One of the most fascinating, strange, and compelling practice texts in the history of yoga is the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra, “The Scripture of the Bhairava who is Consciousness.” Bhairava is a proper name for the awe-inspiring aspect of the universal Consciousness, and is the divine name preferred by nondual Shaiva Tāntrikas of 1000+ years ago.
The unusual character of the text is signalled even in the title itself by the unique usage of the name Vijñāna-bhairava, referring to that Bhairava who is not a visualizable deity with specific attributes, but rather is nothing but the awe-inspiring power of expanded Awareness itself. (More on this below.) The name ‘Consciousness-Bhairava’ is comparable to parallel names from the better-known Buddhist tradition such as ‘Wisdom-Buddha’ or ‘Medicine Buddha’. Vijñāna-bhairava is understood as the deity who mystically revealed the yogic techniques of the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra (VBT). What follows is an introduction to this astonishing 1200-year-old text, first made famous in the English-speaking world through Osho’s The Book of the Secrets, though that book unfortunately contains not even a single sentence of accurate translation from the original text.
A Brief Introduction
From a literary corpus that once numbered hundreds of scriptural texts, the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra (VBT) is the only revealed Tantrik scripture with a continuous tradition of study in the Valley of Kashmīr (and elsewhere) all the way down to the present day. Here ‘scripture’ refers to a work spoken (or alleged to be spoken) by Śiva himself (īśvara uvāca) or Śakti herself (devyuvāca). In other words, as in many other religious traditions, a scripture is thought to be directly revealed by a transcendent Divinity. Virtually all the other Śaiva Tantrik scriptures included highly complex rituals and complex mantra systems, and therefore their study fell away over centuries of Muslim conquest that destroyed the institutional base that supported such highly ramified developments. This is the primary reason that in 20th-century Muslim-dominated Kashmīr, the VBT was the only revealed scripture of the Tantrik Age that was still studied and practiced.
Below I offer a discussion of the interesting features of the VBT that make it stand out in the history of yoga.
An Orientation to the Text and its Practices
An initial examination of the VBT quickly reveals to the reader that she is here dealing with a text whose ideas and presuppositions about the nature of yogic practice are, in some ways, radically different from those of the classical Yoga tradition. The Yoga-sūtra of Patañjali, the prototypical text of classical Yoga, stresses disengagement with the objects of the senses (vairāgya), and an interiorization so complete that yoga scholar Mircea Eliade in all seriousness compared the classical yogī to a vegetable. By contrast, the VBT (written just four centuries after the Yoga-sūtra) often stresses a dynamic engagement with the sensual world, albeit with a significant shift in awareness or perception regarding the nature of that world.
In Yoga-sūtra 1.16 we read: ‘Higher dispassion is a total absence of craving for anything material...’, suggesting the cultivation of extreme indifference towards the material/sensual world. The VBT, on the other hand, asserts a different perspective, exemplified in the following verses:
Wherever the mind goes, externally or even internally, it [discovers] nothing but the state of God. Since [that state] is all-pervasive, where else could the mind go? Wherever [and whenever] the consciousness of the all-pervasive Lord is manifested through the pathway of the senses, the sense-object [should be contemplated as] having exactly the same nature [as that consciousness]… (vv. 116-117)
In fact, this text goes so far as to recommend absorption in the inner states arising as a direct result of enjoying sense-pleasures, including food, drink, sex, and music. (Contrary to popular belief, such practices are quite rare in Tantrik sources.) Meditation on sublime music is recommended in verse 73:
The yogin who relishes music and song to the extent that s/he merges with it becomes filled with unparalleled happiness, attains heightened awareness, and experiences oneness with the Divine.
This is a radical departure from the strenuously ascetic earlier tradition, which asserted that involvement with the objects of the senses inevitably drew the practitioner out of the experience of the true Self and painfully entangled him with the vicissitudes of worldly life. However, while illustrating this contrast it must be stressed that the VBT clearly is not advocating simple self-indulgence (which, as our experience verifies, is no path to fulfilment). Verses 70 and 71, for example, specifies that one should become absorbed in the inner feeling of delight triggered by external stimuli, rather than focusing on the stimuli themselves. Thus the energy of desire, previously seen as a hindrance in sādhanā, is redirected towards the attainment of expanded awareness, as per the terms of the later Kulārṇava Tantra (2.63): “What is called sin becomes a merit when done for a higher purpose.” In this way, the Tantrik tradition asserts that desire itself is not a problem so much as attachment to the belief that desire ought to be fulfilled, and the belief that fulfilling desires is the path to happiness. This wrong view arises in connection with the idea that feelings of joy and happiness are caused by or dependent on the stimuli that catalyzed them. This is demonstrably not the case, since the exact same feelings can arise without any stimuli; and thus the essential problem is one of ignorance, not desire.
Another outstanding feature of classical Yoga is its fundamental doctrine that the Self is attained through the cessation of all mental-emotional fluctuations (Yoga-sūtra 1.2). In this view, thoughts and emotions, like radio static, mask the pure, sweet, simple melody of the inner Self and are therefore useless mental detritus when attempting to realize that Self. In stark contrast, if we were to identify one technique as the most dominant and pervasive theme in the VBT, it would probably be that of bhāvanā, a term which encompasses ‘awareness cultivation’, ‘creative contemplation’, and ‘feeling into what is’.
In one version of bhāvanā practice, a profoundly refined thought-construct (or śuddha-vikalpa) is to be held steadily in awareness. Far from obscuring the state of the Self, this allows the mind to relax and savor a nourishing thought that is in alignment with the true nature of reality until that thought dissolves into a pure feeling-state corresponding to the truth of the idea contemplated. This remarkable shift in the nature of meditative practice again indicates the revolutionary nature of the Tantrik perspective exemplified by this scripture. Examples of this kind of bhāvanā are rife throughout the text. In verses 63 and 65, the aspirant contemplates his body and then the whole universe as having the nature of joyful awareness. In verse 109, one contemplates, “Since I have all the attributes of Śiva, I am the same as the highest Divinity.” In verse 110, one meditates on the idea that “the energy-waves of the universe arise in their various forms from me, Bhairava.” These creative contemplations are not only an methodological innovation over the earlier tradition, but also clearly assert a doctrinal difference: that of nonduality over and against duality. The duality of the earlier classical tradition, of course, was not one of difference between oneself and pure consciousness, but rather an ontological distinction between that consciousness and the material world. But the Yoga-sūtra also teaches that the soul is ontologically distinct from God (though identical in essence). These are dualities which the VBT blithely disregards, encouraging the practitioner to see Divine Consciousness pulsating in the entire manifest world as well as in and as her own body, mind, and spirit.
Astonishingly, the VBT is one of the earliest nondual practice texts to appear in the historical record, yet it exhibits remarkable maturity and sophistication of thought, despite its often simplistic Sanskrit.* Its nondual attitude culminates in its penultimate contemplative practice, a verse which confidently proclaims that all knowable phenomena should be contemplated as consisting of One Consciousness (v. 137).**
* (The text is difficult to translate not because its grammar is sophisticated, but because its verses are very often allusive and elliptical.)
** (Note, the Yoga-sūtra is often misunderstood to be teaching methods by which the practitioner becomes one with that which he meditates upon, but in fact the text teaches that the mind of the practitioner fuses with the object of meditation—and the mind is explicitly distinct from the Self in that text, and wholly irreconciliable with it.)
Continuity of the Tradition with Earlier Forms
Having described the contrasts between the classical and Tantrik yogas, I must now go back and nuance my simplifications. A peculiar feature of South Asian religion is its reluctance to repudiate earlier strata of the tradition. At the very least, respectful lip service is paid to past masters, and more usually, their teachings and practices are retained insofar as they can fit into the new system, even if they must be reinterpreted. Thus we see the apparently atavistic survival of a Patañjalian view in the VBT, as in these verses:
Wherever the mind goes, in that very instant let it abandon whatever [it has alighted upon]. Due to having nothing to hang onto, it then becomes ‘waveless’ (i.e., free of fluctuation or agitation). (v. 129)
Observing a desire suddenly arising, one should lead it to quiescence. It will dissolve into the very ‘place’ from which it arose. (v. 96)
A number of other verses recommend blocking off the senses or introverting awareness (such as v. 89), as well as dissolving all thought-constructs (such as 108 and 115). However, I said the survival of these elements is only apparently atavistic, and this is because the text presupposes a methodological theory that reconciles the apparently contradictory approaches. The is the theory of upāya, often translated “skillful means”. According to this theory, a variety of techniques ought to be presented, both introversive and extroversive, thoughtful and thought-free, sensual and renunciatory, because of the differences in aptitude and inclination in the variety of practitioners who might use the text. Verse 148 discusses the great benefit of “being established in even one of the methods described here”. Clearly, then, the practitioner is not expected to pursue all or even a majority of the techniques described in the text, but rather to choose those few which work most effectively for him or her, and pursue them assiduously to actualize the promised “absolute wholeness, nourished fullness, and [deep] contentment” (v. 148). If we assume that the text was in fact intended as a teaching manual for gurus, not a practice manual for aspirants (as is likely), then the diversity of techniques becomes even less problematic. The guru or ācārya, relying on the intuition “that arises through intensity of devotion in one who is dispassionate [about everything but Truth]” (v. 121), would select those yuktis (techniques) from the text that are appropriate to the adhikāra—the understanding, aptitude, and readiness—of the individual student. In this context, we should not consider the survival of some Patañjalian methods in Tantrik contexts to be unusual.
Not only do the various strands of the yogic tradition co-exist in the VBT, sometimes they syncretistically merge in a manner that indicates a thoughtful dialectic on the part of the anonymous author. A good example is verse 94:
Contemplate thus: “There is no ‘mental apparatus’ within me, consisting of the mind, ego, etc.”—through the absence of mental constructs [of selfhood based on ephemeral mental operations], one becomes free of such constructs [and will abide as pure awareness].
Here we see an almost paradoxical reconciliation of classical yogic practice with the later Tantrik tool of bhāvanā, for the aspirant is to use the mind to contemplate the mind’s non-existence! The instruction to concentrate on its own non-existence is clearly intended to cause a Zen-like ‘short circuit’ of the mind, resulting (for one who has the adhikāra) in the pure awareness described. This is a good example of the pragmatic experimentalism of the text, which benefitted from the great diversity of possible methods in the age of classical Tantra.
Sectarian affiliation
The VBT has an explicit affiliation with a specific Tantrik lineage, a fact obscured by almost all its translators. It teaches a form of the Trika in which a single deity, Parā Devī (lit., ‘Supreme Goddess’) is venerated as Bhairavī, the consort of Bhairava. Thus the text also has Kaula affiliation, since it is the Kaula tradition that worships the consort pair of Bhairava and Bhairavī. However, in this scripture, both these names are used to refer to states of expanded consciousness or inner fullness, with Bhairavī being used more for states resulting from an activation of energy (śakti), and Bhairava being used for states of total stillness and quiescence (śama, śūnya). The great nondual author Kṣemarāja wrote a beautiful verse explaining why Supreme Consciousness is appropriately referred to with the name Bhairava, which you can read here.
The VBT seems to exhibit a strong Buddhist influence, for one of its most common themes is meditating on the ‘voidness’ or ‘emptiness’ (śūnyatā) of things: the inside of the body is contemplated as empty space (48), the senses as voids (32), and the whole universe as pure expansive void (58, 102). Yet this apparent Buddhist influence is not a form of syncretism, for the scripture maintains throughout a theology of Śiva-Śakti, where Śiva is defined as unbounded spacious awareness (or aware spaciousness) and Śakti as various forms of energy that are intrinsic to and vitalize that awareness. One can be a means of accessing the other, for they are inseparable, like fire and its heat (vv. 18-19). But the primary teaching of the text is that we access the nonconceptual space of Śiva (unconditioned awareness) through the energy that is Śakti (vv. 20-21).
Despite the text’s strong Goddess-orientation, ultimately the goal it presents is one of abiding in the pure, spacious, open, still, silent Ground of Being that is named as Śiva or Bhairava (see v. 139, where the goal of the text’s practices is made explicit). The VBT frequently stresses that the state it seeks is utterly free of any mental constructs, even if a mental construct was used to get there. The text repeatedly articulates a ‘subitist’ goal of accessing the natural state of awareness that results from dissolving all thought-constructs and feelings into their source and ground.
Unusual or atypical techniques easily integrated with everyday life
I have already mentioned the fact that the text teaches (or alludes to) specific esoteric techniques of inner yoga which require an expert’s explanation to perform correctly. The VBT teaches unique and unconventional techniques for entering into the expanded and intensified state of awareness, techniques that are not traditionally considered yogic, except in lineages nondual Śaiva Tantra. These techniques include:
gazing at a blank wall, a vast open space, or the clear blue sky and letting awareness become likewise open and clear (vv. 33, 60, 84);
attending to the space between thoughts (v. 61);
meditating on the liminal state between waking and sleeping (v. 75);
gazing at the pattern of sunlight filtering through the leaves of a tree or a lattice window and becoming absorbed in its silent play (v. 76);
contemplating that the sky is in your head (v. 85);
quietly repeating the vowel ‘a’ or contemplating a single musical note arising from and merging back into silence (vv. 90 & 40);
accessing intensified awareness through the pain of a bodily piercing (v. 93);
spinning around and around and falling down or walking for miles until exhausted (v. 111);
simply sitting and doing ‘nothing’ (non-conceptual meditation).
Many of the above techniques invite the practitioner into nirvikalpa states, that is, states which are largely or entirely free of thought-constructs and mental chatter.
Some of the teachings of this peculiar scripture cannot even be called techniques; rather, the text invites us to notice daily-life opportunities for accessing the awareness of our innate being that we might otherwise let slip by. These practices are even more unusual to find in a Sanskrit scripture. For example, we are invited to immerse ourselves in:
the feeling of wonder from watching a magic show (v. 66);
the aftermath of an orgasm (v. 69);
the arising of inner delight when savoring fine food and drink (v. 72);
listening to the vibration of live instrumental music or becoming one with the joyous feeling of a song (v. 73);
the repetitive gentle rocking motion of a swing or a carriage (v. 83);
what we find when we follow intense emotions back to their source and ground (v. 101);
the energy of sharpened and heightened awareness in any intense experience (v. 118).
Though this scripture was atypical, it was also seminal, for it laid the groundwork for a ‘gnostic’ version of Tantrik Yoga, in which traditional ritual could be overcoded with gnostic meaning, or dispensed with altogether for those with sufficiently high adhikāra (aptitude/qualification). Thus we must be absolutely clear that this text was aimed at those who had already learned Tantrik ritual and more basic forms of yoga. This is proven by verses 144-151, which would not be meaningful for anyone who was not familiar with the rituals mentioned and reinterpreted in those crucial closing verses.
Existing translations of the VBT
Today there are at least a dozen published translations of the VBT, whereas the vast majority of the Tantrik scriptural corpus remains untranslated. It would be more accurate to say there have been at least a dozen attempts to translate the VBT, none of which have been very successful, for reasons we will come to. These translations range from Jaidev Singh’s mostly accurate but inaccessible version to Lorin Roche’s poetic rendering entitled The Radiance Sutras, a version that has almost no connection to the specific techniques of the original text. In between these two extremes we have a very mixed bag, including the Bihar School’s disappointing translation, let down by the author’s poor grasp of Sanskrit syntax, and Dmitri Semenov’s little-known but surprisingly good attempt at a practitioner-friendly translation, which despite its mistakes (this author too has poor Sanskrit) demonstrates that the author has had considerable success in practicing the scripture’s subtle techniques. We also have Osho’s famous version, The Book of the Secrets, which contrary to the belief of his many devotees, is not based on the original Sanskrit text at all but rather on Paul Reps’ 1957 poetic rendering, which makes no attempt to capture any of the yogic practices or specificity of the original. Osho presented Reps’ words as if they were those of the original scripture, which he apparently never even consulted. Reps influenced Daniel Odier and Lorin Roche as well, and though he was a fine poet, one cannot hope to retrieve the original practices from his version.
We also have a couple of published translations that purport to be by Swāmī Lakṣman Jū, the last living guru of the Trika in Kashmīr (d. 1992), but in fact Swāmījī never wrote a translation. Rather, he gave extemporaneous explanations of the text’s practices, explanations which were often somewhat vague in the English he had available to him. [This vagueness was sometimes due to the fact that the verses that alluded to specific technical details of Śaiva Tantrik yoga were largely opaque to him, those more esoteric practices having died out in Kashmīr before his time. (In general, devotees of Lakṣman Jū will not admit to this lack of comprehensive knowledge on his part, often holding their guru to be infallible or very close to it.) For the evidence that supports these assertion, see Alexis Sanderson’s masterful article on Lakṣman Jū’s place in the Kashmirian tradition.] To set the record straight: if you have purchased translation attributed to Lakṣman Jū that published by Indica Press, that is in fact Bettina Bäumer’s translation followed by Lakṣman Jū’s extemporaneous, orally delivered explanation of the verse in question. Bäumer had to do a balancing act between the literal meaning of the Sanskrit and the way Lakṣman Jū was interpreting it, and the result is sometimes problematic—though certainly not without value.
Though Jaideva Singh is the only published translator who bothered to study the Sanskrit commentaries on the text and factor them into his translation, his translation is not accessible to 21st century practitioners because even though he understands well the practice being described in at least 80% of the verses (in my rough estimation), he usually does not express himself in a form of English that a modern reader can use to accurately practice the technique given. Additionally, like Lakṣman Jū, he tries to force the text to fit into the schema of Abhinavagupta’s three upāyas, a schema certainly unknown to the VBT’s author.
The current situation
So we’re left with the amazing fact that despite the enormous interest worldwide in Tantra and Tantrik Yoga, we don’t have a single accurate and accessible translation of the only Shaiva Tantrik yoga scripture to survive the ravages of time as a living document linked to communities of practice. This situation becomes even more shocking when you realize that the VBT is one of our earliest texts to present kuṇḍalinī practices (see, e.g., verses 28-31 and 35). Despite the widespread interest in kuṇḍalinī, there is still no comprehensive study of the origins and original usage of the term. Anyone attempting to research it will find information almost exclusively based on late (post-classical) materials and modern reinventions. (For example, Yogi Bhajan’s ‘kuṇḍalinī yoga’ has no relation at all to anything we find in the Sanskrit manuscripts.) Due to the decline of interest in rigorous academic study in mainstream culture, we have literally tens of millions of people interested in something that is still not well understood due to a dearth of thorough studies on the subject by anyone fluent in both Sanskrit and English.
Though I am not yet prepared to do an intertextual study on kuṇḍalinī, I have spent ten years at the difficult task of producing a translation of the VBT that is both accurate and accessible.
UPDATE: my completed translation will be released in full as part of a VBT meditation app in 2025! More details forthcoming . . .
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