SHIVA SUTRAS, “The Supreme Awakening” with Commentary of Kshemaraja, Revealed by Swami Lakshmanjoo, edited by John Hughes; Universal Shaiva FELLOWHSIP, 2002.

Swami Lakshmanjoo was the last in the Vasugupta, Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta lineage of Kashmir Shaivite sages. Every Sanskrit scholar who studies and translates the Kashmir Shaivite texts acknowledges his immanence as the source. Without Swami Lakshmanjoo these invaluable texts would have remained incomprehensible to even Indian scholars.

The meaning of Sanskrit words in Kashmir Shaivite texts is often very distinct from their meaning in the texts of other schools. This is quite natural, for Kashmir Shaivism considers the other schools incomplete in their understanding of the eternal Wisdom that is the substratum of this universe.

Jaideva Singh has acknowledged his indebtedness to Swami Lakshmanjoo in the dedications of his various translations of Kashmir Shaivite texts. Boris Marjanovic mentions Swami Lakshmanjoo in his introduction to his translation of the Bhagavad Gita.

Mark Dyczkowski, an Oxford don, is reported to have said, “Somehow he [Swami Lakshmanjoo] sees much more in them than could ever be grasped through mere bookish knowledge and we could feel that behind his words lay another dimension beyond them in which he lived and from which he beckoned us to join him.”

I first discovered and began reading Swami Lakshmanjoo’s Shiva Sutras in 2005 and I have been reading, listening to the CDs, and studying his revelations ever since. For me one word from Swami Lakshmanjoo is often worth a 1000 from others. This has been my experience with him, because Swami Lakshmanjoo was in fact an enlightened Master – the real thing.

I had previously read Jaideva Singh’s wonderful translation many times since 1997 and thus I did have a background familiarity of these verses. But as always, Swami Lakshmanjoo takes them to a new deeper-higher level. His words carry the frequency of his state of consciousness, PARABHAIRAVA.

In Kashmir Shaivism the final state is termed ParaBhairava. This is an acrostic word: para – the highest; bha – maintenance of the world; ra – withdrawal of the world; and va – projection of the world. This state is where Swami Lakshmanjoo resides, even though he may appear as an ordinary old man to those without understanding.

The Shiva Sutras are like the Bhagavad Gita in the sense that every time you read these verses, a more profound insight into their meaning will be revealed to you. The knowledge transmitted to you will vary, of course, and depend what you can receive, meaning on your own consciousness at the time you read and listen.

For example, Sutra 1.2: Knowing differentiatedly is bondage and not knowing undifferentiatedly is bondage.

From the point of western academia, all knowledge is to be sought and revered. But this verse tells us that the deeper we sink into differentiated knowledge, our bondage to the temporal hologram increases. And ‘not knowing’ is that state of not knowing your own undifferentiated Self within. If you remain unconscious and ignorant of the God-within you, the Self, you remain bound to the wheels of endless birth and death, Samsara.

It is true that with Kashmir Shaivsm you are going to want to learn at least a few Sanskrit terms. But these words carry a higher consciousness in their vibratory frequency and they will give you far more than the time it takes to assimilate them.

These waveforms as words formed by the sound of the Sanskrit letters, contain the essence of timeless eternal spiritual experiences, which unfortunately have not been prevalent in our western culture and thus are arduous to describe in English, a language of commerce. This is why Sanskrit is a sacred language.

For those of you who are dedicated and sincerely long to return Home, to be Liberated in this life, the Shiva Sutras as revealed by Swami Lakshmanjoo are priceless gems that will move you into an ever deepening conscious and bring you far greater lasting Joy than anything in the external, now from all appearances, dissolving world. And once you come to understand him a bit, Swami Lakshmanjoo’s sense of cosmic humor is fun! We really are involved in our own Time/Space playfulness here.