Shiva Sutras 3.18 & 3.19 – One Collective Sound
Shiva Sutra 3.18
Vidya ‘vinashe janmavinashah
When we fully realize our own innate God consciousness, we
never have to return to the repeating cycles of birth and death. “When this pure
knowledge of consciousness is established in continuity, the birth
(janma) is gone forever. [SLJ]”
As we learn to remain in our own higher consciousness and be the observer of our
thoughts and acts, we become liberated from all birth that inevitably leads to
death. The cause of birth is said to be, “Action attached with ignorance… [SLJ]”
It is only when we have wrongly identified with the ego that we remain enmeshed
and tied in the webs of our self-created temporal illusory holograms. Thinking
that we are the body, the five senses and the mind gives us the false idea that
we are separate from the One, and at the mercy of differentiated perception.
Enlightened yogis perform actions without attachment. The steadfast yogi, the
knower of truth, thinks ‘I do not do anything!’ [Bhagavad Gita V.8]. Actions
without attachment do not bind us in illusion. Thus we liberate our Souls from
birth and death.
Shiva Sutra 3.19
Kavargadisu maheshvaryadyah pashumatarah
For most yogis, the journey Home is a series of reversals. Just as the Oneness
is forever expanding and contracting, moving out as the manifested universe and
returning within through periodic dissolutions; so we experience feeling united
in and with our God consciousness, and then falling back into our self-created
states of delusion and differentiated perception.
There are moments, perhaps days of total emersion in God consciousness; and yet
if we lose our focused awareness, we can ‘fall’ again into ignorance. When we
allow this to happen, the very forces that have moved us toward enlightenment
will again turn into Maya’s powers of illusion and hold onto our consciousness
with a vengeance.
Swami Lakshmanjoo: “… if, through negligence, the yogi who
has already perceived his own nature allows his awareness to ebb, then he become
the object of those mothers of beasts
(pashu-matarah).” They ‘play’ with him, meaning they push him into greater
delusion.
The Sanskrit texts often refer to ignorant human beings as beasts. While this
may feel a bit harshly derisive, the term ‘sheeple’ has become common in the
west to describe the herd of humanity who are easily controlled and manipulated
because they have interest no in becoming intelligently aware of current social,
economic, and political realities.
This idea of man being a ‘beast’ is found in the one of the primary Upanishads,
the Brihadaranyaka. I have quoted this passage at the top of my website for many
years now. Its meaning has deepened for me over time - and I now understand that
the ‘gods’ are my own sense organs, the five senses and the mind, etc. The
purpose of the sense organs is to bind our consciousness in this manifested
differentiated universe. Brahman is another Sanskrit word for the Oneness, God
consciousness, Parabhairava.
“And to this day, [those]
who...know the self as I am Brahman [the Oneness], become all this universe.
Even the gods [our own sense organs] cannot prevent his becoming this, for he
has become their Self. ...if a man worships another deity thinking: He is one
and I am another, he does not know. He [who does not know] is like a
sacrificial animal to the gods. As many animals serve a man, so does each man
serve the gods. Even if one animal is taken away, it causes anguish to the
owner; how much more so when many are taken away! Therefore it is not pleasing
to the gods that men should know this [that they are the Oneness].” –
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, I.iv.10
***
How does the Oneness manage to bind Itself into limited
and differentiated forms? People who are ignorant of their own God consciousness
are called ‘beasts’ (pashu). What are
the ‘mothers of beasts’ in this sutra? How do our sense organs keep us bound in
ignorance?
The answer is sound, which begins as transcendent sound.
The supreme energy Shakti, which is always one with the Oneness, and “which is
the supreme transcendental speech
(Paravak), descends to the field of the universe, she first becomes will
(iccha), then knowledge
(jnana) and then action
(kriya). [SLJ]”
Shakti
becomes letters, the vowels and consonants that make up words, and the words
that make up sentences. What we think and say, and our investment in the reality
of and attachment to what we think and say, actually does serve to bind us in
our own self-created illusory webs. The spoken word is sound.
While many of us might consider how we speak in order to
improve communication with others and the results thereby achieved - most of us
never think about what we say.
However,
the understanding given here by Swami Lakshmanjoo is on another and far deeper
level.
This is my understanding of what he is saying in his explanation of this sutra:
In God consciousness, we are in a state of awareness that receives and perceives
sound – letters, words, and sentences – as the fusion, amalgam, and equilibrium
of all frequency waveforms of the One. This awareness of the One within each and
every frequency of the spectrum of sound liberates us from reacting to what is
‘said’ in ways that would drag us back into duality.
We understand that on the deepest level, all words are the sounds of the
emanations of God consciousness. This awareness keeps us away from the
pernicious ‘delusion-thicket’ snare of making judgments – this is good, this is
bad. Everything is God. Words lose their power to trigger reactions that bind us
back down into polarity and differentiated perception.
“To derive meaning, you have to attach your individual consciousness. When
individual consciousness is not attached to these letters, words, and sentences,
then you will become one with Lord Shiva (God consciousness, the Oneness).
[SLJ]”
The example of two reactions to a simple sentence is given. If someone says,
‘Get a bucket of water’ you can “observe this is only the flow of consciousness
in its own nature. The word ‘get’ will have no meaning. It is only the letters
g-e-t and nothing else. There is no meaning in the separate letters. To derive
meaning, you have to attach your individual consciousness. [SLJ]” This is
possible for yogis who have transcended the power that these sounds, as letters
and words, have over their consciousness.
The second reaction is one we would consider more ‘normal’ and is seen as the
reaction of the ignorant. “For those ignorant people, those beasts, these
letters, words and sentences pierce their minds…[SLJ]” Our senses and mind are
pierced, penetrated and conquered by these sounds, which cause conditioned and
conditioning reactions of various emotions, happy and sad.
The ignorant are like ‘beasts’ and react in predictable, conditioned, habitual,
and compulsive behavior patterns. We have all observed these patterns in our own
behavior. The enlightened yogi has the awareness to perceive the sound of
letters-words-sentences as being Divine, the Oneness - all sounds are God
consciousness. The yogi is no longer ‘played’ by these. These ‘mothers of
beasts’ no longer has any power over such a yogi.
Jaideva Singh summarizes this sutra thus: “…even if a person has realized the
truth, he is, if he happens to be heedless, deluded by…deities (the sense organs
– ‘the mothers of beasts’) governing the limited individuals by means of the
application of words that influence his mind.”
There are eight mothers of beasts: the five senses, the
mind (manas), intellect
(buddhi), and limited ego
(ahamkara).
“In the center of the subtle opening in the crown of the
head (brahmarandhra) is situated the supreme energy (Shakti) of Lord Shiva, (she
is) the Divine Mother, surrounded by the eight mothers of beasts. In their
hands, they hold the noose, which entangle and bind one with limitation, keeping
one from the unlimited state. These supreme terrible
(mahaghora)
shaktis create
disturbance and ignorance again and again, and are very difficult to conquer.”
[SLJ - Timirodghata Tantra]
***
One collective sound - the Vijnana Bhairava - Verse 41
In these sounds [of stringed instruments] you will find separate sounds, but if
you go into the depth of this hearing, you will see that collectively one sound
is proceeding from the instrument, one collective sound.
This can be heard by anyone [but] only the man with awareness can rise with the
sound.
It can be heard by anybody, but you have to maintain that awareness.
And that collective sound is continuous, without any successive movement.
It is continuous, without breakage, although it is successively put down
[sounded], because the player puts that finger successively on those strings.
The one who is one-pointed on that one collective sound, after contemplating on
that collective sound, in the end, he becomes one with the supreme ether of
consciousness.
Swami Lakshmanjoo
***
VIJNANA BHAIRAVA, The Manual for Self Realization, Revealed by Swami
Lakshmanjoo, Edited by John Hughes; Universal Shaiva Fellowship, 2007.
Bhagavad Gita, In the Light of Kashmir Shaivism, Chapters 1-6, revealed by Swami
Lakshmanjoo, edited by John Hughes; Universal Shaiva Fellowship, 2008.
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Winthrop Sargeant; State University of New York
Press, 1994.
The Bhagavadgita in the Mahabharata,
A Bilingual Edition,
Translated & Edited by J.A.B. van Buitenen;
The University of Chicago Press, 1981
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