2009-02-17T04:40:00.000-08:00

Dear Peter

Subject: matsyodara

Starting in about 1990 I read Dyczkowski, Singh, everything I could find of Abhinavagupta, Utpaladeva etc. Just the other day your name came up on the computer (of which I am not a skilled operator). I noticed that someone had suggested that Laksmanjoo was after all not the last person to carry on these teachings. The more I read of your many themes including the "Kingdom." Siva, fallacies of New Age Thought, critiques of the philosophy of science and so on, the more I became convinced that the above suggestion was true. I am waiting for your book on The New Yoga from Amazon. My question is something like this: Is there a place I might go, something I might do, other than reading and trying in my own way to meditate, which could possibly enhance my learning/experience? By the way the subject heading is a way of saying that I've come to be fond of Sanskrit words. Thanks for listening.

Steven Thomes
Minneapolis, formerly of Tacoma, WA

Dear Stephen,

Thank you for making contact.

You ask if there was a place you could go and something you might do other than reading to enhance your experience/learning.Well, for one thing you could come here, to me in the UK, for a personal introduction to New Yoga methods of meditation - not least since I do all my teaching on an intensive one-to-one basis. You could also write me more about yourself, your current understanding of meditation and way of practicing it, and how this fits with the understanding and practice of meditation presented in my books and also the introductory essays and archive page of the www.thenewyoga.org site. Then you could use of e-mail (either directly to me or through the 'Ask and Learn' more button on the site) to pose any questions you above about the relation between your personal sadhana, the tradition, and your reading - particularly on 'The Awareness Principle' - which I see as a vital new clarification of what constitutes the essence of 'meditation' and the heart of the new explication of the tradition presented by The New Yoga. A new and much expanded edition of my book on The Awareness Principle will shortly go to print by the way. I would not underestimate the reading, not least since it can provide a starting point for meditating your own questions, but also because the aim of my writing is to find a newer, clearer and more precision language in which to express the philosophical and experiential essence of Shaiva-Advaita and Trika tradition in terms of The Awareness Principle. In my experience this in turns bring, through the practice of awareness that make up The New Yoga, a wholly new experiential understanding of the most basic of Sanskrit terms and one that requires a wholly new philosophical language to bring to precise expression in English.

I was therefore pleased to read of your fondness of Sanskrit. For though I am no expert on it, I have learned to attune to and 'read' it from a deeper level of awareness - one which makes me painfully aware of the superficiality and crassness of most extant translations of the tantras, most of which make no attempt to meditate the 'wordless meaning within the word' and reveal a gross lack of awareness of the danger of expressing that meaning through an unquestioned - unmeditated - English vocabulary. It was the danger lurking such a lack of linguistic awareness which I believe hindered the attempts of both Sri Aurobindo and Lakshmanjoo in presenting the tantras to a Western audience. Use of Western terms such as 'Being', 'Consciousness', 'Energy', 'Mind', 'Body', 'Spirit' etc without any knowledge of their specifically European cultural history and metamorphoses of meaning leads easily to their casual supermimposition on the inner meaning of the Sanskrit rather than the opposite - a search for a wholly new way of understanding and interpreting these basic European terms inspired by the Sanskrit of the tantras. It is indeed sheer bliss for example, to experience 'Prana' as breathing of pure awareness as space, and 'Pranayama' as a movement from simple awareness of breathing to that breathing of pure awareness. It is appalling, on the other hand, to see how Prana is translated either as some form of vital 'energy', with aerobic breath or even, according to India's currently most popular guru, with a mere chemical gas -oxygen!

To understand the multi-faceted and polysemous linguistic scales of Sanskrit tantric discourse - both in its old and new presentations - the starting point must be the belly of the fish. By this I mean a direct inner experience of the withinness of the word and the linguistic ocean in which it swims - but not JUST the Sanskrit word however, which Laksmanjoo and others did have a deep understanding of - but ALSO those Graeco-Latin and English words that are commonly used to translate the tantras. With this in mind I find myself increasingly dissatisfied with Singh and others translations, and have in mind to write a discourse on the compound Sat-chit-ananada - for like Chaitanyatman the term IS A DISCOURSE IN ITSELF, and one that suffers more than any other from a 'glossing' with European philosophical terms in a way that is further compounded by philosophical ignorance of the ways these terms (such as 'Being' and 'Consciousness') have themselves been subject to deep and meditative questioning in European thought - not least by Martin Heidegger.

Looking forward to hearing from you again. Meanwhile I do recommend considering your questions, and also subscribing to the bulletin board on the New Yoga site - which is where any new essays or karikas of mine will be posted or made known, and where you yourself can pose questions or share reflections.

Peter

Dear Peter

Thanks a lot for replying to my letter. I'm using this mode right now because I don't yet know how to send a video or photo; my son says he may be able to help me, so I'll try to use the Bulletin Board or Q & A format as soon as I can figure out how to get a picture on the screen. I am totally willing to go to England. I could (possibly) do so next year. Haven't been there since 1977. At the same time, I don't have an expectation that training or therapy is LIKELY to be able to allow me to free myself from a lifetime of obsessional self doubt and conflict, what R.D. Laing called "Knots." Rather, I have been so heartened by Kashmir Shaivism (since I found Mark Dyczkowski on the shelves of the University of Puget Sound Library around 1990), that I can only say "why not try?" Dyczkowski said, "the most satisfying experience possible is the recognition that one's consciousness is all things."
I would like to know something about where you are in England, and what the expectations of a visitor might be; then I could look into my capability of making such a visit.
I like your interactions with Andrew, whoever he may be. A question; Am I right that the function of referencing experience as "mine" is called "ahamkara"; and that "anavamala" is the experience of the self as limited? Whatever the case, Sanskrit seems to have words describing what leads a person such as myself to want more.
I remember Muller-Ortega wondered about the occult meaning of "matsyodara"; and that he also found Abhinavaguta's "sexual" allusions to a "she-ass or mare" obscure. I think the latter might refer to the enjoyment of interplay between the inner and outer "in the experience of the enlightened."
I'm reading and digesting your book The New Yoga. I'm very interested in The Awareness Principle; it does seem to be something new. Thanks again for responding.

Steve Thomes

Dear Steven,

Thank you for writing and sending me your condensed but nevertheless richly informative biography. I have meditated it several times. I have done this with a view not only to getting a deeper sense of you as a person, but also to feel out how I could best relate and respond to your account in a way that was not purely psychological or psychoanalytic - but could instead make clearer some ways in which the Principle and Practice of Awareness might offer you a new relation to the life and self you describe – and thereby also the self describing it.

To begin with I will apply ‘Trika’ to your account - not its specificity as a metaphysics of Kashmiri Shaivism alone, but as one expression of a universal triadistic framework of understanding - one that also came to expression in the dialectical thinking of Hegel, Marx and my own initial mentor – Michael Kosok (…not to mention Freud!).

A significant triad I felt implicit in your account could be described as a relation between three relationships to feeling as such:

• Staying aloof from or lacking feeling (like your father)
• Staying with feelings (Bob King and Gestalt Therapy)
• Feelings staying with you…

Let me move on by first summing up three important understanding of mine in relation to feelings and feeling.

• Every experience of the world and of other people is also an experience of self.
• Every feeling we have alter our felt experience of self and is also a felt self.
• Feelings (noun) are things we experience. Feeling (verb) is an activity
something we do or do not actively do.

On my last meditation of your letters there was an awareness of you describing the feelings and felt self of the abandoned and abjured little boy (with its intense and traumatic separation anxieties) with a voice and from a self that felt more like your father in tone – coming from a certain position of ‘aloofness’ from that child’s feelings and felt self (expressed for example, through your double reference to ‘scientific’ DSM categorisations).

On the other hand however, there was also an awareness of a distinct feeling tone of ‘heaviness’ or ‘weightiness’ in your writing. This associated itself in my meditations with feelings that are still ‘staying with you’ – and perhaps also relate to the satisfaction of weight-lifting.

I notice that the one DSM category not mentioned in your letter is ‘depression’, or “that sinking feeling”. Here I must point out that I understand depression not as an illness but as the body’s substitute for meditation - encouraging us to let ourselves ourselves ‘sink’, to feel and feel drawn into the full ‘weight’ and ‘heaviness’ of our feelings and of the questions they might confront us with.

Here the Awareness Principle applies itself in the form of the understanding that every feeling we are aware ‘of’ is itself an awareness – an awareness of something beyond itself. The point then, is not so much to question or ‘analyse’ our feelings as to ask what questions they are posing to us – to feel those feelings themselves as felt questions, and, by staying with those feelings with full meditative awareness – doing so for as long as it takes for them to transform themselves into something completely different - a new and important awareness of something or someone.

This all reflects the central, constantly repeated ‘mantra’ element of The New Yoga and its foundational principle and practice of awareness – ‘meditation’ understood as giving ourselves time to be aware – firstly to be aware, in the present, of all the felt elements of our immediate bodily self-experience (all of which bear an important relation to our past and future), and, secondly, giving each of those elements in turn sufficient meditation time to transform into a new and distinct awareness in itself.

Here no vocalisation or verbalisation is required. For words that will come to mind, from out of awareness as such, that express those ‘awarenesses’ or ‘insights’, doing so without the aid of any therapeutic techniques or encouragements. All that is required is that we stay – again for a sufficient length of time – with the wordlessly felt tone and texture of our bodily self-experience.

To be sure, what I write here is indeed echoed in many elements of Gestalt Therapy – yet it also could be expressed in terms of the most highly esoteric language of the tantras – in particular those that expound the nature of Shakti as ‘Paravac’. By this is meant the wordless womb or of the word, and also the different types and levels of ‘bodily felt sense’ (Eugene Gendlin) that constitute its subtler levels - dealt with by Abhinavagupta in his tantras on poetry, drama, music and all that we call ‘aesthetics’ (a word whose root meaning is essentially ‘sensing’).

I was not quite sure how you yourself understood the Indian woman’s instructions to ‘choose and accept’. I can only share my own understanding of them – namely that the self that can chooses – with full awareness – to fully affirms and feel (verb) any and all discomforting feelings (noun) does not bind itself more strongly too those feelings but rather frees itself from unaware identification with them – another most practical precept of The Awareness Principle. Put in terms of my triad – not just letting feelings ‘stay with us’, nor standing aloof from the, but choosing to ‘stay with them’ - to grant them the feeling awareness they are asking for.

Over time and as we grow older however, the weight and variety of feelings and experiences that have ‘stayed with us’ can increase, like fat deposits in the arteries, making it more difficult to free ourselves from them. Indeed an entire body of such feelings and the self-concepts connected with them gradually forms itself, not only finding expression in our dreams, in physical ailments or psychological dis-ease, but also pervades to one degree or another our waking sense of self. Perhaps in your case it could be called the ‘something-wrong-with-Steve-body’, by which of course I mean primarily the felt body rather than any expression it might take in the physical body. Because it is also a compound of all the self-concepts, roles, personal, inter-personal and social identities that we have adopted (or rejected) in the course of our lives, I see the growth of the karmic body as a natural part of the aging process and one which also serves a positive function This is precisely because its sole counterpart is pure awareness that which transcends every life stage, experience, encounter or event we have ever experienced. Hence the mantram with which I introduce the forthcoming expanded edition of my book on ‘The Awareness Principle’.

The pure Awareness of any self, identity, body, world or universe
Transcends every self, identity, body, world or universe -
Yet pervades and takes shape as them all.

It was interesting to me in this respect that you referred to your parents as ‘spaced’ during John Berryman’s reading of the poem. A significant term which The Awareness Principle offers a very new and un-hippy like understanding of. This is the understanding of the seemingly empty space around all bodies as the primary expression – and our primary link - to the transcendent dimension of pure awareness (Akula) in contrast to the felt inner spaces of our bodies which are its immanent dimension (Kula), and the medium through which – as you experienced - we can connect with the soul inwardness of others.

In terms of The New Yoga of Space, ‘spacing out’ does not mean losing ourselves in a ‘purple haze’ but identifying with the clear space around our bodies – thus freeing ourselves from sense that awareness is something bounded by bodies and enclosed within our skins or brains. Rather than just attending to the spaces between thoughts in our minds, a principle Practice of Awareness then becomes the practice of sensing and identifying with the entire space around our bodies. This facilitates a pure bodiless awareness of our bodies themselves, including our karmic body – which is bound and bounded by our physical body. Yet sensing the space all around us is something we can only do by through cultivating and maintaining total awareness of our bodily boundary – of our entire skin. It is this awareness of the body as a mere boundary state or skin (the root meaning of the Greek word for ‘the flesh’) that allows us to experience both the spaces around and within it as space of awareness.

In what I call ‘The Foundation Meditation’ of The New Yoga, the practice of ‘spacing out’ is both preceded and alternated with a practice of ‘spacing in’ – choosing with full awareness to fully immerse ourselves in all that we are aware of ‘inside’ – which includes both sensations and feelings sensed in our bodies and thoughts that arise in our heads (for as our ‘head’, what we call our ‘mind’ is but part of our body). The two practices of spacing ‘out’ and spacing ‘in’ complement one another – the former helping us to experience the inwardness of our bodies too, as a clear space of pure awareness - rather than identifying with whatever we are sensing within that space, letting it fill our bodies and preoccupy our minds.

There is a strong emphasis in ‘The Awareness Principle’ on the identity of clear or empty space with clear or pure awareness (rather than with mere ‘emptiness’ in the Budhist sense), along with corresponding notion of non-duality as inseparable distinction – space, like awareness, being both absolutely inseparable and absolutely distinct from everything we are aware of within it. Interestingly, the manner in which constantly I present and argue for the enormous significance of what I call the ‘fundamental distinction’ - between awareness as such and any specific thing we are aware of – is is perhaps best comparable with the way Korzybski (an early influence of mine!) put so much emphasis on his basic mantram – “the word is not the thing”.

Transcending the whole idea that words even correspond in any way to ‘objective’ things – rather than being recognitive reflections of a (subjective) awareness of those things – is also significant for the whole understanding of ‘mantra’ as well as ‘tantra’. The one and only Siddha Yoga evening I attended a long time ago, consisting of endless chanting and ending with the obligatory kiss given to the photograph of the Guru was a sad disappointment for me too – not to mention being wholly inconsistent with the understanding of ‘mantra’ expounded in the Kashmiri Shaivist tantras, and my own. This is that mantric phonemes are not so much sounds to be uttered vocally and aloud ‘with’ our bodies, for they are essentially the echo of those inner sounds with which our bodies themselves – and all bodies are uttered. A multi-phonemic mantra is a movement through the different states of awareness. The point is to embody, feel and literally ‘per-sonify’ - this movement, not merely chant or sing the sounds that echo it. This is what I have emphasised in my essay on ‘Mantra’ – which also offers a deeper understanding of that favourite of all chants - ‘Om Namah Shivaya’. Given your appreciation and enjoyment of Mark Dyczkowski I am sure you would also enjoy (if you haven’t already read it) ‘Vac’ – Andre Padoux’s book on ‘The Concept of the Word in Selected Hindu Tantras’.

If I have not done so, I should also emphasise the enormous influence on my work of the ‘Seth books’ of Jane Roberts – in particular ‘Seth Speaks’ - which I encourage all my students to read, stressing that they should completely ignore all the interspersed notes of her husband Robert Butts). I was introduced to these by my early mentor Michael Kosok – for and in thanks to whom I created a site of his brilliant but still unrecognised writings (www.thenewdialectics.org). It was Seth, Mike, Marx and Heidegger who together provided me with a new language for both my conceptual and deep ‘experiential’ reinterpretation of the tantras.

Returning again to your life account however, though it provided much, it did leave me with three very important open questions - questions about your questions.

1. What were or are the most important questions that the life events, encounters and experiences you describe raised in you or have left you with?
2. What was or is the most important way in which your reading of Dyczkowski and others on Kashmir Shaivism gave you new ‘answers’ or a new life-perspective? What lead you to go more in the direction of Abhinava than, say, Blake?
3. How would you formulate the most important unanswered questions raised by your studies both of Kashmir Shaivism and of ‘The New Yoga’?

Such questions are important in another way too, since for a teacher, an important ‘test’ of a student is the depth of the questions they are able to distil and formulate from both their lives and studies.

Finally, some remarks that come from questioning the meaning of your life account in the futural context of our possible encounter - and what I can offer you. Knowing my own long history as (a) a ‘shapeshifter’, and (b) someone who has a long history of use my eyes to shape-shift, as well as using eye-contact as a way of deepening awareness in others (though in a manner I see as very different from that of Gestalt therapists), I could not help but note the significance in your life of men such as Terry and Bob King - not to mention Berryman and others in your father’s ‘circle’. Out of this came a sense of not wanting to ‘step into the shoes’ of these other significant men in your life, or become just one more such man for you – however different - but instead work with you in the tantric spirit of the mantram I quoted earlier – allowing you to experience and enjoy the purity and power of that Self which IS Awareness - an awareness that both safely embraces and at the same time wholly transcends every aspect of our personal history, identity and experiencing in this life - however fraught, complex, knotted or traumatic.

Whilst I claim the sophisticated knowledge and advanced skills of an ‘Acharya’, I claim no superiority over anyone. For I recognise how long it took me – despite my knowledge and skills - to overcome the intellectual defences which stood in the way of acknowledging and fully experiencing that seemingly all-too-pious and simplistic truth - namely that the Divine Awareness (Anuttara) is indeed the great ‘father’ and ‘mother’ of us all - upon which we can all call, within which we dwell, and of which we are all both a unique portion and the entire whole - each a god (dev) and each God (Mahadev).

As for the general question of ‘Gurus’, I understand this through another Trika or threefold – that of identity.

1. Intra- and inter-personal identities and the roles that go with them
2. Social or ‘in-group’ identifications and roles.
3. Spiritual identity – the divine awareness self.

The jiva is a compound of personal identities and roles and ‘in-group’ identities and roles. Guru-hood has to do with the realisation of spiritual identity – Shivattva. This may be expressed or embodied to one degree or another through a particular in-group role or inter-personal identity. Yet if the spiritual identity of the Guru is reduced to or identified with such a role or personal identity, it either loses its authenticity - or remains unseen by others. For everything a ‘Sat Guru’ or ‘true guru’ say and does, and every way they present themselves is in some way an act. Yet it is no mere pretence, for like the performance of an actor its makes use of genuine elements of their social and personal identity. Others however, see only the acted identity and role of the Guru – the role or part they are acting for others. The Guru alone knows the acting self. Thus the Guru’s most intimate companion is the Self and God that he alone knows himself - in deepest intimacy with it - to be.

Guru’s every act is also an intimate act or act of intimacy - stemming from blissful intimacy (‘non-duality’) with the Divine - in a way that is enhanced through Murti Darshan, enjoyed as Maithuna - and imparted through Diksha.

Shiv-Aham

Peter

PS You are absolutely right about Andrew being a great companion – all the more pity that we cannot enjoy our companionship more fully, living as he does in Australia. Yet he has followed and fully absorbed himself in meditating my work since we met in 1975 and So I am very happy that you have read his Awareness Diary – have you also looked at the ‘Andrew-Peter Dialogues’, a record of some of our correspondence over recent years

Dear Peter

I'm answering with the "reply" mode because I'm not sure how to actually WRITE your e-mail address (I'll ask my son about that when I see him) and I believe this one will get through. I prefer this e-mail address to facebook, where I'm running into difficulties. I'm under a time constraint; I'm leaving for Aberdeen, WA tomorrow night, and realize as usual that a big part of these visits is my attempt to resolve something with my 2nd wife, which I'm sure goes all the way back to the loss of the baby I mentioned.

Now: "Heaviness" indeed. I've never had anyone zero in on that like you did. I was conscious of the heaviness you mentioned while I was writing. I mean, how many times have I told one or another variant of that story; including this, leaving out that, and to what use? And yet it was important to me to give at least some of the flavor of it; I wanted just to get it done. In particular, your tying that sense of heaviness with the weightlifting obsession was on the money. My dad got me my first little set of dumbells when I was around 6: and I spent the rest of my life trying to overcome the "heaviness" of his constant barrage of ridicule and contempt through the "metaphorical" activity of lifting weights. And (your question1) The question raised by my story (for me) can best be said as "Am I worthy?" At gut level I don't think my father had much respect for himself. I could see his "libido" always going out to "the other:" The athletic heroes, the intellectual heroes. etc. And, given his constant mantra of contempt for me, I felt doubly estranged from the object of "worship" as defined by him. And Bob King noted, in gestalt language, that I had a "demonic judge."
How I got from Blake etc. to Dyczkowski and Kashmir Shaivism (question 2): I mentioned that I had a feeling for nature, from childhood. I could ENJOY natural forms, while still carrying the doubt that my own body "as viewed from outside" was itself respectable. The qualities I liked in Blake and Traherne were described as both "pantheistic" and "neoplatonic." I enjoyed meditating on their writings. Here's one from Thomas Traherne that I discovered shortly after the Terry Grant fiasco: "You never enjoy the world aright , till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are Clothed with the Heavens, and Crowned with the stars: and Perceiv your self to be the Sole Heir of the whole World: and more so, because Men are in it who are every one sole Heirs, as well as you." And so I wondered, can I really be such a self, and how can I shed this cumulative weight (hence my love for the archetype of Hercules. Incidentally "Glycon", my e-mail address, was a Greek sculptor who created the statue of The Farnese Hercules). Later I related Traherne and Blake to some of the writings of Owen Barfield on Steiner, such as "participation". When I found Dyczkowski's Doctrine of Vibration I found an even clearer description of experiences, described in new language, of the overcoming of "anavamala" and was instantly a fan. This led to a new problem, which also involves a recapitulation of the old one, your question 3, on unanswered questions raised: An unanswered question for me is, Is there really a "method?" This has preoccupied me. The method of Zen doesn't seem to allow me much room for my undeniable "pantheistic enjoyment" and my frustration with the chanting is another good instance of a practice that doesn't give me much payoff.I wonder, what did Abhinavaguipta and his followers actually DO in their time, and how can the spirit of it be reenacted now. In Muller-Ortega's Triadic Heart of Siva I found hints about experiences of knowing/enjoying the Self. Notions of the Heart as cave, matsyodara, etc. Near the end, Muller-Ortega quotes Abhinavagupta on practices such as "the kissing pose," the "full pot,' and other only slightly less obscure (to me) ideas like Khecarimudra and Bhiaravimudra. I believe in their authenticity, but don't know them directly.
Finally, I don't want you to step into the shoes of these other men whom I described as significant at various times. You have already affirmed for me the value I always felt in "idol-worship" (in your comments about Puja). I can see you are a shapeshifter, having watched a brief video on the Awarweness Principle. I saw that trait in a short video of Da Free John (then he was "Bubba"), as well as in Terry Grant, and Terry bothered me because I didn't trust him. I feel you are easily the best transmitter of the essence of Abhinavagupta I have found, or will find. This is what seems most important to me.
When I get out to Washington I may try to add to this; there's always more. But I'm relieved to get that "story" out of my system. Thanks for listening, for seeing into it. Or I should say thank you for "meditating" what I wrote. My dad would call your letter an amazing "performance." What I would say: camatkara.

Steven Thomes

Dear Steven,

Just a few comments in response to the general question of 'method' and your more specific question. "What did Abhinavagupta and his followers actually DO in their time, and how can the spirit of it be re-enacted?"

I know only what I do, and yet I understand all the methodically laid out Principles and Practices of Awareness that make up 'The New Yoga' as the re-enactment of that 'spirit'. This is because of a deep resonance between the understandings my own methods have led me to and the language of the Kashmiri Shaivist tantras. It is this resonance that has enabled me to understand the terminology of the tantras in new ways - for example to clearly and precisely spell out in new ways what constitutes the essence of those practices or 'methods' which went by the name of Khecharimudra and Bhairavamudra.

Then again, the entire 'spirit' of my work - like that of Abhinavagupta in his time - arises from awareness of an urgent need to present new and clearer understandings of different traditions, and to do so, as Abhinava and his kula did - both from within the language of the diverse traditions that converged to make up the culture of their times, and as part of a dialogue with those traditions - one that sought a deeper interpretation and clarification of both their languages and practices.

Given that the texts of the Kashmir Shaivist tantras emerged as texts, within a very special geographical and cultural con-text (and at a very specific historical point of conjunction between different religious-philosophical traditions and world-views) to re-enact this element of the spirit of Abhinavagupta is a far greater challenge in our times than it was in his. For 'times have changed', and the cultural context is now a global one embracing a vastly greater diversity both of cultures themselves, and of different religious and philosophical world-views - not least the dominant 'scientific' world view (one that only began to take philosophical shape in the 17th century). What Abhinava would have seen merely as 'barbarians' beyond the fringes of his culture and beyond the pale of his refined awareness - living from the most primitive of religious conceptions, have found their own sophisticated ways by which to effectively rule the day - marginalising both religion and philosophy and replacing them both with the new religion of 'science' (see my book 'The Science Delusion').

A basic hermeneutic principle - no texts or practices can ever give full expression to their own personal, inter-personal, spiritual, social or cultural-historical context of emergence. Nor can we transplant ourselves back into that context. What we can do is to seek to return to and re-address the central questions that Eastern texts and practices - indeed all spiritual traditions - emerged as a response to. How we do this is important, for we must recognise the same central questions - for example the nature of 'consciousness', its relation to matter or to Being and to individual beings, not to mention the nature of 'knowing', 'will', 'freedom', 'God' etc.etc. have since been raised and addressed in countless new ways in Western thought.

That is why when people retreat into the safety - or the safe ambiguity and 'mystery' - of old and highly complex esoteric texts and terminologies, whether Eastern or Western, Shaivist or Buddhist, Vedic or Tantric, they are failing the challenge of the day, which is to find new ways of understanding, articulating and communicating the powerful truths buried in those texts and terminologies - ways which not only those interested in or learned in those text can see the relevance of - both for themselves and for the world as a whole. What we need is "Tantric Wisdom for Today's World", not an attempt to retreat from that world into the culture and philosophy of an earlier age, but to reinvigorate that culture and philosophy by its reinterpretation in terms clearly understandable and relevant to the lives of every single person on this planet.

Just as you posed the question "What did Abhinavagupta DO...", so today, many people all over the world are asking themselves the question: what (if anything at all) can we DO to 'save the world' - including the natural world. Here it is worth recalling another basic question addressed in the Gita above all, but also taken up by Abhinavacharya - the relation of knowledge and awareness on the one hand, to 'doing' or 'action' on the other.

Abhinavagupta:

"It is important to emphasise that knowledge and action are not equal and therefore cannot be placed on the same level. On the path of liberation, knowledge plays a dominant role."

Yet on the other hand he writes: "If one who has already attained perfection would not perform any act, then chaos would prevail in society."

I resolve this apparent contradiction through the principle that no form of personal, social or political action can prevent the world falling into chaos, except action designed solely and purely to cultivate awareness.

That is because all the ills of the world arise from ignorance and lack of awareness - from unaware action. That is not to say individuals and groups can and should not act to overcome basic ignorance, impart deeper knowledge, and use the dissemination of information and knowledge to 'raise awareness' of specific problems - individual, inter-persona, social, regional or global. Yet the ultimate solution to those problems lies not in any form of action but in the knowledge and cultivation of a higher awareness in humanity - awareness as such and not simply awareness of. Hence the two-step methodology of my Foundation Meditation - from giving ourselves time to be more aware, and aware of more that is going around and within us - time to 'Be Aware' - to a second phase of practice which I call 'Being Awareness' - identifying not with any of the things we are pleasantly or painfully aware of but rather with the pure awareness of them, something we can in turn learn to experience as divine Bliss.

Is it an accident that this single term of mine - 'Being Awareness' - though not drawn from the tantras - turns out to be a literal translation of the first two syllables of that central Sanskrit-philosophical term - Sat-Chit-Ananda. Yet by placing it in a different philosophical and methodological context (that of today's world and of 'The New Yoga') it is imbued with a 'new' and different meaning, albeit one that is 'new' in a very special sense - that of perhaps being more basic and primordial - and in this way even 'older' and 'earlier' - than both past and present interpretations of it!

In a word then, I am claiming (as Utpaladeva did with Pratyabhijna and Abhinava did with Trika) that a newly refined and clarified 'method' is available for you and others to methodically study and apply (alone and/or with my help) through The New Yoga of Awareness - and that I myself am always available to answer questions relating to any of the specific principles and practices this method embraces - or any difficulties encountered in applying it. Consequently, I would be most interested to know what you have made of the reading you have done so far of my essays, books and partially completed 'manual' of The New Yoga - and whether you have experimented with any of the meditational exercises described in them. Throughout my writing or description of this method, I have sought to relate the different elements of it to the language of the tantras, and in this way to illuminate that language.

Yet were I to have exclusively employed this language - ignoring the history of humanity and human thinking since the 10th century - there is no way I myself could have 'applied' the foundational principle of the method - The Awareness Principle - to a whole range of new areas of knowledge ranging from politics and economics, to modern physics and biology, not to mention medicine, counselling and psychology. Nor is there any way I could have introduced the principles and practices of this method to counsellors and therapists, or used its basic principles to outline the theoretical foundations of what I term 'Awareness Based Cognitive Therapy' and 'Awareness Based Medicine'.

That is why, when I encounter students or read renowned teachers of Trika Shaivism, Buddhism or any tradition-rooted or 'New Age' spiritual philosophy the first question I am tempted to ask is - what does your 'higher' spiritual teaching and knowledge have to say about the deeper meaning of anything from Marxism to monetarism, the Iraq war or a global economic crisis, the nature of human relationships or the specific meaning of a particular individual's 'cancer' or 'schizophrenia'?

It is no accident that Abhinavagupta also had so much to say about other subjects besides the tantras - in his case aesthetics, poetry and drama, or that he was familiar with the works of other writers on these subjects. Yet I know of not a single recent spiritual teacher - besides Rudolf Steiner - with any deep knowledge of areas of human life such as education, the sciences or economics, let alone what is most important - deep historical knowledge of these 'subjects' and their languages.

That is telling. For without profound historical knowledge and awareness - of the sort Abhinavagupta and all other great thinkers, teachers and initiates both respected and possessed - new means to revelatory knowledge and awareness can neither be refined nor expressed.

Peter

PS It would be great if you would allow me to anonymously quote your questions about 'method' on my website bulletin board - so that I can post up part of this response to those questions and thereby share them with others. Is that OK with you?

Dear Peter

I just got back from Washington this a.m., and immediately read your letter. I'll send you something as soon as I get organized; I've been thinking about how the Awareness Principle relates to things I've been considering since the 70's. You can use anything I've sent you.
I've been thinking about the practice of pair meditation you described; it seems the choice of "partner" would be important. Thanks for writing.

Steve

Dear Peter

While in WA I kept visualizing the keyhole symbol. I would like some way of realizing the identity of the skin of the "invagination" of the bounded ego with the skin of the balloon as a whole; the soma psychikos and the soma pneumatikos. Could you possibly expand on this?

I thought of some applications of the Awareness Principle to what I have been reading for a long while. When I lived in Seattle circa 1978 I found a book in the library by Giovanni Gentile called Theory of Mind As Pure Act. I was fascinated and copied the whole thing. Gentile talked about the philosophical problem of the principle of "thought thought", exemplified in the Platonic ideas (one example), vs. what he called the cornerstone of his philosophy, the notion of "thought thinking." Because the Platonic ideas are conceived of as finished, complete, they are also "dead" and so the problem of nature (spanda?) remained unsolved. I thought of Gentile when you mentioned Aristotle's placement of actuality before energy. The flaw Gentile saw in preceding systems reminded me of your descriptions of the assumption of the Being Principle in religion, science, New Age thought.

I thought of the koan "mu." I have a nice talk on it by Joshu Sasaki Roshi. The "solution" of the koan seems to be just that; the experience of the primacy of the Awareness Principle, as Gentile would say, as Pure Act.

I would as I said like some instruction in the attainment of khecari-mudra. It seems that "moving in the void" or "moving in the heart" as described in some books I've read, entails an affinity or identity of awareness (I-consciousness?) with space.

Would you recommend I look on Amazon for the book by Padoux. I think you said it was called "Vac." I always found mantra to be one of the more difficult subjects in the many books on Kashmir Saivism.

Always grateful for your insights.

Steve

Dear Steven,

Nice to hear from you again. Will keep this fairly brief - but I hope substantial enough -since I myself will soon be away on a brief 4-day trip to Germany.

You asked me to expand on "realizing the identity of the skin of the 'invagination' of the bounded ego with the skin of the balloon as a whole; the soma psychikos and the soma pneumatikos." You also requested "some instruction in the attainment of khecari-mudra" adding that "It seems that "moving in the void" or "moving in the heart" as described in some books I've read, entails an affinity or identity of awareness (I-consciousness?) with space."

And indeed it is that experienced sense of identity with empty space - not as mere emptiness but as a space of pure awareness - that is central to my understanding and experience of khechari mudra.
This is what I spell out both in the specific sections on akasha yoga and khechari mudra in my book 'The Awareness Principle', as well as in Part 2 of the Manual of The New Yoga on the site - 'The New Yoga of Space' - as well as in many other pieces on The New Yoga. For there is way in which its foundational principle - The Awareness Principle - is nothing but a clarification of the significance of khechari mudra in new terms, built as it is on a basic understanding that the relation between awareness as such (pure awareness or chit) and anything we are aware of (ie any and all contents of consciousness or chitti) can best be understood - and most easily experienced on the physical plane as a the relation between empty space and its contents - including our own bodies.

This brings us back to your question about the keyhole yantra - for indeed it is the same question. For what is significant about that diagram is that the line marking out the invagination or phallic protrusion (lingam) that I termed the soma psychikos is absolutely contiguous with the line that marks out the larger 'sphere' or soma pneumatikos.

Put in simple terms, the importance and whole point of khechari mudra as I understand it, is that it is a means to overcome the ingrained idea and experience of the 'self' as something bounded and encapsulated by and within our own skins. We can do so precisely by identifying with our skins ie. by bringing our awareness to our sensed body surface or skin, from which in turn we can begin to more fully sense and identify with both the vast space around our bodies and our felt inwardness - ultimately experiencing them as a singular space of awareness. The simple philosophical principle behind this practice is that a boundary is not itself anything bounded. Thus by becoming own skin boundary we cease to experience ourselves as bounded by it - as skin-encapsulated and bounded selves - and can instead experience a different 'self', that self which is nothing but a clear, singular and infinite space of pure awareness.

Visualising and understanding this principle and practice of khechari mudra in terms of the keyhole yantra, it is by fully identifying with that portion of it marked out as the invaginated boundary line of the soma psychikos - ie the flesh as skin or sarx - we begin to experience the larger skin or 'tissue capsule' of the soma pneumatikos with which it is wholly contiguous - a 'skin' that embraces the entirety of cosmic space. A tangible sense arises of cosmic space of as a vast sphere or womb of pure awareness surrounding our bodies. Along with this goes a sense of our skin as a wholly porous or translucent membrane - one through which we can literally feel ourselves breathing - through its every pore - the innate vitality of pure awareness that surrounds us as space. This sense of breathing in pure awareness through our entire body surface or skin - by becoming that surface and using it to sense and identify with the vastness of cosmic space around it - this in turn intensifies our sense of the 'inner spaces' of our body, including those empty spaces that make up the most part of every atom, molecule and cell of the soma physikos. Our 'physical' bodies begin to feel invigorated and recharged with the innate vitality or Shakti of pure awareness, its vital air or aether. At the same time any psychical contents of consciousness bounded by the soma psychikos diminish into insignificance by virtue of feeling the psychic interiority of our bodies too, as a totally clear space of awareness - one completely pervaded by the clear aether of cosmic space. Both body and soul, soma and psyche feel pervaded by the refreshing vitality of pure awareness experienced as cosmic space.

To sum up, by identifying with our fleshly boundary, with 'the flesh' as sarx ('skin') rather than as soma ('corpse') we cease to be identified with either soma, psyche or the soma psychikos - and instead experience 'spirit' or pneuma as an all-pervading and vitalising aether or 'higher air' of awareness - that very 'aether' which, along with space, is the other meaning of akash. But again - I would refer you to the relevant sections on akasha and khechari in The Awareness Principle' - a new expanded edition of which (270 pages) is, by the way now available from www.amazon.com

As for the practice of pair meditation, of course the choice of partner would indeed be very important. Someone with some experience of 'bodywork' therapies might be a good choice. Then again, both as regards this and the nature and experience of khechari mudra, you might still like to consider a visit here - however short in terms of number of days. For this might help 'set you up' for further practice with a partner as well as offering a sort of experiential template by which to gauge future experiments in practicing pair meditation with others. Not least, it would also provide more direct, effective and faster means of both talking through the sort of questions that come up in the course of your reading - and getting to their experiential heart.

Some further but very practical 'tips' relating to both the practice of khechari mudra and experiencing the reality represented by the keyhole yantra It can help to begin by seating yourself on a normal chair with your feet firmly placed on the ground, and then feeling your body surface not as something separate from but merging into and contiguous with the floor surface beneath your feet - thereby also with the walls and ceiling of the room in which you are sitting. In other words a starting point in experiencing the yantra is to feel the boundary surfaces of the room you are sitting in as the larger body that is 'soma-pneumatikos'. The next state is to imagine a cosmic bounding sphere or 'circumference at infinity' surrounding you - with a point within you as its 'centre at infinity', sensing and feeling you are breathing in the space it bounds with and through your skin and into that inward point at infinity - my understanding and experience of the 'heart' of awareness, felt in the midst of the diaphagm as a rising flame.

I was intrigued by the connection you made with Giovanni Gentile, since in retrospect I myself understand his work as an appreciation of the dynamic essence of 'being' as 'be-ing' - the continuous and active manifestation, actualisation or coming to be of all that is actual from the divine-universal awareness that is Shiv, thus allowing us, from a tantric perspective, to understand pure awareness itself - in its Shakta dimension -as nothing but pure action.

On another point, terms such as 'I-consciousness' reveal an inherent ambiguity in the language and basic terms of the tantras - ambiguities which raise questions of a sort that even great scholars of the tantras such as Mark Dyczkowski tend not see - simply by virtue of lacking a training in pure philosophy. Does the expression 'I-consciousness' for example, mean consciousness of an 'I', consciousness refected in an 'I', or consciousness belonging to, owned or possessed by an 'I'? These are not trivial question but absolutely fundamental ones - for unless they are answered they leave the most basic terms of the tantras open to wholly different or indeed quite opposite interpretations. It is my understanding that such ambiguities in the language and terms of the tantras cannot be clarified except in new terms that transcend that language - for example through the understanding that the awareness or 'consciousness' of any self or 'I', cannot, in principle be the property of any self or 'I' we are directly or reflectively aware of. This is a clear and unambiguous precept of The Awareness Principle. It is for this reason that I see The Awareness Principle itself as both embracing, explicating and superseding the language of the Trika tantras - in just the same way that Utpaladeva and Abhinava saw the Pratyabhijna and Trika philosophies as not only affirming and embracing but also superseding earlier schools of tantric thought - doing so precisely by virtue of a new and original explication of them. And it is my general belief that only be readdressing in new and clearer terms the basic philosophical questions from and out of which different spiritual traditions and teachings first arose that the truths guarded by these traditions can be properly understood and their teachings genuinely renewed. No amount of deep and detailed scholarship alone, nor even the attempt to revive traditional practices can serve this purpose - since such practices ignore the questions still concealed in the terms and language of the tradition - questions of the sort you raise when you inquire about such basic terms as 'khechari mudra' or ask what such commonly used phrases such as 'I-consciousness' actually mean or are equivalent to. We need great scholars like Muller-Ortega, and we need scholar-practitioners like Mark D. But we also need philosopher-practitioners - which is was Utpaladeva, Somananda and Abhinavagupta also were.

best wishes,

Peter

Dear Peter

After my last letter I thought of:
1) a comment by Rudolf Steiner in an essay on Nicolas of Cusa: my "I" is the organ, the form, through which things declare themselves with regard to themselves. This reminded me of the activity of the Actual Subject of Gentile 2) a discussion of the concept of zero in Sacred Geometry by Robert Lawlor. He relates zero to the movement in Buddhism and Hinduism wherein "the goal became cessation of all movement, nothingness;" which Lawlor says arose around the same historical time as the advent of the mathematical idea of zero. It is pointed out that there is no zero in Pythagorean science. My own associations to the idea of zero, the void, do seem to be a barrier to comprehending/experiencing space-like awareness in the way of khecari-mudra, that is not as "an emptiness" or zero. It was in meditating on the words I encountered in Kashmir Saivism such as spanda, enjoyment- liberation, pratyabjjna, shakti, that I first began to wonder what Dyczkowski might mean by "freedom to" in contrast to "freedom from."

My son Jordan, age 30, is currently reading The Hermetic Tradition by Julius Evola. He gives me permission to announce that he has read most if not all of Evola's available books in English, and that he is practically a DISCIPLE, even favoring Evola's political notions as in Revolt Against The Modern World. We had an interesting talk about how I had emotional reactions to Obama's victory that he didn't, because of being raised around a lot of Minnesota democrats...., my dad and his colleagues. This background also makes me less receptive to the "elitist" ideas of Evola. Incidentally I also read that Gentile had right-wing associations, as did Schwaller.

The next subject that came up in the conversation was my desire to go to England to meet with you. My son was totally encouraging. I had admitted to him that there was an "inner voice" which I recognized as my father's, trying to tell me that there was something grandiose and foolish about me wanting to do this. Like, who was I to think that I was so "special" that I was entitled to such audacity. I told Jordan that when I think of it as an attempt to learn something Of VALUE, that I might also convey something of interest and even possibly do good to people close to me (my two sons, my girlfriend, and a small number of others) I can see the venture as a reasonable idea. This is is how I want to see it. Some time in the next couple of months, maybe you could tell me how to get from the London airport to your location. I'll look into getting a passport.
I sent for The Awareness Principle from Amazon; it wasn't clear to me whether it was the revised version. I should know within the next 2 days. Thank you for your extremely thorough answers to my latest questions. I read your letter several times; am pondering the idea that "by identifying with our skin boundary we can cease to experience being bounded BY it."

Thanks again,

Steve

Dear Steve,

As for you visit being "an attempt to learn something Of VALUE, that I might also convey something of interest and even possibly do good to people close to me (my two sons, my girlfriend, and a small number of others) I can see the venture as a reasonable idea" my feeling is - exactly so, and well put.

I would only add that ours is a culture in which 'greatness' - the greatness in and of each of us,connected with the awesome nature of the divine and with our own 'great soul' or Mahatma - and not just with acknowledgement and respect for great thinkers and teachers - is no longer something valued but instead taken as some form of ridiculous or pompous "grandiosity". To claim or show respect for greatness, whether in oneself or another human being - is just no longer 'politically correct'.

Though the issue of Evola and elitism is too complex and important a one to go into in detail here - I believe this to be one of many valid aspects of his 'Revolt Against the Modern World'.
At any rate, I would find it most heartening if my son were to have studied Evola with devotion rather than the sort of sterile English academic philosophy! And right now I am looking forward to revisiting and reformulating my own writings on politics, which seek to overcome what I see as a false opposition between Marxism, Evola's 'Traditionalism' and the German 'right-wing' notion of 'Conservation Revolution' - the latter being something your son might find of interest, as well as my essay of mine on 'Theocratic Socialism'.

"I read your letter several times; am pondering the idea that 'by identifying with our skin boundary we can cease to experience being bounded BY it.'"

My feelings about this line of letter are dual: on the one hand a liking and sense respect for your thoughtful nature ("pondering" being a favourite word of mine!) and, on the other hand a wish that through your visit you will come away with a heightened sense of the difference between "pondering the idea" behind a meditative practice – in this case identifying with your skin boundary - and taking time to experimentally engage in that practice and in this way coming to a living, bodily experience of the idea behind it.

"My own associations to the idea of zero, the void, do seem to be a barrier to comprehending/experiencing space-like awareness in the way of khecari-mudra, that is not as "an emptiness" or zero."

My response to this line is not unconnected with what I wrote above – which could also be formulated in terms of a distinction between "comprehending" and "experiencing". I am not saying they can be separated - yet experiencing is at the same time a very distinct and much deeper form of comprehension. I
therefore found it significant that you typed "comprehending/experience" - for it is the very nature of the stroke in "comprehending-stroke-experiencing" that I see as going to the heart of what you could learn through coming here.

Aside from this remark, I do sense and respect a valid question regarding behind that last line of yours I quoted. Again my response is twofold. On the one hand I feel called upon to emphasise again that my understanding and experience of khechari mudra IS very much an experience of "emptiness" - an experience of pure awareness AS the void of empty space (and vice versa). On the other hand, I think that in my last letter I also alluded to an aspect of space more related to an earlier phrase in your letter - the "cessation of all movement". What I referred to was what Steiner understood as an infinitely distant centre or 'inwardness' of space as well as an infinitely distant circumference or outwardness (what the Steinerians call counter-space). I associate this with the experience of an (infinitely distant) centre of awareness in the lower abdomen, both behind and below the navel. It is what the Japanese call the 'tanden' at the centre of the abdomen or 'hara' - and experience, as I do, as helpful in feeling for and finding a 'zero-point' of absolute non-action within oneself.

Yet non-action too is not nothingness, just as nothingness itself is not 'non-being' or vice versa. This turns the tanden or 'zero-point' of absolute non-action into a point of power - the cessation of all movement and manifestation, and the abandonment of the 'will to will' being that alone which releases the infinite potentialities or powers action (Shaktis) latent in pure, non-active or 'quiescent awareness'.

On a personal note, I know of a local 'strong man' competitor and weight lifter whom I have often offered to train in using this zero-point that can be felt lower abdomen or hara as a spiritual source of enhanced physical strength. Whenever the Olympics come one my favourite viewing sport, without any doubt, is weight-lifting. For I feel my own hara as an erogenous zone and have an almost erotic sensation in my tanden during those special moments when the lifter is gripping the bar and inwardly bracing themselves for the lift - praying that they are not just 'mentally' preparing themselves in their heads but truly and deeply centering themselves in their point of power in the hara.

This brings me to the subject of reading - I wasn't sure wondering what book, essay or website of mine your references to the soma-psychikos and some-pneumatikos came from. I'm assuming thought, that you've come across my book 'Head, Heart and HARA' on Amazon, and wonder if you've read it - and/or Graf Durkheim's seminal work entitled: 'Hara - the vital centre of man'.
That said, I'm glad you've ordered 'The Awareness Principle'. The new edition of TAP probably went 'live' on Amazon last week and is listed as 270 pages long. If by any chance it turns out you get sent the old, shorter edition Amazon will allow you to return it for free and order the new one. One thing I'm sure of is that more reading you do in specific preparation for our meeting the better. I would also recommend Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts. And though I look forward to your comments and questions on my own book(s) I also feel the time is fast approaching when direct communication rather than even lengthy and time-consuming e-mail communication could serve us both much better.

best wishes

Peter

Dear Peter

Since neither you nor my son seem to find Evola's "elitism" off-putting, it is likely that I misunderstood it, maybe by assuming that the "elite" are all about "power over" rather that "power of." I didn't read Revolt Against The Modern World with anything like the attention I applied to The Hermetic Tradition (which was recommended to me by Christopher Bamford of Steinerbooks).

I think I left out a key word in my comments about Dyczkowski's critique of the Vedantic/Buddhist notions, as he described them; that would be "just" or only" (voidness or emptiness). As I remember Dyczkowski said that the concept of an "inactive absolute" would seem to deprive Siva of his Sakti in order to establish the reality of Brahman as opposed to the unreality of manifestation. And I got the soma-psychikos/pneumatikos terminology from your site about the New Gnosis.

Since age 7 I have had occasional experiences of a center which seems to be a little above the hara. When I described this to Bob King during one of our meetings, he said he believed it was "the void." He was interested in the subject of Shiva; in the late 70's neither of us had access to much of the information that I started finding after 1990.

I've been repeatedly reading the "36 Original Precepts" and will try to get the revised book from Amazon soon.

Thanks a lot,

Steve

Dear Peter

Recently read with much interest some writings of yours I found on the internet about Goethe vs. Newton on color, and Steiner on "spiritual beings," both subjects I've been reading about for a few years (including The Wholeness of Nature by H. Bortoft). Also, Since I encountered your views about space and awareness I've been taking regular hikes into the wooded area near my girlfriend's house in Inver Grove Heights, a sparsely settled suburb near here. Actually this is something I find I prefer to cross-legged meditation. I look forward to hearing from you.

Steve

Dear Peter

To recap, I enjoy the whole area of Kashmir Shaivism in theory and so far in a limited way in practice. What I would like: To be able to say "Sivoham" and mean it. To know that I am Siva and also an expression of Siva. I'm interested in the application of the Keyhole Symbol. The invagination of the balloon as one with the entire skin of the balloon. Presumably this concept is connected in some way to certain practices. I've been interested to learn that there may be ways to experience the self as not bounded by the skin, and that this relates to identifying with space/awareness. To learn the practice of khecarimudra ( a way of saying the same thing?) which I know about conceptually entirely from your writings and from the original writers (Abhinavagupta, Utpaladeva).

The boundary for me between study of philosophy for the pure enjoyment of it, and the idea of therapy or self-improvement is not clear-cut. I don't know how you distinguish these aspects in your teaching. I tried to give you a picture of how I came to experience certain doubts, hangups etc., in my "heavy" biographical sketch, which was necessarily edited and compressed. I'm not hoping to solve my problems "on their own level." These include as I see it, addictions and obsessions, with lack of awareness. One point I made earlier and I want to say it again. Whereas I find my memories of my parents and childhood a source of bondage and inhibitory influences which I've spent a lifetime struggling to "undo", my relationships with my two sons are antithetical to this. Both of them appear to me to be angelic beings. Therefore anything I can do to make myself less of a problem would appeal to me as a way I can "give something back" to the two of them. From this angle it matters not whether I obtain something of value out of desire for enhanced enjoyment or to "fix" myself, so long as something might rub off on them.

What I've read and not read: I have not read the Seth material except for what you've mentioned in several articles, and I haven't read Head Heart and Hara (I'm interested in it though). I haven't delved into your writings on Marxism and whatever relates to it. I continually read and reread your writings on the internet, everything I can find on The New Gnosis and Tantra. This is ongoing. I ordered both editions of TAP and have read them repeatedly. I also like Andrew Gara's writings on everything from quantum physics to walking meditation.

My doubts and fears: I have doubt about whether I can move from the verbal-conceptual notion of the primary distinction between a thought or feeling and the awareness of it, to the actual experience of the distinction. My experience has always been one of being "carried away" by the thought or feeling. I'm anxious about traveling in general, which I'm sure relates to the stories I told you about childhood displacements and sense of being "cast out." Wish it wasn't true. I always wanted a "home" but found it elusive. Regardless, I want to approach this discussion without undue emphasis on my own uniqueness.

Steve

Dear Steven,

Good to hear that your trip plans are underway, passport and all. As regards timing and other matters there are a few considerations I need to share with you, as I do with all students visiting from abroad.

1. My days and weeks are governed by a strongly time-conscious schedule in terms of my own study, meditation and on-going writing and publishing work, as well as work with other students that I see here on a more or less regular basis.

2. In general, given the highly individualised nature of my teaching, even if I am only committed to a single morning or afternoon session with someone, I suspend all other activities and devote the entire day to meditating that session - and that individual - both before and after working with them. If someone visits from overseas (which may be for several days or weeks) I do the same - suspending all writing and other activities, including sessions with other students, in order to devote my entire awareness to that one individual - both during and between meetings with them. I also make copious notes, both mental and written, of things that come into my awareness - again, both during and between sessions. I also request feedback, in advance of each session, based on their own written notes and questions, and might recommend specific reading (this is why it is also always of help to me to know exactly which of my essays, from whatever website or book, old or new, a student has read).

3. The average session length of my 'darshan' with individuals can be anything from 4to 6 hours. In other words, my work is highly intensive. Since I see my work as a gift to others of my time and awareness I do not make a formal charge, and certainly not an hourly one. For given the time that goes into my work, were I to 'sell' what I give in this market-priced way I would have to charge hundreds of dollars an hour. Some teachers do this. I do not. Instead I request a donational gift of money from them that is in some way commensurate with the amount and quality of time and awareness I gift to them, as well as, of course, with their ability to pay and the sacrifice of time from my own principal earnings-related activities. This usually results in me effectively receiving an hourly rate well less than that of a shop assistant, let alone a professional counsellor, therapist or self-marketed 'spiritual teacher': for example 75 to 100 British pounds for a four-to-six hour sessions - including the many hours spent meditating that session. Yet this is less important for me than not cheapening my work on a qualitative level - for example by imposing artificial time limits on sessions or reducing them to the level of ad hoc, casual or informal discussions.

Given these considerations however, it would be very important for me to have the exact timing of your visit and the number of days you would like to see me firmly established in advance. It would also be helpful if you could find time to meditate and formulate in advance the areas of interest, questions and potential outcomes that are most important to you - since there are of course so many areas we could discuss and so many different forms of New Yoga meditation I could introduce you to. And if there are any questions you have around these considerations, do let me know. I would also be happy - and it would no doubt be a good idea for us - to arrange by e-mail a specific, mutually convenient time to speak together on the phone and discuss your visit in advance. Alternatively, you could just let me know by e-mail which times of the day/week are generally most suitable for me to phone you.

Looking forward to hearing from and speaking with you - and to meeting you.

Peter

Dear Peter

This a.m. before a morning walk I read some fantastic stuff by Andrew Gara on lucid dreaming and lucid waking, and remembered that somewhere you wrote something like "awareness alone is freedom." It was a nice walk, cold as it it was. I've been reading your dialogues with Andrew about Siva, Sakti, Seth, and creation.

I want you to know that I've restrained myself (with difficulty) from sending you some things I've been putting down over the last 2 weeks or so. The nucleus is "anavamala" (why I like Kashmir Shaivism; words like that). I want to save this for our first interview, or for your consideration afterwards, rather than send it now.

Steve

Dear Steve,

Thanks for 'checking in'. Glad too, that you are enjoying the reading and feeling inspired to write. You mentioned my dialogues with Andrew on Siva, Sakti, Seth and Creation - Did you also take a look at the new articles referred to in those dialogues - Awareness, Paramshiva and 'The Dreaming' and also my essay on Dyczkowski's article Self Awareness, Own Being and Egoity. Both are now on the Archive page of the site but the first was initially put up on the site's 'bulletin board' - which you might wish to subscribe to (maybe you've hit on the board already, but if not, the link to it is at the very bottom of the site's homepage).

Currently I am writing another new and important piece - on similar themes but from a rather different angle - This may also first go up on the bulletin board. With regards to your restraint in sending me thoughts you've been putting down, I do respect your wanting to save discussion of them till our first meeting. On the other hand, a principal and very important means of pre-sessional preparation and attunement for me is to re-read and meditate correspondence - in particular someone's latest reflections and questions.

So again, whilst I fully appreciate your desire to reserve discussion of your new thoughts till we meet, might I suggest that you nevertheless do send me what you have written - even if only in the last days before you set off for the UK.

On my part, I would then be quite happy not to pre-empt in writing any discussion
of what you send i.e., not write back to you about it but instead reserve any thoughts on it in awareness till you 'check in' in person.

Looking forward to that!

Peter

Dear Peter:

I look forward to discussing these things, and more, next week during my stay:

1) bodies arise in fields of awareness. So awareness is not the property of or bounded by the body.

2) The heavenly kingdom, or awareness, is the substance of whatever appears.

3) My body is like the imprint in a balloon of a finger protruded (and then withdrawn), representing the congealment of the spirit in space-time.

4) The "kingdom outside," that is what is tangible, like my body, is the entire skin of the balloon ( the heavenly kingdom in turn "surrounds" both outside and inside), and is essentially one with my own "invagination;" The kingdom outside is one with my body.

5) In one of your articles (haven't been able to find it again), when two keyhole symbols representing two "jivas" are placed alongside each other, there are two separate invaginations, yet the inmost part of each keyhole is shown as continuous with the other's inside by a line with arrows showing a flow between a point at the center of each keyhole.

6) The body outside my body (the other invagination or lingam) as part of the skin of my whole balloon (the kingdom outside) suggests the other person's body is an outer part of MY soul (and mine of his), both bodies inseparable yet distinct from the awareness around and within

7) Aristotle on knowledge: He supposedly studied frogs and their development. In the process of understanding what it is to be a frog, Aristotle's mind took on the form of frog soul. In the act of contemplating the perceptible and/or intelligible frog, there is no difference between his thought and its object (Aristotle; The Desire To Understand, Jonathan Lear). So Aristotle saw the real frog. His mind became the essential frog (the frog form), taking it up from its material instantiation; his soul knows a frog by becoming frog. "And the same experience can be described as the self-understanding of the frog form" (Lear). Lear said he dedicated his book to a man who once had an epiphany in which he understood the identity of subject and object, and spent the rest of his life trying to recapture that moment.

The quote about the frog reminds me of this from TAP: "The recognition BY all things of the pure light of awareness as their divine self is at the same time the self-recognition OF that light itself"

8) Two people are facing each other. According to (1), an object comes to presence or be in an awareness space.

9) Each person's body comes to presence within his "own" awareness space, as do the bodies of "others".

10) Anavamala is described as meaning I think I possess my experience (my body), that it is my property, and that I limit myself by this belief.

11) But acc. to Kashmir Shaivism and TAP everything is actually Siva's Shakti, released from the potential "within," essentially subjective yet not the property of a subject.

12) In the true singular awareness, my body as a bounded thing does not makes the other body "truly" separate.

13) Steiner's criticism of Kant and the philosophy that followed him, as I understand was that Kant assumed the thing in itself was unknowable because all we know are our own experiences (criticized by Steiner along with the scientific account of how perception happens).
The assumption that my awareness is contained by my skin is refuted by TAP.

14) Yet In the article "The Manifold Bodies of The Soul" ( which I may not have understood) it seems to say that I as an individual soul/body do not see the other's "true" body as what he materializes out of his awareness space, but instead a phantom body that I materialize out of mine.

15) This seems to throw me back into anavamala. Into the idea that I AM a separate body and can't "be" more than that.Yet the idea that the kingdom outside is one with the kingdom inside seems to suggest a perspective of freedom from the belief that my being is limited to my "own, separate" body, as does Lear's description of the soul "becoming" the object of knowledge.

16) Is there a change in experiencing other bodies that comes with liberation? Do I now see them inaccurately or indirectly, that is not as Aristotle could supposedly see a frog, in its true reality? If liberation means I no longer experience my self as bounded by my skin.... what happens THEN to the experience of distinction between my and other's bodies? Does the distinction between real and phantom bodies depend on the presence of anavamala? Does a liberated being e.g. Abhinavagupta, seeing Siva's Shakti everywhere, see all bodies and all objects as his "own" awareness?

17) I read that Abhinavagupta's answer to somebody' complaining "I have nothing" was the statement "I am everything."

Steve

Dear Peter

Something from Dyczkowski's Siva Sutras: "It is always the "I" which maintains awareness of itself and its projections. The minute "I" forget myself I am lost in "this." Cut off both from my own autonomy and the grace of a higher, more universal level of consciousness, and so no longer awake to myself, I am at the same time no longer awake to the direct experience of reality."

Dear Steve

Thanks for the quotation from Dyczkowski's Siva Sutras - can you let me know which sutra the quote seeks to interpret. For once again, he seems insistent on treating awareness as the property of the 'I' - how else could the 'I' "maintain" it. And whilst I accept that the egoic 'I' does have an important role in maintaining awareness, I continue to insist that awareness of any self or 'I' cannot, in principle be the property or function of that self or 'I'. And whence the fear of awareness getting lost in a 'this' - or a who - when its reflection or recognition in that 'this' or who is what first bestows awareness with its self-recognition as an 'I"?

Dear Peter:

That quote is from his exposition of Sutra 2/10, which Singh translates differently. I can't find anywhere that Dyczkowski defines either 'I' (with quotation marks) or I-consciousness. I think the experience he's describing, and this is only based on reading so much of him and Singh, may be what Singh has down for Stanza 3/12, which Mark calls Stanza 44: "Observing all objective phenomena by knowledge i.e. by external perception, one should always remain awake, and should deposit everything in one place i.e. see everything as identical with Spanda which is our own essential self. Thus, he is never troubled by another" (Dyczkowski has: “by any alien reality”).

Singh also cites Utpaladeva:

O Lord, whence can there be any fear to the eternally happy one in this world filled with his own Self, who in thought free state sees entire objective phenomena as his own form.

Maybe Dyczkowski meant to say: The minute 'I' (the experiencer; the quotes would SEEM to mean "not my empirical ego") forget myself (substitute "Awareness") I am lost in 'this' (substitute ego, experienced self, or some element of my experience).In Doctrine of Vibration Mark says: "the most profoundly satisfying experience possible is the recognition that the light of one's own consciousness is all things."

In my last letter I used the expression "my OWN awareness." I'm trying to use the 1st personal pronoun less, and to remember awareness is not the property of anything I am aware of, such as my experienced self. I've thought a lot about this quote of yours: "Awareness, fully experienced, transcends identity in all its aspects...Every
element of one's personal reality is perceived as a mere lingam or "mark" of the Great Awareness, no more intrinsically meaningful than the ink marks with which words are printed on a page." I have two reactions 1) I want to transcend my identification with my personal story, 2) I enjoy the qualities of the forms I perceive, which I have recently learned from you are forms OF awareness.

Steve

Dear Steve,

Thanks for continuing to focus me on questions of translation. Doing so has made it even clearer to me how important it is to understand that the translator's art does not come from his understanding of the source language alone (in this case Sanskrit) so much as from his awareness of the assumptions concealed in the language (in this case English) into which he translates it.

Given the presence of these assumptions, all inter-language translation, even without commentary, IS interpretation. Indeed the source text itself can be considered as a form of 'intra-lingual' translation - the translation (and thereby also interpretation) of a wordless awareness in words. All particular questions of translation therefore revolve around the question of translation as such.

The second issue your letter raised again is also a very fundamental question of language - namely the use of the 1st person pronoun 'I'.

If you look again at the paragraph of your letter that begins with the sentence "I'm trying to use the 1st person pronoun less..." the paradox is not just that this sentence itself begins with that pronoun but is followed by a chain of 13 uses of it (for example: "I want to transcend my identification with my personal story..." and "I enjoy the qualities of the forms I perceive etc." This is a simply an observation, not a criticism. For it takes some effort to avoid use of the 'I' as a subject pronoun in writing, particular as the first word in a sentence or clause. On the other hand you yourself did so in most of the first paragraph, only referring to "the 'I'" in a denotational and purely nominal way.

Then again - and again, this is not a criticism but just a use of your letter as an example - its third paragraph begins with the words "There is..." ("There is now a bookcase, chair and lamp in my room..."). The question that comes up here is how come it seems so perfectly easy natural for us all to write or even say "There is..." or "There was..." and yet it would feel awkward for most people to replace the word "I" with "There is/was an awareness of...."? One reason is that the phrase is indeed a long and therefore awkward-sounding one compared with the single word 'I'. Yet there are alternatives to it:

1. a reformulation of a sentence is always possible in which no subject pronoun is needed.
(for example the sentence above is a reformulation of one that might have begun: "'I' or 'We' could reformulate our sentences....")

2. The 1st person subject pronoun 'I' could theoretically be replaced at by some sort of 3rd. person reference to the limited 'I' - for example: 'Peter'or Steve', 'the Peter self' or 'the Steve self', "the Peter-'I'" or "the Steve-'I'".

People would of course find this type of 3rd person language an odd form of 'newspeak' to use in either speech or writing, just as reformulating sentences to remove the 'I', whilst possible in writing, would take a lot more practice and time in simple speaking and sound rather formal.

That is why the single most essential thing is to not to remove the word 'I' in speech or writing, but to eliminate it from one's mental speech - in 'thought'.

It is not awkward or difficult to think the mantric words: 'There is an awareness of...' instead of the pronoun 'I'. Nor is it not difficult to think something like: 'There is an awareness of enjoying the qualities of perceived forms' - instead of "'I' enjoy the qualities of forms 'I' perceive."

What makes the words 'There is an awareness of...' into truly mantric words is precisely that they constitute a 'guarding thought' (man-tra) of a sort that doesn't even have to be mentally heard or spoken in the form of words. For the very words 'There is an awareness of..." can themselves experienced wordlessly, as that very awareness they refer to...

The removal of the word 'I' in thought and mental speech is also the precondition for its replacement by reformulation or 3rd person expressions. There must be an awareness of using the word 'I' in thought in order to eliminate it in thought, speech and writing. If one just says to oneself or others "I am aware using the word 'I' a lot..." without that awareness one cannot even begin mentally eliminate that personal 'I'. Nor can one substitute it with either a direct experience of awareness as something trans-personal or with a words that express, evoke or and guard this wordless awareness.

The language of the Shaivist tradition seeks to build a bridge the personal and trans-personal dimensions of awareness through giving a personal god-name to the awareness that is the one subject of all experiencing - 'Shiva'. One thinks: "Shiva is experiencing this enjoyment, question, doubt, feeling, thought etc." or "Shiva is enjoying, questioning, doubting, feeling this (in and as this Steve-'I' / Peter-'I' etc.

To think the meaning of 'Shivoham' or Shivattva' as some state in which 'I' (the Steve-'I' or Peter-'I') attain some sort of experience of being Shiva is essentially to get things the wrong way round. The state is one in which - as Shiva - one experiences being Steve or Peter, at times being more identified with and lost in their limited 'I', at other time's not at all.

These reflection in awareness - which are all about a specific type of mental alertness or attention - there is no problem to disagreeing with the statement:
"When the Yogi is not always on the alert, then even the case of one who has acquired knowledge of the Self, there is ... flagging of attention."

How Jaideva Singh comes to take this as a translation of Shiva-Sutra 2.10 is another matter entirely. On the contrary, since the actual words of the sutra refer to dreaming (svapna) I find the other interpretation of the Sutra that he himself cites - that of Bhaskara - far more persuasive:

"When the knowledge common to the ordinary folk of the world dissolves [on the realisation of one's true Self] then the previously apprehended delusive knowledge of the objects of the world is remembered only like a dream."

This fits exactly with the experience intended and attainable through the 'basic practice' or 'foundation meditation' of The New Yoga - where by giving time to allow recollections of feelings, events and situations to simply arise in pure awareness (the true Self) whilst at the same time by not taking or 'knowing' them in the common way as 'our' experiences, they take on the character of remembered dreams, ie. mere symbols, marks or linga in no way identical with the Self.

As for Singh's translation, since the Sanskrit word spanda appears neither in 2.10 nor in 3.12, to use it to 'translate' the actual Sanskrit words used in the Sutras appears as plain arrogance - for it is effectively a rewriting of the Sutras themselves.

The project of coming to a fitting translation will continue to falter so long as the starting point is not an interpretative translation but a grammatically accurate, word-for-word transliteration of them - including each and every element of the many compounded word-phrases they use (for example in the case of 2.10the compounds vidyasamhare and taduttha-svapna-darsanam).

Peter

Dear Peter:

One of the barriers the average person faces when first told about the fundamental ideas and practices of The Awareness Principle is his assumption space is something physical, if intangible. Not in experience but "outside" it. As an encapsulated "I" the newcomer craves to connect to something bounded, pleasing as in the sense of touch.This is how he's always gotten his temporary gratification. Having read about Shaivism, the idea of objects in space as objects in awareness becomes plausible, and a notion of a payoff from the practices, in the form of something like an enhanced esthetic enjoyment begins to seem possible, and so does the goal of freedom from identifications and addictions. Then it would be nice to find mentors and peers who have experienced awareness as something more than what you thought it was; as alive, and a fundamental reality. Usually you're surrounded by people who you can't discuss these things with, and caught up in anavamala; including personal memories, complexes or whatever. The challenge becomes getting to a place where there begins to be positive reinforcement from experiences of transcendance,or transcendance/immanence.

I've been thinking, after reading many accounts of Abhinavgupta, Utpaladeva etc., about HOW these people experienced objects appearing in their awareness. In connection to this, I mentioned Aristotle's account of perception, in point 7 of the list I made and sent on Jan 22. When the soul perceives an object, according to J. Lear, Aristotle's explanation is that it "takes on the form" actually becomes
the form, of the object. The thought and the object of thought are one. And he says this is how God thinks. The jiva, the average man or whatever, does not experience that this is what is happening. Either he just thinks the object is "there" in space, separate from and unrelated to his soul, or that there is the process described by science of a transmission of vibrations between separate bodies resulting in a brain process which causes him to see an object in his head. Wonder if Lear's - Aristotle's idea of perception if experienced as such, could be likened to the experience of Shiva-Shakti: the usual subject-object dualism is not the fundamental reality, actually it's Shiva's play. It also reminds me ofGentile's "pure act" in that the "play" is that of the Self becoming other (causa sui).

Anyway, the point is that there are barriers, of anavamala, personal history, cultural beliefs, which come up in practicing the New Yoga, and it seems important that there be some initial experiences of positive reinforcement, however these can be triggered. I find reading and contemplating to be effective at times in opening up the imagination.

Steve

Dear Steve,

Thank you for reminding me again and emphasing the significance you sensed in Aristotle's account of perception according to J.Lear (if you have or can find a source Lear's reference in Aristotle's work I'd appreciate you sending it).

For taking your hint and meditating again on the idea that the soul "takes on the form" of the object made me aware of the way in which I myself do in fact directly experience this 'idea' almost all the time. As a result, your letter has led me to ponder ways of describing my subtle experience of "taking on the form of objects" - and to reconsider also how this can be best conceptualised in ways that do indeed transcend "the usual subject-object dualism".

I certainly see and feel a definite and important connection between this sense - of taking on the form of objects - and what you refer to, quite rightly, as the "enhanced aesthetic enjoyment" that can arise from awareness. I also see a potentially useful connection, one indeed relevant to my piece on helping others to understand and experience 'The Awareness Principle' - with what you described as the desire of the newcomer "to connect to something bounded, pleasing as in the sense of touch."

That last phrase is in some ways key to a type of experiencing I have come to take for granted and enjoy. This I could describe and conceptualise in a number of (seemingly different) ways.

I will use the term 'object' for convenience, with the proviso that what I am referring to is the experience - itself and by nature subjective - of any 'body' in space, whether that of a thing or person.

1. There is a direct sense of not only seeing a particular object in space but of feeling it. This sense is expressed in an observation I have often that when we look at an object we also 'see' its 'actual' visible features (colour, shape etc.) but also sense how it would potentially feel to our touch. Rather than experiencing this as a mere sensual potential however, there is a way in which, simply looking at an object I already and actually feel its form, including not only its shape or configuration but also the qualities of its surface texture(s) and densities. Thus looking at an object with a smooth surface I sense that smoothness - albeit in a way that includes a qualitatively differentiated sense of the surface smoothness of paper, plastic, wood or metal etc.

2. I also experience a most tangible bodily sense of taking on the 'form' of the object in the more basic sense of its 'geometry' i.e. its spatial form and size - and that in every dimension and in every detail.
This 'bodily sense' is one I do relate to 'sensing' or 'feeling' the object with my whole body - not just looking out at it through the peepholes of my eyes. In particular there is a sense of sensing the object in an area corresponding to the surface region of my chest.

3. Exploring this bodily sensing and sense of the object further I have also noticed and noted in the past that there seemed to be a direct correlation between sensing my own body surface - in particular the front surface of my chest, and sensing the visible surface form of the object. Again however, it is not just the surface form but the surface qualities of the object that I sense. Thus seeing but also sensing in a bodily way the flat brick surface of the houses I see from my window on the other side of the road, is a quite different sensation from sensing the fabric of the wallpaper in my room, the rug on its floor, the leather surfaces of my armchair and sofa, the polished wooden surfaces of their oak armrests etc, not to mention the glass surfaces of the framed pictures I have on my wall, or the plastic and pseudo-metallic surfaces of my retro-style radio-CD player or plastic-housed television. The same subtle but most tangible differential sense of surface textures applies to small objects too, from the variety of glass, plastic or metal objects such as phones, bowls, mugs, penholders and ashtrays that I see around me, to books, notebooks or mere sheets of paper lying around.

4. I also experience a directly felt, bodily sense of weight and density as well as surface texture. Thus looking at a cushion I sense directly its relative lightness as well as its soft surface and the feel of its fabric.
Again, this sense has the character of most tangible tactile sensation in the region of my chest - it is certainly not an imaginative process or sensation of touching or feeling the object with my hand. And yet it is in this context that your reference to something not only "bounded" but also "pleasing" - "as in the sense of touch" [is pertinent]. For what I am effectively describing is a type of synaesthetic visuo-tactile sense, albeit one independent of the hands.

To conceptualise my so far purely descriptive 'phenomenology' of this visuo-tactile sense is another matter. For my phenomenological awareness of it has at least three aspect.

1. Firstly, there is a sense of non-separation despite apparent distance in space, a sense of the awareness of the object not being something that is 'here', 'in' my mind or even 'in' my body but is right there where the object itself is - and therefore also a sense that the awareness of the object is itself actually touching and feeling the object. That is why I have in some writing deliberately used the term feeling awareness rather than just 'awareness' or 'pure awareness' - or even defined the central power or Shakti of 'pure awareness' as its feeling character - not in an emotional way only but also in a directly tactile way.

2. Secondly, there is a tangible sense of the space 'between' my body and the object, as well as the space surrounding the object, actually being that very tactile feeling awareness. To get over this sense to others I often ask them to imagine how a particular tree (with all its differently shaped branches, together with the texture of its bark and leaves) might feel to the space surrounding that tree and/or to the air in direct contact with it. That gives them at least a mental clue to how it might feel to not only sense and identify with the space surrounding objects but to be touching and feeling a particular object from all sides as space (and thereby also as and from an all round field of pure awareness).

3. Thirdly however, and points 1 & 2 notwithstanding, there is also an awareness of 'my' body itself "taking on the form" of the object in shape and texture - though it is vital that, no matter how tangible the sensation of shape-shifting is, the 'body' in question be understood not as my physical body but as my inwardly felt body. One way of conceptualising this third dimension of my experience is through the Rupert Sheldrake's notion of 'morphic resonance' - albeit in the specific I understand and have written about it in my book 'Inner Universe' and also in 'Tantric Wisdom for Today's World'. What I am getting at through this notion is the idea that sensing any 'body' out there, not from 'in here' but within and as the seemingly empty space around (and touching) that body, turns this felt sensing into a type of resonance with the outward form (morphe) of that other body. This resonance in turn, brings about a transformation or meta-morphosis of my own inwardly sensed bodily form in the likeness of that other body. Referring back to my writings again, this is why I have declared in some of them that our bodies retain the resonant mnemonic trace of every other body (whether that of a thing or person) that we have ever experienced, in this life or any other.

The three angles or vertices from which I have described this most sensually pleasing and therefore 'aesthetic' experience of 'other bodies' can perhaps also be integrated through my particular understanding of 'morphic resonance' as a relation of outward form on the one hand, and inner 'sound' on the other. The term 'resonance' (re-sounding) is no mere metaphor, because, as I am also acutely aware, the very form of any particular 'object' or body (its shape and texture etc ), also has a specific inner sound or 'silent sound', one that can be silently sensed at a distance in an aural as well as tactile way. Thus a soft cushion also has a softer and duller inner 'sound' - in marked contrast say, to the sharper, more high-pitched inner sound I sense as the silver-metallic ashtray and drinking mugs I have. That is why it has always made perfect sense to me to understand - as the tantras do - all bodies, not simply as 'having' sounds if you strike them, but as expressions of sounds.

The equation I am making here is that Form = Sound and Sound = Form. Thus any "bounded" form of the sort that can be "pleasing to the touch" is also a sound. And every sound in turn, like the sound or 'tone' of someone's voice has very specific qualities such as sharpness or flatness, loudness or softness, lightness or heaviness, dullness or clarity, warmth or coldness - not to mention spatial or geometric qualities of roundedness or angularity, and textural qualities such as roughness and smoothness.

It is such sonic or tonal qualities of awareness that I believe are what actually lie behind and manifest as the form of bounded objects and as the sensory qualities of these forms - including their basic spatial shape and texture. The recognition that vibration (spanda) and sounds (matrika) are the source, mother or 'matrix' of all bounded things - all bodies - is of course central to the tantras.

All these senses, understandings and tantric recognitions come to expression in the act of puja as murti darshan. For the murti is a human bodily form given to (and inseparable) from the formless awareness that is its source. Not just seeing but sensing the body of the murti with one's whole body allows one to enter a state of resonance with the divine qualities of awareness or 'higher state of consciousness' it embodies.

This resonance - or rather the aware activity of 'resonation' or 'resonating' in turn allows one to:

(1) experience both one's own body and that of the murti as embodiments or expressions of the same immanent-transcendental qualities of the divine awareness (spaciousness, bliss etc.)

(2) to experience one's own body as inwardly taking on the shape and form of the murti, and thus (3) experience not just one's 'own' body and that of the murti but every body in the entire universe as "one's own" body - that is to say, as 'owned' only by 'one' - not the limited self or ego but that ONE Awareness of which all bodies are an embodiment.

In this sense the Self (capital S) being identical with the One Awareness does indeed engage in a pure activity (Gentile) of "becoming other" - of bodying itself in countless forms. 'We' do not become other, Rather It becomes and bodies us in ever new or other ways and forms.

In this response to your letter lies the key to all I have written also about the nature of 'tantric pair meditation' in The New Yoga - which involves the far more daring act of inwardly sensing and identifying with the bodily form of another human being - thus coming to actively sense and resonate with their soul, and to actively embody and incorporate their soul in all its qualities - not within one's 'own' soul so much as within the One awareness that is the Self. Better this than abiding in a state of dualistic separation of 'self' (small 's') and 'other' - or feeling one's body possessed by the soul of another.

As for Abhinavagupta, Utpaladeva etc. let us then not speak of them or 'their' experiences of objects - as if they were bounded selves. Rather let us recognise them as they recognised themselves -as identical with that One Awareness embodied in all 'objects' - all bounded things and beings.

Acharya

Dear Acharya,

Which restaurant were you at in Whitstable [during your experience of awareness-bliss]? I had a mental picture of The Continental Hotel. I sometimes practice awareness in restaurants, when free to do so. I fact I did so tonight a little bit; a cross-section of suburban America family life, a pizza joint in Inver Grove Heights. These moments require a freedom that I don't always have; that of not having my attention captured by rather circumscribed inner mental gestures around a nucleus of ego.

Some time in the mid to late 70's I encountered Gentile's Theory of Mind As Pure Act, in the library at the U. of Washington. Without much experience in the history of philosophy I knew that there was something in it for me, so copied the whole thing, not having a library card. It's interesting to look at Gentile again after getting into Saivism starting around 1990 when more and more was out there.

Just finished reading, kind of concurrently, Rediscovering God Through Transcendental Argument by David Laurence, which bears rereading (I'm now doing that). He mentions Gentile as one of the last of the neo-Hegelian "idealists." It occurs to me to wonder what it would have been like, had Gentile had access to the Pratyabhijna language and concepts such as prakasa and vimarsa . He would have been able to present a clearer description of what he called the reality of concrete thought (as opposed to the abstractions that he said philosophy had been stuck in since Plato). I already got what he meant by saying that the Platonic Ideas as "thought thought" were abstractions from the
concrete life of thought (thought thinking), and therefore powerless to bring forth the individual particulars they were the "reality of." Same for the notion of fundamental multiplicity,or atomism; divorced from the living act, postulated as devoid of any relaledness (relatedness means some kind of identity or unity),it was impossible to show philosophically how the relatedness of phenomena could develop from this "abstract multiplicity". Gentile, using the language of Plato, St.
Thomas Aquinas, Kant, and others who did not have the notion of the
pure act, showed in turn how they got lost in abstractions and
controversies (nominalism vs. realism etc.)

Part of Laurence's point is to validate some of the fundamental truth of the logos-concept, ie Christianity. In doing so he uses as a foil the arguments of the Buddhist logicians of Abhinava's rime, and the "deconstructionists" of today like Derrida. And he comes out on the side of the philosophy of Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta. He says that they maintain that all knowledge is recognition, not of something "else", and is all Siva's self-recognition. "The condition of the subject that should be abandoned is that in which the objects delineated by Maya are regarded as separate; from this mistake result all the afflictions such as egoism and bondage to karma. The type of cognizer that one should try to become is the one who has attained the state of recognition and views objects as his own body."

I'm waiting on another book by Laurence, coming out in July, called teachings of The Odd Eyed One, which supposedly emphasizes the experience of reality as the universal body.

Steve

Dear Steve,

Yes Steve, it was exactly as you pictured in, in the Hotel Continental (a table in the corner furthest from the door of the large eating area) in which my extended experience of awareness-bliss began.

You write that "...these moments require a freedom that I don't always have; that of not having my attention captured by rather circumscribed inner mental gestures around a nucleus of ego."

I only cite this because of the whole question of 'ego' as addressed in the philosophy of Giovanni Gentile (which I also encountered in the mid- to late 70's) and to David Peter Lawrence's 'Rediscovering God Through Transcendental Argument'.

I too anticipate reading Lawrence's new book with interest. That is because I see his work as reflecting a fundamental 'fault line' (in all senses) in interpretations of Pratyabhijna and 'Kashmir Shaivism' as such.

In my letters to both him and Dyzckowski - and in several letters to you also - I have referred to a fundamental ambiguity in the term 'I'-consciousness. The question is, does this term refer to consciousness 'of' an ego or 'I' - in the genitive sense of belonging to that ego or 'I', or does it refer to a pure awareness of that ego or 'I' (noting that here the little word 'of' is not genitive in implication).

As I see it - and am meditating a new piece in which I will say it with even more force - The Awareness Principle breaks the bounds and bonds of all current and previous interpretations of Pratyabhijna and Kashmir Shaivism. It does so by recognising that awareness of a self or 'subject', ego or 'I' cannot - in principle - be reduced to a property of that self or 'subject', ego or 'I' ('empirical' or 'transcendental'). Nor can it be reduced, as Gentile does, to an act of a transcendental ego or 'I'.

I see Gentile wrestling with questions for which The Awareness Principle alone offers a clear and simple answer - questions which apply also to the interpretation of Kashmiri Shaivism. What I found surprising re-reading him was how close he came to The Awareness Principle - only to retreat from it.

For example he writes:

"....when an action is completed and we survey it theoretically, the action is no longer an act of the subject but simply an object on which the mind now looks, and which is therefore resolved into the present act of awareness of the action. This awareness is now its real action." (my stress)

For like me but unlike MD and DPL he recognises that there really is a philosophical issue in interpreting terms such as 'self-consciousness' or 'I-consciousness'.

Thus he also writes:

"The self-concept, in which alone mind and all that is real, is an acquiring consciousness of self. This Self is inconceivable as something anterior to and separate from the consciousness …. in which in the self-concept it is the object." (my stress)

"The ‘I’ is not a consciousness which presupposes the self .. but a consciousness which posits a self." (my stress)

"...the ‘I’ is not self-consciousness except as a consciousness of the self, determined as some thing. The reality of the self-consciousness is in the consciousness, and the reality of the consciousness in the self-consciousness."

Here too, the first use of the word 'of' in "consciousness of the self" is not genitive - it does not imply consciousness belonging to that self. Yet Gentile does not go on to deduce that consciousness as such ('awareness') is not - in principle - reducible to any self or 'I' there is an awareness of.

Instead he implies - justifiably - that 'self-consciousness' understood as consciousness 'of' a self in a non-genitive sense, and self-awareness as awareness of and belonging to a self (the genitive sense of 'of') are dialectically inseparable - 'non-dual'.

Overall however, his 'Actual Idealism' argues that ultimate reality lies in the thought activity of a transcendental subject or ego rather than in Awareness.

Here he falls into the traditional error of assuming that action, thought as action, and awareness necessarily assume an egoic agent of action or thought or an egoic 'subject' of awareness or consciousness.

"Were there no subject what would think?" Here he spells out this old assumption directly - assuming that thinking requires or assumes a thinking subject.

Gentile's mantram is that "...the true judgment in its concreteness is not ‘Caesar conquered Gaul’ but ‘I think that Caesar conquered." (my stress).

In contrast to this, the mantram of the The Awareness Principle is precisely not to say "I think... (for example "I think Caesar conquered Gaul" but to say instead "There is an awareness that... (for example "There is an awareness that Caesar conquered Gaul" or alternatively "There is an awareness of the thought occurring that 'Caesar conquered Gaul'."

I say this because personally I can make absolutely no subjective, experiential sense of the phrase 'I think'. People may think of me as 'a thinker', but that is not because I constantly engage in thinking as if it were an activity. I am 'a thinker' only in so far as thoughts occur to me - out of awareness - that might not have occurred to others. For me 'thinking\ is not an act or activity at all but a process of letting thoughts occur or arise from awareness - an awareness which is itself thought-free.

That is why, in a recent note to Andrew about The New Thinking at the core of 'The New Yoga' I wrote the following:

"The ‘new' thinking is nothing more than true thinking. This is nothing that can be experienced as anything that we ‘do’ – and therefore nothing too, which we can stop or ‘quit’ doing. This true thinking is simply letting thoughts arise, emerge, come to mind or ‘occur’ in awareness - one by one. This means resting, in the intervals between each thought, in the pure, thought-free awareness from which they arise. This letting arise or occur is quite different from the type of thinking in which, no sooner has a single thought arisen, than the ‘thinker’ gets lost in or seeks to pursue a train of thoughts in which one thought leads directly to another – rather than letting each new thought emerge from the same thought-free awareness, and coming to rest, after each thought, in that awareness. The delusion that thinking is some sort of mental operation or activity by which successive thoughts derive from or follow previous thoughts - rather than being a successive occurrence, emergence or arising of thoughts from their source in awareness – this delusion is what prevents true and new thinking, indeed thinking as such, from occurring. It is when we lose our awareness in a thought by identifying with it that we are forced to think in a false and effortful, unaware and therefore also essentially unthinking way – being capable of retaining awareness only through a movement from one thought to another. In contrast, to freely let each thought arise in turn from and within awareness allows us to truly think - to reflect and give form to the awareness that is their source. Heidegger again: “Thinking is Thanking”. Thoughts reflect and recognise – and in that way give thanks to - the thought-free awareness from which they arise. Each thought arising also give thanks to the very mystery and miracle of each thought’s emergence from that source."

In summary then, I see Gentile as genuinely seeking but by no means arriving at a true philosophy of 'absolute subjectivism' of the sort articulated solely through The Awareness Principle - a philosophy that recognises a universal subjectivity or awareness transcending any egoic subject or subjects, transcendental or empirical, human or divine.

In his search to "resolve the object into the subject" he does not recognise, as does The Awareness Principle, that there is ultimately no need to even speak of 'objects' or of a 'subject-object' relation in the first place. For what are these so-called 'objects' except formed elements or phenomena emergent or present within a spacious field of experiencing - and is not all experiencing by nature subjective. Gentile himself acknowledges as much when he writes that:

"...space how vast soever it be is always within the mind..." (my stress)

In the end his 'Actual Idealism' turns out to be the same type of old-fashioned idealism that elevates thought itself above all elements of our experience. In the end, he identifies subjectivity itself, not with awareness but with the act of thought - not recognising that thoughts themselves are just as much 'things' present or arising in awareness as so-called 'objects' - that thought itself is one element among others of our subjective experiencing, and not its essence.

Gentile seeks to overcome the objectivistic or 'naturalistic' notion of a multiplicity of things 'out there' through the notion of a singular subject defined by a singular activity of thinking.

This is not the same thing as recognising what my mentor Michael Kosok called 'The Singularity of Awareness', and nor is it the same thing as a 'Monism of Awareness' - my interpretation of Kashmir Shaivism through the framework of The Awareness Principle.

That Monism of Awareness is a philosophy wide enoughto embrace both theism and a-theism, monotheism and polytheism, pantheism and 'panentheism' - and yet in the end it transcends all such '-theisms'.

The fault line in interpreting Kashmir Shaivism lies in the danger of confusing this Monism of Awareness with a type of Monotheistic Pantheism which replaces Jahweh with Shiva.

The Awareness Principle alone is able to unite together distinct but equally significant recognitions.

1.The ultimate or non-higher reality is not a person, and not a god-being, energy or entity of any sort but consciousness as such - awareness.

2. 'Shiva' is the most supreme and godly personification of that ultimate, non-higher, universal and divine awareness (Anuttara/Paramashiva).

Since all things are composed of awareness, and are portions and expressions of the universal awareness, Shiva is also a profound symbol or lingam of the subjective nature of all things - their awareness nature. In that sense truly - and alone -'There is Nothing That Is not Shiva' (Muktananda).

Without this new non-dual interpretations of the essential philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism its tantras will continue to conceal a fault line - precisely that fault line which leads on the one hand to a type of neo-theism, and on the other hand leads to its rejection in favour of an a-theistic Buddhism (the religious flavour of the day). To return, as Lawrence seems to me to do, to an old-fashioned type of Vedic and Vedantic philosophy which divinises the 'Self' - as opposed to its 'awareness nature' (Chaitanyatman) is to completely miss the point (not only philosophically and theologically but also culturally - in relation to today's world and its problems with 'religion').

So I look forward to what Lawrence has to say on the experience of reality as the universal body. My question will be: whose experience and whose body? If he presents it as that of a being or entity, self or subject, ego or 'I', human or divine - our ways part. My way is to experience the universe not as 'my' body or that of 'my' self or 'I', but as the body of the divine universal awareness - and to experience my body not as the universe but as one body among others of that universe which is Its body. All bodies arise, take form and dwell together within that spacious and singular Awareness whose body is indeed the entire universe, and every body in it.

This said, Gentile can be said to have had a historically acute and precocious sense of the objectifying nature of thought acts, the way they objectify both subject and object, self and other, spirit and matter, man and nature - even thought and philosophy itself. Unfortunately, he also ends up using this to justify man's 'rule' over nature in the name of 'spirit', not to mention indirectly justifying both anti-intellectualism and 'The Supreme Ego' of El Duce.

Perhaps this is part of the paternal heritage left with you and within you - as your own ego. For whilst I know you as an emotionally warm, feeling, empathic and expressive human being - that is to say, as someone who experiences feelings in a subjective way - it may be that you are not as aware as you could be of the subjective nature of thought as such - and its converse - the unaware use of thought to objectify subjectively felt emotions and events, to objectify self and other, to objectify the past and to objectify even thought itself, including spiritual philosophies and the subjective experiences they make possible.

That "nucleus of ego" around which thought objectifies both inner and outer reality (despite their essentially subjective nature) does indeed leave little room for freedom besides "circumscribed inner mental gestures" - leaves little space, in other words, for experiencing that free and spacious field of subjective awareness (not just within but all around one's body) within which all thoughts about reality can be allowed to arise - without mistaking them for reality.

For thoughts about reality, past or present, are just that - thoughts. One can rest in the pure subjective awareness of them, rather than letting the long cold arm of the ego use them to distance oneself from and objectify that very awareness - bodily, emotional or intellectual.

So allow me to emphasise again the importance of the central mantram of The Awareness Principle: not 'I think..', 'I felt' or 'I still feel' but There is an awareness of thinking, recalling, feeling, having felt...whatever it is.

Acharya

Dear Acharya:

Immediately on reading your latest letter I opened up Jaideva Singh's last book, and looked for references to I-consciousness. I read this quote from Utpaladeva: "The repose of all manifested phenomena in the Self is what is meant by I-feeling." Then (apparently it's) A.G. who goes on to say: " ie the real I-feeling is that in which in the process of withdrawal all external objects like jar, cloth etc. being withdrawn from their manifoldness come to rest or final repose in their essential
uninterrupted anuttara aspect. This anuttara aspect is the real I-feeling (ahambhava)." There seems to be mention of an experience (I-FEELING) which (hypothetically) could be the property of a "person;" which on the other hand could also be interpreted as a "state" antecedent/ transcendent to any person.

Then on the next page there is this statement, again presumably of Abhinavagupta: "In 'this appears to me' the quintessence of the idea of appearing is I-consciousness" to which Jaideva Singh adds this footnote: "Any experience without its relation to an experient would be meaningless." Jaideva Singh doesn't seem to acknowledge a philosophical question whether Awareness is fundamental, or the personal property of some entity. On the face of it, he seems to mean
that there IS a fundamental experient which HAS awareness (or experience, presumably some transcendental ego.

Although I think I largely understand your point that Awareness cannot be the property of a bounded entity, I do find myself wondering about another theme that seems to come up a lot in Abhinavagupta's writings, that is, enjoyment. I noticed (with "camatkara") from the first that Kashmir Shaivism unlike Buddhism etc. doesn't seem to suppress avoid or ignore sensual enjoyment but rather to allow it to happen, seeing enjoyment as itself Sakti, and therefore Siva's play. And I wonder, if there can be awareness without it being the property of a person or an entity, can there be enjoyment without an enjoyer? The idea that forms are forms of awareness seems easier to manage than that enjoyment is the enjoyment OF awareness. Maybe because the former notion is more familiar, e.g. from Aristotle's account of the soul "taking on" the form. Enjoyment seems akin to Activity. I think Gentile might have seen it that way. Maybe he would have considered enjoyment as a by-product of the act of "positing" a self. Enjoyment seems less like a Platonic idea, less like a "vikalpa" than "Awareness." It seems the antithesis of a stasis, which as Gentile pointed out is the inherent flaw. the quality which the Platonic Idea has as object of thought which makes it unproductive, dead.

Recognition as both means and goal, as experience (to be enjoyed?) is a subject that Lawrence relates to the truth of non-duality, to the Kashmiri Shaiva view that, unlike Christianity, takes the non-difference between the "jiva" and God "all the way.".Abhinava makes many provocative statements. Like "That thought 'nothing is mine' by which the senseless ones are reduced to wretchedness incessantly, that very thought..........means to me 'I am everything'."

A.G. seems to know what it FEELS like to find repose in the Self-which-is-everything. He also says something like "The attainment of the experience of non-duality is like laying down a burden." The main thing for me is the idea that these experiences are valid; that "anavamala" can be and has been overcome.

I found your comments on Gentile interesting; I have never delved into it but I always wondered how he could have come to value the ego of Il Duce as compatible with his system of philosophy.

I had some trouble understanding what you meant by my capacity to experience the subjectivity of feeling better that I do that of thought (?). I'll ponder it again. I think that progress as I understand it comes with more awareness, and identification with awareness, around both thought and feeling. If I'd had time to tell you more of my story, there would have been countless examples of objectifying, identifying with both thoughts and feelings.

I also look forward to Lawrence's discussion of the universal body. The blurb says that he revisits the concept of narcissism as it relates to his subjects of Kashmir Saivism and modern psychology. This may relate to my questions about how to situate the notion of "enjoyment." We'll see.

Steve

Dear Steve,

Thanks for your further comments and associated citations from Abhinavagupta as interpreted by Singh:

"In 'this appears to me' the quintessence of the idea of appearing is I-consciousness" to which Jaideva Singh adds this footnote: "Any experience without its relation to an experient would be meaningless."

As you say, "Jaideva Singh doesn't seem to acknowledge a philosophical question whether Awareness is fundamental, or the personal property of some entity. On the face of it, he seems to mean that there IS a fundamental experient which HAS awareness (or experience), presumably some transcendental ego."

I can understanding this 'reading' of Singh and of the tantras themselves. But that basic and still unexplored 'fault line' I referred to in my last letter, is, as I see it, not just a fault line in the interpretation of the tantras but in the tantras themselves. For whilst I fully accept than "Any experience without its relation to an experient would be meaningless." the question remains as to who or what that experient is. I understand the experient as awareness as such, and as that self (Chaitanyatman) whose nature is nothing but this pure awareness. The fact that awareness as such need not be conceived as the property of a transcendental ego however, does not mean there is no place for any form of 'I-consciousness'. On the contrary, it is precisely by 'I-dentification' with that awareness on the part of the jiva that the supreme 'I-consciousness' arises, just as Shiva, understood as identical with pure awareness (Anuttara/Paramashiva) attains 'I-consciousness' through the reflection and manifestation of that awareness in all things.

Yet your further citation from Abhinavagupta really raises the stakes as regards this fundamental question:

"That thought 'nothing is mine' by which the senseless ones are reduced to wretchedness incessantly, that very thought..........means to me 'I am everything'."

This seems to me a clear reference to Buddhism - the "senseless ones" being those Buddhist who, through the mantram of 'nothing is mine' reject the notion of experience as implying any experient. So Abhinavagupta turns it round and declares that one could equally well say 'I am everything'.

Fair enough. Then however, the question again becomes - who or what is this 'I'?

For no self or 'I' that is "everything" could be reduced to just one self or 'I' among others - the danger of the narcissistic/solipsistic interpretation. Thus any self or 'I' that is everything and all selves is at the same 'no self' (an-atman) and supreme selfhood or selfhood as such (atman). That is why, as I understand it, AB also contrasts Ahambhava (a true self-feeling or 'I-consciousness' ultimately identical with pure awareness) with the Ahamkara - the ego and ego-consciousness.

Back to the basic question again then.

I see no problem is recognising a supreme awareness as such both as the ultimate EXPERIENT and as the ultimate ENJOYER.

This conforms with my experience that states of heightened identification with pure awareness invariably go together with a heightened enjoyment of the senses - of a sort almost too sublime to describe. At the same time a fully embodied and deliciously sensual 'I-feeling' does indeed arise - precisely from experiencing the supreme awareness enjoying ITS expression and embodiment as one's very body, and as one's very self or 'I'.

So yes, there can be no enjoyment of experience without an enjoyer, and yet the supreme awareness Itself is the supreme enjoyer. The individual's identification with and experience of ITS enjoyment is both supreme bliss and supreme 'I-consciousness'.

From this point of view it would indeed be correct to speak, as is done in the Shaiva tantras, of Shiva as a type of supreme 'I-consciousness'.

For this 'I'-consciousness could be understood as non-dual or dialectical relation between (a) awareness as such enjoying the experience of 'selving' itself in every jiva - sensuously bodying itself as their body and being their 'I' consciousness, and (b) the jiva in turn experiencing its very 'I'-consciousness as a selving of that awareness and as an embodiment of its sensual enjoyment of everything.

The jiva in other words, can indeed come to know and enjoy Shiva as a type of supreme 'I-feeling' or 'I'-consciousness - yet does so precisely through feeling the sensual enjoyment of the supreme awareness itself in being the very 'I' and body of that jiva.

This is both my understanding and heartfelt experience of the nature of that 'I' that can say 'I' am everything', one immensely aided by the practice of puja, with a mirror behind the murti - one that enables one to see and feel one's own body and 'I'-consciousness as that of the supreme awareness (Anuttara) and therefore also as that supreme 'I'-consciousness which is Shiva.

Thank you for stimulating me to meditate these further insights and experiential recollections.

Acharya

Dear Acharya:

Having now read Lawrence's new book on the 'The Teachings of the Odd-Eyed One' about 1 1/2 times, I have a question. First (you may know), the text is described as being one of the 3 favorites of Gopinath Kaviraj. It includes a polymathic introduction by Lawrence about the myth of Narcissus, and narcissism, in relation to doctrines ranging from Vedanta Hinduism and Buddhism to Hermetism to psychoanalysis, and of course Kashmir Shaivism. The text consists of 53 contemplations, or instructions in contemplation, on the application of IPK and IPKV ideas to the experience of embodiment, on attaining "proficiencies" etc.

My question: I remember you showed me Dyczkowski's response to your letter about the philosophical meaning of "I-consciousness," and "egoity." I still have his letter, which seemed to me to be compliant in style, but not to engage the subject, really. I think you also told me you wrote on this theme to Lawrence. I'm wondering if Lawrence also responded, and what he said. Based on what I've read, that is, "Rediscovering God" and the present new paperback, I would think he would be more inclined to tackle the questions you raised. Just a guess.

Lawrence contrasts orthodox Hindu and Buddhist schools' treatment of the "agent" (he says they tend to denigrate the agent's power and significance) to "empowerment" inTantrism. An interesting term new to me is "asmita", which Lawrence calls the abstract condition of positing one's identity as "I." Lawrence says that the Saiva practitioner must expand his sense of I-am-ness, but in the interest of deindividualization rather than narcissism..

Steve

Dear Steve,

From just a brief 'look inside' of Lawrence's new book on Amazon it seems to me that he both overcomplicates matters in a typically academic-cum-scholarly manner and once again totally fails to grasp the clarity and radicality of The Awareness Principle in relation to the question he addresses. Thus on the one hand he identifies the 'I' with awareness and on the other hand reduces it - and thereby also awareness as such - to the property of an individual self or 'I' - to a 'me' and 'my-self'. In following the notion that 'I-am-ness' arises from 'observed' or 'experienced' conditions of states such as 'I am prosperous, lean, relish the senses etc.' he still stubbornly ignores THE most basic principle of awareness - already shared with him and made explicit in my blogspot on it.

This is the recognition that since we only know of an 'I' or 'me', of any of its states of experiences, and, equally of any experienced 'this' through an awareness of them, it follows that his awareness cannot - in principle - be the property or product of anything there is an awareness of, whether an 'I', 'me' or any of its experienced states or perceptions. Again, though at times he acknowledges that the 'I', 'me' and 'myself' referred to is ultimately identical with 'awareness', he persistently falls into the very trap of narcissism the book claims to address - by still not recognising the fundamental distinction between an absolute subject or 'I', understood as IDENTICAL with an the absolute or universal awareness - and awareness conceived as the PROPERTY of an 'I' - whether finite OR absolute and divine. The relation between understanding ultimate reality as a Supreme Self or 'I' on the one hand, and as a Supreme Awareness on the other, is one I once again have re-addressed in a new essay (attached). But I would look again at the book on and blogsite of The Awareness Principle. As for affirming an 'I-am-ness' that is expanded "in the interest of deindividualisation rather than narcissism", this seems to me to imply a fundamental confusion between egoity and individuality of the very sort that The Awareness Principle is designed to overcome - and that needs to be overcome if people are not to fall prey to the false belief that they need to sacrifice their individuality to attain identity with the divine.

Devi Silya's story of her long time spent in the Chinmoy cult and its long-term consequences shared in her correspondence, warns precisely of the grave dangers of this type of 'teaching ' - leading people to think that in order to surrender the grip of the ego they need to surrender or sacrificing their individuality and entire awareness of self to the super-ego of some guru.

In contrast, The Awareness Principle affirms that our individuality is part of our divinity - not as some primordial or divine sense of 'I-am-ness' but for a quite different reason: namely that every thing and every being, every 'I' and every 'Thou' or 'This' is itself a uniquely individualised portion and expression the universal and divine awareness. This is fundamentally view from that which sees the individual qualities of things and individuality of self as something that is 'mine' or belongs to 'my-self' - for who then is the 'me' who possesses them?

I come back to what I wrote to Dyczkowski about the absolute need to disambiguate the meaning of translated phrases such as 'I-consciousness' and address the fundamental question they raise - are we speaking, genitively, of a consciousness or awareness owned or possessed by some 'I', or of a primordial awareness of being and individuality of a sort which cannot - in principle - be reduced to a property of any being, self, 'I', 'me' or 'this' - indeed of anything of which "there is an awareness..."?

Frankly I am tiring of today’s academic writers on the Shaiva tantras. They have much wholly admirable scholarly knowledge and intelligence, and yet I feel that on the most fundamental level they quite literally "do not know what they are talking about" - that is to say they do not know it from direct experience rather than books - and hence their work is all complex and sophisticated commentary on ancient treatises, therefore still bound to its terms and their translations - and not a clear articulation of personally experienced realities of the sort that alone can reveal - in new and clearer terms - the inner truth OF those ancient treatises or tantras.

In contrast, recent feedback from others on my own book 'The Awareness Principle' has come from the heart as well as the minds of its readers - many of whom find that even its more complex arguments achieve, through their sheer clarity of expression, a type of simplicity of expression of a sort they have never come across in any other writings whatsoever, and one that absolutely amazes them through its total resonance with their own hitherto purely wordless, intuitive or felt sense of fundamental Truth.

Acharya

PS In contrast to his knowledge of Christian theology, Lawrence's philosophical knowledge of areas of Western thought such as phenomenology and psychoanalysis, as well as such thinkers as Heidegger and Husserl, does seem to me to be deep or adequate enough to the task of relating them to Indian thought.

Correspondence with Steven Thomes