Yoga of Synthesis in Kashmir Shaivam

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

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discourse and the evolution of language in terms of the relation between word and meaning that forms the basis of the linguistic philosophy of non-dual Kashmiri Shaivism. Liberation through mantra: As parāvāk or language at the highest level is regarded as identical with the Divine l-consciousness, Kashmir Shaivism holds that language, though it creates thought constructs, can be used as an instrument of liberation through mantra, its smallest unit. Mantras are made up of letters and every letter or word is derived and inseparable from Consciousness according to the Tāntric conception of language. The very etymology of the word 'mantra' points to its power to save and free us from the bonds of transmigration'. It consists of two syllables 'man' and 'tra', with the syllable 'man' meaning manana or 'reflection and tra meaning that which saves'. The word mantra therefore comes to mean that which saves the mind by generating a reflective awareness of one's identity with the Supreme Reality'. The collective mass of sounds' (shabdarāshi) articulated by our vocal organs to form words is given the name mātrikā in Kashmir Shaiva terminology which is regarded as the creative matrix containing all the phonemic units of which mantras are composed. It is the assemblage of the fifty phonemes of the Sanskrit alphabet and AHAM, the word for 'l' in the language, is one of its most important mantras fully charged with the divine energy of Iconsciousness (purnāhantā). The phoneme 'a' in the mantra, which is also the first letter of the Sanskrit alphabet, stands for anuttara or Shiva, the infinite, absolute consciousness: the letter “ha', which is also the last letter of the alphabet, stands for Shakti. The two letters contain between them all the letters of the Sanskrit language, the gross form of the phonemic energies residing in a potential state in consciousness. The phoneme 'a-ha' represents the visarga or emissional power of the Divine Shakti, while bindu, the dimensionless dot above 'ha', represents the "natural vimarsha" or reflective awareness of l-consciousness. The bindu is the pivot "around which the circle of energies from 'a' to 'ha' rotates". This cycle of phonemic energies is known as mātrikāchakra representing the pure universal egoity of Shiva from which all speech emerges. The term mātrikā connotes the sense of the Divine Mother or creative matrix, which is the source of the fifty Sanskrit phonemes corresponding to the expansion of supreme consciousness.