Yoga of Synthesis in Kashmir Shaivam

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

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is this - do not leave anything, do not take anything, take everything as it is." xlviii
One can, therefore, be just as one is, taking everything as it is. That is what anupāya Is all about. Maheshvarānanda calls it vimarshopāya or the way of self-reflection. xlix According to Abhinavagupta it is the highest way - a synthesis of all the ways to liberation.
According to K.C.Pandey, anupāya or the No-Means yoga is called so “not because there is no use of means whatsoever, but because the elaborate means are of little importance"." The prefix "an" in Sanskrit, he points out, also means "a little" and so the word "anupāya” can also be taken to mean "a little means” (īshat upāya). In other words there is hardly any use of means and that too not at all strenuous. When Shiva's intense grace (tīvra shaktipāta) descends on a highly evolved and already enlightened soul, he recognizes in a flash of awareness reality as identified with his true divine grace that a yogi who is fit to receive it because of his fully purified consciousness becomes instantly identified with Shiva and is filled with the highest form of bliss. Shiva's grace, it must be mentioned is unconditional and undetermined, freely available to anyone whom Shiva chooses to shower it upon. All that the yogi needs is to hear a specific word from the Master recalling to his mind his identity with Shiva and he gets absorbed in Shiva -consciousness, attaining self-realization through anupāya.
SHĀMBHAVOPAYA
The next higher means - in fact, the highest as anupāya is not strictly counted as a means -- is shămbhvopāya or the Divine Means is also motivated by intense grace. While in anupāya there is practically no difference between the means (upāya) and the goal (upeya), in shămbhavopāya there is a subtle difference between the two though like the former it too does not operate in sequential stages. In this upāya the yogi does not resort to observance of any external form of yogic practice but focuses attention on the "plenitude of infinite subjectivity” without the interference of any thought-forms. Not
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