Downward Facing Blog

Then you’ll want to know about Kashmir Shaivism.

 

(Lord Shiva, the representation of divine consciousness)

 

 

I had to get your attention. I mean, if I put Kashmir Shaivism or Sankhya as the headline it might not pull you in. The thing is, Anusara yoga uses Kashmir Shaivism as it’s philosophical basis, although tweaked a bit.

 

 

Kashmir Shaivism is experiencing a bit of a renaissance these days courtesy of the Anusara yoga movement. My intention really is to talk about mantra, as promised in the last post. Before I get into the four levels of speech I feel it’s incumbent upon me to put the theory within context of the yogis of Kashmir (north India on the border of Pakistan), and it’s something that takes a bit of time to explain and understand.

 

Briefly, Kashmir Shaivism is a non-dual Tantric philosophy which expands upon dualist classical yoga.

 

To understand non-dualism/KS you should have a good understanding of dualism. The following enumeration of reality is called SANKHYA and forms the basis for both yoga and then the non-dual system of KS.

 

It’s fairly easy to understand actually… see if you can follow

 

Nature/material world/what-you-can-see, taste, smell, touch, hear is formed

1-5: five gross elements; earth water fire air space (waking state)

6-10: subtle five elements; smell taste form touch hearing (dreaming state)

11-15: five senses; nose, tongue, eyes, touch, ears (how we get those five elements in our brains)

16-20: five motor organs; hands, feet, genitals, anus, voice (how we move around and interact with the five elements)

21-23: lower mind, ego, higher mind

24: all of the above in a latent state (the gunas in their dormant phase)

 

What you see or observe anything with is: consciousness, the 25th principle

 

25: the observer/witness/consciousness (purusha)

 

So in total they just count 25 as the magical number here. No big deal.

 

Yoga is basically learning how to separate what is seen (1-24) from the seer (25). The goal is to become the seer through yoga. Translation: find out who/what is observing and identify your mind with THAT, not the ego or even further down the food chain: the five elements, ie; the shit you buy at a department store.

 

So in essence we end up counting it as TWO (dual); the observer, and the observed.

 

Everyone agrees that this is true up to a point, but kashmir shaivism comes along and says you can still take it further.

 

All of that process of moving your mind into purusha describes the individual “in bondage” (I love that imagery, I can’t help but think of harnesses and whips, etc). Bondage here doesn’t refer to any sexual fetish but rather the slavery of the limitation of your consciousness.

 

After understanding the witness and becoming it, there are six limitations (kanchukas) which are the leather straps in the dungeon: location, time, attachment, knowledge, creativity, and the grand dragon of them all: MAYA or, illusion. Look at it this way, maya spins the limitations to make one think it’s still a limited being. In Maya are all the limitations of purusha in their unmanifest state.

 

It’s not super hard to understand actually (easier if you meditate)

I had this revelation the other day:

 

While experiencing myself as the Witness consciousness, I would only experience that as contained within ME. Like I have that experience, then I don’t. Although the philosophies say that we are all connected, it’s really a rare experience to feel genuinely connected. However one session while teaching at a workshop in Penang I gave an instruction to everyone to merge their consciousness with all others in the room. As I engaged in my own instruction, my mind went even more still and I felt myself merge beyond my body with everyone there. I got a taste of moving beyond location.

 

Ordinarily we go into meditation/samadhi and experience ourselves as the witness but don’t connect it to being the same consciousness as within all beings. That is the limitation of LOCATION. That means you think you exist here, at your computer, and not simultaneously in Kabul, Afghanistan.
( I just crank called a man in Kabul five minutes ago at the request of a friend, which is why I use that example hehe)

 

The next limitation after realizing we are not limited within a certain place, is TIME. Not sure WHEN I will realize that I exist simultaneously in the past, present and future, but I’m sure it’ll feel like NOW. Expanding up through these limitations expands the individual purusha (your sense of self as being limited) to become unlimited.

 

So individual purusha (25) + 6 limitations = 31. Then on the way to the supreme realization there 4 additional of levels of realization, culminating in full non-dual SHIVA, pulsing at the heart of reality and interpenetrating all, both material and immaterial. That’s when you realize you are unlimited God-consciousness this whole time and you never even knew it.

 

Those 36 define all of creation, the whole universe from top to bottom.

 

Let’s connect it to sound.

 

The way I just described is one of three paths to the supreme understanding, called the “Way of the Tattvas“. Another way is reincarnating through the 118 different dimensions and the final (most subtle) is to penetrate through reality through layers. These three paths are all created out of sound (vak)

The sound that manifests all three of these paths through the entire creation is then divided into three: gross (sentences), subtle (words), and subtlest (letters). The gross level of sentences is connected to moving through spiritual evolution through the long road of the 118 worlds. The subtle level of the tattvas (described above) is the middle level of words. And the subtlest, quickest route is through the layers and connected to transcending off the pure vowels themselves. Hence is born the theory of the alphabet.

 

Consciousness (Shiva) is the vowels and the material are the consonants.

Feel how the consonants close the energy of the vowel, which how the energy of creation meets into the solidity of the material. Once you understand this, then you can literally just listen to any speech, and go into ecstasy of the divine by tracing your awareness through the sound of the vowels. Pretty cool stuff.

 

Now with that background, we can talk about the four levels of speech, then how to construct mantras, but that’ll be my next post.

 

Mucho love beams, Adrian Cox