Excerpts from Vijnanabhairava – Divine Consciousness (Jaideva Singh)
The goal is not isolation of the Self from Prakrti or Maya 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 or spiritual Energy. The ideal of Saivagama is not the rejection of the universe but its assimilation to its Source. (p. ix)
Bhairava is param Siva in whom prakasa and vimarsa, Siva and Sakti, are identical. He embraces in Himself transcendence and immanence, Siva and Sakti. (p. xi)
[The] state of Bhairava is full of the bliss of non-difference from the entire world. (p. xii)
Yoga is awareness, transformation of the human consciousness into divine consciousness. (p. xiii)
Indian thought believes that between the body and the mind or between the material or physical energy and mental energy, there is prana, which is an intermediary link between the two. The word prana has been variously translated as the vital force….According to Indian philosophy, between the body and manas or 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….Prana is the first evolute of consciousness. In the process of creation, consciousness is at first transformed into prana. So prana is a phase of consciousness itself. (p. xiv)
Every attractive object is considered to be only the expression of Siva Himself. (p. xxii)
One has to enter the divine consciousness by thought-free, non-relational awareness. How? By dissolving the personal self consisting of the body, prana, etc. in the savoury sap of the Universal Divine Consciousness. The chrysalis of the ego has to split before one can enter the sanctum sanctorum of the Divine Presence. In the words of Kathopanisad, Yoga is both dissolution and emergence – both death and rebirth. One has to die to live. (p. xxx)
To the Divine, there is no division of time. In his case, it is eternal now. (p. 3)
If one succeeds in immobilizing his mind (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. NOTES – When an aspirant is under the domination of any strong emotion, 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. He should withdraw his mind from everything external and turn it within even as a tortoise withdraws its limbs within its shell on the occasion of a great danger. When he is thus intensely introverted, the passion becomes calmed like a charmed snake. (p. 91-92)
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 supremely intensive state of mind is established the Spanda principle, the creative pulsation of the divine consciousness. (p. 106)
There is neither bondage nor liberation for me. These (bondage and liberation) are only bogies for those who are terrified on account of the ignorance of their essential nature. This (the universe) appears as a reflection in buddhi (the intellect) like the image of the sun in water.
Notes – just as the image of the sun appears inverted in water, even so it is the limited buddhi in which the Self is reflected that poses as the Self and considers itself bound or liberated. Both bondage and liberation are the imaginative constructs of buddhi. Self which is pure consciousness transcends these imaginative constructs.
The Highest Lord, resting within His own self, in the luminous mirror of His Self manifests within Himself by the power of His perfect freedom, the objective aspect of the world which is limited in its nature….When the aspirant is fully convinced that the question of bondage or liberation arises only for the psychophysical self, not for the metaphysical Self, he rises above the thought-constructs of the psycho-physical self and immersed in the nature of Bhairava. (p. 125)
On the luminous emergence of cit (the spiritual consciousness, the essential Self), the wayward activities of the manas, buddhi, and the senses come to an end. (p. 126)
When the aspirant has reached a stage where he fully realizes that buddhi, manas, prana and the ego are only formations of Maya for carrying on the individual life, that they are only the instruments of Self and do not constitute his essential Self, then he is poised in his essential Self which is the nature of Bhairava, then these instruments reflect the life of the Spirit and can no longer hamper its expression. (p. 129)