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Abhinavagupta does not treat rasa as a mere byproduct of emotion—like joy, sorrow, or fear—but as something altogether beyond them.. Rasa, in his system, is sui generis—a category unto itself. It is not a feeling one conjures from within, nor something simply caused by external stimuli. Rather, it is a unique mode of perception that arises from the mind’s innate capacity to move beyond its usual limits and commune with something eternal.

Rasa is not reducible to sentiment or mood. It is not "felt" in the ordinary sense, but rather "entered into"—as if one is momentarily swept into a deeper order of reality. In the presence of a work of art—be it poetry, theatre, or music—the individual becomes a vessel for an experience that is both internally transforming and cosmically resonant. One does not merely witness the artwork; one becomes transparent to it, as though the boundaries between self and object dissolve.

This refined perception is not born from emotional excitement but from a particular quality of consciousness—what Abhinavagupta calls sattva.

When the mind is tranquil, lucid, and free of distraction, it becomes receptive to the subtle beauty encoded within form. Only in this purified state can rasa be known. The experience then ceases to be personal in the ordinary sense; the sadness of a tragic character, for example, does not weigh down the viewer but instead becomes a means of beholding a deeper truth within sorrow itself—a kind of luminous sadness, abstracted from ego and imbued with beauty.

To describe how this occurs, Abhinavagupta draws from the earlier aesthetic framework of the Nāṭyaśāstra, retaining the triad of vibhāva (the activating cause), anubhāva (its expressive result), and vyabhicāri bhāvas (the auxiliary emotional tones).

These elements form the stage upon which rasa appears—but rasa itself arises only when the viewer's awareness no longer clings to any one of them. Instead, the interplay of these factors evokes a resonance beyond the sum of their parts. The heart is stirred, yes—but what is stirred is not simply emotion, but recognition: the recognition of something eternal shining through the ephemeral.

This is why Abhinavagupta holds that rasa is transcendental. It is timeless, universal, and shared—not a personal reaction but a glimpse of the infinite through the veil of the finite. It is as if one were momentarily drawn into Shiva’s own joy, tasting a flavor of Being that lies beyond the boundaries of the conditioned self. Here, the aesthetic and the spiritual become indistinguishable. In such moments, we do not simply watch a play or read a poem—we are lifted, if only briefly, into the heart of reality.

This transformation has implications far beyond art. For Abhinavagupta, aesthetic experience is not a diversion from spiritual practice, but an intimate part of it. The journey of the soul toward liberation is not confined to asceticism or intellectual rigor; it may also pass through the subtle gateways of beauty. Through the refined enjoyment of art, the mind loosens its grip on ego and enters a clearer, more spacious awareness. One forgets oneself—and in that forgetting, touches the Self.

This approach overturns the false divide between art and awakening. Rasa, rightly understood, is not entertainment. It is a portal. The true aim of art is not to stimulate the senses but to sanctify them—to purify perception until it becomes capable of seeing the divine through form. A painting, a melody, a gesture on a stage: these are not distractions, but windows. They invite us to perceive what has always been present, though veiled by the ordinary habits of mind.

Thus, rasa becomes a sacred phenomenon. It is the aesthetic counterpart to samādhi, a state of absorption where duality collapses and what remains is ānanda—pure delight. Through rasa, the soul comes into contact with that which is beyond language, yet not beyond experience. It is not about identifying with emotion, but about witnessing emotion as a play of Consciousness—as Spanda, the Divine Throb that animates all reality.

In this way, Abhinavagupta elevates aesthetics to the status of a yoga. He gives us a path where perception itself becomes a practice, where art becomes sādhanā. Rasa, when entered with awareness and purity, can carry the soul toward liberation—not by negating the world, but by revealing it as a radiant gesture of the Divine.

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The senses are not sinful, distracting, or impure faculties to be negated, but rather as sacred instruments of the Divine. They are expressions—emanations—of Shiva’s own pulsating Consciousness, and as such, they are not merely physical mechanisms, but living aspects of the sacred. The senses and their activity.. not separate from the Absolute, but as direct manifestations of it. Just as the sun naturally radiates light in all directions, so too does Shiva, as the Supreme Subject, radiate the powers of perception—sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, and thought—into the field of manifestation.

The senses, are not enemies to be conquered but gods to be venerated. Each sense corresponds to a deity—a radiant force of intelligence that brings the outer world into intimate resonance with the Self. One is not to suppress the senses, but to enter into them more deeply, to sanctify their movements and see each sensation as the Divine revealing itself. In this, perception becomes prayer. Every sensation a form of worship, an offering, and a recognition of the sacred pulse of Spanda—the Divine Vibration at the heart of all experience.

Abhinavagupta offers a vision of this in which the gods of the senses revolve around the divine couple, Anandabhairava and Anandabhairavi, who reside in the lotus of the Heart. Each sense-deity offers the most refined and exquisite experience as an act of devotion, recognizing the joy of Creation as a sacred dance. Rather than retreating from the world to find God, one can embrace the world as God. Sensory experience, when illumined by awareness, becomes a means not of bondage, but of liberation.

This insight challenges dualistic spiritual paths that seek to sever or navigate the soul separately from the body, or the spirit from the senses. In Trika Shavism, it is not renunciation of the world that leads to enlightenment, but the transmutation of one’s perception of it. When the yogi realizes that all of life is saturated with Shiva’s light, the senses cease to be distractions and instead become doors to the Infinite.

This transformation culminates in what is called Sahajavastha—the natural, spontaneous state of nondual awareness. It is here, having passed beyond effortful practice and momentary samadhi, abides effortlessly in the divine while living fully in the body and world. One does not need to shut the eyes to see God, nor still his breath to feel the sacred. Instead, every perception, every sensation, every ordinary act glows with the light of the extraordinary. They function in the world, see through the eyes, speak through the mouth, walk and breathe and think—yet remain perfectly centered in the unchanging awareness of the Supreme. The transcendent and the immanent are no longer two; they are recognized as one vibrating field of Consciousness.

This philosophical approach also reinterprets certain modern occult ideas, such as the assertion that demons or different deities are parts of the brain. On one level, this is accurate: the gods, demons, devas, and asuras do find expression in the body, the senses, and the neural architecture of the brain. The deities are not mere symbols, nor are they confined to the brain; rather, they emanate into it.

The sense organs, and even specific brain regions, can be understood as localized crystallizations of these cosmic forces—like shadows cast into form by transcendent intelligences. The gods are not figments of the brain; the brain is a figment of the gods.

To recognize that the senses are divine is to bridge the so-called divide between spirit and matter. The yogi does not seek to abandon perception but to refine it—seeing each sensation not as a distraction, but as a shimmering facet of the Supreme. The world, in this view, is not an illusion to be escaped, but a temple to be entered fully, with reverence, with presence, and with the realization that every experience is God experiencing God.

Thus, liberation does not come by negating the senses but by recognizing their true source and nature. When infused with awareness, when bathed in the light of Shiva’s grace, even the most ordinary perception becomes a window into eternity. This is Sahajavastha—the state where divine realization and embodied experience are not at odds, but eternally and effortlessly intertwined.

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ABHINAVAGUPTA AND THE CONCEPT OF IGNORANCE IN KASHMIR SHAIVISM

Ignorance is a truth that all human beings perceive in their life in this world. All schools of Indian philosophical thought take cognizance of its existence in man and discuss its nature as they see it, recognizing that ignorance is universally perceived to be the cause of man’s bondage in his mundane life. A brief survey of the conceptualization of ignorance by some representative orthodox schools of Indian philosophy on the nature of ignorance will help in assessing the unique contribution made to the subject by the most illustrious exponent of Kashmir Shaivism, Abhinavagupta.

We shall begin our study with an examination of how the Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika schools conceived it, because these two schools have been assigned the lowest position in the hierarchy of the schools of Indian philosophy by a well-known Advaita Shaiva writer, Kshemaraja, in his Pratyabhijñahṛdayam (Sutra 8), where he says: tadbhūmikaḥ sarvadarśana sthitayaḥ, ‘the positions of the various systems of philosophy are only that’.

The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika writers conceptualise ignorance to be merely negation or absence of knowledge in the percipient subject. Thus, ignorance is, in their view, a negative concept which can be eliminated by acquisition of knowledge: duḥkha-janma-pravrtti-doṣa mityajñānānam uttarāpaye (Nyāya sūtra 1.1.2, and the Nyāya bhāṣya thereon, 15). The Sāṁkhya and the Patañjali Yoga schools look upon ignorance as the resultant of the lack of discriminatory wisdom (viveka-jñāna) in the percipient subject between the sentient (chetana) Puruṣa and the insentient material (jaḍa) Prakṛti (cf. SK vs. 64, p. 476 ff, and Vachasapati Misra’s commentary thereon).

The lack of discriminatory knowledge between these two ultimate components of creation, spirit and matter produces confusion in the mind of the percipient subject, culminating in the false superimposition of the characteristics of the material Prakṛiti on the spiritual Puruṣa. It is obvious that the dualistic Sāṁkhya-Yoga School’s theory of ignorance is positive in character, as opposed to the pluralistic Nyāya-Vaiṣeśika viewpoint, and that ignorance can be destroyed by developing its opposite, discriminatory wisdom, between the two, Puruṣa and Prakṛti. The Shankara Vedāntins conceive of two forms of ignorance, namely, cosmic ignorance (samaṣṭi or mūla ajñāna), and individual ignorance (vyaṣṭi or tūla ajñāna), though their nature and content are held to be identical in essence: idamajñānam samṣṭi-vyaṣti abhiprāyena ekamanekam ca vyavahryate (VS 76).

Cosmic ignorance plays a crucial role in the manifestation of the phenomenal world, while individual ignorance leads to a distorted vision of Reality, thereby causing bondage. Ignorance has been described by the Advaita Vedantins as neither existent (sat) on account of its being sublated by the dawn of true knowledge in the individual being, nor non-existent (asat), as it is experienced by all individuals on the mundane plane; it, therefore, is indescribable (anirvacanīya) in positive or negative terms: ajñānam sadasadbhyam nirvacanīyam triguṇātmakam jñāna-virodhī bhāva-rūpam (ibid 73). Ignorance here has only a phenomenal existence; as soon as one succeeds in elevating oneself to the trans-phenomenal level, ignorance disappears from the experiential horizon of the individual being once and for all.

Against this background of the views of the other orthodox schools, let us now examine the Advaita Shaiva concept of ignorance as conceived by the Advaita Shaiva writers of Kashmir. The earliest references to the concept of ignorance are the two aphorisms in the Śivasūtra revealed to Vasugupta, the founder of the Advaita Shaiva School in Kashmir. The two identically worded sūtras read thus: jñānam bandhaḥ (Śivasūtra 3.2). Kshemaraja, Abhinavagupta’s foremost disciple, says that the word jñānam actually signifies in this context vitiated, or limited, knowledge, which is tantamount to ignorance (ajñāna) (Śivasūtra Vimarśinī 3.2).

This ignorance lies at the root of the bondage of the individual being. When he is enveloped by defilement (mala), technically called āṇavamala (i.e. mala caused by the limitation imposed on the self by the Supreme Lord), then the individual does not experience his true divine nature on account of his being limited and contracted by this self-created limitation or āṇavamala. This lack of knowledge about his true nature is labeled ignorance. Kshemaraja interprets the word jñānam as occurs in the Śivasūtra (3.2) as signifying the knowledge of the self-produced in the citta (internal sense organ, equivalent to antaḥkaraṇa) in the form of its modification (citta-vritti) (SSV 128). Since the citta is universally acknowledged as of the nature of the three guṇas, pleasure (sattva), pain (rajas) and stupefaction (tamas), the knowledge produced in it bears all the characteristics of empirical knowledge. For instance, it implies the experience of duality between subject and object, as also infinite multiplicity.

The knowledge arising in the citta involving two distinct poles of experience, the knower and the known, is instrumental in the experient’s bondage. He is then subject to transmigration in the world. Kshemaraja quotes a verse from the Tantrasadbhāva, now lost, in his commentary, the Śivasutra-vimarśinī: “Confined to sattva, rajas and tamas (the three guṇas), and knowing only that (object of knowledge) which the senses can seize, the embodied being wanders about in the world, moving from one body to another” (ibid).

Abhinavagupta adds another dimension to the Advaita Shaiva conception of ignorance by postulating two distinct kinds of ignorance as existing on two different levels in the personality of embodied beings. These are spiritual ignorance and intellectual ignorance, or pauruṣa ajñāna and bauddha ajñāna respectively. He describes the salient features in the Tantrāloka (Sadānanda in VS 1.22-23) and the Tantrasāra (āhnika I).

According to him, as the Supreme Lord Paramashiva imposes limitations (sañkoca) on Himself of His free will (svecchaya) to become the universe consisting of an infinite number of subjects (pramāta), objects of experience (prameya), etc., which indeed are only His self-manifest forms on the mundane plane. His self-experience of His absolute nature (viṣvvottīrṇa rūpa), in the form of absolute I- experience, or pūrṇahantā, ceases.

This self-experience of the Supreme Lord is thus named because it expresses his fullest nature (paripūrṇa svabhāva). When the Supreme Lord is said to voluntarily assume limitation (sañkoca) to become the world, a split is created, as it were, in his self-experience (svātma-parāmarśa) as a result of which he begins experiencing Himself in the first instance as the exponent or subject symbolized by aham (I-experience), and the void (śūnya), and then subsequently as the exponent or the subject (aham) and the object of experience (idam, or not-self appearing to fill up the void or śūnya, as it were). All this happens in the course of the Supreme Lord’s involution (avaroha) as the universe.

It is held that the notion of not-self (idam) appears for the first time in His self-experience (parāmarśa), which then is experienced by him only as His self-extended form (sphāra), not different from him. His ‘truncated’ self-experience, as aham (I-experience) instead of pūrṇahanta (integral I-experience), caused by His voluntary act of self-limitation (ātma-sañkoca) resulting in the appearance of idam or not-self in the background of I-experience, Abhinavagupta designates by the term pauruṣa ajñāna (spiritual ignorance).

Abhinava defines pauruṣa ajñāna as atmani anātmabodha, or the experience of not-self (anātma uridam) in the self (ātma). The locus of this self-experience is the percipient subject’s mirror of consciousness (citta-darpaṇa), with the consciousness serving as the reflecting medium for all his self-experiences. Since this self-experience is produced prior to the creation of citta or intellect, during the manifestation of the world, it is held to be beyond the reach of the citta or the intellect. Abhinavagupta, therefore, posits that pauruṣa ajañāna, or spiritual ignorance, being an offshoot of the Supreme Lord’s act of assuming limitation in the course of His self-manifestation as the universe, cannot be eradicated by a limited embodied individual through his personal efforts in the form of practice of spiritual discipline (sādhana).

Ignorance can be destroyed only by the Supreme Lord through the infusion of His grace into His form of the embodied individual, technically called śaktipāta.

The second kind of ignorance, bauddha ajñāna (intellectual ignorance), is created in the intellect or buddhi upon the Supreme Lord’s being enveloped by māyā, and residual impressions of karma floating in the sphere of māyā, called māyīyamala and kārmamala, in the course of His self-manifestation as the universe.

Abhinavagupta describes bauddha ajñāna as experience in the form of self in the not-self (anātmani-ātmabodha). It is said that the Supreme Lord, existing on the mundane level in the form of a spiritual monad following His act of self-limitation, is enveloped by māyīyamala (defilement in the form of māyā), with his self-experience as pure subject (aham) becoming completely concealed, allowing only his experience of not-self (idam) to remain unaffected by the veil of māyā (māyīyamala). This happens on the level just below the śuddha vidyā tattva in the sphere of māyā. A vacuum is created in the self-experience of the subject once again after eclipse of the I-experience (aham).

Since worldly transactions are not possible in the absence of a subject or agent, the Supreme Lord, in the course of his self-manifestation as the universe, creates the experience of the subject by superposing the experience of the empirical subject on the not-self (idam or anātma). As a consequence of this super-imposition, ego-experience (ahaṁkāra) is created, which takes place in the intellect of the embodied individual. Since the ego-experience is created on the mundane level solely for carrying out worldly transactions, Abhinavagupta treats it as a conceptual one (vaikalpika), with the intellect of the individual being its locus.

Abhinavagupta therefore holds intellectual ignorance responsible for the creation of ego-experience. As such, it cannot be gotten rid of until and unless the experience of the self in the real self (ātmani ātmabodha) arises in the intellect of the individual being. He calls this experience the spiritual knowledge (pauruṣa jñāna) that arises in the spiritual seeker with the annihilation of āṇavamala as a consequence of infusion of Divine Grace, śaktipāta, in the embodied individual. The practice of spiritual discipline cannot accomplish this task. Hence, śaktipāta, or the descent of Divine Grace, is invested with so much importance by Advaita Shaiva writers, especially Abhinavagupta.

[Courtesy : Quarterly Malini published by Ishwar Ashram Trust ]

- Prof. Debabrata Sensharma

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Starting from the source of vibrant Consciousness, the first two tattvas of Shaivism are :

(1) Shiva tattva and

(2) Shakti tattva.

It is important to understand at the beginning that these two tattvas are only linguistic conventions and are not actually part of creation. According to the deep yogic experience of the sages of this philosophy, there is no difference between Shiva tattva and Shakti tattva.

They are both actually one with Paramasiva. They are considered to be two tattvas only for the convenience of philosophical thinking and as a way of clarifying the two aspects of the one absolute reality, Paramasiva.

These two aspects are Shiva, the transcendental unity, and Shakti, the universal diversity. The changeless, absolute and pure consciousness is Shiva, while the natural tendency of Shiva towards the outward manifestation of the five divine activities is Shakti.

So, even though Shiva is Shakti, and Shakti is Shiva, and even though both are merely aspects of the same reality called Paramasiva, still, these concepts of Shiva-hood and Shakti-hood are counted as the first two tattvas. These two tattvas are at the plane of absolute purity and perfect unity.

— B. N. Pandit, Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism (3rd ed., 2008), p. 73

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Based on the Kālīkula (Kālī worship) branch of Tantric Śaivism, this uniquely Kaśhmirian lineage called itself the Krama (‘sequence’) or the Mahānāya (‘great way’) in reference to its radical non-dualist approach to Yoga, which internalized ritual worship of goddesses as the cyclical phases (krama) of one’s own awareness; jīvanmukti (‘liberation while living’).

The Krama (‘Sequence’ or ‘Cycle’), derives its name from the representation of awareness and cognition as cyclical stages / phases of awareness that are compared to goddess manifestations of the formless Kālī, the heart of consciousness itself.

The Krama was the most philosophically non-dual among the schools of Kashmiri Śhaivism. The Krama system moves in space and time, but finally leads to Paramaśiva, who is beyond space and time.

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In Kashmir Shaivism this whole universe which is reflected in the mirror of God - consciousness, is His supreme energy.

" Tasyaivā parā devī " That is called Shakti. This whole universal state is called Shakti, and is the means to realise one’s own nature.

Question here arises why he has created this supreme energy in his own nature?

Just to recognise his own nature.

This whole universe is just the means to recognise Lord Shiva. You can recognise Lord Shiva through the universe. You cannot recognise Lord Shiva by abandoning the universe. Also then what is the fun of the universe?

The universe is created just to recognise him.

You have to observe and experience God - consciousness in the very activity of the world. If you remain cut off from the universe and try to realise God - consciousness it will take centuries.

On the other hand if you remain in universal activity and be attentive to realise God - consciousness it will be very easy for you to understand.

~ Swami Lakshmanjoo

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I-Consciousness is in fact almighty God. but human beings, having forgotten that this is their nature due to a deep delusion, do not take themselves as God.

The treatise in hand is meant to destroy human delusion and to help people recognise that in truth their basic consists of the absolute Godhead. the Lord within each person has playfully pushed awareness of the true 'I' into oblivion.

Recognition would again empower aspirants to renew and employ again this understanding about their real self. the work has for this reason been given the name "Ishwar- pratyabhijna", 'the recognition of (one's own self as ) the lord.

-- Bhagwān Sri Utpaladeva

[Ishwar-pratyabhijna - karika, Book II, kriyadhikar chapter-3, verse 17 commentary English translation by BN pandit , 2004 ]

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Dirck Barendsz (1534–1592) - “Hell”

from the series ‘The Four Last Things’, 16th century

engraved by Jan Sadeler I

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In late 2023, a construction project in Worcestershire, England, uncovered a remarkable hoard of 1,368 Roman and Iron Age coins. Dating from 157 BC to AD 55, this treasure marks one of the largest collections from the reign of Emperor Nero ever found. Experts believe the hoard may have been hidden to safeguard wealth amid conflict.

Worcestershire Heritage, Art & Museums/Luke Unsworth

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The Fire of Troy (Pieter Schoubroeck, 1570 - 1607)

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Valencia, Spain 1892

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Colijn de Coter - The Damned. 1505

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Siren Song by Norman Lindsay

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The Fall of the Rebel Angels, 1798 by Edward Dayes (English, 1763–1804)

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WRIGHT, Joseph (1734-1797)

Cottage on fire at night, detail between circa 1785 and circa 1793 Oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art Ed. Orig. Lic. Ed.

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Demon and Tamara by Konstantin Makovsky, ca. 1889

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Huge tile mosaic made in Tusculum, 3rd century AD.

Vatican Museum

Photo courtesy Kathleen Phipps