Shiva Sutras 3.6 & 3.7 – Yogic Powers are a Barrier to God Consciousness

Shiva Sutra 3.6

mohavaranatsiddhih

Moha means delusion and ignorance; moha is Maya, the veil of illusion that is drawn over the undifferentiated Oneness to produce the appearance of differentiated multiplicity. The Sanskrit term Maya is the personified will of the supreme Will of the Oneness, God. Maya “carries your consciousness away from the reality of the Self. [SLJ]”

Various supernormal powers come to the yogi after achieving success in the practices of meditation, concentration, controlling the breath, etc. Most westerners have been led to believe that these paranormal powers are good, a reward, and the desirable consequence of hard work on the path. However the Shiva Sutras say that these siddhic powers are merely another product of the illusory veils of Maya covering our consciousness, and therefore they prevent us from experiencing the real supreme state of God consciousness.

Laksmi Kaularnava Tantra 11: “The one who is directed toward these limited yogic powers is carried away from the consciousness of Lord Shiva (the Oneness) and is not capable of experiencing His nature.” [SLJ]

Is this a sort of last temptation? Does the God-within offer the aspirant super powers just before he/she reaches the goal as a final test for Itself? The journey Home is the sole purpose for this universe and we may be assured that its Creator has made this adventure of consciousness both interesting and challenging, a walk on the proverbial arduous razor’s edge – and simultaneously a breeze. Realizing our own nature as eternal God consciousness can happily be described as a ‘breeze’ because from another point of view, we were never changed, never differentiated, never limited, we are never anything other than the One.

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The yogi who is not seduced by these siddhic powers will continue on the path with yogic practices such as meditation, etc., but will “not be caught in the grip of these limited yogic powers. [SLJ]” Holding God consciousness in continuity, without any break, is the ultimate great challenge for those who seek liberation from the endless cycles of birth and death. These siddhic powers will only distract you and trap your consciousness in the realm of the temporal illusory hologram.

“When he holds the consciousness of Lord Shiva in continuity, eternally, without any break…When such a yogi experiences the state of universal consciousness of Lord Shiva, not only in his internal state of consciousness of Self but also in the very active life of the universe, this is called real Samadhi. [SLJ - Laksmi Kaularnava Tantra 8.16 & 17]”

We must continually feel the presence of the God within us, allowing that nectar of Being the One to expand and fill our every cell. This is the evolution of our experiential understanding of the Real. Eventually we come into feeling and experiencing God consciousness everywhere, in every corner of the universe, in all the shining stars and wandering clouds that fill the skies, in every singing bird and honey bee, and each individual human being, man, woman, and child. The entire universe is the temporal ‘appearance’ of the One as multiplicity.

“The unreal has no existence, the Real never ceases to be. [B.Marjanovic – Bhagavad Gita II.16]” What we take as ‘real’ is in fact temporal, fleeting, illusory. It is real enough to the five senses and the conditioned mind, but only the God consciousness within is eternal, the only Real. We come to feel this as truth, and these feelings set us free from worry and attachment to the myriad of holographic projections we have generated from our own deluded (moha) consciousness.

Shiva dances on the dwarf of delusion in the famous elegant Nataraj statue. Knowledge of our real nature - the Oneness, Parabhairava, God Consciousness - liberates us from our self-created webs of ignorance. We must learn to remain in this understanding always - as Swami Lakshmanjoo says, in continuity!

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Shiva Sutra 3.7

Mohajayad anantabhogat sahajavidyajayah

We will reach God consciousness only when the last impressions (samskaras), including even the most faint and elusive remaining impressions of Maya’s illusory veils are completely overcome and destroyed. This is our journey. “Illusion is this completely differentiated universe filled with impressions and experiences. [SLJ]”

We experience God consciousness within - and also as pervading the whole universe. Our adventure is not completed when we find God only within ourselves, we must experience the feeling that God is everywhere.

The ability to feel God within you is the beginning, however it is still a form of bondage because you perceive the outside world as being different from you. You judge people as different from you, good/bad, etc. Everyone is God and you are God, therefore everyone and everything is an extension of that which you have always been and always will be – the Real.

The world is not impure. Impurity is only the false perception of the differentiated limited mind conditioned by temporal predispositions accumulated through the good and bad experiences of multiple lifetimes. We each carry in our subtle body (puryashtaka) our past-life collection of judgments about what brings pleasure and what brings pain.

“The mind (manah) is only the collection of differentiated knowledge (samkalpa). It does not matter whether it is pure knowledge or impure knowledge. Both of these exist in limitation, in the cycle of the mind in bondage. [SLJ]”

Svacchanda Tantra 5.394: “When you progress beyond the idea (samkalpa) of good and bad, of pure and impure, then actually, when you think deeply about it, there is no difference between individual consciousness and God consciousness. [SLJ]”

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Abhinavagupta’s Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, Gitartha-Samgraha, translated from the Sanskrit with Introduction & Notes by Boris Marjanovic; Rudra Press, 2002, 2006.

NATARAJ: Shiva Dancing on Moha – Ignorance & Delusion