the wisdom of His own Self. It partakes of the true nature of the Supreme Principle.
Baba Muktananda, Secret of the Siddhas
I
n the last two chapters, I have drawn on one of my favourite texts, the seventh-century Tantric work, Vijnanabhairava. In this chapter, I will cite what I call 'essential dharanas', dharanas that embody the essence of the Shaivite approach and to which I return again and again. The Vijnanabhairava predates the Shiva Sutras, and was an important source on which the Trika sages drew. It contains the quintessence of the Rudrayamala Tantra and is a compilation of 112 dharanas, or meditations, with many more implied.I think of the Vijnanabhairava as a living mystical entity or realm in which all possible meditations dwell. It manifests as an extremely wise, tolerant and humorous Shaivite sage, drunk with the omnipresence of Shiva.
I learned from the Vijnanabhairava to use spiritual ideas as methods of meditation. You can ride a spiritual idea to the Self, or at least as far as it will take you. My studies of the Vijnanabhairava were the source of the concept of the G-Statement.
A dharana does not have to be a long meditation, it can simply be a quick movement towards the Self. When we use a spiritual idea as a dharana, we are using it yogically and not intellectually, for vertical rather than horizontal reference.
A small pedantic point: I give the dharana number following Jaideva Singh, not the verse n u m b e r , which most scholarly works follow. Singh's
Vijnanabhairava is the only text the majority of my readers will encounter,
and I think it is good to think of these exercises as dharanas rather than verses.
ESSENTIAL G-STATEMENTS: DHARANAS 40, 42 AND 81 Dharana 40:
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 42:
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.
In Dharana 40 the meditator contemplates, 'All this is Consciousness', with his eyes open. Or, turning within and observing his subjective experience with eyes closed, he again says, 'All this is Consciousness'. He should be able to see directly that his whole experience is held in his own awareness. This single dharana contains the quintessential secret of Shaivism.
Dharana 42 completes the understanding of Dharana 40. Here the meditator examines his feeling and says to himself, 'All this is bliss', whether inside or outside. The difference between 40 and 42 is that in 42 the attention is on feeling and in 40 the experience is more intellectual. Taken together, these two dharanas constitute the union of thought and feeling.
While it is easy to intellectualise that everything is Consciousness, it is more difficult to experience everything as bliss. In the second dharana the meditator should become aware of his feeling experience and try to experience the present feeling as a permutation of bliss, or find the bliss at the core of, or behind, the present experience. Practising these two dharanas gives the highest rewards.
This set of two dharanas is completed by Dharana 81:
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and with a vision, which has no consideration for anything else, contemplate thus, '[ am everywhere'. He will then enjoy (supernal) happiness.
The meditator uses the G-Statement, sarvam idam aham, 'All this is myself or 'I am everywhere'. This approaches the same goal as the previous two
dharanas from a different angle. Clearly, as my body, I cannot be everywhere.
When I say 'All this is myself, this refers to everything I see or sense. Only as Consciousness can 1 be everywhere.
HANDLING D E S I R E - T H R E E STRATEGIES: DHARANAS 73, 74 AND 75
This set of three dharanas on desire is useful for sadhana and illustrates the Vijnanabhairava's universal and eclectic approach.
Dharana 73:
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.
Here, a desire, having arisen, is renounced by the aspirant. This is the
yogic approach of cutting off unwanted vikalpas. It is effective if you have a
strong mind or a weak desire. Dharana 74:
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., Consciousness-bliss). (Therefore the aspirant should always contemplate 'I am Consciousness-bliss'.) Thus, he will be absorbed in that Reality and will become identified with it.
Here, the meditator observes his condition before desire, knowledge or activity has arisen. He identifies with the transcendental and not the personal reality. This is the Vedantic approach.
Dharana 75:
When a desire or knowledge (or activity) appears, the aspirant should, with the mind withdrawn from all objects (of desire, knowledge, etc.) - fix his mind on it (desire, knowledge, etc.) as the very Self, then he will have the realisation of the essential Reality.
Here is the Shaivite or Tantric approach. Instead of getting rid of the desire (as in 73) or focussing on the reality prior to desire (74), he focuses on the desire itself, seeing it as the Self, as Chiti. He turns his mind away from the
thing that is desired to focus on the feeling of desire itself. Through contemplative awareness he will experience that desire as a wave or pulsation of Consciousness.
In comparison, in the yogic approach, the desire is seen as a problem to be chopped off. In the Vedantic a p p r o a c h it is seen as an illusory superimposition on the underlying reality. In the Shaivite approach, the desire is fully entertained and honoured as Chiti Itself. While I am clearly enchanted by the Shaivite approach, all three of these weapons should be in the arsenal of a great meditator.
SHIVA IS EVERYWHERE: DHARANA 91 Dharana 91:
Wherever the mind goes whether towards the exterior or towards the interior, everywhere there is the state of Shiva. Since Shiva is omnipresent, where can the mind go (to avoid Him)?
No dharana is more useful to the meditator than this one. When confronted by a restless mind, negative thoughts or impenetrable blocks, reflecting that even these things are nothing but Shiva, is the most effective method.
THE ESSENCE OF TANTRA: DHARANA 93
One of the characteristics of the Tantric approach, which Shaivism exemplifies, is a predilection for honouring the natural unfoldment of life: playing life 'as it lies'. While a Tantric will certainly make effort to attain high states of Consciousness, he will also search for these extraordinary states within the ordinary context of living. Last chapter I talked about this Shaiva Tantra - how a Shaivite yogi will use the natural pleasures of music, food and sexuality as doorways to divinity.
In Dharana 93, the yogi finds the experience of higher Consciousness in certain unexpected moments of life:
. 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 [the Absolute],
It is not likely that our self-observation is so powerful that we take a snapshot of ourselves during a sneeze. But think about it for a moment. When I sneeze my mind completely stops and a white light explodes in my brain. I suspect something similar happens to you. In each of these
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unexpected and oddly chosen moments, a certain psychological state arises in a person. It is 'like Brahma'. During keen curiosity the mind is still and open. Attention is fully focused on the issue at hand. Someone wrote that the attitude in meditation should be like the expectant hush of an audience as the curtain rises on a play.
These o r d i n a r y / e x t r a o r d i n a r y mind moments are called 'fleeting
samadhis' in the South Indian text Tripura Rahasya. The author of Spanda Karikas must have strongly related to this dharana because he writes (1.22):
In that state is the spanda principle firmly established to which a person is reduced when he is greatly exasperated or overjoyed, or is in impasse reflecting what to do, or is running for life.
An accomplished meditator learns to distance himself from states like anger. Even when anger arises he notices that a part of himself has become the witness of the anger and minutely observes the entire phenomenon of anger within himself. At a certain stage, an aspirant will relish (but not provoke) such emotional events as an opportunity for self-study.
I especially like the image evoked by this verse. Here the meditator is at an impasse, perhaps paralysed between two alternatives. Suddenly he shifts his attention from the choice he finds difficult to make, to the state of Consciousness in which he finds himself. He discovers that that state is full of spanda.
I had just such a moment in the late sixties. 1 opened a door in New York and a gun was thrust in my face. In that moment I went into a heightened state that turned out to be life-transforming.
Just as the turiya state stands behind the states of waking, dream and deep sleep, barely h i d d e n and always bursting forth, so too Shiva humorously manifests Himself in a cosmic dance of hide and seek. With a nod and wink He shows Himself to us in a sneeze and sigh and when we are running for our lives.
ONE WORD G-STATEMENTS: DHARANA 107 Dharana 107 says:
'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 [has fulfilment]. We have seen in the chapters on the tattvas, how the kanchukas, or cloaks, limit the eternality and all-pervasiveness of Shiva and bind the individual
in time, space and causality. This dharana counteracts the effects of the
kanchukas by using, as G-Statements, the very qualities of Shiva that have
become contracted. Thus the meditator contemplates omnipresence, eternality, any of the attributes of Shiva that appeal to him. As Jaideva Singh says:
By constantly pondering over the implication of these words, the mind of the aspirant becomes chockfull of the essential reality of Shiva. By meditating on the attributes of Shiva, the aspirant attains Shiva
samavesha. He becomes Shiva.
EQUANIMITY: DHARANAS 100 AND 101
My Guru sometimes amused me by the way he handled questions about negative emotions. A person would ask him, 'Baba, how can I give up anger?'
Baba would say, 'Give up anger!'
Another would say, 'Baba,T am full of jealousy'. He would answer, 'Jealousy is not good'.
Once I heard a friend of mine tell him, 'Baba, I am full of ego'. And he said, 'Ego has no place here'.
The Vijnanabhairava offers a similar set of instructions:
• The aspirant should have the same attitude towards friend and foe.
• He should remain the same both in honour and dishonour. • He should maintain neither aversion nor attachment. Here are the full dharanas:
Dharana 100:
Because of the conviction that everything is full of Brahman (who is also the essential Self of all), the aspirant has the same attitude towards friend and foe, remains the same both in honour and dishonour, and thus because of this conviction (the conviction of the presence of Brahman everywhere), he is perpetually happy.
Dharana 101:
The aspirant should neither maintain the attitude of aversion nor of attachment towards anyone. Since he is freed of both aversion and attachment, there develops Bhramabhava or the nature of the divine Consciousness (which is also the nature of the essential Self) in his heart.
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Both of these dharanas give moral instruction. They tell us how to live spiritually in the world. In Dharana 100, the G-Statements of Shaivism support our equality consciousness. Having become convinced by our study of Shaivism, that everything is Consciousness, and having also experienced that in states of meditation, we use that idea as a platform for applying it in our life. Gurdjieff called this 'thinking from the work'. That is, making use of spiritual ideas operationally rather than reducing everything to a series of personal reactions.
Dharana 101 comes from a different point of view. Here, the avoidance
of aversion and attachment is used as a yogic method. If one strives not to
be attached and not to hate, one eventually grows in divine awareness. In a way, these dharanas are like Baba telling us to 'give up anger'. Remarkably, these 'instructions' often had a transforming effect when they came from Baba's lips, doubtless because of the Shakti that he carried. The same is true here. Teachings from the heart of Shiva bring with them the grace to apply them.
The essential message of the wisdom of Bhairava is that Shiva is very, very close indeed. Every student of Shaivism should become friendly with its spirit.