balance, and it explains why these methods are not offered as easy or for everyone.
"this beautiful tabernacle houses Siva", said of "a beautiful woman", is well-meant but treats the woman as an object of the practitioner's contemplation. The Arya passage Singh quoted a page earlier made the more mutual point: "thou art for her the same revelation as she is for thee". A modern reader can generalise the instruction (any beautiful person or thing, seen as an expression of the same consciousness one is) without the one-directional gaze.
Key Terms
- Ksobha: agitation, turmoil.
- Tusti: contentment, satisfaction.
- Madhyadasa / madhyavikasa: the middle state / its unfolding.
- Suddha vikalpa: the pure thought "I am Siva".
Sunya, Pranava and the Final Verse (pp. xxiv to xxx)
Sunya "means void, a state in which no object is experienced". It is used in many senses: the central channel, maya (Kshemaraja on the Svacchanda), Siva himself. Its main philosophical sense, from a verse quoted by Sivopadhyaya on verse 127: "That which is free of all supports whether external existents like jar or flower or internal existents like pleasure, pain or thought, that which is free of all tattvas..., of the residual traces of all klesas, that is Sunya. In the highest sense, it is not sunya as such (i.e. as non-existence)." The Svacchanda (IV.292 to 293): "That which is said to be Sunya (void) in this system is not really Sunya, for Sunya only means absence of objects." Kshemaraja glosses the non-void as "cidanandaghana", a mass of consciousness and bliss.
Teaching Notes
1. The six voids. The Svacchanda (IV.288 to 290) recommends contemplating six voids: the upper (Sakti), the lower (the heart), the middle (throat, palate, between the brows, forehead, brahmarandhra), then vyapini, samana and unmana. "These have to be contemplated as void and rejected." Only Parama Siva, "the subtlest and the highest void", is the resting place; "The other voids are sopaya, i.e. meant to be abandoned."
2. Pranava. Three etymologies: "lauded by all"; "that which protects the vital forces"; "that which renovates every thing". There are Sakta, Saiva and Vedic pranavas; the Vedic is aum.
3. The eleven (or twelve) stages of aum. By long, concentrated uccara of aum, "the energy of breath is introverted in the form of madhya sakti... known as hamsa or kundalini which rises in eleven successive movements without the least effort of the will". A, u, m are contemplated in navel, heart and mouth, one matra each. Then bindu, "a point of intense light" between the brows, half a matra; ardhacandra (half-moon) in the forehead, a quarter; nirodhika or nirodhini, a straight line, one eighth ("so-called, because it prevents the undeserving aspirants from entering the next stage of nada and the deserving ones from slipping into dualism"); nada, the unstruck resonance through the susumna, one sixteenth; nadanta in the brahmarandhra, one thirty-second ("the sense of identification of the Self with the body disappears"); sakti, bliss, felt in the skin, one sixty-fourth; vyapini, all-pervading, "the limits of the body are dropped", one hundred and twenty-eighth; samana, "only an activity of thinking without any object of thought", one two hundred and fifty-sixth; and unmana, beyond mind, "amatra, without any measure", beyond time.
4. Atmavyapti and Sivavyapti. "If the yogi who has reached the stage of samana directs his attention towards the universe, he acquires the supernormal powers of omnipresence, omniscience, etc., but if he is indifferent towards these powers... he reaches unmana." The yogi content with samana "has only atmavyapti", which Kshemaraja calls "the isolation of pure consciousness". "But this is not the highest goal of man according to Saivagama... the highest goal is Sivavyapti", identification with Siva "who is all-inclusive". "Manas... knows in a successive order... whereas unmana... knows all things simultaneously."
5. The quintessence (verse 138). Citi in its descent "assumes four forms for appearing as a limited individual": cetana (buddhi), manasa (mind with its samkalpa), sakti (pranasakti, "the support of the body and empirical life"), and atma (the empirical self conditioned by the other three). "When the above four are dissolved into cit..., it is only then that one attains to bhairava-consciousness." Kshemaraja (Siva Sutras III.21): "One has to enter the divine consciousness by thought-free, non-relational awareness... By dissolving the personal self consisting of the body, prana, etc. in the savoury sap of the Universal Divine Consciousness."
6. Singh's conclusion. "The chrysalis of the ego has to split before one can enter the sanctum sanctorum of the Divine Presence." The Katha Upanisad: "Yoga is both dissolution and emergence, both death and rebirth. One has to die to live." Ananda Coomaraswamy: "The condition of deification is an eradication of all otherness."
the distinction between atmavyapti and Sivavyapti is the most important doctrinal point in the Introduction, and it is what separates this system from both classical Yoga and Advaita. Reaching a pure, isolated witness, untouched by the world, is real and valuable, but in this tradition it is a halfway house. The final goal includes the world: consciousness that is free not by withdrawing from experience but by recognising all experience as its own. Every dharana in the book should be read with this in mind. Many begin by withdrawing (void, stillness, the end of the breath), but they are meant to end in an expansion that includes everything.
the fractional measures of the stages of aum (one half, one quarter, down to one five hundred and twelfth of a matra) are traditional, and their precision is symbolic, a way of saying that each stage is subtler than the last. No one measures the duration of an inner sound in five-hundred-and-twelfths of a syllable. The same applies to the bodily locations (skin, the root of the tuft of hair, the end of the tuft): these are meditation supports within a ritual body map, not anatomical facts. And the familiar promise that powers of "omnipresence, omniscience" await the yogi at samana is asserted, as usual, without any means of verification; to its credit, the text's interest lies in going past them.
Key Terms
- Sunya: void; "absence of objects", not non-existence.
- Bindu, ardhacandra, nirodhika, nada, nadanta, sakti, vyapini, samana, unmana: the stages of the subtle aum.
- Atmavyapti: pervasion of the pure Self, isolated consciousness.
- Sivavyapti: pervasion of Siva, all-inclusive consciousness.
- Cetana, manasa, sakti, atma: the four forms of the limited individual (verse 138).
Reflection
- Which of the seven bases (breath, sound, imagination, void, vastness, intense feeling, body) feels most natural to you? Which feels most foreign? The text suggests starting with the first.
- Have you ever had a moment of "pure witness", detached from everything? Did it feel complete, or as if something were still excluded?
The Devi's Doubt (pp. 1 to 5)
"Bhairavi, the Sakti of Bhairava says: O deva (divine one) who in manifesting the universe and treating it as your play are my very self, I have heard in toto all the scriptures which have come forth from the union of Rudra and his pair Sakti or which are the outcome of Rudrayamala Tantra, including the Trika together with its divisions... But O supreme Lord, even now my doubt has not been removed."
Teaching Notes
1. Bhairava and Bhairavi. "Bhairava means the terrible one who destroys the ego." The acrostic bha-ra-va gives maintenance, withdrawal and manifestation. Tantras are "generally written in the form of a dialogue between Bhairava and His Sakti Bhairavi"; "this is the Indian way of saying that these scriptures are a revelation".
2. Why a dialogue, if they are one? "It requires two to enter into a dialogue, but when Bhairava and Bhairavi are non-different, how can there be a dialogue?" Singh: anugraha (grace) is one of Bhairava's five acts and is represented by his Sakti. Truths exist "in a latent form at the paravak level where object and word... are in an indistinguishable unity"; the Devi "puts questions from the pasyanti level and receives answers at that level", and both are transmitted "in vaikhari form (human language)". "The dialogue between Bhairava and Bhairavi is a methodological device for revealing truths existing at the paravak level in vaikhari or human language."
3. Past tense, eternal truth. "Uvaca" ("said") is past tense, but "as the question is perennial and the answer contains eternal truth, it is taken in the sense of present tense". "To the Divine, there is no division of time. In his case, it is eternal now."
4. Deva, Rudra, yamala. Deva from div, "to manifest, to play"; Kshemaraja: "O my very Self whose nature it is to display His sport". Rudra: ru for ruk (disease), dra for dravi (dissolver), "one who dissolves all the ills of life". Yamala, "pair", connotes "the union of Rudra and His Sakti i.e. prakasa and vimarsa".
5. The ladder of systems. Kshemaraja quotes a verse ranking the traditions: "The (dualistic) Saiva system is superior to the vedas and other scriptures, the system pertaining to the left-handed path is superior to the (dualistic) Saiva one; the system pertaining to the right-handed path is superior to the left-handed one; the Kaula system is superior to the right-handed one and Trika is superior to the Kaula system." Singh: dualistic Saivism is "characterized by external rituals"; in the left-handed path "the emphasis is laid on Self-consciousness in the midst of sensuous experience"; in the right-handed path "on meditation"; in Kaula "on the realization of universal consciousness"; in Trika, "not only the realization of the essential or divine Self but also jagadananda in which the world is realized as the bliss of the Divine made visible". Within Trika, Siddha emphasises kriya, Namaka jnana, Malini both.
6. The order of the book. Verses 1 to 7a: the Devi's doubts. 7b to 21: Bhairava's brief answer. 22 and 23: the Devi asks for the means. 24 to 138: 112 dharanas. Then further questions, answers, and finally "the Devi expresses her satisfaction over the answers and becomes united with Bhairava".
Singh's explanation of the dialogue form is subtle and worth holding on to. The goddess is not ignorant; she knows the truth "at the para level". The dialogue is grace taking the form of a conversation so that the truth can be put into words a human can follow. Read this way, every question in the book is the reader's question, voiced by the part of consciousness that already knows the answer and wants it said.
the ranking of systems (Veda below dualistic Saivism, then left, right, Kaula, Trika at the top) is a sectarian hierarchy, typical of Tantric literature, in which each tradition places itself at the summit. It tells us how the Trika saw itself, not how the traditions compare on any neutral scale. A Vedantin text would rank them in the reverse order. Note also that "left-handed" here is defined gently, as self-awareness amid sensuous experience; historically the vamacara path included transgressive rites (with meat, wine and sexual union) that the later contemplative Trika internalised.
Key Terms
- Bhairavi / Devi / Paradevi: the Sakti of Bhairava, the questioner.
- Anugraha: grace, the fifth divine act.
- Paravak, pasyanti, madhyama, vaikhari: the levels of speech.
- Trika: the system of the triad (Siva, Sakti, nara).
- Jagadananda: the bliss of the world as the Divine made visible.
Eight Questions about Bhairava's Nature (pp. 5 to 11)
The Devi asks: "Oh God, from the point of view of absolute reality, what exactly is the essential nature of Bhairava?" Is it (1) "the energies of the multitude of letters (sabdarasikalamayam)"? (2) "nine different forms (navatmabhedena)"? (3) "the specific mantra that unites in an integral form the three divisions as delineated in Trisirobhairava"? (4) "three Saktis"? (5) "nada (power of mantra inseparably present as vimarsa in all the words)" or "bindu (power of mantra inseparably present in all the objects of the universe as Prakasa)"? (6) "ardhacandra, nirodhika etc."? (7) "some mysterious power residing in the Cakras" or "the vowel-less sound of ha"? (8) "purely Sakti"?
Then (verses 5 and 6): is para Sakti also sakala, made of parts? "If the nature of para Sakti is also sakala, then it would be incompatible with transcendence. Paratva or transcendence cannot be consistent with the division of letters and colour or of bodies; paratva consists only in indivisibility (niskalatvena)... Oh Lord bestow your favour on me, and remove my doubt completely."
Teaching Notes
1. The letters. The universe is made of objects denoted by words; sabdarasi is the totality of letters from a to ksa, produced by the energies anuttara, ananda, iccha, jnana, kriya. "A indicates Prakasa or Siva, the letter Ha indicates vimarsa or Sakti. Thus Aham includes all the letters." The first question asks whether Bhairava is Sabda Brahman, the Divine as word.
2. Nine forms and Sauh. The nine forms (Netra Tantra) are Siva, Sadasiva, Isvara, Vidya, Maya, Kala, Niyati, Purusa, Prakrti (or another list). The lost Trisirobhairava Tantra divides manifestation into Siva, Sakti and Nara, symbolised by the mantra sauh, called parabija, hrdaya bija or prasada: sa for the 31 tattvas from earth to maya (Nara), au for Suddhavidya, Isvara and Sadasiva (Sakti), the visarga for Siva and Sakti.
3. Para, parapara, apara. Para is "the level of absolute non-dualism (abheda)"; parapara is "identity in difference", like "an elephant or a city seen in a mirror"; apara is where "everything appears as different".
4. The subtle stages. Bindu (light in all objects) becomes nada; the curve of ardhacandra; the straight line of nirodhika, which "obstructs undeserving aspirants from entering into nada, and prevents the deserving ones from straying"; nadanta; sakti ("a sensation of spiritual delight"); vyapini (that delight "expands all round like the sky"); samana ("only manana or the faculty of mentation remains"); unmana, "which transcends all mentation".
5. Anacka ha. "Pranasakti present in Susumna ceaselessly and spontaneously goes on vibrating as ha in a vowel-less form... It is known as anahata nada... No body produces it and nobody can prevent it from vibrating. It is known as hamsa or pranakundalini."
6. Singh's classification. "The first question is concerned with matrka, the second and third are concerned with mantra, the fifth and sixth are concerned with mantra-virya... The fourth is concerned with the three Saktis."
the Devi's list is effectively a catalogue of the whole Tantric curriculum of her time: alphabet mysticism, tattva lists, seed mantras, the triad of goddesses, the subtle phonemes of om, the cakras and kundalini. Her real question, in verses 5 and 6, is philosophical: can the transcendent have parts? If the highest is made of letters, forms or stages, it is divided; if it is divided, it is not the highest. This is the problem every theology of a formless God faces, and the Devi poses it sharply.
the density of technical reference here (Netra Tantra, Trisirobhairava, Paratrisika, sauh, anacka kala) is a reminder that this text was composed for initiates who already knew the ritual world it summarises. Singh's notes are essential, but a reader new to the system need not master these lists. The book's own next move is to set them all aside.
All Forms Are a Mother's Sweet (pp. 11 to 13)
"Bhairava said: Good! Good! Dear one, you have put questions which pertain to the very quintessence of Tantra. Though the matter is most esoteric, oh auspicious one, yet shall I explain it to you. Whatever has been declared to be the composite form (sakala) of Bhairava, that oh goddess should be considered as insubstantial, as phantasmagoria (lit. as the net of Indra), as magical illusion (maya), as dream, as the mirage of a town of Gandharvas in the sky. The sakala aspect of Bhairava is taught, as a prop for meditation, to those who are of deluded intellect, who are interested in ostentatious performance of rituals... for those people who are a prey to dichotomising thought-constructs."
"In reality, Bhairava is neither of the form of nine, nor a multitude of letters nor of the three heads nor of three Saktis, nor consisting of nada and bindu, nor of ardhacandra, nirodhika, etc., nor is His essence concerned with the piercing of the (six) cakras, nor does Sakti or Energy constitute His essence."
Why are these taught, then? "The above concepts are used for those whose intellect is not yet mature enough to grasp Reality, just as a bogy is used to frighten away children... These concepts play the same role as the bonbon of the mother. They are meant to induce the aspirants to tread the path of righteousness and spiritual practices in order that they may ultimately realize the nature of Bhairava which is non-different from their essential Self."
Teaching Notes
1. Sakala. "All manifestation from gods down to the mineral is known as sakala. Sakala is the sphere of maya tattva. It consists of bheda... The essential nature of Bhairava cannot be known by means of sakala."
2. The Gandharva city. Gandharvas are "celestial musicians who are believed to have their town in the sky which is entirely imaginary; even so is the sakala form of Bhairava".
3. Bogy and sweet. "As a bogy is used to frighten away children from their obstinacy for getting a worthless and undesirable thing, even so these concepts are used for dissuading men from sense-pleasures. As mothers offer a bonbon to children to induce them to pursue a right course, even so these concepts are used to induce men to tread the path."
this is one of the most remarkable passages in Tantric literature. A text of the Tantric canon, voiced by the god himself, declares that the Tantric apparatus (mantras, letter-mysticism, the cakras, kundalini, the subtle stages of om) is not the truth but a teaching device, "phantasmagoria", "a mother's sweet". These forms are useful; they are not ultimate. It is a built-in critique of religious literalism, and it has an exact parallel in the Buddhist idea of upaya, skilful means, and the raft that is left on the shore once the river is crossed.
two cautions. First, "for those of deluded intellect" can easily become spiritual snobbery: the forms are for others, the formless for me. The text itself goes on to give 112 methods, many of which use exactly the forms (breath, sound, cakras, mantra) just called illusory, so the point is not that forms should be despised but that they should not be mistaken for the goal. Second, this rejection of the sakala form is precisely the passage that later Vedantin commentators found congenial, and it shows why Sivopadhyaya could read the text in an Advaita way: the language of "net of Indra", "maya" and "dream" is shared.
Key Terms
- Sakala / niskala: with parts, composite / partless, transcendent.
- Indrajala: the "net of Indra", magical display.
- Gandharvanagara: the illusory city of the Gandharvas.
- Matrmodaka: the mother's sweet; a teaching inducement.
The Highest State, and Sakti as the Face of Siva (pp. 13 to 18)
"Paravastha (the highest state) of Bhairava is free of all notions pertaining to direction (dik), time (kala), nor can that be particularized by some definite space (desa) or designation (uddesa). In verity that can neither be indicated nor described in words." (14)
"One can be aware of that only when one is completely free of all thought-constructs (vikalponmukta-gocara). One can have an experience of that bliss in his own inmost self. That state of Bhairava which is full of the bliss of non-difference from the entire universe (bharitakara) is alone Bhairavi or Sakti of Bhairava." (15)
"That should, in verity, be known as His essential nature, immaculate (vimalam) and inclusive of the entire universe (visvapuranam). Such being the state of the highest Reality, who can be the object of worship, who is to be satisfied with worship?" (16) This niskala state "is alone the highest state", declared as para devi. (17)
"Since there is always non-difference between Sakti and possessor of Sakti (Saktiman)... being non-different from para she is known as para." (18) "The burning power of fire is not accepted as separate from fire even after full consideration... Only it is described in a distinct way as a preliminary step for the listener towards its knowledge." (19)
"When in one who enters the state of Sakti there ensues the feeling of non-distinction (between Sakti and Siva), then he acquires the state of Siva, (for) in the agamas, she (Sakti) is declared as the door of entrance (into Siva) (Lit., Sakti is like Siva's face)." (20) "Just as by means of the light of a lamp, and the rays of the Sun, portions of space, etc. are known, even so, Oh dear one, by means of Sakti is Siva cognized (i.e. re-cognized)." (21)
Teaching Notes
1. Two levels of the indescribable. Kshemaraja: "cannot be indicated" means "she cannot be talked about even in madhyama (subtle) speech", and "indescribable" that "she can far less be described in ordinary human language".
2. Negative and positive. Verse 14 "hints at the highest state of Bhairava in a negative way"; verse 15 "in a positive way. It says that though it is beyond description, it is not beyond experience (anubhava)." Two conditions: be rid of thought-constructs ("the mind is stilled. In that hour of silence emerges the essential Reality... Mind is the slayer of the Real. Truly has it been said 'Be still, my heart, and know'"), and be rid of the ego ("he will have the experience of a delight which beggars description, a peace that passeth all understanding... 'He saveth life who loseth it'"). "This is Sambhava yoga."
3. Bharitakara. "That state of Bhairava is plenary state, a universal, all pervasive delight of creativity... not exclusive of the universe but inclusive of it. It is only when we miss the whole and cling to the part, the sakala aspect of Bhairava that we stumble."
4. Vimala. Kshemaraja: immaculate "because though it manifests the universe on its own screen, it is not veiled by it".
5. No worshipper, no worshipped. "When the essential nature of Bhairava is recognized as our own inmost self, the distinction between the worshipper and the worshipped disappears."
6. The lamp and the sun. Three points: "Just as the flame of the lamp is not different from its light... even so Sakti is not different from Siva"; "through Sakti the universe is known"; and "just as to perceive the light of the lamp, another lamp is not required... Even so, Siva is known by His Sakti who is not different from him."
verses 14 to 21 are the philosophical heart of the text, and they are short enough to memorise. The highest is beyond words but not beyond experience; it is reached by the end of thought-construction and the end of the ego; it includes the world rather than excluding it; and it is approached through its own energy, Sakti, as one knows a person by their face or a lamp by its own light. That last image matters for practice: one does not need some second awareness to see awareness. Awareness is known by being aware.
Singh's notes reach readily for Christian and biblical phrases ("Be still... and know", "the peace that passeth all understanding", "he saveth life who loseth it"). These are helpful bridges for English readers and reflect a perennialist conviction, common in Singh's generation, that all mystical traditions point to one truth. They also blur real differences: the biblical "be still" points to a God other than the self; Bhairava's verse points to the self as God. Readers should take the parallels as echoes, not equivalences. And verse 16 ("who can be the object of worship?") is radical: it undercuts the whole ritual apparatus. Kashmir Saivism did not abolish ritual, but it reinterpreted it as an expression of recognition rather than a means to it.
Key Terms
- Paravastha: the highest state.
- Vikalponmukta: free of thought-constructs.
- Bharitakara: full, plenary, the bliss of non-difference from the universe.
- Vimala: immaculate, unveiled by what it displays.
- Saivi mukha: Sakti as Siva's face, the door to Siva.
Reflection
- Can you be aware of awareness without making it an object? Try for a few seconds, and notice what happens to the sense of "a seer" and "a seen".
- The text says the highest state is "not exclusive of the universe but inclusive of it". What would it mean for a moment of stillness to include the noise around you rather than shut it out?
The Devi Asks for the Means (pp. 18 to 19)
"O God of all gods, bearing the emblem of the trident, and having cranium as your ornament, how can that Supreme goddess... who transcends all notions of direction, space and time and all manner of description be known? By what means can that complete state of Bhairava which is full of the bliss of non-difference from the universe (bharitakara) be realized? In what way is the paradevi said to be the door of entrance into Bhairava? Please tell me in the Vaikhari form (in human language) that which I know fully well at the para level."
Teaching Notes
1. Trident and skull. The three spikes of the trident "represent iccha (will), jnana (knowledge) and kriya (activity)". The kapala or cranium-bowl "symbolizes the universe consisting of words and objects which betoken Bhairava's svatantrya and caitanya".
2. She already knows. "Being the para sakti of Siva, she already knows the truth at the para level, but she wants Bhairava to tell it to her in the Vaikhari form." "Vedmi, I know, is present tense."
3. The end of Kshemaraja. After verse 23, the Kashmir Series edition notes that the commentary is by Sivopadhyaya; Kshemaraja's Udyota on this text stops here.
the skull-bowl, the most gruesome emblem of the old Kapalika ascetics who carried human skulls as begging bowls, is now read as the universe held in Bhairava's hand. The reinterpretation is complete: the iconography of the cremation ground becomes a symbol of consciousness containing its world. The question then turns from "what is it?" to "how?", and the answer that follows is not doctrine but 112 practices.
the loss of Kshemaraja's commentary after verse 23 matters for how we read the rest. From verse 24 onwards, Singh's notes rely on Sivopadhyaya (whom he distrusts), on Lakshman Joo's oral teaching and on parallels from Abhinavagupta. His classification of each dharana as anava, sakta or sambhava is therefore largely his own (or his teacher's) judgement, not that of a medieval commentator. It is careful and generally convincing, but it is an interpretation.
The Pauses of the Breath (Verses 24 to 27, pp. 19 to 24)
Bhairava's answer begins with the most ordinary thing a living being does: breathing.
Dharana 1 (verse 24): "Para devi or Highest Sakti who is of the nature of visarga goes on (ceaselessly) expressing herself upward... in the form of exhalation (prana) and downward... in the form of inhalation (jiva or apana). By steady fixation of the mind at the two places of their origin... there is the situation of plenitude (bharita sthitih)."
Dharana 2 (verse 25): of exhalation arising from the centre "there is non-return for a split second from the dvadasanta", and of inhalation "there is non-return for a split second from the centre of the body". "If one fixes his mind steadily at these two points of pause, one will find that Bhairavi the essential form of Bhairava is manifested at those two points."
Dharana 3 (verse 26): "When the middle state develops by means of the dissolution of all dichotomising thought-constructs, the prana-sakti in the form of exhalation does not go out... nor does that sakti in the form of inhalation enter... there supervenes the state of Bhairava."
Dharana 4 (verse 27): "When the Sakti in the form of exhalation (recita) is retained outside, and in the form of inhalation (purita) is retained inside, then at the end of this practice the Sakti is known as santa or tranquillized and through Sakti santa Bhairava is revealed."
Teaching Notes
1. Visarga. "The word visarga means letting go, projection or creation." The creative function "includes two movements, outward and inward or centrifugal and centripetal. In living beings, the outward... is represented by exhalation; the inward... by inhalation." This rhythm "is known as uccara or spandana or ceaseless throb of Paradevi". The two dots of the visarga sign are the two poles: dvadasanta outside and hrt, the centre, inside.
2. Dvadasanta. "Literally meaning 'end of twelve'", the point "at a distance of 12 fingers from the tip of the nose in the outer space where expiration... ends". This is the external dvadasanta.
3. Why inhalation is called jiva. "Because it is the inhalation or return movement of the breath that is responsible for life."
4. The practice of dharana 1. "At each of these points, there is visranti or rest for a split second. The breath does not actually stop there totally but remains in the form of a throb of Sakti in suspended animation... One should contemplate over the Sakti that appears in the period of rest and should remain mindful of it even while the breathing process starts." "As this practice is without any support of vikalpa, it is Sambhava upaya."
5. Hamsah. A second reading: "In inhalation, the sound of ha is produced; in exhalation, the sound sah; at the junction point in the centre the sound of m is added. So the whole formula becomes Hamsah." The goddess "goes on sounding this formula... ceaselessly in every living being". Read this way it is anava upaya, and it contains the Trika triad: "Sah represents Siva; ha represents Sakti; m represents nara."
6. External and internal kumbhaka. "The pause of prana in the dvadasanta is known as bahih kumbhaka... The pause of the apana in the internal centre... antah kumbhaka." By attention to these, "the mind becomes introverted... and there is the upsurge of madhya dasa i.e. the path of the madhya nadi or susumna becomes open." Dharana 2 is anava, since it involves meditation on the pauses.
7. Dharana 3: the reverse direction. In dharana 2 the middle state arises from attention to the pauses; in dharana 3 "the madhya dasa develops by means of nirvikalpa-bhava". Sivopadhyaya links this to Bhairavi mudra, "in which even when the senses are open outwards, the attention is turned inwards towards inner spanda". Abhinavagupta quotes this dharana in Tantraloka V.22. Singh weighs both: anava because it uses madhyadasa, sambhava because the means is thought-free awareness.
8. Dharana 4: santa. "By means of continuous practice of kumbhaka... physical and mental tranquillity is experienced, and madhya dasa is developed. The sense of bheda or difference between prana and apana disappears." Bhairava is santa "because He transcends all the limits of name and form". Anava upaya.
the first four dharanas form a graded sequence. First notice the turning points of the breath (1). Then rest attention in the two pauses (2). Then notice that when thought stops, the breath stops by itself (3). Then deliberately hold the breath in or out until the two currents feel the same (4). They show the two-way traffic between breath and mind that the whole text relies on: still the breath and thought slows; still thought and the breath slows. The gap between breaths is the simplest "middle" there is, available to anyone, every few seconds, for life.
Singh's labels shift between sambhava and anava for the same verse depending on interpretation, which is honest of him; it shows the classification is a reading, not a fact in the text. On practice: the gentle awareness of natural pauses (dharanas 1 to 3) is safe for nearly everyone. Deliberate breath retention (dharana 4, kumbhaka) is a different matter: classical hatha texts themselves warn against forcing it, and people with heart conditions, high blood pressure, pregnancy, panic disorder or a history of fainting should not practise prolonged holds without qualified guidance.
Key Terms
- Visarga: projection, creativity; the two-pointed rhythm of breath.
- Dvadasanta: "end of twelve"; the point twelve finger-widths away.
- Hrt: the heart or centre, where inhalation ends.
- Kumbhaka: retention; bahih (outer) and antah (inner).
- Madhya dasa: the middle state; opening of susumna.
- Hamsah / ajapa: the "unrecited" mantra of the breath.
Kundalini and the Twelve Stations (Verses 28 to 31, pp. 24 to 28)
Dharana 5 (verse 28): "Meditate on the Sakti arising from the muladhara cakra, scintillating like rays (of the sun), and getting subtler and subtler till at last she dissolves in dvadasanta. Thus does Bhairava become manifest."
Dharana 6 (verse 29): "Meditate on that very lightning-like sakti (i.e. Kundalini), moving upwards successively from one centre of energy (cakra) to another upto three fists i.e. dvadasanta. At the end, one can experience the magnificent rise of Bhairava."
Dharana 7 (verse 30): "Twelve successively higher centres of energy associated with twelve successive letters should be properly meditated on. Each of them should at first be meditated on in a gross phase, then leaving that in a subtle phase and then leaving that also in the supreme phase till finally the meditator becomes identified with Siva."
Dharana 8 (verse 31): "Having filled the murdhanta with the same pranic energy quickly and having crossed it with the help of the bridge-like contraction of the eye-brows, one should free one's mind of all dichotomizing thought-constructs. His consciousness will then rise higher than dvadasanta and then there will appear the sense of omnipresence."
Teaching Notes
1. Kundalini. Sakti here "refers to pranasakti that abides as pranakundalini in the interior of the body. Kundalini lies folded up in 3½ folds in Muladhara." A cakra "is a centre of pranic energy located in the pranamaya kosa".
2. Two kinds of rising. Dharana 5: the rise "which goes in a flash into dvadasanta or Brahmarandhra... and dissolves in it. This is known as cit-kundalini or akrama kundalini i.e. kundalini that does not pass successively through the cakras". Dharana 6: "piercing successively through all the cakras... This is known as prana-kundalini." Here dvadasanta means Brahmarandhra, "at a distance of 12 fingers from the middle of the eye-brows". Dharana 5 is anava (Netra Tantra calls it sambhava); dharana 6 is saktopaya, quoted by Jayaratha on Tantraloka V.88.
3. The twelve stations (dvadasasthana). "1. janmagra, 2. mula, 3. kanda, 4. nabhi, 5. hrdaya, 6. kantha, 7. talu, 8. bhrumadhya, 9. lalata, 10. brahmarandhra, 11. sakti, 12. vyapini." The first four are apara (difference); the next five parapara; the last three para. Janmagra "is at the level of the generative organ"; mula "in the spinal centre... below the genitals"; kanda "a tangle of many nerves"; nabhi is near manipura; sakti is "pure energy which is not a constituent of the body"; vyapini "appears when Kundalini finishes its journey".
4. Twelve vowels. "a, a, i, i, u, u, e, ai, o, au, am, ah. These vowels have to be meditated on in the above twelve stages." Gross form: anava; subtle and supreme: saktopaya.
5. The lost technique. Bhruksepa, the "bridge" of the eyebrows: "The esoteric technique of bhruksepa was a closely guarded secret among the mystics and is now practically lost." Saktopaya.
dharana 7 contains a principle that runs through the whole book: meditate on something gross, then leave it for its subtle form, then leave that for the supreme, "muktva muktva", letting go and letting go. Every support is a stepping-stone, used and abandoned. This is the practical version of verses 8 to 13: forms are the mother's sweet, taken and then outgrown.
honesty is needed about kundalini. The cakra maps in Tantric texts vary widely (this one has twelve stations, the familiar later system has six or seven), which suggests they are meditative maps rather than anatomy; nothing corresponding to them has been found in the body. Singh's own admission that bhruksepa is "practically lost" is admirably candid, and should make readers wary of anyone claiming to teach it. Vigorous kundalini practices are also associated in modern clinical reports with distressing experiences (heat, involuntary movement, insomnia, anxiety); teachers in this very lineage insisted on guidance. Above all, remember verse 12: Bhairava's essence is not "concerned with the piercing of the (six) cakras". The text includes these methods while telling us they are not the point.
Key Terms
- Kundalini: coiled energy; prana-kundalini (gradual) and cit-kundalini (sudden).
- Muladhara: the root centre.
- Brahmarandhra: the aperture at the crown.
- Dvadasasthana: the twelve stations.
- Bhruksepa: contraction of the eyebrows (lost technique).
Voids, Supports and the Central Channel (Verses 32 to 35, pp. 29 to 33)
Dharana 9 (verse 32): "The yogi should meditate in his heart on the five voids of the five senses which are like the five voids appearing in the circles of motley feathers of peacocks. Thus will he be absorbed in the Absolute void."
Dharana 10 (verse 33): "In this way, successively, wherever there is mindfulness on whether void, on wall, or on some excellent person, that mindfulness is absorbed by itself in the supreme and offers the highest benefaction."
Dharana 11 (verse 34): "Fixing one's attention on the interior of the cranium (kapala) and seated with eyes closed, with the stability of the mind, one gradually discerns that which is most eminently discernible."
Dharana 12 (verse 35): "The medial nadi is situated in the middle. It is as slender as the stem of a lotus. If one meditates on the inner vacuity of this nadi, it helps in revealing the Divine."
Teaching Notes
1. Five voids. The yogi meditates "on the five ultimate sources of the five senses, i.e. the five tanmatras, sound as such, form as such, etc. which have no concrete appearance and are mere voids". The peacock image: "five holes in the circles of the feathers... one above, one below, one in the middle, and one on each side". Mandala carries a pun: circles on the feather, and the senses (those that "carry the quintessence of the five objects of sense").
2. The Absolute void. "From the point of view of the human mind, He is most void. From the point of view of Reality, He is most full, for He is the source of all manifestation."
3. Any support will do. "Just as there is concentration in successive steps on... one's own body, so concentration in successive steps may be practised outside one's body also e.g. on some vast empty space, on some high wall." "Pare patre" means "on some excellent competent person, e.g. on a pureminded competent pupil". Anava merging into saktopaya.
4. Kapala. Sivopadhyaya quotes the Tantrakosa: "ka signifies parasakti... pala meaning 'protector' signifies Siva. The whole word kapala is therefore, used in the sense of union between Siva and Sakti." "With eyes closed" means "detached from the external world and completely introverted". "The mind is, at first, very fickle, but by constant practice, it acquires stability." "By this practice, the sense of difference gradually diminishes; and one begins to view the entire universe as an expression of Siva." Saktopaya.
5. Susumna. "If one meditates on the inner vacuity existing in this medial nadi the prana and apana currents get dissolved in the Susumna, the udana current becomes active... finally merges in Sahasrara. There the yogi experiences spiritual light." Singh links it to Spanda-karika 25: when "the moon (apana) and sun (prana)" dissolve, "the yogi who is after supernormal powers becomes befuddled like one who is fast asleep, but the one who is not under such an influence is wide awake".
dharana 10 is easily overlooked and says something large: the object hardly matters. Void, wall or a person, "wherever there is mindfulness", steady attention "is absorbed by itself in the supreme". It is the quality of attention, not its object, that liberates. Many of the later dharanas are variations on this one principle, and it is what makes the text so adaptable: one can practise it on whatever life puts in front of one.
the Spanda verse quoted under dharana 12 is a useful guard-rail that Singh wisely includes: seeking powers (siddhis) in these states is a way of falling asleep in them. Note also that "pare patre" (on an excellent person) can be read as concentration on the guru or a disciple; Singh's reading is reverent, but any practice of fixing attention on a particular person carries obvious risks of dependency, and readers should keep their judgement.
Key Terms
- Sunya pancaka: the five voids (of the tanmatras).
- Tanmatra: subtle element; "sound as such", "form as such".
- Kapala: skull; esoterically, union of Siva and Sakti.
- Susumna / madhya nadi: the central channel.
- Udana: the upward current of prana.
Reflection
- Try dharana 1 for five minutes: simply notice where each breath turns. Do the pauses feel empty, or full?
- Dharana 10 says any object can serve. What ordinary object could you rest your attention on today, and what changes when you do?
The Point of Light (Verses 36 and 37, pp. 33 to 35)
Dharana 13 (verse 36): "By stopping the openings (of the senses) with the weapon (astra) in the form of the hands, by which are blocked the eyes (and other openings in the face) and thus by breaking open (the knot in the centre of the eye-brows) the bindu is perceived which... gradually disappears (in the ether of consciousness). Then... the yogi is established in the highest (spiritual) state."
Dharana 14 (verse 37): "The yogi should meditate either in the heart or in dvadasanta on the bindu which is a subtle spark of fire resembling a tilaka produced by pressure on the dhama or teja (light existing in the eyes). By such practice the discursive thought (vikalpa) of the yogi disappears, and on its disappearance, the yogi is absorbed in the light of supreme consciousness."
Teaching Notes
1. Karana and mudra. Kararuddhadrgastra "is a kind of karana used in anava upaya", defined as "disposition of the limbs of the body in a particular way, usually known as mudra". "The ears are closed with the two thumbs: the eyes are closed with the index fingers: the two nostrils are closed with the two middle fingers; the mouth is closed with the ring-fingers and the little fingers." (Hatha yoga knows this as sanmukhi mudra.) "By this device consciousness is closed to all exterior influences and the vital energy is confined within."
2. Five stages. "(1) dvara-rodhanam or stopping the openings of the senses... (2) bhrubhedah... the vital energy that is pent up within rises to the centre of the eye-brows, and ruptures the tangle of nerves...; (3) bindudarsanam... a bindu or point of light... is released and the yogi perceives it mentally; (4)... when the bindu is concentrated upon, it gradually begins to disappear and finally vanishes in the ether of consciousness, (5)... the yogi realizes the highest state."
3. Lakshman Joo's variant. Swami Lakshmana Joo reads bhrubhedat as "after having ruptured" the knot: first concentrate on the eyebrow centre until "a drop of light will be visible there"; then close the senses with the mudra, so that prana rises in susumna "towards Brahmarandhra" and hastens "the dissolution of the drop of light". Anava ending in saktopaya.
4. The spark from pressure. "When the eyes are pressed, certain sparks appear. The yogi should mentally seize the bindu... and should meditate on that bindu either in the heart or dvadasanta." Dhama may also be "the subtle sparks of light of a lamp that appear at the time of the extinction of its light". Tilaka is "a small round dot of sandalwood paste applied on the forehead". Anava upaya.
these two dharanas use sensory phenomena that anyone can produce: close off the senses and a point of light appears; press the eyes and sparks appear. The text does not treat these as visions or proofs. It uses them as objects to be concentrated on until they vanish. The light is a support, and the real point is what remains when it disappears: "the ether of consciousness". This is a useful corrective to the common habit of collecting inner lights and sounds as spiritual achievements.
the "sparks" from pressing the eyes are phosphenes, a well-understood effect of mechanical stimulation of the retina; the text's use of them is practical, and nothing in it requires them to be supernatural. Pressing the eyeballs firmly or for long periods is not advisable, particularly for anyone with glaucoma, recent eye surgery or retinal problems. The "rupturing of the knot of nerves" between the eyebrows is meditative language for a felt sense, not an anatomical event.
Key Terms
- Karana / mudra: a bodily seal or posture supporting concentration.
- Bindu (vindu): a point or drop of light.
- Bhrumadhya: the centre between the eyebrows.
- Cidakasa: the ether or space of consciousness.
The Yoga of Sound (Verses 38 to 42, pp. 36 to 41)
Dharana 15 (verse 38): "One who is deeply versed and deeply bathed or steeped in Nada which is Brahman in the form of sound (sabdabrahmani nisnatah), which is vibrating inside without any impact (anahate), which can be heard only by the ear that becomes competent by yoga, which goes on sounding uninterruptedly and which is rushing headlong like a river, attains to Brahman."
Dharana 16 (verse 39): "O Bhairavi, by perfect recitation of pranava or the sacred syllable Aum, etc and by contemplating over the void at the end of the protracted phase of it and by the most eminent energy of the void, the yogi attains the void."
Dharana 17 (verse 40): "The yogi should contemplate over the previous condition of any letter whatsoever before its utterance and its final condition after its utterance as mere void. He will, then with the help of the power of the void, become of the nature and form of the void."
Dharana 18 (verse 41): "If one listens with undivided attention to sounds of stringed and other musical instruments which on account of their (uninterrupted) succession are prolonged, he will, at the end, be absorbed in the ether of consciousness."
Dharana 19 (verse 42): "By the uccara of all pindamantras which are arranged in an order of gross letters and which go on vibrating in subtle forms beginning from bindu, ardhacandra, nadanta, etc. and ending in sunya or unmana one verily becomes Siva."
Teaching Notes
1. Nisnata. "There is a double entendre: it means both well-versed and well-bathed", deeply steeped.
2. Anahata nada. "Literally... unstruck sound... that goes on vibrating within spontaneously without any impact. About ten such kinds of nada... are referred to in books on Yoga." It is "at first like that of a hand-bell, then subtler like that of a flute, then subtler still like that of vina, and then subtler like that of the buzz of a bee". Concentrating on it, the yogi "forgets everything of the external world... and is finally absorbed in cidakasa". This yoga "is known as varna in Anava upaya of Saiva yoga, as nadanusandhana in some of the older upanisads and Natha tradition, and surati sabda yoga in Kabira and other mediaeval saints". Patrakarne: "audible... only to the ear that is made competent to hear it under the guidance of a guru."
3. Three pranavas. "(1) the Vedic pranava, Aum, (2) the Saiva pranava, Ham and (3) the Sakta pranava, Hrim." Pluta: "Just as the crow of the cock is at first short, then long and then protracted, even so there are three phases of the recitation of Aum." The usual practice contemplates ardhacandra and the subtle stages after the protracted phase; here Bhairava says instead: contemplate sunya, "free of all external or internal objective support, of all tattvas, and of all residual traces of klesas", that is, "the mind has to be made nirvikalpa".
4. Before and after a letter. "Of the nature and form of the void means that the yogi will become completely freed from identification with the prana, body, etc. as the Self." Saktopaya ending in sambhava.
5. Music. "A musical note, if properly produced, appears to arise out of eternity and finally to disappear in it." "When the music stops, it still vibrates in the memory. If the yogi... concentrate on the echo of the music, he will be absorbed in the source of all sound, viz. paravak."
6. Uccara and the stations of Aum. Uccara "does not mean uttering or muttering but moving upward from gross utterance, to subtle spandana and finally to mental reflection". A pindamantra is a compound seed-mantra; Aum and the nine-letter navatma are examples. Sivopadhyaya maps Aum onto the body: "'A' in the navel, 'U' in the heart, 'm' in the mouth... bindu in the centre of the eye-brows, ardhacandra in the forehead, nirodhini in the upper part of the forehead, nada in the head, nadanta in Brahmarandhra, sakti in the skin, vyapini in the root of the sikha, samana in the sikha, and unmana in the top of the sikha. Beyond this... is Bhairava." A, u, m take one mora each; bindu to samana half a mora; "Unmana is beyond time." Anava leading to sambhava.
the five sound practices move from the most esoteric to the most ordinary and back. The inner unstruck sound (15) needs a trained ear; the end of om (16) needs a mantra; but dharana 17 needs only any syllable, and dharana 18 needs only music. The shared method is to follow sound to its edge, the silence it rises from and falls into, and rest there. Anyone who has stayed still after the last note of a raga, before the applause, has had a taste of dharana 18.
Singh's comparison across traditions (Upanishads, Nath yogis, Kabir's surati sabda yoga) is historically sound: inner-sound meditation runs right through Indian religion, and the Radhasoami movements still teach it. Two cautions. Hearing persistent internal sounds is also a symptom of tinnitus, and a ringing in the ears is not necessarily nada; anyone with a new, one-sided or distressing internal sound should see a doctor. And the elaborate mapping of Aum onto twelve or more bodily points is Sivopadhyaya's, a late commentator; it is one tradition of practice, not the meaning of the verse.
Key Terms
- Anahata nada: the unstruck inner sound.
- Sabdabrahman: Brahman as sound.
- Pranava: the sacred syllable (Aum, Ham, Hrim).
- Pluta: the protracted, three-mora phase.
- Uccara: rising from gross sound to subtle vibration to awareness.
- Pindamantra: a compound seed-mantra.
- Unmana: the state beyond mind and beyond time.
The Body as Space (Verses 43 to 48, pp. 41 to 45)
Dharana 20 (verse 43): "If in one's body, one contemplates over sunya (spatial vacuity) in all directions simultaneously (i.e. without succession) without any thought-construct, he experiences vacuity all round."
Dharana 21 (verse 44): "He who contemplates simultaneously on the void above and the void at the base becomes, with the aid of the energy that is independent of the body, void-minded."
Dharana 22 (verse 45): "In him who firmly contemplates over the void above, the void at the base and the void in the heart, there arises at the same time, because of his being free of all vikalpas, the state of Siva."
Dharana 23 (verse 46): "If a yogi contemplates over his body believed to be the limited empirical subject as void even for a while with an attention freed of all vikalpas, he becomes liberated from vikalpas and finally acquires the state of Bhairava."
Dharana 24 (verse 47): "O gazelle-eyed one, (if the aspirant is incapable of sunyabhava immediately), let him contemplate over the constituents of his body like bone, flesh, etc. as pervaded with mere vacuity. His contemplation of vacuity will become steady."
Dharana 25 (verse 48): "The yogi should contemplate over the skin-part in his body like (an outer, inconscient) wall. 'There is nothing substantial inside it'; meditating like this, he reaches a state which transcends all things meditable."
Teaching Notes
1. Two conditions. For dharana 20: "yugapat and nirvikalpamanah. The contemplation on the void in all directions has to be done simultaneously and the mind has to be stilled completely." Success leads "to the sunyatisunya plane... in which all differences and distinctions are totally absent". Sakta upaya.
2. The energy independent of the body. "Sariranirapeksinya saktya means with the aid of pranasakti." Saktopaya.
3. Sivopadhyaya on the three voids. The void above means contemplating "the pramata or the subject as void"; the void at the base, "the prameyas or objects as void"; the void in the heart, "pramana or knowledge as void". Saktopaya.
4. Three stages. Dharana 23 "points to three stages of the yogi. Firstly, he contemplates over his body in a vikalpa-free way, secondly, by this practice he develops the tendency of being usually free of vikalpas (nirvikalpah). Lastly, if this tendency is prolonged, he enters the state of Bhairava... whose very nature is nirvikalpa." Sakta leading to sambhava.
5. Graded help. Dharana 24 is offered for those who cannot yet do dharana 23: start with "bone, flesh, etc." as pervaded by space.
6. The skin as a wall. "Every man is habitually identified with his body. When the yogi develops the practice of detaching his consciousness from the limits of the body, he develops a sense of all-pervasiveness." When this matures "the very distinction between subject and object disappears", echoing verse 16: "who is the object of worship?" From sunya to mahasunya.
this group is a sequence of imaginative exercises in dissolving the felt boundary of the body. They are graded: whole-body space (20), above and below (21), add the heart (22), the whole body as empty "even for a while" (23), and if that is too hard, the tissues one by one (24), and the skin as a thin wall around nothing (25). The phrase "even for a while" (ksanamatram) is encouraging: the text expects glimpses, not permanent states, at first.
deliberately imagining the body as empty can be deeply restful; it can also, for some people, trigger depersonalisation (a frightening sense of unreality or of not being in one's body). People with a history of trauma, dissociation or psychosis should approach these practices cautiously, keep them short, and stop if they become distressing. Sivopadhyaya's mapping of the three voids onto subject, object and knowledge is elegant, but it is his reading.
Key Terms
- Yugapat: simultaneously, without succession.
- Sunyatisunya / mahasunya: the void beyond void; the vast void.
- Pramata, pramana, prameya: knower, knowing, known.
- Ksanamatram: even for a moment.
The Heart and the Twelve-Finger Points (Verses 49 to 51, pp. 45 to 47)
Dharana 26 (verse 49): "He whose mind together with the other senses is merged in the interior space of the heart, who has entered mentally into the centre of the two bowls of the heart-lotus, who has excluded everything else from consciousness acquires the highest fortune, O beautiful one."
Dharana 27 (verse 50): "When the body of the yogi is penetrated by consciousness in all parts and his mind which has become firm by one-pointedness is dissolved in the dvadasanta situated in the body, then that yogi whose intellect has become firm experiences the characteristic of Reality."
Dharana 28 (verse 51): "If one fixes one's mind at dvadasanta again and again (pratiksanam) howsoever and wheresoever, the fluctuation of his mind will diminish and in a few days, he will acquire an extraordinary status."
Teaching Notes
1. Which heart? "The word hrt or heart does not mean the physical heart. It means the central spot in the body above the diaphragm. It is an etheric structure resembling lotus." "In the centre of this etheric heart resides cit, the consciousness which is always a pramata or subject, never a prameya or object." The word hrdya means "both 'pertaining to the heart' and 'pleasant'".
2. Two bowls. Sivopadhyaya: "the upper bowl of the heart lotus represents pramana or knowledge and the lower bowl represents prameya or object. The madhya or centre... represents the pramata or knower, the Self."
3. Highest fortune. Sivopadhyaya: "the highest bliss consisting in the lordship of the universe". Kshemaraja quotes this verse on Siva Sutra I.15 and explains saubhagya as "acquisition of the lordship of the universe". Saktopaya.
4. Which dvadasanta? Singh is candid: "It is not quite clear what exactly is meant by the dvadasanta of the body." There are several twelve-finger intervals: navel to heart, heart to throat, throat to forehead, forehead to crown. "Probably, it refers to Brahmarandhra." Bhatta Ananda's Vijnanakaumudi suggests the cosmic void or susumna. Anava leading to sakta.
5. Any dvadasanta, again and again. "The mind has to be fixed at any dvadasanta... whether it is the superior... or bahya dvadasanta... or antara dvadasanta". Sivopadhyaya: the "extraordinary status" is "the incomparable and ineffable state of Bhairava". Anavopaya.
dharana 28 is one of the most practical verses in the book, because of two words: pratiksanam ("again and again", moment after moment) and "yatha tatha yatra tatra" ("howsoever, wheresoever"). It is not a sitting practice but a habit: return attention to a fixed point throughout the day, in any posture, anywhere, and the restlessness of mind diminishes "in a few days". Brief, frequent returns are what most modern meditation teachers also recommend.
Singh's admission that the meaning of a key term is unclear is a mark of good scholarship and a reminder that this text has not come down with a single settled interpretation. "In a few days" is a promise typical of the genre; readers should not judge themselves by it. The "lordship of the universe" (visvesvarata) is the Trika's way of describing the felt sense of being one with all things, not a claim to power over others.
Key Terms
- Hrt / hrdaya: the heart-centre, the knower.
- Saubhagya: highest fortune; the lordship of the universe.
- Vijnanakaumudi: Bhatta Ananda's commentary on this text.
- Pratiksanam: moment by moment, again and again.
Reflection
- After a piece of music ends, stay with the silence for thirty seconds before doing anything else. What is in it?
- Choose one point (the space above the head, a point in front of the nose, the centre of the chest) and return to it ten times today. Does anything change?
The Fire of Dissolution (Verses 52 to 54, pp. 47 to 49)
Dharana 29 (verse 52): "(Uttering the formula aum ra-ksa-ra-ya-um tanum dahayami namah), one should contemplate in the following way: 'My body has been burnt by the fire of kalagni rising from the toe of my right foot.' He will then experience his (real) nature which is all peace."
Dharana 30 (verse 53): "In this way, if the aspirant imagines that the entire world is being burnt by the fire of Kalagni and does not allow his mind to wander away to anything else, then in such a person, the highest state of man appears."
Dharana 31 (verse 54): "If the yogi thinks deeply that the subtle and subtler constitutive principles of one's own body or of the world are being absorbed in their own respective causes, then at the end, para devi or the supreme goddess is revealed."
Teaching Notes
1. Kalagni Rudra. "Kalagni Rudra is the universal destroyer. The aspirant should imagine that his whole body is being burnt by the flames of Kalagni Rudra. The idea is that all the impurities that are due to the limitation of the body have to be destroyed." Kalapada "is a technical term for the toe of the right foot". The result: one "experiences his essential Self which is all peace and joy". Anava upaya.
2. From body to world. "In the previous dharana, it was one's own body that had to be imagined as being burnt...; in the present dharana, it is the entire world." The highest state, for Sivopadhyaya, is "the nature of Bhairava that is the Infinite Subject". Saktopaya.
3. Reabsorption of the tattvas. Dharana 31 uses "the technique of vyapti or fusion by which the gross tattva is reabsorbed into the subtle, the subtle into the subtler...": "the five gross material principles... into the tanmatras, the tanmatras into ahamkara, this into buddhi, this again into prakrti and so on till all are finally reabsorbed into Sadasiva." Then para devi is revealed, and "the entire cosmos appears as nothing but the expression of that universal Divine Energy". This is atmavyapti; a higher sivavyapti follows in verse 57. Saktopaya.
these three practices use imagined destruction as a means of release. The body is burnt in imagination from the toe upwards; then the world; then the world is dissolved more precisely, element into its cause, back up the ladder of tattvas. The tone is not morbid: the fire takes away limitation, and what is left is "all peace". This is the ritual bhutasuddhi (purification of the elements) of Tantric worship, turned into contemplation.
the mantra in brackets comes from the commentarial tradition, not the verse itself. Visualising one's body burning is a powerful image and, for most people, a cathartic one; for anyone with trauma involving fire or bodily harm it may not be suitable. The reabsorption of tattvas presupposes the Samkhya and Saiva list of principles; a reader unfamiliar with it can practise a simpler version: let the solid dissolve into sensation, sensation into awareness.
Key Terms
- Kalagni Rudra: the fire of time, the destroyer.
- Bhutasuddhi: purification of the elements.
- Vyapti: pervasion, fusion; atmavyapti and sivavyapti.
- Tattva: a constitutive principle.
The Six Paths and the Void Universe (Verses 55 to 58, pp. 50 to 56)
Dharana 32 (verse 55): "If pranasakti which is gross and thick, is made frail and subtle (by yogic discipline, particularly pranayama) and if a yogi meditates on such Sakti either in dvadasanta or in the heart by entering mentally into it, he is liberated and he gains his (natural) sovereign power."
Dharana 33 (verse 56): "One should contemplate step by step on the whole universe under the form of bhuvana and other adhvas (courses) as being dissolved successively from the gross state into the subtle and from the subtle state into the supreme state till finally one's mind is dissolved in Cinmatra (pure consciousness)."
Dharana 34 (verse 57): "If one meditates on the Saiva tattva (which is the quintessence) of this entire universe on all sides and to its last limits by the technique of sadadhva he will experience great awakening."
Dharana 35 (verse 58): "O great goddess, the yogi should concentrate intensely on the idea that this universe is totally void. In that void, his mind would become absorbed."
Teaching Notes
1. A disputed last line. Abhinavagupta (Tantraloka XV) reads "suptah svacchandyam apnuyat", and Kshemaraja (Spandanirnaya) "svapnasvatantryam apnuyat": freedom in sleep or dream. Lakshman Joo's traditional reading: breathe "with sound and slowly", meditate in dvadasanta and the heart, and go to sleep; "he will acquire the freedom to control his dream i.e. he will have only the dream that he desires to have". Anava leading to sambhava.
2. The six courses (sadadhva). The universe is "a proliferation of the Svatantrya Sakti or paravak under six forms". At paravak, "word and object are in a state of indistinguishable unity". On the vacaka (subjective, temporal, word) side: varna, mantra, pada. On the vacya (objective, spatial, object) side: kala, tattva, bhuvana. Para level: varna and kala; parapara: mantra and tattva; apara: pada and bhuvana. "Bhuvana is the universe as it appears to apprehending centres like ourselves. Pada is the actual formulation of that universe by mind reaction and speech." "Each preceding adhva is vyapaka i.e., pervasive... each succeeding adhva is vyapya."
3. Laya bhavana. Imagine pada and bhuvana dissolving into mantra and tattva; these into varna and kala; these into paravak; paravak into Siva. Only when "the yogi is fully convinced that this solid seeming world... and gross speech are only an appearance of a much subtler process" should he take the next step. This is the aroha krama, process of ascent; Pratyabhijnahrdayam 13 "expressly says that citta finally becomes citi". Verse 54 led only to para devi, the power behind manifestation; verse 56 leads to Siva, "where the individual mind completely dissolves". Saktopaya leading to sambhava.
4. Atmavyapti and sivavyapti. In verse 57 the method is not stepwise but "simultaneously and integrally". Singh: atmavyapti "emphasizes prakasa which does not necessarily include the universe", "a lower ideal" for the Trika. In sivavyapti, "the universe is not negated but seen sub specie eternitatis... as an expression of the vimarsa aspect of Siva." Sivopadhyaya: "The reality of this world is nothing apart from Siva. Therefore this world should be viewed not as the world but as the modality of Siva." Saktopaya.
5. The first of many voids. Dharana 35 "is the first of a number of dharanas on sunya (void) which will come later on in the book". Saktopaya leading to sambhava.
Singh's distinction between atmavyapti and sivavyapti is one of the most useful ideas in the book. One can reach a pure, silent self by withdrawing from the world: this is real, and it is what Samkhya, classical yoga and much Vedanta aim at. The Trika says it is not enough. The final realisation must include the world, seeing it as the expression of consciousness rather than an obstacle to it. It is the same contrast that the Pratyabhijnahrdayam draws between being absorbed inwardly and finding that absorption with eyes open.
the claim that inward realisation is "a lower ideal" is a Trika value judgement aimed at rival schools; an Advaitin would argue that the world is "included" in Brahman precisely by being seen as unreal apart from it, so the disagreement is partly verbal. The six courses are a demanding scheme, and Singh's English ("measure index of the function-form") is not easy; the practice does not depend on mastering it. As for controlling dreams: modern research on lucid dreaming confirms that some people can learn awareness and partial control within dreams, but a single breathing technique guaranteeing "only the dream that he desires" is a traditional claim, not an established result.
Key Terms
- Sadadhva: the six courses (varna, mantra, pada; kala, tattva, bhuvana).
- Vacaka / vacya: the indicator (word) and the indicated (object).
- Laya bhavana: contemplative dissolution.
- Aroha krama: the ascent.
- Atmavyapti / sivavyapti: fusion in the self alone / in Siva, world included.
Open Space and the Gap Between Thoughts (Verses 59 to 62, pp. 56 to 60)
Dharana 36 (verse 59): "A yogi should cast his eyes in the empty space inside a jar or any other object leaving aside the enclosing partitions. His mind will in an instant get absorbed in the empty space... he should imagine that his mind is absorbed in a total void."
Dharana 37 (verse 60): "One should cast his gaze on a region in which there are no trees, on mountain, on high defensive wall. His mental state being without any support will then dissolve and the fluctuations of his mind will cease."
Dharana 38 (verse 61): "At the moment when one has perception or knowledge of two objects or ideas, one should simultaneously banish both perceptions or ideas and apprehending the gap or interval between the two, should mentally stick to it. In that gap will Reality flash forth suddenly."
Dharana 39 (verse 62): "When the mind of the aspirant that comes to quit one object is firmly restrained and does not move towards any other object, it comes to rest in a middle position between the two and through it is unfolded intensely the realization of pure consciousness."
Teaching Notes
1. The jar. "Casting one's gaze into the empty space inside a jar is a device for preparing the mind... When the mind is absorbed in the empty space of the jar, the aspirant should imagine that the empty space has extended into a total void." Sambhava upaya.
2. Vast open space. "When the mind dwells on a vast vacant space, then being without the support of any definite concrete object, the mind gets absorbed in that void." "That is the moment when the Light within makes its presence felt." Abhinavagupta quotes this line in the Paratrisika and confirms "Bhairavabodhanupravesa (entry into Bhairava-consciousness)". This "fixed gaze into vast vacant space" is drstibandhana bhavana; "As there is neither meditation nor japa... this is Sambhava upaya."
3. The gap. Jayaratha reads jnatva ("knowing") for dhyatva, which "gives better sense". Singh's commentary here is among his best: "We are prisoners of our own ideas. Behind all the activities of the mind lies Reality which gives life to our mental activity. That Reality cannot be viewed as an object, for it is the Eternal Subject... If we do not allow our mind to be carried away by the perceptions or ideas succeeding each other incessantly but rather let our mind dip in the gap between the two... we will, to our surprise, be bathed in that Reality which can never be an object of thought."
4. Gently, not by force. This is niralamba bhavana (contemplation without support), quoted in the Netra Tantra, and a sunya bhavana. The flash is called unmesa in the Spanda-karika. Letting go of the two ideas is analocana, non-observation: "The two ideas have not to be pushed aside by effort but have to be abandoned by a smooth, gentle non-observation. This is a very important and unfailing dharana."
5. One positive, one negative. Dharana 38 rests between two arising ideas; dharana 39 rests between an idea that has ended and "another negative bhava i.e. another bhava which the aspirant has not allowed to arise". Abhinavagupta alludes to both in Tantraloka I.84; Jayaratha: "The middle state... is sunya or void which is the ground of the determination of both." Singh prefers the reading bhave tyakte over the Kashmir Series' bhave nyakte. Saktopaya.
dharanas 38 and 39 are, with the breath pauses of dharana 1, the most widely taught verses of the book, and with reason. They need no equipment, no posture and no belief, and they can be tried right now: notice one thought ending; do not reach for the next; rest in the interval. Singh's insistence on gentleness is the key to doing it well. A gap that is forced becomes a new effort, which is just another thought. A gap that is simply noticed, as one notices the silence between two words, opens by itself.
the "gap between thoughts" has become a staple of popular spirituality, often promoted as a quick route to enlightenment. The text is more modest than its popularisers: it promises that "Reality will flash forth", not that it will stay. Most people find the gaps brief at first. Gazing at open landscapes (dharana 37) is also one of the few practices here with some independent modern support: studies of "soft fascination" and exposure to wide natural views report reduced stress and mental fatigue, which is consistent with, though far more modest than, the text's claim.
Key Terms
- Drstibandhana: binding the gaze, fixed open gazing.
- Niralamba bhavana: contemplation without support.
- Analocana: gentle non-observation.
- Unmesa: the opening, the flash of reality.
- Madhya: the middle, the interval.
Body and World as Consciousness (Verses 63 and 64, pp. 60 to 61)
Dharana 40 (verse 63): "When an aspirant contemplates with mind unwavering and free from all alternatives his whole body or the entire universe simultaneously as of the nature of consciousness, he experiences Supreme Awakening."
Dharana 41 (verse 64): "By the fusion (samghatta) of the two breaths, viz., prana rising inwardly in the centre and apana rising externally in dvadasanta, there arises finally a condition in which there is complete cessation of both... By meditating over that condition of void... there arises in him the intuitive experience of Equality (samatva-vijnana-samudgamana)."
Teaching Notes
1. Two conditions. "Firstly, it should be done nirvikalpena manasa, with an unhesitating, unwavering mind free from all doubts and alternatives. Secondly, it should be yugapat i.e. simultaneously, in one sweep, not in succession, not in bits." The awakening is that "the entire universe is enveloped in Divine Light". Sakta upaya.
2. Equality. The meeting of the two breaths, felt as neither in nor out, gives samatva: an experience in which all things are felt as equal. Anava leading to saktopaya.
"in one sweep, not in bits" is a phrase worth remembering. Much meditation works part by part (the breath, then the body, then thoughts). Several dharanas instead ask for a single, total gesture of attention, seeing the whole body, or the whole world, at once. It is less a technique than a change in the angle of seeing, and it tends to happen when one stops trying to build the picture piece by piece.
"contemplate the body as consciousness" is an instruction that can be followed with very different results depending on what one already believes. For a Trika practitioner, it confirms the doctrine; for someone else it may simply be a vivid sense of aliveness. The text's promise of "Supreme Awakening" should be read as describing the goal, not the typical first result.
Reflection
- Notice the space inside a cup or a room. Can you let your attention rest in the space rather than on the walls?
- Watch for the end of one thought. Before the next arrives, stay for one breath. What did you find there?
Bliss, Wonder and the Ant's Touch (Verses 65 to 67, pp. 62 to 64)
Dharana 42 (verse 65): "The yogi should contemplate the entire universe or his own body simultaneously in its totality as filled with his (essential, spiritual) bliss. Then through his own ambrosia-like bliss, he will become identified with the supreme bliss."
Dharana 43 (verse 66): "O gazelle-eyed one, by the employment of magic, supreme delight arises (in the heart of the spectator) instantaneously. (In this condition of the mind), Reality manifests itself."
Dharana 44 (verse 67): "When by stopping the opening of all the senses the current of all sensory activity is stopped, the pranasakti moves slowly upward... there is felt a tingling sensation... like the one created by the movement of an ant (over the body). At the moment of that sensation, there ensues supreme delight."
Teaching Notes
1. Own bliss. Yugapat means "with totality of attention, in one sweep". "'His own bliss' means... cidananda, not the pleasure derived from sense-objects." Amrta, ambrosia, "points to the fact that there is no change in this bliss". Kshemaraja quotes this verse on Siva Sutras I.18 and III.39. Lakshman Joo reads va as "and": the universe and the body together. Saktopaya.
2. Wonder. "When a spectator beholds some wonderful magical performance, his ordinary normal consciousness is raised to a plane where there is no distinction between subject and object... filled with reverential awe, with mute wonder and ineffable joy." "This is only one example. When by contemplating on any scene, vast, awe-inspiring, deeply moving, the mind is thrown into ecstasy and mute wonder, it passes into nirvikalpa state." Lakshman Joo's alternative: kuhana also means "tickling the arm-pit": "by tickling the arm-pit, there occurs instantaneously a great joy. If one contemplates over the essential nature of joy, Reality manifests itself." Sakta upaya.
3. The ant. "This slow and gradual movement of pranasakti or of kundalini gives a sensation like that of the movement of an ant over the body." Singh corrects his commentator: Sivopadhyaya cites Patanjali's Yoga Sutra II.49 to 50 on kumbhaka, but "Patanjali does not refer to Kundalini yoga. Sivopadhyaya's quotation from Patanjali in this context is irrelevant."
dharana 43 is psychologically acute. Wonder suspends thought. At the moment of the magician's trick, or of an overwhelming view, the mind's habit of naming stops, and for a second there is only seeing. The text does not ask us to manufacture that; it asks us to notice it when it happens and to rest in it. And Lakshman Joo's reading (that even a tickle will do) is a reminder of how ordinary the entry points are: the doorway is not the cause of the joy, only the occasion for noticing it.
Singh's rebuke of Sivopadhyaya is typical of his independence: he does not defer to the commentarial tradition when he thinks it wrong. The tingling sensations described in dharana 44 are common in meditation and need not be read as kundalini; they are often simply heightened bodily awareness.
Key Terms
- Cidananda: the bliss of consciousness itself.
- Kuhana: magic, conjuring; also tickling.
- Pipilasparsa: the touch of an ant.
Sexual Union as a Symbol and a Door (Verses 68 to 70, pp. 64 to 67)
Dharana 45 (verse 68): "One should throw (i.e. concentrate) the delightful citta in the middle of vahni and visa bothways whether by itself or permeated by vayu (pranic breath), one would then be joined to the bliss of sexual union."
Dharana 46 (verse 69): "At the time of sexual intercourse with a woman, an absorption into her is brought about by excitement, and the final delight that ensues at orgasm betokens the delight of Brahman. This delight is (in reality) that of one's own Self."
Dharana 47 (verse 70): "O goddess, even in the absence of a woman, there is a flood of delight, simply by the intensity of the memory of sexual pleasure in the form of kissing, embracing, pressing, etc."
Teaching Notes
1. Vahni and visa. "Vahni and visa are technical terms of this yoga. Vahni stands for sankoca (contraction)... Visa connotes vikasa or expansion. Vahni refers to adhah kundalini, and visa to urdhva kundalini." Visa "does not mean poison here. It is derived from the root vis 'to pervade'". The citta "should be stopped or suspended between the vahni and visa". Vayupurna means "vayu may neither pass out through the nostrils nor through the male organ and the anus. Citta and vayu are inter-connected." "When the citta can be restrained between the adhah and urdhva kundalini, one has the joy of sexual union. This is inverted union. Sexual union is external; this union is internal." Anava upaya.
2. Symbolic, says the commentary. On verse 69: "This absorption is only symbolic of the absorption in the Divine Energy. This illustration has been given only to show that the highest delight ensues only at the disappearance of duality." Sivopadhyaya: "Just as being locked in embrace with a woman, one is totally dissolved in the feeling of one-ness... even so when the mind is dissolved in the Divine Energy... The Sruti speaks of the union with a woman only to illustrate the union with the Divine. It is only a fool who takes this illustration as an injunction for carnal pleasure."
3. The source is within. "The delight is that of one's own Self. It does not come from any external source. The woman is only an occasion for the manifestation of that delight." Verse 70: "Since the sexual pleasure is obtained simply by memory even in the absence of a woman, it is evident that the delight is inherent within." Saktopaya.
the argument of verse 70 is philosophically clean and worth isolating from its subject. If a pleasure can be fully revived by memory alone, without its object, then the pleasure was never located in the object. The object occasions; consciousness enjoys. The Trika uses this to point every pleasure back to its source in awareness, which is exactly the move made with food, music and friendship in the verses that follow.
three points need honest statement. First, the verses are written from a male, heterosexual perspective ("intercourse with a woman", "in the absence of a woman"); the woman appears as an occasion for the man's realisation. This reflects the text's historical audience, not a necessary feature of the teaching, and the principle applies equally to any person. Second, Sivopadhyaya's insistence that the verse is "only symbolic" is one strand of the tradition, not the whole of it. Kaula ritual did include actual sexual union, and Abhinavagupta's Tantraloka (chapter 29) describes such rites for qualified initiates; the purely symbolic reading reflects the later, more ascetic Trika and Singh's own sensibility. Third, these verses have been used in modern "tantric" marketing to justify sexual practices with teachers. Nothing in the text authorises a teacher to use a student's body, and where such claims are made, readers should be on their guard. The internal practice of dharana 45 (suspending attention between contraction and expansion) is also esoteric, and its details depend on oral teaching.
Key Terms
- Vahni / visa: contraction / expansion; lower and upper kundalini.
- Smarananda: the bliss of sexual union.
- Saktisangama: union with the sakti (consort).
Delight in Friends, Food and Song (Verses 71 to 74, pp. 67 to 70)
Dharana 48 (verse 71): "On the occasion of a great delight being obtained, or on the occasion of delight arising from seeing a friend or relative after a long time, one should meditate on the delight itself and become absorbed in it, then his mind will become identified with it."
Dharana 49 (verse 72): "When one experiences the expansion of joy of savour arising from the pleasure of eating and drinking, one should meditate on the perfect condition of this joy, then there will be supreme delight."
Dharana 50 (verse 73): "When the yogi mentally becomes one with the incomparable joy of song and other objects, then of such a yogi, there is, because of the expansion of his mind, identity with that."
Dharana 51 (verse 74): "Wherever the mind of the individual finds satisfaction (without agitation), let it be concentrated on that. In every such case the true nature of the highest bliss will manifest itself."
Teaching Notes
1. Seize it quickly. "On the occasion of such great delight... one should lay hold of the source of such experience, viz. the Spanda or the pure spiritual throb... Such an experience vanishes quickly, therefore, one should seize it mentally as soon as the experience occurs."
2. Even physical needs. "If the yogi meditates on the perfect condition of the joy that arises even from the satisfaction of physical needs, he will feel that the source of this joy is also the divine spanda."
3. Five senses. "In verses 69 to 73, Bhairava says that one can turn even a sensuous joy into a means of yoga." Sexual joy is sparsa (touch); seeing a friend, rupa (sight); food, rasa (taste); song, sabda (sound). "Leaving aside the various sensuous media, the aspirant should meditate on that fountain of all joy which only trickles in small drops in all the joys of life."
4. Aesthetic rapture. "According to Saiva aesthetics, there can be aesthetic rapture only when the person... has samvid-visranti i.e. when his mind is withdrawn from everything around him and reposes in his essential Self. Aesthetic delight is, therefore, a greater source of the experience of the spiritual Self." Saktopaya leading to sambhava.
5. Tusti. Satisfaction "indicates deep, moving joy, not agitation of the mind": a delight "in which one forgets every thing external, in which all thought-constructs disappear and in which there is no agitation (ksobha)". "One has to plunge in the source of the delight."
this group is the most humane part of the book, and one of the most distinctive in world spiritual literature. Most ascetic traditions treat pleasure as a trap. The Vijnanabhairava treats it as a trace of the divine: a few drops from the fountain. The method is precise: do not grasp the object, do not push the pleasure away, but turn attention, in the moment of delight, to the delight itself. Seeing an old friend, eating a good meal, hearing a song: any of these can become a dharana. The link with Abhinavagupta's aesthetics, where the experience of rasa in art is a near relative of spiritual rest, is real and illuminating.
dharana 51's qualification, "without agitation", is the safeguard that makes the group coherent. Excitement, craving and compulsive pleasure are ksobha, agitation, and they do not count. A practice that ignored this distinction would become a licence for indulgence. The text is not saying that pleasure is enlightenment; it is saying that calm delight, closely attended to, points to it.
Key Terms
- Rasa: taste, savour; aesthetic relish.
- Samvid-visranti: rest in consciousness.
- Tusti: deep, calm satisfaction.
- Ksobha: agitation.
Reflection
- The next time you meet someone you love after a long absence, try to notice the joy itself, for a moment, as well as the person.
- At your next meal, take one mouthful with full attention. Where is the pleasure located?
The Edge of Sleep, Coloured Light and Five Mudras (Verses 75 to 77, pp. 70 to 73)
Dharana 52 (verse 75): "When sleep has not yet fully appeared i.e. when one is about to fall asleep, and all the external objects (though present) have faded out of sight, then the state (between sleep and waking) is one on which one should concentrate. In that state the Supreme Goddess will reveal Herself."
Dharana 53 (verse 76): "One should fix one's gaze on a portion of the space that appears variegated with the rays of the sun, lamp, etc. At that very place, the nature of one's essential Self will manifest itself."
Dharana 54 (verse 77): "At the moment of the (intuitive) perception (of the universe), there is manifested the supreme attainment through the Karankini, Krodhana, Bhairavi, Lelihana and Khecari mudras."
Teaching Notes
1. The hypnagogic threshold. "The intermediate state between sleep and waking is the nirvikalpa state... This is the turiya or transcendental state of consciousness." Saktopaya.
2. Light in space. Etcetera "includes moon with whose light the sky appears variegated at night". "The yogi casts off the limitation of the objective consciousness and experiences the infinity of the spiritual consciousness." Anava.
3. Mudra. Lakshman Joo reads drstikale as "on the occasion of the yogic practice". A mudra "is called mudra because it gives the joy of spiritual consciousness" (mud, joy). Karankini: the yogi "views the world as mere karanka or skeleton", the mudra of jnana-siddhas. Krodhana: "a tense, tight posture" expressing anger; it "gathers up all the twentyfour tattvas... into the corpus of mantra"; of mantra-siddhas. Bhairavi: "keeping the eyes fixed externally without blinking but making the gaze turned towards the inner Reality"; of melapa-siddhas (melapa: "union of the energies of the various organs", also "the meeting of the siddhas and Yoginis"). Lelihana: the yogi "tastes the entire universe in his nature of essential I-consciousness"; of sakta-siddhas. Khecari: "moves in the sky"; four kinds: the tongue turned back (Hathayogapradipika); Kshemaraja's (Siva Sutra II.5) of leading the mind from the navel to the three saktis in the head; Vivekamartanda's tongue and eyebrow gaze; and "the highest kind... in which the yogi remains in Siva-consciousness all the while, in which his consciousness moves in all beings", the mudra of sambhava-siddhas. Sambhava upaya.
dharana 52 points to a state that everyone passes through every night and almost no one notices: the moment when the world has gone but sleep has not yet come. The text claims that this threshold, which modern sleep science calls hypnagogia, is a natural opening to thought-free awareness. Singh's list of khecari mudras ends, tellingly, with one that is not a physical technique at all: abiding in awareness at all times. The physical mudras are, once again, the mother's sweet.
calling the hypnagogic state "turiya" is a strong claim; the state between waking and sleep is usually full of drifting images, which is not thought-free. What the verse asks is to stay aware through the transition, which is the basis of the Tibetan "dream yoga" and of some lucid-dreaming techniques. The hatha form of khecari mudra (in Hatha texts, involving gradual cutting of the frenulum to lengthen the tongue) should never be attempted from a book.
Key Terms
- Turiya: the fourth state, beyond waking, dream and sleep.
- Mudra: seal; posture or inner attitude that "gives joy".
- Bhairavi mudra: eyes open outward, attention inward.
- Khecari: "moving in space"; abiding in consciousness.
Posture, Support and Swinging (Verses 78 to 83, pp. 73 to 78)
Dharana 55 (verse 78): "The aspirant should seat himself on a soft (cushioned) seat, placing only one of the buttocks on the seat and leaving the hands and the feet without any support. By maintaining himself in this position, his intelligence will become highly sattvika and endowed with plenitude."
Dharana 56 (verse 79): "Sitting comfortably on his seat and placing the two arms in the form of an arch overhead, the aspirant should fix his gaze in the arm-pits. As the mind gets absorbed in that posture of repose, it will experience great peace."
Dharana 57 (verse 80): "Having fixed his gaze without blinking on a gross object, (and directing his attention inward), and thus making his mind free of all prop of thought-constructs, the aspirant acquires the state of Siva without delay."
Dharana 58 (verse 81): "If one maintains the mouth widely open, keeping the inverted tongue at the centre and fixing the mind in the middle of the open mouth, and voices vowel-less ha mentally, he will be dissolved in peace."
Dharana 59 (verse 82): "Seated on a (soft) seat or bed, one should contemplate one's body as without support. By this contemplation when all props of one's thought vanish... then in an instant, all his old (undesirable) mental dispositions... will also vanish."
Dharana 60 (verse 83): "O goddess, owing to the swinging of the body of a person seated on a moving vehicle or owing to self-caused swinging of his body slowly, his mental state becomes calmed. Then he attains divyaugha and enjoys the bliss of supernal consciousness."
Teaching Notes
1. Relaxed, not strained. Verse 78: "He should sit in a very relaxed position." "Rajas (agitation of the mind) and tamas (sloth) will disappear. His mind will experience perfect equilibrium (sattva)." Anava.
2. Ease. Verse 79: "This posture has been recommended for making the mind at ease." Anava.
3. Fixed gaze. Verse 80: "Niradhara or without a prop means free of all thought constructs... It is these vikalpas that serve as a prop for the mind." "This is Bhairavi mudra and the upaya is Sambhava."
4. Vowel-less ha. Verse 81 refers to khecari mudra (Vivekamartanda). "Prana goes on sounding hamsah inwardly automatically... When the tongue is inverted and stuck to the palate, the palatal sa cannot be pronounced: ha alone... remains." Since anacka ha cannot be voiced physically, "it should be uttered mentally". Anava.
5. Without support. Verse 82: "Though seated on a soft seat or bed, the aspirant should contemplate with firm belief that his body is without the support of any seat or bed whatsoever... when his mind becomes thought-free, then his habitual tendencies of thought (vasanas) lying in the unconscious will also vanish." Saktopaya.
6. Swinging. "If one is seated in a cart or on horse-back, or an elephant or in any other moving vehicle... his body begins to swing to and fro... he experiences a peculiar kind of joy, and his mind becomes introverted." Augha means "continuous tradition of wisdom": manavaugha (through human gurus), siddhaugha (through siddhas), divyaugha (through gods). Saktopaya.
these six verses are about the body's role in calming the mind, and they are surprisingly unheroic: soft cushions, comfortable seats, arms arched in repose, the gentle swaying of a vehicle. The point is ease. Dharana 59, imagining oneself without support while actually sitting on a bed, uses the felt sense of being held as a way to let go of the mental props one leans on. Dharana 60 will be familiar to anyone who has dozed contentedly on a train: rhythmic motion settles the mind, and the text asks us to notice the settled mind.
dharana 55 (one buttock on the seat, limbs unsupported) is an odd posture; it may work by requiring continuous fine balance, which focuses attention. Its exact form depends on oral tradition. The claim that old vasanas vanish "in an instant" (dharana 59) is aspirational; long-standing habits rarely dissolve in a moment, and readers should expect gradual change.
Key Terms
- Sattva, rajas, tamas: clarity, agitation, inertia.
- Niradhara: without support.
- Vasana: latent habit, subconscious disposition.
- Augha: stream of tradition (human, siddha, divine).
Sky, Darkness and the Closed Senses (Verses 84 to 90, pp. 78 to 84)
Dharana 61 (verse 84): "If one making himself thoroughly immobile beholds the pure (cloudless) sky with fixed eyes, at that very moment, O goddess, he will acquire the nature of Bhairava."
Dharana 62 (verse 85): "The yogi should contemplate the entire open space (or sky) under the form of the essence of Bhairava and as dissolved in his head. Then the entire universe will be absorbed in the light of Bhairava."
Dharana 63 (verse 86): "When the yogi knows the three states of consciousness, viz. visva (waking)... taijasa (dream)... prajna (deep sleep) in which it is all darkness as (only) the form of Bhairava, he is then filled with the splendour of infinite consciousness."
Dharana 64 (verse 87): "In the same way, at (completely) dark night in the dark fortnight, by contemplating for long over the (terrible) circumambient darkness, the yogi will attain the nature of Bhairava."
Dharana 65 (verse 88): "Similarly... the aspirant should at first contemplate over terrible darkness in front of him by closing his eyes, then later should contemplate over the dark, terrible form of Bhairava in front with eyes wide open. Thus will he become identified with Him."
Dharana 66 (verse 89): "When some organ of sense is obstructed in its function by some external cause or in the natural course or by self-imposed device, then the aspirant becomes introverted, his mind is absorbed in a void that transcends all duality and there itself his essential Self is revealed."
Dharana 67 (verse 90): "If one recites the letter a without bindu or visarga then, O goddess, Paramesvara, a magnificent torrent of wisdom appears suddenly."
Teaching Notes
1. The sky. "The sense of the body should vanish and all thoughts and emotions should be completely arrested." "Looking at the sky has been recommended, because on account of the vastness of the sky, the beholder is apt to be lost in a sense of infinity." "With fixed eyes means without blinking." Sambhavopaya.
2. The sky inside the head. "The space in his head will become the symbol of the infinity of Bhairava and he will feel that the entire universe is bathed in the Light of Bhairava." Saktopaya.
3. Three states as the fourth. "In ordinary life, there is always subject-object duality. In the turiya... the sense of duality disappears." "When the yogi knows all the three states as only the expression of the fourth state... he is filled with the Infinite Light of Bhairava." Anava leading to sambhava.
4. Darkness. "In such darkness, distinct objects are not visible. So there is nothing to distract the attention." "One is filled with a sense of awe and uncanny mystery and easily slips into the mystic consciousness." This is bahya timira bhavana, contemplation of outer darkness with open eyes. Saktopaya.
5. Nimilana to unmilana. Verse 88 "points to the transition from nimilana (eyes closed) to unmilana samadhi" (eyes open). Then "he will find his mind swallowed up in the nature of Bhairava". Saktopaya.
6. Blocked senses. "As the particular organ of sense is unable to establish contact with the external world, there arises a feeling of vacuity in that organ. Then the aspirant becomes introverted." Saktopaya.
7. The letter a. Bindu is the anusvara (am), visarga the final h (ah). "In sounding 'a' with anusvara... there will be inhalation; ...with visarga... exhalation." So a must be recited "in a kumbhaka state". Lakshman Joo: kumbhakasthasya means cakita mudra, "the mouth is wide open and the tongue is held back", so a can only be contemplated mentally. Why a? "It is the initial letter of the alphabet; it is the source and origin of all other letters"; it "symbolizes anuttara the absolute... in which Siva and Sakti are in indistinguishable unity".
dharanas 64 and 65 show how the Trika turns fear into a door. The cremation-ground god Bhairava is "terrible", and so is total darkness. Rather than avoid the uncanny, the practice uses it: awe and mild dread stop the chatter of the mind just as wonder does. The move from eyes closed to eyes open (nimilana to unmilana) is the signature of the whole system: whatever is found inside must be found again outside, with the world in view.
dharana 66 (any blocked sense leads inward) is psychologically interesting, but people who lose a sense through injury or illness should not be told that this is a spiritual opportunity; the verse speaks of an aspirant using natural or voluntary obstruction. Prolonged fixed staring without blinking (61, 57) can dry and strain the eyes; and one should never gaze at the sun. The dark-night practice is best done somewhere safe and familiar.
Key Terms
- Visva, taijasa, prajna: the subjects of waking, dream and deep sleep.
- Timira bhavana: contemplation of darkness.
- Nimilana / unmilana: samadhi with eyes closed / open.
- Anuttara: the unsurpassed; symbolised by a.
- Cakita mudra: the "astonished" gesture, mouth open.
Reflection
- Tonight, as you fall asleep, try to notice the last moment you can still notice. What is it like?
- Close your eyes for a minute and rest in the darkness; then open them and keep the same quality of attention. What carries over?
Visarga, the Sky-Self, the Needle and the Absent Mind (Verses 91 to 94, pp. 84 to 87)
Dharana 68 (verse 91): "When one fixes his mind freed of all props on the end of the visarga of a letter coupled with visarga, then (being completely introverted), he enters the eternal Brahman."
Dharana 69 (verse 92): "When one concentrates on one's self in the form of a vast firmament, unlimited in any direction whatsoever, then the citi sakti freed of all props reveals herself."
Dharana 70 (verse 93): "If one pierces at first any limb (of one's body) with sharp-pointed needle etcetera, and then concentrates on that very spot, then (owing to the intensity of one-pointed awareness) one has access to the pure nature of Bhairava."
Dharana 71 (verse 94): "One should contemplate thus: 'Within me the inner psychic apparatus consisting of citta, etc. does not exist'. In the absence of thought-constructs, he will be rid of all thought-constructs and will abide as pure consciousness (suddha caitanya)."
Teaching Notes
1. Why a, and why its end. Completing the note on verse 90, Singh gives four reasons for a: it is the source of all letters; it symbolises anuttara; it "represents aham, the perfect I-consciousness"; and recited without anusvara or visarga it "makes the mind nirvikalpaka". In verse 91 the focus moves to the end of the visarga. Abhinavagupta (Tantraloka III.143): "Anuttara is the highest plane of Reality. That is known as akula. His state of manifestation or emanation (visarga) is the kauliki power." "When the aspirant fixes his mind on the end of the visarga which is the symbol of manifestation, his mind is detached from all manifestation and easily slips into the void. He is now steeped in the silence of Brahman."
2. The self as sky. "One has to concentrate on one's Self as a vast sky unlimited by any form, adjunct or direction." Then the citi sakti "shines in its nirvikalpa state". Saktopaya.
3. Pain as a doorway. "In intensity of attention whether due to pleasure or pain, there is one-pointedness of the mind and in that state the nature of the essential Self is revealed." Anava ending in sambhava.
4. Not the psychic apparatus. "When one becomes fully convinced by bhavana... that he is not his psychic apparatus consisting of manas, buddhi, ahamkara... his mind ceases to form vikalpas." Saktopaya.
dharana 70 completes a pattern that runs from the sexual verses through food and music: intensity of sensation, of any kind, concentrates the mind, and concentrated mind can turn to its own source. Pain, the text says, works as well as pleasure. Dharana 71 then reverses the approach: instead of watching the mind, simply contemplate that the mind is not there. Its affinity with the Advaita "neti neti" (not this, not this) is clear.
the needle practice must be read with care. It describes a brief, mild prick used as a focus, not self-harm. Anyone with a history of self-injury, or who finds pain compelling, should not use this dharana at all; nothing in the tradition requires it, and gentler sensations (a cold touch, pressure of a fingertip) serve the same purpose of focusing attention.
Key Terms
- Akula / kauliki: the absolute and its emanating power.
- Citi sakti: the power of consciousness.
- Antahkarana: the inner instrument (manas, buddhi, ahamkara).
- Suddha caitanya: pure consciousness.
Working with Desire and Knowledge (Verses 95 to 99, pp. 87 to 90)
Dharana 72 (verse 95): "'Maya is delusive, the function of kala is limited activity (of vidya, it is limited knowledge, etc),' considering the functions of the various tattvas in this way, one does not remain separate any longer."
Dharana 73 (verse 96): "Having observed a desire that has sprung up, the aspirant should put an end to it immediately. It will be absorbed in that very place from which it arose."
Dharana 74 (verse 97): "When desire or knowledge (or activity) has not arisen in me, then what am I in that condition? In verity, I am (in that condition) that Reality itself (i.e. cidananda). Thus, he will be absorbed in that Reality."
Dharana 75 (verse 98): "When a desire or knowledge (or activity) appears, the aspirant should, with the mind withdrawn from all objects... fix his mind on it as the very Self, then he will have the realization of the essential Reality."
Dharana 76 (verse 99): "All knowledge is without cause, without base and deceptive. From the point of view of absolute Reality, this knowledge does not belong to any person. When one is given wholly to this contemplation, then, O dear one, one becomes Siva."
Teaching Notes
1. Maya and the coverings. Abhinavagupta: Maya "veils the essential Self and thus proves delusive"; she manifests "undiluted diversity" and identifies "Self with the not-Self such as sunya, buddhi and the body". Through the kancukas (kala, vidya, raga, kala, niyati) she "effects limitation in respect of activity, knowledge, desire, time, causality and space". Knowing this, the yogi "does not lose sight of the wholeness of Reality... by unmilana samadhi, he views the entire manifestation as the expression of Siva and is thus chockful of a deep sense of relatedness". An alternative reading (na) gives the opposite sense: he "becomes isolated" in the Self. Saktopaya.
2. Desire returns to its source. "Desires dissolve in the mind even as waves rising on the surface of the sea dissolve in the sea itself." "If another desire arises, the best means... is to shift the attention from the desire to the underlying spiritual Reality, the creative moment between the two desires, known as unmesa." Saktopaya leading to sambhava.
3. Before desire. "The desire, knowledge and activity of the ego are not the desire, knowledge and activity of the essential Self." Saktopaya.
4. Desire as Sakti. In dharana 75 the move is the opposite of 73: rather than ending the desire, fix attention on the desire itself "as the very Self, as a Sakti of the divine". Sambhava upaya.
5. Sarvatma-sankoca. Abhinavagupta (Tantraloka V.71) calls dharana 76 sarvatma-sankoca, and Jayaratha cites the verse: "rejecting everything external and entering completely within oneself by means of nimilana samadhi". "Both jnata (knower) and jneya (known) are rejected. Only jnana or vijnana remains which is Bhairava." Saktopaya.
dharanas 73 and 75 together show the flexibility of the method. One can let a desire subside back into the stillness it came from (73), or turn towards the desire itself and feel it as raw energy, the Sakti of consciousness (75). Both avoid the two usual responses: acting on the desire, or fighting it. Dharana 74's question, "what am I before any desire or knowledge has arisen?", is close to the self-enquiry later made famous by Ramana Maharshi, and it may be the simplest practice in the book.
"putting an end to a desire immediately" (73) could be misread as suppression, which modern psychology rightly warns against. The notes make clear that the method is attention, not force: the desire is seen and allowed to dissolve. Dharana 76's claim that "all knowledge is deceptive" is a contemplative device, not an epistemology to live by; in ordinary life, distinguishing true from false knowledge still matters.
Key Terms
- Kancuka: the five "coverings" that limit consciousness.
- Unmesa: the creative opening between two states.
- Sarvatma-sankoca: total withdrawal into the Self.
- Nimilana samadhi: absorption with eyes closed.
One Consciousness, Passions and Opposites (Verses 100 to 103, pp. 91 to 93)
Dharana 77 (verse 100): "The same Self characterized by consciousness is present in all the bodies; there is no difference in it anywhere. Therefore, a person realizing that everything (in essence) is the same (consciousness) triumphantly rises above transmigratory existence."
Dharana 78 (verse 101): "If one succeeds in immobilizing his mind (i.e. in making it one-pointed) when he is under the sway of desire, anger, greed, infatuation, arrogance and envy, then the Reality underlying these states alone subsists."
Dharana 79 (verse 102): "If one perceives the cosmos as mere jugglery conjured up by some magician or as the configuration of a painting, or as illusory as the movement of trees, etc. (appearing to people seated on a moving boat), and contemplates deeply over this fact, then he will experience great happiness."
Dharana 80 (verse 103): "Neither should one dwell on suffering nor on pleasure. O goddess Bhairavi, it should be known what Reality subsists in the middle of both (the opposites)."
Teaching Notes
1. Consciousness includes activity. Kshemaraja quotes verse 100 on Siva Sutra I.1 and points out that "caitanya or consciousness does not mean simply jnana or knowledge but also kriya or autonomous activity". One who sees the Self as the same "from Sadasiva down to the tiniest worm... acquires the consciousness of samata". Sambhavopaya.
2. The six passions. Kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya. "He should dissociate his mind from the object of the emotion and concentrate deeply on the emotion itself, without either accepting it or rejecting it... even as a tortoise withdraws its limbs within its shell." "The passion becomes calmed like a charmed snake; all vikalpas are shed like leaves in autumn." This puts him in touch with spanda. "This means is known as atma-sankoca or sakti-sankoca. Thus even a strong passion may lead a cautious yogi to spiritual bliss." Sambhavopaya.
3. Magic, painting, boat. Jayaratha cites verse 102, too, as sarvatma-sankoca. Saktopaya.
4. The witness of opposites. "Both pleasure and suffering are the characteristics of antahkarana... That which is beyond the pair of opposites... which witnesses both without being involved in them, that is Reality." Saktopaya.
dharana 78 is one of the boldest teachings in the text and anticipates modern emotion-focused methods. When anger or desire is strong, drop the story (the object, the person, the grievance) and turn fully to the raw feeling itself, neither feeding nor suppressing it. The energy of the emotion, freed from its object, becomes a door. Singh's word "cautious" is the key: this is for one who can stay present with intense feeling without being carried away by it.
verse 102's language of the world as "jugglery", "a painting" or the illusory movement of trees seen from a boat is close to Advaita Vedanta and to Buddhist Madhyamaka. It sits uneasily with the Trika's usual insistence that the world is real as Siva's self-expression. The tension is old: the Vijnanabhairava predates the systematic Pratyabhijna, and it contains practices from several tendencies. Readers should not be surprised to find "the world is illusion" and "the world is Siva" side by side.
Key Terms
- Samata: equality, essential oneness.
- Atma-sankoca / sakti-sankoca: sudden withdrawal into the Self.
- Kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya: the six passions.
- Saksi: the witness.
I Am Everywhere (Verses 104 to 112, pp. 93 to 100)
Dharana 81 (verse 104): "After rejecting attachment to one's body, one should, with firm mind and with a vision which has no consideration for any thing else, contemplate thus, 'I am everywhere'. He will then enjoy (supernal) happiness."
Dharana 82 (verse 105): "'Knowledge, desire, etc. do not appear only within me, they appear everywhere in jars and other objects.' Contemplating thus, one becomes all-pervasive."
Verse 106 (no separate dharana): "The consciousness of object and subject is common to all the embodied ones. The yogis have, however, this distinction that they are mindful of this relation."
Dharana 83 (verse 107): "One should, leaving aside the need of his own body, contemplate that the (same) consciousness is present in other bodies as in his own. Thus he will become all-pervasive in a few days."
Dharana 84 (verse 108): "Having freed the mind of all supports, one should refrain from all thought-constructs. Then, O gazelle-eyed one, there will be the state of Bhairava."
Dharana 85 (verse 109): "The Highest Lord is Omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. 'Since I have the attributes of Siva, I am the same as the Highest Lord.' With this firm conviction, one becomes Siva."
Dharana 86 (verse 110): "Just as waves arise from water, flames from fire, rays from the sun, even so the waves (variegated aspects) of the universe have arisen in differentiated forms from me i.e. Bhairava."
Dharana 87 (verse 111): "When one whirls his body round and round and falls down swiftly on the earth, then on the cessation of the energy of commotion, there appears supreme spiritual condition."
Dharana 88 (verse 112): "If on account of lack of power to apprehend objects of knowledge or on account of (sheer) ignorance, there is dissolution of mind... then at the end of the cessation of commotion... there appears the form of Bhairava."
Teaching Notes
1. Negative and positive. Verse 104 has "two main ideas, one negative and another positive. The negative one is, 'I am not my body, nor am I confined to any particular place or time'. The positive one is, 'I am everywhere.'" Sivopadhyaya distinguishes it from verse 100: here the bhavana is "sarvam idam aham, 'All this is myself'", the consciousness of Sadasiva or Isvara; verse 100 is the plane of Siva. Saktopaya.
2. The jar knows. "Jnana and kriya are not the monopoly only of the human being." "Man usually thinks that there is nothing common between him and a jar or a tree, but if he comes to realize that jnana and kriya are the common characteristics of all manifestation... he will shed his insularity and feel his kinship with all." Abhinavagupta: "It is one and the same Self that shines as one's own self as well as selves of others." Somananda (Sivadrsti): "The jar... knows as one with myself. I am one with the jar in knowing. I know as Sadasiva and Sadasiva knows as myself." Abhinavagupta's dry remark: those "who have not been altogether soiled by the dust of the chatter of logicians" are absorbed in Isvara.
3. Mindful of the relation. "The object is always related to the subject... Ordinary people get lost in the object; they forget the Self, the knower." The yogi "is always mindful of that witnessing awareness which alone is the subject of every thing".
4. Consciousness without a body. "In dream, one has consciousness apart from the gross body; in deep sleep... apart from the subtle body; in... turiya... apart from the causal body. So it is clear that a body is not a necessary medium for consciousness." Saktopaya.
5. Supports. "'All supports' includes both external support such as perception of objects and internal support such as imagination, fancies, concepts, pleasure, pain." "Savikalpa... is the state of the psychological individual... nirvikalpa... is the state of the spiritual Self." Sambhavopaya.
6. Two phases of recognition. Verse 109 "is the dharana of the first phase of pratyabhijna... Man is Siva already in essence. The essential Reality in him has put on the mask of jiva." Verse 110 is "the second phase... recognizing the fact that this glory of manifestation is mine", "the identity of the universe with the Self". Both saktopaya.
7. Commotion and its end. "Verse 111 refers to a state of mind brought about by commotion set up by physical condition. Verse 112... by intellectual impasse." "After the momentary commotion has ceased, the normal mind is completely stilled; vikalpas are laid to rest, and there is an invasion of truth from a higher plane of consciousness." Verse 111 sambhava; 112 sakta.
this group is the philosophical climax of the dharanas: from "I am not the body" to "I am everywhere", from "consciousness in me" to "consciousness in the jar", and finally to the two phases of recognition, "I am Siva" and "the universe is mine". Verse 106 is perhaps the most useful line for daily life: everyone has subject and object; the only difference in a yogi is that he remembers the subject. And verses 111 and 112 are strikingly modern. The whirling (think of the Mevlevi dervishes) and the intellectual impasse (think of the Zen koan) both work the same way: overload the system, and in the silence after the overload, something else shows through.
Singh's argument that consciousness exists apart from the body because one is conscious in dream and deep sleep is not one that modern neuroscience would accept: dreams occur in a living brain, and deep sleep is usually thought to involve little or no reportable experience. The verse is a contemplative instruction ("contemplate consciousness in others"), and its value does not depend on that argument. Whirling until one falls should be done only on soft ground, by people without vertigo, heart problems or pregnancy. And "with this firm conviction, one becomes Siva" can be misused: a conviction of being omnipotent, without the humility of the rest of the path, is the classic error of spiritual inflation.
Key Terms
- Sarvam idam aham: "all this is myself".
- Grahya / grahaka: the grasped (object) and the grasper (subject).
- Savikalpa / nirvikalpa: with / without thought-constructs.
- Pratyabhijna: recognition; its two phases.
- Ksobha: commotion; its cessation as a door.
Reflection
- When you next feel anger, try for ten seconds to drop the story and feel only the energy. What happens to it?
- Look at an ordinary object. Can you sense it as a fellow participant in being, rather than a thing?
Kaivalya, the Deep Well and Siva Everywhere (Verses 113 to 117, pp. 101 to 105)
Dharana 89 (verses 113 and 114): "O goddess, listen, I am going to tell you this mystic tradition in its entirety. If the eyes are fixed without blinking (on the reality within), isolation (kaivalya) will occur immediately. Contracting the openings of the ears and similarly the openings of the anus and penis (and then), meditating on (the interior, impactless sound) without vowel and without consonant, one enters the eternal Brahman."
Dharana 90 (verse 115): "If one stands above a very deep well, etc., and fixes his eyes (on the space inside the well without blinking) his understanding becomes freed of vikalpas completely, and immediately he definitely experiences dissolution of mind."
Dharana 91 (verse 116): "Wherever the mind goes whether towards the exterior or towards the interior, everywhere there is the state of Siva. Since Siva is omnipresent, where can the mind go (to avoid Him)."
Dharana 92 (verse 117): "On every occasion that the consciousness of the Omnipresent Reality is revealed through the sensory organs... one should contemplate over the consciousness appearing through the sensory organs as the pure Universal Consciousness. Thus his mind will be dissolved in the Universal Consciousness."
Teaching Notes
1. Bhairavi mudra again. Kshemaraja (Udyota on Svacchanda Tantra): "Rejecting the sight of the external world by Bhairavi mudra, the aspirant enjoys peace inasmuch as his desires are abolished and the entire net-work of vikalpas is destroyed."
2. Two kinds of kaivalya. "The kaivalya recommended by the non-dualistic Saiva philosophy is different from the one advocated by Sankhya yoga... Sankhya-Yoga believes that there is nothing common between purusa and prakrti, and, therefore, kaivalya... means complete isolation from Prakrti, and, hence, from the universe. In Saiva philosophy, it means the disappearance of the externality of the world and its contraction in Siva."
3. The silent bindu. The unstruck sound "without vowel or consonant" is bindu alone (Siva) or pure visarga (Sakti); it "cannot be heard... cannot be uttered, it can only be meditated upon", to help "the jiva to return to Siva". The yogi "acquires wonderful vitality". Saktopaya.
4. Vertigo. At a deep well "or on the summit of a mountain, he feels giddiness and has a sense of fear. In this state, spanda... throws him off his normal consciousness and if he has already developed mati or intuitive understanding by pure living, it is freed of vikalpas." Sambhava upaya.
5. Two aspects of verse 116. "The metaphysical aspect maintains that everything in the universe, subjective or objective, is Siva. The mystic aspect says that since everything is Siva, the aspirant need not be perturbed if he is unable to concentrate on some mysterious Universal Reality. Whatever attracts the mind... let that be taken as Siva with full conviction and be made an object of meditation. The result will be surprizing." Cf. Spanda-karika II.3 to 5. Saktopaya.
6. Every sensation. "Every sensation whether external or internal should be considered not merely as a psycho-physical fact but as an expression of the Universal Consciousness... Just as every reflection or image appearing in a mirror is nothing different from the mirror, even so the whole world that appears in the Light of the Universal Consciousness is nothing different from it." Saktopaya.
verse 116 may be the most consoling verse in the book for a struggling meditator. It turns the ordinary complaint ("my mind keeps wandering") on its head: where can it wander to? If everything is Siva, a wandering mind is only moving from Siva to Siva. The instruction is not to drag attention back but to recognise whatever it has landed on. Singh's phrase "the result will be surprizing" has the ring of his own experience.
Singh's condition for the deep-well practice, "if he has already developed mati... by pure living", is important: fear and vertigo without that preparation may just be fear and vertigo. The practice of standing at heights should obviously be done only where it is physically safe. The contrast with Samkhya kaivalya repeats, in a new key, the earlier contrast of atmavyapti and sivavyapti.
Key Terms
- Kaivalya: isolation; in Samkhya, from matter; in Trika, the world contracted into Siva.
- Mati: intuitive understanding.
- Aksamarga: the path of the senses.
Sudden Jolts, Memory and Withdrawal of the Gaze (Verses 118 to 120, pp. 105 to 108)
Dharana 93 (verse 118): "At the commencement and end of sneeze, in terror, in sorrow, in the condition of a deep sigh or on the occasion of flight from the battlefield, during (keen) curiosity, at the commencement or end of hunger, the state is like that of brahma."
Dharana 94 (verse 119): "At the sight of a land, when one lets go all the thought of the remembered objects (and concentrates only on the experience which was the basis of that memory) and makes his body supportless, then the Lord appears."
Dharana 95 (verse 120): "O goddess, if one, after casting one's gaze on some object, withdraws it and slowly eliminates the knowledge of that object along with the thought and impression of it, he abides in the void."
Teaching Notes
1. Gahvara. It "means both a cavern or deep sigh. As most of the conditions mentioned are psychophysical or emotional the word gahvara has been taken in the sense of deep sigh."
2. The jolt. "Whether it is an insignificant condition like sneeze or hunger or highly significant condition like terror... whenever the ordinary normal consciousness receives a sudden jolt or shock, it is thrown back to its inmost depth and comes in contact with spanda... It is a sudden and momentary state, but if the person is wide awake, he clings to it. From that moment, his life is completely changed... If one simply lets it go by, one has lost the opportunity of his life, for this condition does not usually return." Spanda-karika I.22: "When one is in extreme anger or experiences surpassing joy, or is in a state of impasse, not knowing what to do, or has to flee for his life, then in that state is established the Spanda principle." Sambhava upaya.
3. Memory to experience. "On remembering a particular object, the aspirant should ignore the memory of the object and fix his mind on the original experience which is the basis of the memory." Detaching from "the psychosomatic organism in which the memory and the residual impressions are stored", the mind "will be restored to its pristine form of pure Experience". Saktopaya.
4. Two ways to eliminate an object. By sunyabhavana ("the whole world is unsubstantial, mere void") or by bhairavi mudra ("Though the eyes are open, the aspirant sees nothing of the external world"). Saktopaya.
the list in verse 118 is wonderfully concrete: a sneeze, a sigh, the start of hunger, sudden fear, intense curiosity. Each is a moment when the usual flow of thought is interrupted. The Spanda tradition sees these as tiny windows in which awareness shows through without its contents. The practice is to recognise them. It requires no special time or place, only alertness when life itself interrupts us.
Singh's statement that missing such a moment means "one has lost the opportunity of his life, for this condition does not usually return" is overstated and could produce needless anxiety. The sneeze, the sigh and hunger return daily; the opportunity is constant. The more dramatic "flight from the battlefield" reflects the warrior culture of the text's world; it should not be taken as recommending danger.
Key Terms
- Spanda: the pulsation of consciousness.
- Gahvara: cavern; deep sigh.
- Sunyabhavana: contemplation of voidness.
Devotion, Vacuity, True Purity and the Universal I (Verses 121 to 124, pp. 108 to 112)
Dharana 96 (verse 121): "The sort of intuition (mati) that emerges through the intensity of devotion in one who is perfectly detached is known as the Sakti of Sankara. One should contemplate on it perpetually. Then he becomes Siva Himself."
Dharana 97 (verse 122): "When one perceives a particular object, vacuity is established regarding all other objects. If one contemplates on this vacuity with mind freed of all thought, then even though the particular object be still known or perceived, the aspirant has full tranquillity."
Dharana 98 (verse 123): "That purity which is prescribed by people of little understanding is considered to be only impurity in the Saiva system. It should not be considered to be purity; rather it is impurity in reality. Therefore one who has freed himself of vikalpas alone attains happiness."
Dharana 99 (verse 124): "The reality of Bhairava is apparent everywhere, even among common folk. One who knows thus, 'There is nothing else than He' attains the non-dual condition."
Teaching Notes
1. Four steps of devotion. "(1) one's value of life has to be totally changed... detached from sensuous pleasures and trinkets of life. (2) He should be devoted to God. (3)... then will emerge mati which is spiritual intuition full of the power to transform life... (4) The aspirant should perpetually contemplate on this mati." "Bhakti or devotion does not mean simply offering of flowers and burning incense. It means viewing God in all life and dedication of oneself to the Divine in word, thought and deed." Sambhava upaya.
2. The other objects. Dharana 95 contemplates the vacuity of the perceived object; dharana 97 "after perceiving one particular object, contemplates over the vacuity of all other objects". "His differentiation-making mind is dissolved... even when the particular object... is still present." Saktopaya.
3. Purity. "The purity criticized in this verse refers only to physical purity like washing, bathing, etc. The Saiva system referred to is the Trika system. This system does not lay any special store by external physical purity. It considers only mental purity to be real purity." "It does not condemn physical purity as such. It condemns it only when it is considered to be a passport to the spiritual life." Lakshman Joo's reading: "neither purity nor impurity". Saktopaya.
4. Everyone knows the I. "Every one uses the first personal pronoun 'I'. Even ignoramuses are conscious of this 'I'." Mahesvarananda (Maharthamanjari 4): "He whom even ignoramuses know, whom even portresses of water know well enough... where is the person to whom He is not evident." "The pseudo-I which every body has to use willy-nilly is only a symbol of the non-dual Eternal 'I' throbbing in the heart of every creature." He is known externally through his Sakti. "This dharana is an example of anupaya."
verse 123 is socially radical. In a culture where ritual purity governed caste, food, touch and worship, the text declares that purity as ordinarily understood is a form of impurity, because it rests on the dualistic thought of clean and unclean. Abhinavagupta's Tantraloka extends this to caste: within the Kaula circle distinctions of caste were to be set aside. Verse 124, with its "portresses of water", makes the same point positively: the divine I is known to the humblest person, because everyone says "I". Realisation is not the privilege of a priestly class.
honesty requires noting the limits of this radicalism. The Trika was a tradition of largely Brahmin initiates, and its rejection of purity rules applied inside ritual and contemplative contexts; outside them, Kashmiri Saiva practitioners mostly kept conventional social life. The verse's critique of external purity is real and influential, but it did not abolish caste in Kashmir. Note also that dharana 99 is classed as anupaya, "no means": the highest teaching is not a technique but a recognition.
Key Terms
- Mati / sankari sakti: intuitive understanding; the beneficent power of Siva.
- Suddhi / asuddhi: purity / impurity.
- Anupaya: the "means without means".
- Aham: the I.
Equality, Space and the Name of Bhairava (Verses 125 to 130, pp. 112 to 120)
Dharana 100 (verse 125): "Because of the conviction that everything is full of Brahman, the aspirant has the same attitude towards friend and foe, remains the same both in honour and dishonour, and thus... he is perpetually happy."
Dharana 101 (verse 126): "The aspirant should neither maintain the attitude of aversion nor of attachment towards any one. Since he is freed of both aversion and attachment, there develops brahmabhava... in his heart."
Dharana 102 (verse 127): "That which cannot be known as an object, that which cannot be grasped, that which is void, that which penetrates even non-existence, all that should be contemplated as Bhairava. At the end of that contemplation will occur Enlightenment."
Dharana 103 (verse 128): "One should fix his mind on the external space which is eternal, without support, void, omnipresent, devoid of limitation. (By this practice) he will be absorbed in non-space."
Dharana 104 (verse 129): "Towards whatever object the mind goes, one should remove it from there immediately by that very mind, and thus by not allowing it to settle down there... one will be free from agitation."
Dharana 105 (verse 130): "Bhairava is one who with His luminous consciousness makes every thing resound or who... comprehends the whole universe, who gives everything, who pervades the entire cosmos. Therefore by reciting the word Bhairava incessantly one becomes Siva."
Teaching Notes
1. Samata. The aspirant "has the same attitude of goodness towards all, is neither elated when he receives honour, nor is depressed when he is subjected to dishonour. The same idea occurs in Gita V.18 and XIV.25." Verse 125 reaches equality positively (Brahman everywhere); verse 126 negatively (rejecting attachment and aversion). Both saktopaya.
2. What void means. Avedya, unknowable, "in the sense that it is vedaka, the Eternal and Ultimate Subject". Sivopadhyaya: "That which is free of all alambanas, of all tattvas, of the residual traces of all klesas, that is sunya. It is not void as such in its highest sense." The klesas: "avidya... asmita... raga... dvesa... abhinivesa". "The Highest Reality is called sunya or void, because it is free of all these, not because it is not Real."
3. The sky-flower. Maharthamanjari 32: "What is the difference between an existent flower and a sky-flower? The universe derives its life from the (divine) creative flash (sphurana or sphuratta) and that flash is the same everywhere." Utpaladeva (Isvarapratyabhijnakarika I.5.14): this power "is mahasatta or absolute being inasmuch as it is free to be anything, it is the source of all bhava or abhava". Abhinavagupta: satta here means "freedom in all actions. It is called mahasatta, because it pervades even the sky-flower." Sambhavopaya.
4. Outer space to inner. "Since it is not easy to concentrate on abstract void, the aspirant has been advised to concentrate on the vast, illimitable external space." Then "one can, with facility, concentrate on the inner, supportless, objectless Reality". Bhairava is now nirakasa, "transcending all void (atisunya) or asunya (non-void), the base and foundation of the void itself". Saktopaya.
5. Vairagya and abhyasa. Verse 129: agitation is removed "by vairagya and abhyasa, i.e. by disinterestedness and practice", "both the negative and the positive method... together". Gita VI.26: "In whichever direction the fluctuating and unsteady mind moves, it should be held back from that direction and brought under the control of the Self." Saktopaya.
6. The name. Bha (light) + ai (kriyasakti) + ra (ravayati, "comprehends", vimarsati) + va: "He whose light of consciousness joined with his power of activity comprehends the entire universe." Paratrisika: Bhairava "supports and protects the cosmos and (constantly) sounds the great mantra of 'I' (aham)". Tantraloka: he supports (bhr); he sounds the great mantra of I; and he "offers intrepidity to those who are terrified by the cycle of transmigratory existence".
verse 127 contains the book's most careful statement of what "void" means in the Trika, and it is worth absorbing. Sunya is not nothing. It is the absence of supports, of fixed principles, of the residues of the five afflictions; it is "void" only from the side of the mind that wants an object. From the side of reality it is mahasatta, absolute being, "free to be anything". The sky-flower verse makes this vivid: even the idea of a flower that does not exist is lit by the same flash of consciousness as a flower in the garden.
there is a notable shift in verses 125 and 126: they speak of Brahman, cite the Gita, and recommend equanimity in honour and dishonour. These are the most "Vedantic" verses in the book, and help explain why later commentators could read it in an Advaita way. Verse 129 (pull the mind back from every object) sits awkwardly beside verse 116 (wherever the mind goes, there is Siva); the text offers both because people differ, not because one cancels the other. As for chanting "Bhairava" incessantly, the etymologies are traditional "hermeneutic" derivations (nirukta), meaningful as contemplation, not as historical linguistics.
Key Terms
- Samata: equality, even-mindedness.
- Klesa: the five afflictions (avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa, abhinivesa).
- Mahasatta / sphuratta: absolute being; the creative flash.
- Nirakasa / asunya: beyond space, non-void.
- Vairagya / abhyasa: dispassion / practice.
Reflection
- Notice the next sneeze, yawn or sigh. What happens to thought in that moment?
- Verse 116 asks, "where can the mind go?" Next time your attention wanders in meditation, try recognising where it has gone instead of pulling it back.
The True I and the World as Magic (Verses 131 to 134, pp. 120 to 124)
Dharana 106 (verse 131): "On the occasion of the assertion, 'I am; this is mine, etc.,' the thought goes to that which does not depend on any support. Under the impulsion of the contemplation of that (tat), one attains (abiding) peace."
Dharana 107 (verse 132): "'Eternal, omnipresent, without depending on any support, all-pervasive, lord of all that is': meditating every instant on these words in conformity with their sense, one attains his object (i.e. has fulfilment)."
Dharana 108 (verse 133): "This whole universe is without any essential reality like a magical spectacle. What is the reality of a magical spectacle? If one is fully convinced of the non-essentiality of the universe in this way, he attains to peace."
Dharana 109 (verse 134): "In the unchangeable Self, how can there be knowledge or activity? All external objects are dependent on knowledge; therefore this world is void."
Teaching Notes
1. Behind the pseudo-I. Niradhara "is purnaham, the absolute 'I'". "Even when a man considers the pseudo-I to be the Self, there is present behind the pseudo-I, the absolute 'I'... ever-present consciousness-bliss both in the ignorant and the wise. So when a man asserts the pseudo-I to be the Self, his mind sub-consciously reflects the real, the absolute, the thought-free I."
2. Suddha vikalpa. "Surely this contemplation will also be a vikalpa... but it will be suddha vikalpa (pure vikalpa) which by sakta bhavana will ultimately end in nirvikalpa." Abhinavagupta (Tantraloka I.214 to 215): if the limited ego adopts a thought like "I am present everywhere, everything is in me", then "by constant, persevering determination... his vikalpa though dominated by maya ultimately ends in nirvikalpa". Saktopaya.
3. Words as practice. By pondering nitya and vibhu one realises that one's nature "transcends 'time'"; vyapaka, "'space' also"; niradhara, "transcendent to thought". "Knowledge of Self is the highest aim one can entertain." Saktopaya.
4. Whose knowledge is unreal? Verses 133 and 134 "refer to the unreality of the world". But "the knowledge and activity mentioned in this verse refer to the knowledge and activity of the limited, empirical individual". The Self's own jnana and kriya "are Saktis... not dependent on the antahkarana... not prompted by any sense of difference". Saktopaya.
dharana 106 offers perhaps the most natural practice in the book. We say "I" and "mine" hundreds of times a day. Each time, the text says, there is a faint reflection of the real I behind the personal one. The practice is to let each "I" point back to its source. And Singh's account of suddha vikalpa is an important corrective to the idea that all thought is the enemy: a true thought, held steadily ("I am everywhere"), can carry the mind beyond thought. This is the whole basis of saktopaya.
Singh works hard to reconcile verses 133 and 134 ("the world is a magic show... void") with Trika realism by restricting the unreality to the empirical subject's knowledge. The effort is ingenious, but the plain sense of these verses is close to Advaita or Yogacara idealism. The honest conclusion is that the Vijnanabhairava, as a Tantric compendium, contains more than one metaphysical voice, and the later Pratyabhijna reading is a harmonisation.
Key Terms
- Purnaham: the full, absolute I.
- Suddha vikalpa: a pure, liberating thought.
- Krtartha: one whose aim is fulfilled.
Beyond Bondage, the Senses and Knower and Known (Verses 135 to 137, pp. 124 to 128)
Dharana 110 (verse 135): "There is neither bondage nor liberation for me. These (bondage and liberation) are only bogies for those who are terrified... This (the universe) appears as a reflection in buddhi (the intellect) like the image of the sun in water."
Dharana 111 (verse 136): "All contact with pleasure and pain is through the senses, (knowing this), one should detach oneself from the senses, and withdrawing within should abide in his essential Self."
Dharana 112 (verse 137): "All things are revealed by jnana i.e. the knowledge or Self and the Self is revealed by all things. By reason of their nature being the same, one should contemplate on the knower and the known as one and the same."
Teaching Notes
1. The sun in water. "The question of bondage or liberation can arise only in the case of an entity that is limited by space and time." "Just as the image of the sun appears inverted in water, even so it is the limited buddhi... that poses as the Self and considers itself bound or liberated. Both bondage and liberation are the imaginative constructs of buddhi." Abhinavagupta (Isvarapratyabhijnavimarsini IV.1.2): prana, buddhi and body "are objects... But they can appropriately function as subjects... so they shine as illumined with assumed and imperfect self-consciousness, as 'I am Devadatta,' 'I am Caitra'". Lakshman Joo prefers jivasya ("of the empirical subject") for bhitasya. Sambhavopaya.
2. Sakti-sankoca. Detach from the senses "principally through sakti-sankoca", defined in the Pratyabhijnahrdayam as "turning in towards the Self, by the process of withdrawal, of that consciousness which is spreading externally through the doors of the senses". One becomes svastha, "poised in oneself". Yogavasistha: "On the luminous emergence of cit... the wayward activities of the manas, buddhi and the senses come to an end." Saktopaya.
3. Knower and known. Ucchusmabhairava: "So long as there are no knowers, how can there be the known? The known and the knower are really the same principle. Therefore, there is nothing which is inherently impure or insentient." Sivopadhyaya: "All manifestation is not separate from the light of consciousness. The light of consciousness is never separate from I-consciousness. The I-consciousness is nothing else than Self." Lakshman Joo's reading: "the jnani (knower or Self) is revealed in the jnana". Saktopaya.
the final three dharanas complete a circle. Verse 135 removes even the goal ("neither bondage nor liberation for me"), which is the most liberating thing a teaching can do once it has done its work. Verse 136 brings consciousness home from the senses. Verse 137 then sends it back out: the knower is revealed by the known. The last practice is not withdrawal but recognition that knower and known are one light. This is the Trika in miniature: turn inward, then find the inner everywhere.
"neither bondage nor liberation" is a statement from the standpoint of realisation. Taken as a starting point by someone who has not done the work, it can become an excuse for complacency ("I am already free, so nothing I do matters"). Every non-dual tradition warns about this, and the text's own structure (112 practices before this verse) makes the point.
Key Terms
- Bandha / moksa: bondage / liberation.
- Pratibimba: reflection.
- Svastha: poised in oneself.
- Jnata, jnana, jneya: knower, knowing, known.
When the Four Dissolve (pp. 128 to 129)
"O dear one, when the ideating mind (manas), the ascertaining intellect (buddhi), the vital energy (pranasakti) and the limited empirical I, this set of four dissolves, then the previously described (tat) state of Bhairava appears."
Teaching Notes
1. Dissolution as transformation. "Pariksinam or the dissolution of manas, buddhi, etc. means that they are transformed and appear in the words of Sivopadhyaya citcamatkaram apannam as delightful aspects of the pure, universal consciousness."
2. Descent and ascent. "There is first gradual nimesa... of the universal Dynamic Consciousness (citi) into inconscient matter. This is the arc of descent (avaroha)." Citi assumes four forms: cetana (buddhi), manas, pranasakti, the ego, "summed up under the word citta". Pratyabhijnahrdayam 5: "Citi itself descending from the state of cetana becomes citta inasmuch as it becomes contracted." "Life at the human stage is on the arc of ascent. Man alone is given the opportunity of mounting to the summit of the spiritual life provided he is prepared to surrender his ego." Pratyabhijnahrdayam 13: "citta itself by inward movement becomes citi by rising to the status of cetana."
3. Instruments, not self. When the aspirant realises that "buddhi, manas, prana and the ego are only formations of Maya for carrying on the individual life... instruments of Self", then "these instruments reflect the life of the Spirit and can no longer hamper its expression".
verse 138 is the summary of all 112 practices: whatever the method, the result is the same: the four layers of individual functioning (thinking, deciding, life-energy, the sense of "me") stop claiming to be the self. Singh's key point is that they are not destroyed but transformed: they become "delightful aspects" (camatkara, wonder) of consciousness. A realised person still thinks, decides, breathes and says "I", but these no longer hide what they express.
Singh's evolutionary language (the animal stage, "man alone is given the opportunity") is influenced by Sri Aurobindo and the twentieth century more than by the text, which says nothing about biological evolution. The cosmology of descent and ascent is traditional; its mapping onto evolution is Singh's.
Key Terms
- Manas, buddhi, prana, aham: the four that dissolve.
- Citi / cetana / citta: universal, intermediate and individual consciousness.
- Avaroha / adhyaroha: descent / ascent.
- Camatkara: wonder, delighted self-awareness.
The Fruits, and the Devi's Last Question (pp. 130 to 133)
"O goddess, I have described hundred and twelve dharanas in which there can be no surge in the mind. Knowing them, one can be a perfect gnostic person. If one is established even in one of these practices, he will become Bhairava in himself. He can effect anything by word alone. He will have the power to confer benediction or malediction." (139 to 140)
"The aspirant... gains freedom from old age and mortality, and becomes endowed with anima and other powers. He becomes the darling of the yoginis and master of all melapakas. He is liberated even while living, and carrying on all the activities (of life), he is not affected by them." (141 to 142a)
The Devi: "Great lord, if such is the nature of the Supreme Sakti, then in the admittedly established rules of spiritual life, who would be invoked in recitation and what will be the recitation? Who, O great lord, would be meditated on, who would be worshipped, who is to be gratified? To whom is oblation to be offered? For whom is sacrifice to be performed?" Bhairava: "O gazelle-eyed one, this practice (referred to by you) is exterior and pertains only to gross forms." (142b to 144)
Teaching Notes
1. Nistaranga. "Without any surge in the mind i.e. in which the mind becomes nirvikalpaka." Jayaratha: "resting in one's essential Self, full of peace".
2. Why 112? "112 dharanas have been described in order that the aspirant may choose any according to his capacity... even if one dharana is properly understood and practised by the aspirant, he will be established in his essential Self and will attain perfect peace."
3. The eight powers. Anima (becoming as small as an atom), laghima (lightness), mahima (increasing size), prapti (obtaining everything), prakamya (irresistible will), vasitva (control of elements), isitrtva (producing and destroying them), yatrakamavasayitva (fulfilling all resolves).
4. Yoginis and melapaka. "Darling of the yoginis": one sense is mastery of the saktis (knowledge, activity, bliss). "According to the Kaula tradition... A male practitioner of yoga was known as vira or siddha and a female one was known as yogini... 'He becomes the favourite of the yoginis.'" Melapaka: Bhatta Ananda reads it as rising above all distinctions of knower and known; "According to the Kaula tradition melapaka means the gathering or union of the siddhas and the yoginis."
5. The Devi's logic. "If every thing in the universe is only an expression of the divine... then what becomes of the distinction between the devotee and the object of devotion which is an established tenet and fully accepted by religion?"
Singh's note on why there are 112 practices is the key to using the book. It is a menu, not a syllabus. No one is meant to do all of them. The promise is that mastery of one is enough. Readers who try many briefly, then settle on the one or two that genuinely open something, are using the book as intended.
verses 139 to 141 promise exactly the kinds of results that a modern reader should treat with the greatest caution: freedom from old age and death, the eight supernatural powers, the power to bless and curse "by word alone". These are standard promissory formulae of Tantric literature (phalasruti), found in many texts, and there is no reliable evidence that anyone has acquired such powers through these practices. The Spanda tradition itself (Spanda-karika III) warns that powers are a distraction. Singh's notes also reveal, carefully, that the "yoginis" and "melapaka" refer in Kaula practice to actual gatherings of male and female initiates, the ritual world from which this contemplative text emerged. The most credible fruit in these verses is the last: "liberated even while living... carrying on all the activities of life, he is not affected by them."
Key Terms
- Siddhi: supernatural power (the eight: anima and the rest).
- Yogini: female practitioner or goddess.
- Melapaka / melapa: union; the gathering of siddhas and yoginis.
- Jivanmukta: liberated while living.
- Phalasruti: the traditional statement of a text's fruits.
Ritual Reinterpreted (pp. 133 to 140)
Japa (145): "That creative contemplation which is practised on the highest Reality over and over again is in this scripture japa. That which goes on sounding spontaneously (inside) in the form of a mantra is what the japa is about."
Dhyana (146): "Unswerving buddhi without any image or support constitutes meditation. Concentration on an imaginative representation of the divine with a body, eyes, mouth, hands, etc. is not meditation."
Puja (147): "Worship does not mean offering of flowers, etc. It rather consists in setting one's heart on that highest ether of consciousness which is above all thought-constructs. It really means dissolution of self with perfect ardour."
Trpti (148): "By being established in even one of the yogas described here, the plenitude of spiritual consciousness that goes on developing day after day until it reaches its highest perfection is known here as trpti (satisfaction)."
Homa (149): "When in the fire of Supreme Reality... the five elements, the senses, the objects of the senses along with the mind... are poured, with cetana as the ladle, then that is real oblation."
Yaga and ksetra (150 to 151): "Sacrifice in this system simply means spiritual satisfaction characterized by bliss. O Parvati, the absorption into the Sakti of Rudras is alone real ksetra (place of pilgrimage)... Otherwise in the case of the (non-dual) Reality, how can there be any worship and who is it that is to be gratified?"
Snana (152): "The essence of Self consists universally in autonomy, bliss, and consciousness. One's absorption in that essence is said to be (real) bath."
(153): "The offerings with which worship is done, the objects with which the Highest Reality... is sought to be satisfied, and the worshippers are all (really speaking) one and the same. Whence then this worship?"
Teaching Notes
1. Japa. The highest reality is "the absolute I-consciousness". Utpaladeva (Ajadapramatrsiddhi 22 to 23): "Resting of all objective experience within the Self is what is meant by I-feeling. This resting is called autonomy of Will, primordial doership and universal sovereignty." "Japa is not the muttering of some sacred formula." Kshemaraja (Siva Sutra III.27): "Japa consists in the repetition of constant contemplation on the deity that is one's own essential Self." Abhinavagupta (Tantraloka I.90): "Japa freed of all ideas of ens and non-ens is the constant contemplation of Siva's nature." The mantra is svayamnada, "the mantra so'ham (I am Siva) which the inward pranasakti ceaselessly goes on sounding by itself".
2. Dhyana. Without image means "without an idol or yantra"; without support means without a particular spot "such as hrdaya, muladhara or nabhi". Jayaratha: the object of meditation "is Siva... to be meditated on as non-different from one's own essential Self".
3. Puja. Et cetera includes "burning of incense, lighting a candle, blowing of conch". Jayaratha on Tantraloka IV.121: "Worship consists in the unification of the different streams of sense experiences like form, colour, savour, etc. with the infinite, free, immaculate consciousness of Bhairava."
4. Homa. Three elements: fire (Bhairava), substances (the body, senses, objects, manas: "all that constitutes the Empirical personality"), ladle (cetana). "That word cetana is untranslatable. It is intermediate between citi... and citta... the intuitive consciousness which serves as anusandhatri, that which leads and unites the citta with citi."
5. Ksetra and bath. Ksetra = ksa (ksapana, destruction of sins) + tra (trana, protection). The bath: Abhinavagupta (Tantraloka IV.116 to 117): "When this fuel of the objective and subjective spheres of experience is burnt completely by the fire of jnana and the perception of the essential Self results in the form of white ashes, then an immersion of the limited, empirical self in that essential Self is alone said to be the real bath."
6. The summary. "All the rituals of the ordinary religious life are interpreted in Vijnanabhairava in a higher spiritual sense."
this passage is the text's answer to the Devi's question, and it is thoroughgoing. Every element of Hindu ritual (recitation, meditation, worship, offering, fire sacrifice, pilgrimage, bathing) is turned inward. Mantra becomes the breath's own sound; worship becomes the uniting of every sensation with consciousness; the fire sacrifice becomes offering the whole personality to awareness; the holy place becomes the energy in one's own body. It is a dramatic answer to verse 16's "who is to be worshipped?": worship does not stop; it becomes a way of seeing.
verse 146's dismissal of meditation on a deity's form ("with a body, eyes, mouth, hands... is not meditation") is strong, and would be rejected by many Hindu traditions, including much of the Saiva Siddhanta and the bhakti schools, for whom image worship is not inferior. It is also in tension with dharana 65, which uses "the dark, terrible form of Bhairava". The verse is best read as a statement about the highest meditation, not a condemnation of devotional practice; Singh's note on verse 121 ("bhakti... means viewing God in all life") supports that reading. Historically, the Kashmir Saiva masters continued to perform rituals while interpreting them this way.
Key Terms
- Japa, dhyana, puja, homa, yaga, ksetra, snana: recitation, meditation, worship, oblation, sacrifice, pilgrimage place, bath.
- Svayamnada: the self-sounding mantra.
- Cetana: intuitive consciousness, the "ladle" linking citta to citi.
- So'ham: "I am That".
The Unrecited Mantra of the Breath (pp. 140 to 145)
(154): "Prana or the breath of exhalation goes out and the breath of inhalation (jiva) enters in, in a curvilinear form. They do so of their own accord (icchaya). The great goddess (pranasakti or kundalini) stretches up. Being both transcendent and immanent, she is the most excellent place of pilgrimage."
(155): "In that great goddess there is the great joy (of the conjunction of 'sa' and 'ha' i.e. of the mantra so'ham) which is like a yajna... Pursuing it and resting in it, one becomes identified with the great goddess and thus (through her) one attains to bhairava."
(155, repeated, from Kshemaraja): "The breath is exhaled with the sound sa and then inhaled with the sound ha. (Thus) the empirical individual always recites this mantra hamsah."
(156): "Throughout the day and night, he recites this mantra 21,600 times. Such a japa of the goddess is mentioned which is quite easy to accomplish; it is only difficult for the ignorant."
Teaching Notes
1. Consciousness becomes breath. Kallata: "prak samvit prane parinata", "In all living creatures, the divine consciousness is, at first, converted into prana."
2. The curved ha. "In the Sarada script of Kashmir, the letter 'ha' is written in a curvilinear fashion. Both prana and apana move... in a curvilinear way." Inhalation is jiva because "if apana or the breath of inhalation does not return, the living being is bound to die."
3. Ajapajapa. "This is known as ajapajapa (a recitation that goes on automatically in every living being without effort on the part of any one). This mantra means 'I am he' i.e. I am Siva. When this automatic mantra is consciously and repeatedly contemplated on... it automatically becomes so'ham." Then kundalini "stretches upward... dirghatma", and in Brahmarandhra "arises unity consciousness".
4. The real pilgrimage. "She is called paraksetram, the most holy place of pilgrimage... It is this mystic holy place that the seeker must resort to and not geographical places like Kuruksetra or Banarasa."
5. A missing verse restored. The second verse 155 "is not printed in the edition of Vijnanabhairava published in the Kashmir series", but Kshemaraja quotes it on Siva Sutra III.27: "without it, the sense is incomplete." In verse 156 Singh follows Kshemaraja's reading over the printed "pranasyante sudurlabhah".
6. The arithmetic. "One round of inspiration-expiration takes 4 seconds. So there is automatic japa of hamsah 15 times in a minute... 900... in one hour... (900 x 24) 21,600 repetitions." Trika mantra: ha (Sakti), sah (Siva), am (jiva); "the aspirant has to concentrate on am, the junction point." Svacchanda Tantra: it "gives both supernormal powers and liberation". The alternative reading would mean that holding this awareness "on the occasion of death" is "difficult", possible only for "the fortunate few".
the closing teaching on the breath returns the book to where its practices began (dharana 1: the two pauses of the breath), now as a mantra one is already reciting. Every living being is said to repeat "hamsah" 21,600 times a day without trying. The only difference between the ordinary person and the yogi (verse 106 again) is awareness of what is already happening. That is why it is "quite easy to accomplish; only difficult for the ignorant". The breath is the most constant, most portable and most democratic sacred text there is.
the figure of 21,600 breaths a day assumes 15 breaths a minute; adult resting rates vary from about 12 to 20, so the number is symbolic (it is also a traditional cosmic number) rather than physiological. The phonetic claim that inhalation "sounds" ha and exhalation "sounds" sa is a contemplative convention; different traditions assign the sounds the other way round (Singh's own notes give both directions in different places). The practice works with either.
Key Terms
- Ajapajapa: the recitation that recites itself.
- Hamsah / so'ham: "the swan" / "I am He".
- Paraksetra: the supreme place of pilgrimage.
- Dirghatma: the "elongated" goddess, risen kundalini.
Secrecy, Renunciation and the Embrace (pp. 145 to 147)
"O goddess, I have explained to you this teaching which leads to the highest immortal state. This should never be revealed to any and every one, particularly to those pupils who belong to another tradition, who are mischievous, cruel, and wanting in devotion to their spiritual teachers. On the contrary, this teaching should be imparted without the least hesitation to those whose minds are free from oscillating opinions, to viras, to magnanimous ones and to those who are devoted to the line of spiritual teachers." (157 to 159a)
"O gazelle-eyed one, renouncing all these, viz., one's village, kingdom, city, and country, son, daughter, and family, one should lay hold of this teaching. What is the good of the above evanescent things? This is the lasting treasure." (159b to 160)
"Even life may be renounced, but this teaching which is like most excellent ambrosia should not be imparted (to undeserving one)." (161a)
The Devi: "O great god, O god of all the gods, O benefactor, I am fully satisfied. Today, I have understood with certainty the quintessence of Rudrayamalatantra, and also the heart of all the grades of sakti." (161b to 162)
"Having said the above, the goddess who was steeped in delight, embraced Siva." (163)
Teaching Notes
1. Why secrecy. "Unworthy pupils may misuse these teachings. So these should not be imparted to them."
2. Nirvikalpamati. Here it "does not mean 'whose minds are freed of all dichotomizing thought-constructs'. This is the highest stage. If they have already reached that stage, they do not require any teaching." Vikalpa "also means alternation, indecision": the qualified are "those who are free from oscillating opinions".
3. Vira. "The word vira does not mean 'hero' here. It means... 'one who is self-controlled.' According to Sivopadhyaya, it means 'one who has cut asunder all doubts.'"
4. Rudrayamala. "The tantra that teaches the union of Sakti with Siva. This is also the name of a book... now lost to us." The grades of Sakti: para, parapara, apara.
5. The embrace. "She was steeped in delight, because all her doubts were resolved." "She was now established in her non-dual state; she became one with Siva."
the book ends where it must. The dialogue began with the Devi's doubt; it ends with her embrace. The question dissolves into the questioner's union with the answer. Since the Devi is, as verse 1 established, the part of consciousness that already knows, her embrace is the text's picture of what happens to a reader when a practice succeeds: the separation between the one who asks and the reality asked about simply ends. There is nothing more to say, so the text stops.
the closing verses have to be read honestly. The secrecy injunction, especially against "pupils who belong to another tradition", is a standard sectarian formula; it reflects a world of initiatory lineages competing for disciples. It has been ignored for a century: the text is now one of the most widely published spiritual works in the world. The call to renounce "son, daughter, and family" is the ascetic ideal of its age; it sits awkwardly with the Kashmir Saiva tradition's own preference for householder practitioners (Abhinavagupta's teachers included householders, and Lakshman Joo taught laypeople). Most modern teachers in this line read it as inner non-attachment, not literal abandonment. And "devotion to the line of spiritual teachers" can protect a teaching, or protect abuse. A reader can honour the lineage that preserved this text while keeping their own judgement.
Key Terms
- Vira: the self-controlled; the qualified initiate.
- Guruvarga / guru-parampara: the line of teachers.
- Paramamrta: the supreme nectar (the teaching).
- Rudrayamala: the (lost) Tantra of which this text claims to be the essence.
Reflection
- If you have tried several dharanas while reading, which one or two genuinely opened something? The text says one is enough.
- Notice your breath for one minute as a mantra that is already being recited. Does anything change when you listen to it rather than control it?
Key Technical Terms
Singh's book closes with a long glossary of technical terms (pp. 149 onward). The table below collects the terms this guide has used most, with Singh's definitions where he gives them.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Akula | Siva, the principle beyond the cosmic manifestation (kula). |
| Anu | The limited, empirical individual, literally "infinitesimal point". |
| Anahata | "Interior automatic sound without any impact." |
| Anugraha | Grace. |
| Anuttara | "The Incomparable, the Highest"; also the letter a. |
| Anusvara | The nasal dot on a letter, a representation of Siva. |
| Antarvyoma | "The interior space where prana and apana are dissolved." |
| Apana | The breath of inhalation; soma and jiva are synonyms. |
| Ahanta | "The state of absolute I: interiority: I-consciousness." |
| Ahamkara | Ego, the I-making principle. |
| Bhairava | The Supreme; consciousness that sustains, withdraws and transcends the universe. |
| Bhairavi | His Sakti, the Devi who asks the questions. |
| Bhavana | Creative contemplation; the steady re-imagining of reality until it becomes experience. |
| Bindu | The point; concentrated energy of consciousness. |
| Cetana | Intuitive consciousness, between citi and citta. |
| Citi / citta | Universal consciousness / the individual mind. |
| Dharana | A method of concentration; the text gives 112. |
| Dvadasanta | The point twelve finger-breadths from the nose (external) or at the crown (internal). |
| Hamsah / so'ham | The mantra of the breath, "I am He". |
| Jivanmukta | One liberated while living. |
| Ksobha | Agitation, the disturbance of thought-constructs. |
| Kundalini | The coiled energy of consciousness in the body. |
| Madhya | The centre; the susumna; the central consciousness. |
| Mudra | A posture or seal; also the inner attitude it expresses. |
| Nada | Subtle sound. |
| Nirvikalpa | Free of thought-constructs. |
| Prana / pranasakti | Vital energy, consciousness converted into breath. |
| Sakti | Divine energy; para, parapara, apara by grade. |
| Samavesa | Absorption into the divine. |
| Spanda | The creative pulsation of consciousness. |
| Sunya | The void; a stage of withdrawal, not the final goal. |
| Susumna | The central channel. |
| Tattva | A principle or level of reality (36 in the Trika). |
| Turiya | The fourth state, beyond waking, dream and deep sleep. |
| Unmana | Beyond the mind. |
| Upaya | Means: anava (individual), sakta (energy), sambhava (divine), anupaya (no means). |
| Vikalpa | Thought-construct, dichotomising thought. |
| Vimarsa | Self-awareness of consciousness. |
| Vira | The self-controlled initiate. |
What the Vijnanabhairava Teaches
Read as a whole, the book makes five claims.
1. Reality is consciousness, and consciousness is already present. Bhairava is not elsewhere. He is "the Central Reality that is present in each man as his essential Self". The text never tells the reader to acquire anything; it tells the reader to notice.
2. The obstacle is vikalpa. Thought-constructs, the endless dividing of experience into this and that, cover Bhairava. Verse 15 defines the highest state as "free of all thought-constructs". Every dharana is a way of letting vikalpa stop, even for a moment.
3. Any experience can be a doorway. This is the book's originality. Breath, sound, emptiness, space, the body, sexual delight, eating, a sneeze, fear, music, the moment of waking, the gap between two thoughts, the sky: all of them can be held so fully, or so precisely at their edge, that the mind stops and what remains is consciousness itself. The 112 methods are a demonstration that there is no experience that is not made of Bhairava.
4. The gaps matter. A large share of the dharanas work at a junction: between in-breath and out-breath, between two thoughts, between sleep and waking, at the end of a sound, at the beginning of a desire. The text's insight is that consciousness shows itself most clearly where one movement has ended and the next has not begun (madhya, the centre).
5. Ritual is turned inward. The closing verses reinterpret japa, dhyana, puja, homa, yaga, pilgrimage and bathing as inner acts. Worship becomes a way of seeing; mantra becomes the breath's own sound.
An Honest Assessment
Strengths. The Vijnanabhairava is the most practical and least dogmatic text in this series. Many of its methods need no belief at all; they can be tested in a minute (the pause after exhalation, the end of a sound, attention to the space between two thoughts). Its psychological observations (that intense emotion, sudden surprise or a strong desire caught at its start can momentarily suspend ordinary thinking) are accurate and have parallels in modern accounts of attention. Its refusal to make one method compulsory is generous. Singh's translation is careful, his notes are clear, and his decision to classify each dharana by upaya, though not in the text, gives the reader a working map.
Limits of the edition. Singh's version is a lineage reading. He studied the text with Swami Lakshman Joo and adopted Lakshman Joo's readings at several points; Lakshman Joo's own later commentary reflects the same reading. Kshemaraja's commentary survives only for verses 1 to 23, so for the 112 dharanas Singh relies on Sivopadhyaya and Bhatta Ananda, whom he regards as coloured by Advaita Vedanta, and on his own judgement. The classification by upaya, much of the kundalini and cakra detail in the notes, and the evolutionary language in verse 138 are Singh's interpretation, not the text. Readers comparing translations (for example the more philological work that has appeared since) will find some verses read quite differently.
The popular versions. Paul Reps's "Centering" in "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones" and Osho's "The Book of Secrets" made the text famous, but by stripping out its Saiva world, its mantra science and its Tantric context. They are inspirations, not translations. Singh restores the context; this guide has tried to keep it visible.
Tantric context. The text is from a Kaula milieu. Verses on sexual union (dharanas 45 to 47, verses 68 to 70), the references to yoginis and melapaka, and the promise of siddhis belong to that ritual world. Singh treats them with restraint and interprets them contemplatively. Readers should know they are there, should not treat them as license, and should be cautious of anyone who uses them to justify pressure or abuse within a "teacher" relationship.
Claims to be held lightly. The fruits promised in verses 139 to 141 (freedom from old age and death, the eight powers, the power to bless and curse) are traditional formulae with no reliable evidence behind them. The kundalini physiology (three and a half coils at the muladhara, the rise to brahmarandhra) is a contemplative map, not anatomy. The 21,600 breaths are symbolic. None of this needs to be believed for the practices to be useful.
Risks. Several dharanas involve breath retention, intense fear, staring, vertigo, deliberate disorientation or prolonged dwelling on emptiness. For most people these are harmless in short sessions. For people with a history of trauma, panic, dissociation or psychosis, some can be destabilising. Gentle, short practice and the advice of a qualified teacher, or a clinician where relevant, are sensible.
Doctrinal tension. The text contains more than one metaphysical voice: some verses sound like Advaita or Yogacara ("the world is a magic show", "this world is void"), others like the Trika's affirmation of the world as Siva's own self-expression. Singh, following Kashmir Saiva tradition, reads all of it in the Trika sense. That is a defensible harmonisation, but a harmonisation.
the deepest teaching of the book is in the arrangement rather than any one verse. The Devi asks what Bhairava is; Bhairava answers with 112 ways of looking. The answer is not a definition but a training of attention. A reader who closes the book able to find stillness at the end of a breath, at the edge of a sound, or in the space between two thoughts has understood what the text is for, whatever they make of its metaphysics.
A Graded Practice Path
The text says one dharana is enough. The sequence below is a suggestion for finding which one, moving from the simplest and safest to the more demanding. Practise each for at least a week, a few minutes at a time, before moving on, and stop at the first that genuinely opens something.
Stage One: The Breath (anavopaya)
- The two pauses (dharana 1, verse 24): notice the moment after the in-breath and the moment after the out-breath. Rest there without forcing retention.
- The breath as mantra (verses 155 to 156): listen to the breath as "so'ham" or "hamsah" without making it happen. Rest attention at the junction.
- The centre between (dharana 3, verse 26): when the breath neither goes out nor comes in, rest in the centre (the middle state).
Stage Two: The Senses (anava to saktopaya)
- The end of a sound (dharanas 15 to 19, verses 38 to 42): strike a bell or listen to a stringed instrument; follow the sound until it vanishes and rest in what remains.
- The empty sky (dharana 61, verse 84): gaze at a clear sky without blinking unduly and let the mind take on its vastness.
- Joy and taste (dharanas 48 to 51, verses 71 to 74): when meeting a friend, eating, or hearing music, attend to the delight itself rather than its object.
Stage Three: The Mind (saktopaya)
- Between two thoughts (dharanas 38 and 39, verses 61 and 62): when the mind has left one object, hold it there before it moves to the next.
- The moment of desire (dharana 73, verse 96): when a desire arises, catch it at its first stirring and rest there before it becomes a plan.
- The I behind I (dharana 106, verse 131): each time you say or think "I" or "mine", let the attention fall back to what is aware.
Stage Four: Without Support (sambhavopaya)
- Neither bondage nor liberation (dharana 110, verse 135): rest as awareness without any goal.
- Knower and known as one (dharana 112, verse 137): let the object and the one who sees it be seen as a single light.
- Ritual as seeing (verses 145 to 153): whatever ordinary action you do, washing, eating, offering, let it be done as an inner act of union.
the practices involving fear, breath retention, sexual union, staring until disorientation, or meditation on cremation are deliberately left out of this path. They belong to the Tantric context of the text and are best approached, if at all, with a qualified teacher.
Closing Note
The Vijnanabhairava is short, practical and strange. It promises nothing it cannot be tested on, and then promises far more than anyone can test. Its 112 dharanas are among the most varied meditation instructions in any literature; its frame dialogue is a fine piece of non-dual philosophy; its closing verses turn every outward rite of religion into an inward act. Jaideva Singh's edition, made with Swami Lakshman Joo, gives the English reader the text with its Saiva context intact, which the popular versions do not.
Read alongside the Pratyabhijnahrdayam and the Siva Sutras, it completes Singh's trilogy: the first gives the philosophy of recognition, the second the stages of practice, and this one the methods. The Devi asks how Bhairava can be known; the answer is that he is already the knowing. The text ends, fittingly, not with a conclusion but with an embrace.