Overview of the Pratyabhijnahrdayam

[OCTOBER 24, 2012 BY BEN HOSHOUR @ HTTP://SAIVATANTRA.COM/ ]

Overview of the Pratyabhijnahrdayam

During the time this philosophy was being formulated, from the 9th to the 11th centuries, the sages

of Kashmiri Saiva developed a number of different philosophical schools based on older, revealed

texts, called Agamas. They did not call it “Kashmir Saivism.” This is a modern term we use to refer to

all these expressions of philosophical activity. They were originally called sasana(teachings)

or sastra (scripture). There were three different sects, orsampradayas, active in Kashmir during that

period: the Kuala, the Trika, and the Krama, as well as the two truly native Kashmiri schools,

the Spanda and the Pratyabhijna. Because Ksemaraja lived toward the end of this two hundred year

period, he received the benefit of all these points of view – and he included them in his summary

work, the Pratyabhijnahrdayam.

The Pratyabhijnahrdayam (The Heart of Recognition) was composed by Ksemaraja, a disciple of

Abhinava Gupta. It is a distillation of the Isvarapratyabhijna-karikas composed by Uptaladeva from

which the “Recognition School” gets its name.  The Isvarapratyabhijna-karikas is a dense,

intellectually challenging and highly philosophical work, which contains arguments, counter-

arguments, discussion, and reasoning that interprets the main doctrines of the Saiva Tantra system to

the logical reason of man. Ksemaraja did a great service to this lineage by writing a short work –

twenty sutras plus his own commentary (Pratyabhijnahrdayam) that clearly and beautifully

summarized the Recognition teachings, as he put it, for readers who are spiritually inclined, but not

trained in the rigorous discipline of logical philosophy.

The word “pratyjabhijna” means re-cognition. It is usually translated as The Heart of Recognition – the

recognition of one’s own deepest nature, the heart of one’s being. In Kashmir Saivism, the awareness

of the divinity of our own nature, of our heart, is called pratyabhijna.  The individual self, or jiva, is

divine, but we have forgotten our real nature and identify with this psycho-spiritual mechanism

instead. The teaching is meant to enable us to recognize our real nature, to bring us to the truth

that our real self is none other than Siva and to suggest to us the spiritual discipline by which we can

attain “at-one-ment” with Him.

The act of pratyabhijna spoken of by the Saiva sages, and particularly by the tenth-century sage

Uptaladeva, who is the founder of the Pratyabhijna school, is something more than an act of mental

recall or perception. The pratyabhijna that Uptaladeva describes means coming to the awareness of

your own divine consciousness and, in that awareness, understanding that this sensibility has always

been with you. This is not a thought, but an immediate certainty – a sense of familiarity or rightness.

Pratyabhijna arises where the two experiences: the knowledge of the Lord as the supreme power and

the awareness of one’s own Self, are unified in one’s experience: “Certainly, I am that very Lord.” In

the same vein, we could say that the purpose of studying the Pratyabhijnahrdayam is to

have pratyabhijna, to recognize one’s own Self as God. The experience is gloriously luminous and

brimming with ecstasy.

Why We Study Sacred Texts

Why study this sacred text at all? Swami Shantananda quoted a sutra in an unknown source as

saying: “From the womb is the source of scripture – scripture is the womb.” Divinity is not only the

universal mother or father, not only the creator of the world, but also the fount from which scripture

springs, but the power contained in sacred texts is itself a form of revelation – a key to understanding

God and His creation. Therefore, everything is contained in God – our own Self, everything we are is

already there. This means that when the time is right, sadhana will unfold of its own accord.

In other words, on our spiritual quest, nothing needs to be rushed or pushed. The effort that is most

advantageous for sadhana is to study, to learn, and to apply – to put into action the teachings of those

scriptural texts that explain the very meaning of sadhana, which is a term that denotes both the

spiritual path and the spiritual practices we employ as we move along that path.

Contemplation of a scripture can serve as a vantage point from which to view what happens to us, a

touchstone to hold on to through difficult moments, and as a foundation for understanding that can

help us turn our experiences of life into knowledge and that knowledge into wisdom and joy.

Experience means very little without understanding. It is for this reason that we listen to the teachings

of the words of great beings and read the scriptures, turning the teaching over in our mind, comparing

them to our own experience. In some ways, this intellectual knowledge is even more important than

innate knowledge because once we understand the nature of our own being, we can always make

right effort to experience it; but without that understanding, even if we have experience, we won’t

cherish it – in time we may not even be able to remember that it happened.

Image of ancient manuscript of the HOR

 

Introduction and Opening of the Pratyabhijnahrdayam

Om namo mangala-mūrtaye Om. Reverence to the One who is the embodiment of auspiciousness.

The Heart of the Doctrine of Self-recognition by Lord Ksemarāja

Reverence to the Divine, who constantly performs the five Acts of (creation, preservation, re-

absorption, concealment, and revelation) – and who, by so doing, reveals the ultimate reality of one’s

own Self, which is nothing but the Joy of Awareness. || 1 ||

I will here extract for you the ultimate essence from the great ocean of the Recognition philosophy,

which is itself the essence of the esoteric teachings of the Auspicious One; for it neutralizes the

poison of the cycle of suffering. || 2 ||

Here, the essential substance of the teachings on the Recognition of oneself as God will be gently

and concisely opened up for the benefit of those rare devotees whose minds are childlike, who have

not labored in the science of rigorous philosophical reasoning, and whose longing for total immersion

into the Highest Divinity continues to grow through the influence of their initial awakening experience

(śaktipāta). ||

First Introductory Verse

Om namah śivāya satatam pañca-krtya-vidhāyine | cidānanda-ghana-svātma-paramārthāvabhāsine || 1 ||Reverence to the Divine, who constantly performs the five Acts of (creation, preservation, reabsorption, concealment, and revelation)—and who, by so doing, reveals the ultimate reality of one’s own Self, which is nothing but the Joy of Awareness. || 1 ||

Ksemarāja begins his work with the auspicious word namas,* “reverence,” “obeisance,” or “homage,”

from the root nam, “bow.” To bow is the beginning and the ending of the spiritual path. It is to humble

oneself, to acknowledge the infinite majesty of the Divine. It is awe in the face of the great mystery. It

is the recognition that one’s mind, with all its power, is merely the most ephemeral and fleeting

expression of the one Consciousness that pervades all of reality. That Consciousness is the object of

Ksema’s devotion: namah śivāya, “reverence to Śiva.” In his tradition of nondual Śaiva Tantra, the

nameŚiva (lit., benevolent”) denotes the single all-pervasive divine Awareness that is both the ground

and substance of the whole of reality (and is therefore not different from Śakti, the manifest energy of

the universe).

Remember that Ksemarāja is a non-dualist. He therefore holds that Śivaconstitutes the essential

nature of every conscious being. In this view, there is no “other” to bow to, so Ksema

understands namah śivāya to mean “I merge my awareness in my Divine nature.“ He takes namas to

be equivalent to the word samāveśa, which in Śaiva Tantra denotes the experience of oneness with

the Absolute, or more accurately the experience of sharing a single Self with God. (This experience is

thought to arise due to the temporary falling away of one’s false identification with the limited body-

mind, which obscures the true reality of oneness.) Arguing for the equivalence of these two

terms,namas and samāveśa, is not such a stretch, for * Namah is a form of the word namas (as

in namaste). What greater act of reverence is there than to merge oneself with the object of one’s

devotion? What greater act of humility than to dissolve one’s sense of separateness? What greater

obeisance than acknowledging that only the Divine truly exists, and releasing all that holds you back

from falling into the very Heart of your essence-nature?

Try it now. Whisper softly to yourself, “Om namah śivāya. I allow my awareness to merge into my real

divine nature.” Take a deep breath, and let yourself open to the sacred core of your being. Quietly

treasure the barest glimpse of it, yet without grasping at it. The moment the experience is no longer

fresh, let it go. Now go back and read the opening verse again. As is traditional, it is an invocation to

the Divine that serves to bless the work with grace and auspiciousness, and simultaneously contains

allusions to all that will be taught within the work. In the verse, Ksema describes what Śiva, the divine

Self, is (i.e., cidānanda, the Joy of Awareness) and also what he does (constantly performs the five

Acts). He implies that the true nature of the Self is revealed through the constant performance of the

five Acts—because when you realize that the five Acts of God are precisely what you yourself are

doing all the time, there is the possibility of a flash of recognition: that you are nothing other than a

contracted form of the one universal Awareness. (This is the Recognition [pratyabhijñā] that gives this

school of thought its name.) God is constantly performing the five Acts, not on some grandiose

otherworldly stage, but through you.

The Five Acts:

Srsti:  creation, emission, manifestation, flowing forth

Sthiti:  stasis, maintenance, preservation

Samhāra:  dissolution, retraction, re-absorption

Nigraha:  concealment, occlusion, forgetting

Anugraha:  grace, revelation, remembering

The performance of the five Acts through you takes place on all scales. For example, on the social

scale, you contribute to creating some social constructs (from modes of behavior to institutions) and to

undermining others. On the cultural scale, you participate (even just by giving your attention) in

creating and maintaining some forms of art and culture, and dissolving others (even just by ignoring

them). On the psychological scale, you create mental constructs that represent and interpret select

aspects of reality, become self-identified with them and therefore invest energy in maintaining them—

and you eventually see through them, allowing them to dissolve to make way for new, more effective

belief-structures. (The permanent cessation of this story-making process we call “liberation.” More on

that later.)

On any of these scales, you can either conceal to yourself the fact of your agency as an active creator

and dissolver of these realities, or reveal that fact to yourself through an expanded meta-awareness,

something which is available to you at any moment through deep and steady breathing combined with

clear self-reflection. However, Ksema is most interested in bringing our attention to the smallest, most

immediate scale of reality, one that we are all experiencing all the time: our moment-to-moment

perceptions, sensations, and cognitions. (Since “cognition” can cover all three of these, we’ll use that

term—just remember that it can refer to any vibration of consciousness, not only thoughts.) He follows

the Krama or Mahārtha tradition in observing that each and every cognition is an  expression of the

five Acts. First, the cognition emerges out of the field of infinite potential (known variously as pure

consciousness, spirit, or the timeless ground); then it is maintained for a moment, nourished and

imbued with reality by your focused attention; then, when awareness is withdrawn from it, it dissolves

back into the timeless ground.

These three phases are expressions of the first three of the five Acts, on the microcosmic scale of

your own mind. This process is easy to observe with the arising of a memory or thought, for a thought

really seems to arise out of nowhere and dissolve into nothing. It is a little harder to see (but no less

true) with an act of external perception. Let’s take an example. Notice how your gaze might fall on a

flower, and you naturally give it your full attention—“flower-consciousness” arises (srsti) and remains

for a moment (sthiti); but when your attention turns elsewhere, such as to a memory or thought, the

“flower-consciousness” dissolves (samhāra) even though your eyes might still be focused on the

flower. The flower fades into the background, no longer experienced in its fullness. It has become the

“wallpaper” on the computer screen of your mind, and your inner state is now colored by the vibration

of whatever thought holds your attention. Now, according to the Krama tradition, whose teachings

form much of the subtext of The Heart of Self-Recognition,every cognition arises from, and subsides

into, the timeless ground of pure awareness. That is, at the terminus of any stream of cognition (or

“train of thought”), cognition dissolves into stillness, into simple openness—even if only for a split-

second. At that moment, the ground of being, which is unconditioned and expanded awareness, is

revealed. That unconditioned awareness, apparent after the dissolution of one cognition and before

the emission of the next, is called “the nameless” (anākhya) in the Krama. It is not so much a moment

or a phase, but the ground of the whole process of cognition; it is constantly present, pervading and

supporting the three phases mentioned above. It is only identified as the “space between thoughts”

because it is most easily accessed in that opening. We notice it most easily when being “lost in

thought” gives way to “coming back to yourself,” which is a moment of reposing in your innate

subjectivity: it is a window of opportunity, in which you might recognize your true nature.

In other words, it is in this moment of touching down in the awareness-ground that either the fourth or

the fifth Act is expressed. If you open to the opportunity of self-recognition, that is an expression of the

fifth Act, revelation or grace (anugraha); if you miss the opportunity, and remain on auto-pilot,

unreflectively initiating another train of thought to get lost in immediately, then that is an expression of

self-concealment or forgetting (nigraha). Not to worry, however: the opportunity of which we speak

arises many times every single day.

Let’s get a bit more specific about what “opening to the opportunity of self-recognition” means. It

refers to noticing that the Power of Awareness (citi-śakti) which empowers and englobes the whole

process—the creation, maintenance, and dissolution of each cognitive experience—is in fact your

very own Self. In other words, you recognize that you, the conscious knower of the process, are also

its author. Furthermore, you see that you are the very ground of the three-fold process, not separate

from it; in fact, the act of creating, immersing in, and dissolving an experience is a self-

transformationof Awareness.* (Indeed, it is a microcosmic replication of the process by which

Awareness creates the entire universe, which is nothing but the self-transformation of God.) Though

we have described this beautiful moment of recognition in words, it is not a thought; rather, it is a flash

of wordless insight, a moment of non-conceptual seeing.

In nigraha, self-forgetting, you do not recognize your authorship of the three-fold process of cognition

and so you do not notice the dynamic stillness, the nameless ground of the process, underlying the

movement of thought. By the way, to judge yourself for this lack of recognition perpetuates nigraha—

to love yourself for it opens you to anugraha. You can miss the window of opportunity a thousand

times, and the same fullness is still available to you the next time. (Though it is also true that the more

you visit the fullness, the fuller it somehow gets.) The moment passes, another stream of cognition

arises, is maintained, and dissolves, to offer yet another window of opportunity; and so on, infinitely—

the rhythmic flow of the waves of consciousness.

The deep, wordless, revelatory recognition that you are the source and author of all the movements of

the mind, and yet you are something more that is eternally free of those movements, is the

fundamental recognition upon which all other empowering acts of self-recognition are based. This,

then, is what Ksemarāja means when he says that by performing the five Acts, Śiva reveals

(avabhāsin) the ultimate reality (paramārtha) of your own Self (svātma): because Consciousness

performs the five Acts through you, you are given, again and again, the opportunity to recognize that

you are that Consciousness. The five “Acts of God” are nothing other than what you yourself are

doing constantly (satatam); so who could you be other than that One? And if that realization lands

properly, it triggers a sense of humble awe, not egoic self-importance.

Now, what is the nature of this Self that is revealed through recognition of one’s authorship of the five

Acts? Ksema tells us that this recognition reveals what is ultimately true (paramārtha) about the Self:

the fact that it iscidānanda-ghana, “nothing but the Joy of Awareness.”

* Note that this teaching is radically opposed to the Vedāntic teaching of the Self as “witness,” a

passive observer that stands apart from what it witnesses.

The phrase could also be translated “thick with the joy of being fully aware.” That is to say, when you

truly recognize the Self that is the ground of every moment of experience, you realize that it is

inherently blissful with a joy that derives from the very fact of being conscious, rather than from what

you are conscious of. In fact, that quiet joy is a signal that indicates you have in fact accessed the

ground of your being. When consciousness rests in itself (viśrānti), fully self-aware (vimarśa), it

always accesses its intrinsic joy (ānanda) in some measure.

Finally, we may note that the phrase cid-ānanda, in Ksema’s usage, suggests the eternally conjoined

pair of Śiva-Śakti. This is because citdenotes the Light of Awareness (prakāśa); and ānanda, as noted

above, is the natural and invariable expression of the Power of Self-reflection (vimarśa-śakti) that is

eternally conjoined with that Light. In the Recognition school,prakāśa and vimarśa are understood to

be the non-theistic names of the same principles denoted by Śiva and Śakti respectively. Therefore,

Ksema is also saying that the Self is identical with God/dess. We may, then, express the inner

meaning of the opening verse, as intended by the author, as follows:

I allow my awareness to merge into my real divine nature, which, by constantly performing the five Acts, reveals the ultimate reality of my own Self: that it is replete with, and nothing but, the joy of being Awareness—the Awareness that is the author and the self-transforming dynamic ground of the process of cognition, identical with God/dess. || 1 ||

Ksemarāja’s introduction to his text consists of the verse we have been discussing at length, a second

verse stating the scope and purpose of the work, and a brief prose section describing his intended

audience. In the second verse, he takes up his position as human author and professor of philosophy,

while simultaneously implying that he will once again speak with that voice of authority that comes

solely from being the recipient of, and vehicle for, lineage transmission.

Second Introductory Verse

śārkaropanisat-sāra-pratyabhijñā-mahodadheh | uddharāmi param sāram samsāra-visa-śāntidam || 2 ||I will here extract for you the ultimate essence from the great ocean of the Recognition philosophy, which is itself the essence of the esoteric teachings [upanisads] of the Auspicious One[Śankara, = Śiva]; for it neutralizes the poison of the cycle of suffering [samsāra]. || 2 ||

This verse identifies the The Heart of Self-Recognition as the “crème de la crème” of

the Śaiva teachings, for it is the essence or core (sāra, = hrdaya) of the Recognition philosophy,

which is itself declared to be the essence of theŚaiva scriptures. The latter, usually called tantras, are

here identified asupanisads, literally “esoteric teachings” or “hidden connections,” but the

termupanisad is also meant to imply that the Śaiva tantras are equivalent in value to the earlier

revelation of the Vedas (for the philosophical sections of those texts are always designated

as upanisads). The Recognition philosophy is here described as a “great ocean” (mahodadhi), a

standard metaphor for a subject that is vast and as difficult to master as the ocean is to cross. But the

use of that metaphor also allows Ksema to subtly allude to the ancient story of the Churning of the

Ocean, in which the gods and demons are said to have churned the primordial ocean to extract the

Nectar of Immortality (amrta), like milk is churned to make sweet butter. He implies, then, that the

essence of the Recognition teachings presented in this text is both delicious as the sweetest nectar

and saves one from the repeated deaths of the cycle of suffering. Indeed, the second claim is explicit,

for this “ultimate essence” of the Śaiva teachings is said to “neutralize the poison of samsāra.” The

metaphor here is that of a poisonous snakebite; when an antidote for snakebite is administered, it

does not remove the poison from the system, but neutralizes its deadly effect. In the same way,

the Tantrik teachings do not remove one from the challenges of worldly life, but eliminate the mental

suffering that those challenges commonly entail. The tāntrika does not seek to escape the world, but

to remain fully engaged with it while becoming free of the wrong understanding that causes her to see

her life situations as anything but a blessing.

This is Ksema’s explicit goal in writing the text. Ksema concludes his introduction with this brief prose

section:

iha, ye sukumāra-matayo, ’k.rta-tīksna-tarka-śāstra-pariśramāh śaktipātavaśonmisat-pārameśvara-samāveśābhilāṣāh katicit bhaktibhājah tesām īśvarapratyabhijñopadeśa-tattvam manāg unmīlyateHere, the essential substance of the teachings on the Recognition of oneself as God will be gently and concisely opened up for the benefit of those rare devotees whose minds are childlike (sukumāra), who have not labored in the science of rigorous philosophical reasoning, and whose longing for immersion (samāveśa) into the Highest Divinity continues to grow through the influence of their Descent of Power (śaktipāta).

Kṣemarāja promises to give his audience the pith and marrow of the Recognition teachings, and then

describes what sort of audience he has in mind: those who are devoted to the spiritual path (bhakti-

bhājah), and whose minds are sukumāra, that is to say, open and receptive, childlike, fresh, and

intuitive, but not scholastically trained, and thus easily put off by too much philosophical wrangling.

This last point is reinforced by Ksema’s next statement, that he has written the present work for those

who have not labored to master the Indian disciplines of logic and philosophical discourse, and are

therefore not overly concerned with our author’s ability to refute the arguments of the Buddhists and

others.

Here Ksema specifically contrasts his work to its primary source, theStanzas on the Recognition of

God by Utpala Deva, which certainly isconcerned with extremely subtle and refined argumentation

aimed at the refutation of the Buddhists and others in matters concerning the operation, function, and

ontological status of the powers of consciousness. In other words, Ksema implies that his work is

especially for those whose hearts are open to learning but who cannot or will not read the extremely

difficult and abstruse Stanzas on the Recognition of God. Ksema adds a third, all-important criterion

for his readers: he pictures them as having a longing for the experience of union with God, i.e., total

immersion into the all-encompassing absolute reality that is the Highest Divinity (pārameśvara-

samāveśa), an experience that becomes one’s default state and fundamental reference point for

existence through the teachings and practices of the spiritual path. This longing (abhilāṣa) drives you

along the path, keeping you from settling for ordinary worldly happiness, beckoning you onward (or

inward) with the promise of something infinitely greater: the possibility of becoming established in the

truth of your being, your total connection to the whole field of life-energy, with all the wisdom and joy

that brings.

He tells us that this longing grows due to the lasting influence of śaktipāta, a term which denotes the

initial awakening to the spiritual path (an awakening that the tradition would soon come to identify with

the activation of thekundalinī-śakti, the innate intelligence of embodied consciousness). This

awakening invariably has the effect of, firstly, opening up the inner realm, and secondly making the

path of inner growth the primary focus of a person’s life. It is called the “Descent of Power” or the

“Descent of Grace” (śaktipāta) because it often (but not always) feels like a powerful, even unsettling,

infusion of energy that was not earned or even called for, but ultimately proves to be the greatest of

blessings.

This last criterion takes his text from the merely philosophical realm into the spiritual (i.e., trans-

mental) realm. He is expressly stating that his purpose is not only to educate, but to give devoted

seekers the tools of understanding (and practice) that, if fully applied, will lead them to their goal of

immersion into divine reality. The present work, then, is classed not as a śāstra (work of philosophy or

science), but an upadeśa (wisdom-teaching) that serves as a direct means to liberation when put into

practice. We turn now to the firstsūtra and its commentary. First we present Ksemarāja’s words alone,

unadorned by any explanation, which allows for meditative contemplation. Don’t try to have an

intellectual understanding of what he says on the first reading; just let the words of the master

percolate within. Next comes a thorough explanation, with Ksemarāja’s text repeated in sections for

ease of reference. This explanatory material engages the mind and allows understanding to flesh out

what your intuition has already glimpsed. Far from purely intellectual, the explanatory section also

includes simple practices to help actualize your understanding on the level of whole-body experience,

which is always where we want to go with these teachings. We will follow this structure throughout the

sutras.

 

References:

Heart of Recognition Course by Christopher Hareesh Wallis. For more information please visit

the Mattamurya   Institute.

Pratyabhijnahrdayam: The Secret of Self Recognition by Jaideva Singh.

The Splendor of Recognition: An Exploration of the Pratyabhijahrdayam, a Text on the Ancient

Science of the Soul by Swami Shantananda