Yoga of Synthesis in Kashmir Shaivam

Author(s): S S Toshkhani
Publisher: S S Toshkhani

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good and bad acts. This embroils him in the cycle of births and deaths. According to Utpaladeva, “kārma mala is the action done when the doer is ignorant of his real
nature” xxxiii
The brief description above of the cosmology of Kashmir Shaivism and its concepts of three malas or impurities and five kañchukas or coverings became necessary to show how Shiva or the pure undifferentiated consciousness obscures His true nature with the help of māyā or the power of obscuration and becomes the soul in bondage. He empties Himself out as the manifested universe and conceals His identity. According to non-dual Kashmir Shaiva philosophy, obscuration or tirodāna is one of Shiva's five cosmic functions, the other four being creation (srishti), sustenance (stithi), dissolution (samhāra) and grace (anugraha). Liberation is recognition of his true nature as Shiva by the individual soul and it can be attained by removal of the impurity which is the obscuring factor. Making it clear that 'one's true nature' means innate, pure "Iconsciousness”, Abhinavgupta says that moksha or liberation is nothing else than awareness of one's true nature: “moksho hi nāma naivānyah svarūpaprathanam hi tat”. XXXV However, pure l-consciousness or Shiva-consciousness can never be attained without Shiva's anugraha or grace, which cannot be of the yogi's own choosing but depends solely on Shiva's will. To earn divine grace or shaktipāta the yogi in turn requires undergoing yoga or spiritual discipline.
BONDAGE AND LIBERATION - THE FOUR UPAYAS
The movement from being a limited conditioned individual under the spell of māyā or spiritual ignorance to the realization of one's essential self is a kind of return journey through the grosser tattvas (categories) back to the pure state of undifferentiation. The yogic means to achieve the state of liberation from duality are known as upāyas and these are regarded as the most important elements of Kashmir Shaiva praxis. In Tantrāloka Abhinavagupta divides practice into four basic categories which he calls jnānachatushka or upāyas. XXXV These four categories of means to liberation are: anupāya, which means literally No-Means or the pathless path', the prefix 'an' also meaning 'little',