Tantra Illuminated: The Philosophy, History, and Practice of a Timeless Tradition

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Another is that we all go through cycles of expansion and contraction, where we can expand our self definition loving more of creation or contract refine and limit our scope of entaglement. The narrator - his personal caring about the topic is very evident and comes through in the reading. Despite this being a highly informative book - rich with information about Śaiva Tantra, Śaiva Siddhanta, Abhinavagupta and Advaita Philosophy in general - the fact that he has written in a slightly preachy tone and recommended a sexual predator guru from Melbourne at "The Ashram" is highly disturbing. And I can't take any of his authority as a "spiritual teacher" seriously. As a scholar, however, his work is useful. I would just take his advice with a grain of salt. And I would also highly recommend anyone who read the section where Christopher Wallis recommends Swami Shankarananda to read these news articles on the so-called "Swami" first.

The goal of the path is truth not happiness, make truth seeing your goal and more bliss you can imagine as a byproduct of that journey. But the moment your sights shift to bliss or pleasure as the goal, delusion begins to reassert itself. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. There is only one Great Divinity, and it is the very inner Self of all creatures. It embodies itself as all things, full of unbroken awareness of three kinds: "I", "this", and "I am this."" Enphasis on direct experience of a divine reality that has transcendent and eminent aspects called shiva and shakti respectively. Shiva primarily understood as the pure consciousness that is the ultimate ground of being and shakti as the flowing energy making up the entire manifest universe. Discerning faculty. Budhi. The intellect. The most important mental faculty for all schools of yoga philosophy. The power by which we decide what is beneficial for us and what is not. It is impaired by samskara, an impression from past experiences, so the energy flows different trough you than someone else due to past experiences.

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Alchemical Metaphors for Spiritual Transformation in Abhinavagupta’s Īśvarapratyabhijñā-vimarśinī and Īśvarapratyabhijñā-vivṛti-vimarśinī” in Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions: Essays in Honour of Alexis G.J.S. Sanderson. Gonda Indological Studies, vol. 22. Leiden: Brill, 2020

The Lord. Ishwara. Krishna, alla,jehova, etc. Most monotheistic religions presume to be the highest level of reality.Ultimately, when the ego expands infinitely, you experience all things in yourself and yourself in all things. There are no more boundaries to selfhood. You have acquired an all-encompassing 'I'. When you experience all beings as part of yourself, you naturally act with compassion and wisdom." All limited counscionesses(you and me) are merely vantage points within one, all encompassing unbroken field of awareness. Thus there is only one perceived and only one doer in all of existence. The Decent of Power: Possession, Mysticism, and Initiation in the Shaiva Theology of Abhinavagupta" in the Journal of Indian Philosophy (Springer Verlag), published online in 2007; print version published in 2008. (Invocation verse)

Hearing the book out loud was magical. Wallis deeply understands these texts in a personal way. When he reads them, he not only communicates his caring, but he is transmitting his experience of the texts coming to life in him, too. The benevolent one. Shiva. Not the name of a god, rather the peaceful quiescent ground of all reality. The infinite silence of transcendent divinity. While shakti is extroversive,manifest, omniform and dynamic, shiva is introversive, transcendent, unmanifest, formless and still. Lecturer in Yoga Philosophy Curriculum and Sanskrit language, YogaKula (Berkeley) and Triyoga (London), 2003 - 2005 Spiritual practice is most successful when you enjoy it for its own sake, experiencing it as a celebration of the Divine you nature raThis fullness of being is not accomplished by a quantitative accumulation of good experiences, it is your natural state. It is a esses by finding the primal root of your desire far deeper than any particular wanting and letting it explode with the realization that ultimately you simply desire to be the whole of what you are. Freelance Lecturer in Yoga Teacher Trainings on the international circuit (USA, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, Brasil, UK, Denmark, etc.), 2008 - 2022 This very Power of Reflective Awareness ( vimarśa-śakti) is the Agency of this world, and it is not [and cannot be] unconscious or inert! Even the world’s condition of being an effect ( kāryatva) is manifest only because of it. And the world, having such a nature, is undivided & non-different from the Great Lord, the sole Agent, whose nature is [nothing but] the Light of Consciousness. urn:oclc:record:1392024123 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier tantrailluminate0000wall Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s2f03x2ngt0 Invoice 1652 Isbn 9780989761307 Lccn 2013946524 Ocr tesseract 5.3.0-3-g9920 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9764 Ocr_module_version 0.0.21 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA409409 Openlibrary_edition Power. Godess, Shakti. Energy, capacity, capability. The whole universe is the body of the Godess and the movements of all forms of energy are her dance, her play.

How does shiva(absolute consciousness) manifest itself in the form of an individual soul? By concealing it’s fullness with 5 veils, kantrikas: The fourth grade of śaktipāta leads a person to take initiation, though his perception of the divinity of his real Self is not as firm as a third-grade recipient, because it is difficult for him to break through his conditioned convictions and mental constructs of reality. Nonetheless, through the gradual ripening of his insight through practice, the fourth-grade recipient merges with the Divine upon leaving the body. This and the following grades account for the majority of people on the path. (By “the path” I do mean to imply that there is really only one path of spiritual transformation, regardless of what name it is given or which religion or culture it is articulated within.) The fifth and sixth grades are received by those who are ready for the spiritual life but who also have a strong desire for worldly enjoyment and prosperity. They thus seek, and find, a teacher who can support them in both endeavors. They practice a yoga that leads them to enjoyment and then to liberation, at the time of leaving the body or shortly thereafter. The three lowest grades of śaktipāta are received by one whose desire for enjoyments is stronger than for liberation. These grades of awakening grant one access to the path to enjoyment through yoga, culminating in liberation in a future life. These grades are not given much attention in the texts, but it is important to note here that what grade of śaktipāta you receive is not due to how “worthy” you are but to how intense your longing for awakening is in relation to your longing to enjoy “the good life.” Though the latter is described as the Another good one was that when making a positive version of a negative statement have to integrate the divine to make it more powerful.Christopher Wallis, also known as Hareesh, is a Sanskritist and scholar-practitioner of Classical Tantra with thirty years of experience. He was initiated by a traditional Indian guru at the age of sixteen, and received education at yoga āshrams, both in India and the West. metapower swatantrica shakti: power of freedom or autonomy, context for the operation of the other 5. If the world were considered as separate [from the Light of Consciousness], then by virtue of the fact that it would be unmanifesting/unillumined, it would not exist at all.