Select quotations from:
The Mystery of Vibrationless-Vibration in Kashmir Shaivism:
Vasagupta’s Spanda Karika and Kshemaraja’s Spanda Sandoha by Swami Lakshmanjoo
Spanda is motion-less movement . . . There is neither an object nor a subject, neither plain nor pleasure. (p. 7)
Impurity rises from extroverted tendency. If these organs are focused inside consciousness, then he impurity will vanish at once….The organs are agitated by being focused towards an extroverted position. When the position of awareness is diverted inside and this agitation is vanished, then the supreme state of God consciousness will be there, in the organs also. The organs will be divine! (p. 13)
Take one organ (sense perceiver) and find out wherefrom this life has been inserted in this organ. When you find that, the source of that life, then you are inside, then you are in your own God consciousness, you have realized your Self. Then the supreme state is already shining there. (p. 14)
These organs have consciousness, but it is artificial, is loaned, borrowed – borrowed consciousness….It is borrowed from another department, and that department is God consciousness. (p. 15)
For a yogi whose will is one with the energy of Siva, his will is unobstructable, completely independent, always given to play (p. 15).
You should perceive this whole world as your own Self. You should not perceive in this-ness, you should perceive everything in I-ness, full consciousness…..Then, when you perceive your own nature, you will get wonderstruck – you will feel wonders in your nature. You will be wonderstruck in realizing that God consciousness.
The predominant sign of such a yogi is joy-filled amazement. At that moment, He realizes His own nature and is filled with knowledge. He has the experience that the state of knowledge was already there. So there was never really any separation. Separation only seemed to exist. (p. 17)
Sexual pleasure, taste, sound, touch, cinema, etc. These are “disgusting” because you are never satisfied with it. As soon as you finish it, you try some other thing, then you try another…and this goes on for centuries and centuries and no perfection. (p. 17)
When you establish one-pointedness in the central path, the central vein (susumna), then what happens? This energy of breath neither goes out nor enters in, because this central vein is already illuminated. By this process, one becomes one with Bhairava. (p. 19)
Introverted God consciousness is the basis of all knowledge and all action, It cannot be vanished. It will never vanish if Its function, Its action, has vanished. When Its action has vanished, It cannot vanish along with Its action, along with Its force, Its creative force. That Self remains eternally one-pointed and just in one shape, one form. (p. 25)
O soul, be attentive! Be awake! Hear this message of Lord Siva: this is treading on the path, on the edge of a sword. This is a very difficult path to tread on. – Katha upanisad 1.3.14. (p. 42)
(To attain and maintain God consciousness), It needs God’s grace, it needs your own effort, it needs the grace of your master. All three are needed. (p. 43)
(He who understands that God consciousness can never be truly lost), this whole universal activity is, for him, just a play; he feels everything – good, bad, whatever he feels in the daily routine of life – he feels that it is only the play of God consciousness. (p. 49)
Lord Siva, by His own freedom of power and will, can totally ignore and mask His own nature. Lord Siva wants, in His creation, to disconnected His God Consciousness completely and then to discover that it was never disconnected. This is the supreme action. (p. 89)
When you understand that, “I am the universe”, your understanding is not coagulated. When you understand, e.g., “I am somebody’s wife and I have got two children”, your understanding is coagulated, it is frozen in some limited cycle. When you experience that, “I am everything. All ladies are my wives, all ladies are my daughters, all ladies are my sisters” – finished! Where lies the difference. So, your bodha, your understanding, is unlimited, divine. (p. 131)
His creation is not outside of His nature, it exists in His own Self. He has created this whole universe in the cycle of His Consciousness. So, everything that exists resides in that Consciousness. (p. 132)
First is the existence of svatantrya sakti, then is the existence of Siva, then His Sakti. The svatantrya sakti is the chief point from which these both sprout – Siva and Sakti. (p. 139) [Svatantrya means Supreme Freedom
Pralaya means nimesa, dissolution, destruction; unmesa means udaya, rise, creation. (p. 144)
Each and everybody has its own world. As many bodies there are, so many worlds are existing in this universe. Along with your body, there is your own world….Everybody has his own world along with his body. (p. 180)
In the state of the dreaming state (or in the state of your psychic state, in the cycle of your psychic world), you can create and destroy this whole universe of your own, which is onw with you. (p. 184)
This One Being of infinite light is called Lord Siva and the external collection which makes up the objective world is His Energy (Sakti). The external world is nothing more than the expansion of His Energy. It is not separate from His energy. (p. 185)
When God consciousness begins to shine in your mind, it means your master’s grace is residing in your mind. All yogis have perceived that when you meditate whole-heartedly, one-pointedly on God consciousness, then whenever you dream, whenever you fall asleep, you will dream that your master is watching you….You will feel that your master is like this. You will feel, you will dream of him looking over you…His presence is always there. If you don’t meditate, you won’t find any sign of your master in your dreaming state. This is a fact. (p. 198)
The gods and goddesses,…they distract you from God consciousness, he who has not maintained awareness. One who is aware, they cannot carry him away. (p. 199)
Be watchful inside, what is going on within you – when you don’t remain watchful, they will carr you away from that state of God consciousness, and you will become clever in the outside activities of the world. You will become clever in (the material world). (p. 200).
You are always filled with torture, always filled with grief, always filled with thoughts of what to do, what to take, what to eat, what to make, how to prepare, what should I do (about petty material things)….You will escape from this only when you are watchful. When you remain always watchful inside, you will escape from it. Although you remain in this, you remain doing household work, still you will be above that. (p. 201)
(You may lose this watchfulness and become entangled, but) there is yet hope, when you again become watchful, when you again hold the watchful state again, it will give you again push to that God consciousness. (p. 202)
When you remain always watchful with what you are doing inside, how does your mind work inside, when you remain watchful to that, this mind won’t move from that one-pointedness. Your mind will become just like a dead element. It will be under your command. It will remain under your command only when you are watchful to that mind. (p. 202)
Watch your movement of thoughts. When you are watchful, they won’t move at all. Then, when you they won’t move, you become unminded and you get entry in God consciousness. You become jivan mukta, liberated while embodied. (p. 203)
(There are right-hand and left-hand energies. The right-hand energies are the energies of straightforwardness, the left-hand energies are opposite to that). You have to know that, “The energies are doing this, I am not doing this.” This ego involves you in this guilt (and pride). When there is ego, you are involved. When there is not ego and you think that, “The energies are doing these actions…then you won’t be involved. So you must be above this, you must be above the sphere of being involved…You should not pretend that, “I have not done it.” You have to understand that you are not actually doing it, that it is the energies who are doing it. (p. 210)
(The difference between jnanis and yogis): Jnanis are filled with God consciousness, they are not afraid of this universe. Yogis are afraid of this universe. Yogis are afraid of objectivity with this apprehension that they may fall in the pit of that objective consciousness. Jnanis are Shavites always. They find divinity in each and every action of the world. There I no apprehension of falling down. (p. 243)
At the very moment of establishing your mind towards meditation, what happens? You find, you perceive some bindu (bindu is effulgent light, prakasa) between your two eyebrows – you perceive that. You perceive nada, sound, divine sound; divine sound comes in your understanding while doing this meditation. Rupam, a divine formation of a lady. If you are lady, then you will find a divine formation of a gentleman. If you are a gentleman, you will find, you will perceive a divine formation of a lady. These perceptions are just to divert your attention from that point, to take you away from God consciousness. (p. 244)
Divine formation, divine sound, everything divine, but that divine sound also will distract you from that state of God consciousness. (p. 245)
Lord Siva creates this external universe for the sake of realizing His own nature. That is why this external universe is called Sakti, because it is the means to realize one’s own nature. Therefore, in order to recognize His nature, He must first become ignorant of His nature. Only then can He recognize it.
Why should He want to recognize His nature in the first place? It is because of His freedom, His svatantrya (independence). This is the play of the universe. This universe was created solely for the fun and joy of this realization. It happens that when His fullness overflows, He wants to become incomplete. He wants to appear as being incomplete just so HE can achieve completion. This is the play of His svatantrya: to depart from His own nature in order to enjoy it again. It is this svatantrya that has created this whole universe. This is the play of Siva’s svatantrya.
This kind o action cannot be accomplished by any power in this universe other than Lord Siva. Only Lord Siva can do this. Only Lord Siva, by His own svatantrya, can totally ignore and mask His own nature. (p. 274)
If you want to perceive Him, perceive the state of Lord Siva, as it ought to be in its real sense, enjoy this universe. You will find the exact state of Lord Siva in the universe. You won’t find the real state of lord Siva in samadhi. In samadhi, you will find Its not-vivid formation. The vivid formation will be found only in the universal state. (p. 275 – Siva Sutras 2.7)