CENTERING
TRANSCRIBED BY PAUL REPS
ZEN IS nothing new, neither is it
anything old. Long before Buddha was born the search was on in India, as the
present work shows.
Long after man has forgotten such
words as Zen and Buddha, satori and koan, China and Japan and America – still the search will go on, still Zen
will be seen even in flowers and grass-blades before the sun.
The following is adapted from the
preface to the first version in English of this ancient work. The Vighyan Bhairv Tantra
Wandering in the ineffable beauty of
Kashmir, above Srinagar I come upon the hermitage of Lakshmanjoo.
It overlooks green rice fields, the gardens of
Shalimar and Nishat Bagh,
lakes fringed with lotus. Water streams down from a mountaintop.
Here Lakshmanjoo-tall,
full bodied, shining –welcomes me. He shares with me this ancient teaching from
the Vigyan Bhairava and Sochanda Tantra, both written
about four thousand years ago, and from Malini Vijaya Tantra, probably another
thousand years older yet. It is an ancient teaching, copied and recopied countless
times, and from it Lakshmanjoo has made the
beginnings of an English version. I transcribe it eleven more times to get it
into the form given here.
THE SHIVA TANTRA SUTRAS
OF 112 MEDITATION TECHNIQUES
Shiva first chanted it to his consort Devi in a
language of love we have yet to learn. It is about the immanent experience. It
presents I I 2 ways to open the invisible door of
consciousness. I see Lakshmanjoo gives his life to
its practicing.
Some of the ways may appear redundant,
yet each differs from any other. Some may seen
simple, yet any one requires constant dedication even to test it.
Machines, ledgers, dancers, athletes
balance. Just as centering or balance augments various skills so it may
awareness. As an experiment, try standing equally on both feet; then imagine
you are shifting your balance slightly from foot to foot: just as balance
centers, do you.
If we are conscious in part, this
implies more inclusive consciousness. Have you a hand? Yes. That you know
without doubt. But until asked the question were you cognizant of the hand
apart?
Surely men as inspiritors
in part, known and unknown to the world have shared a common uncommon discovery. The Tao of Lao-tse, Nirvana of Budha, Jehovah of Moses, the Father of Jesus, the Allah of
Mohammed all point to the experience.
No-thing-ness,
spirit – once touched, the whole life clears.
DEVI SAYS:
O Shiva,
what is your reality?
What is
the wonder-filled universe?
What
constitutes seed?
Who
centers the universal wheel?
What is
the life beyond form pervading forms?
How many
we entre it fully, above space and time, names and descriptions?
Let my
doubts be cleared!
SHIVA REPLIES:
[ Devi,
though already enlightened, has asked the foregoing questions so others through
the universe might receive Shiva’s instructions. Now follow Shiva’s reply,
giving the I I 2 ways.]
1.
Radiant one,
this experience may dawn between two breaths. After breath comes in (down) and
just before turning up (out) --- the beneficence.
2.
As breath turns from down to up,and again as breath curves from up to down –through both
these turns, realize.
3.
Or, whenever inbreath and outbreath fuse, at
this instant touch the energyless energy-filled centre.
4.
Or, when breath
is all out (up) and stopped of itself, or all in (down) and stopped –
in such universal pause, one’s small self vanishes. This is difficult
only for the impure.
5.
Consider your
essence as light rays rising from centre to centre up the vertebrae, and so rises livingness in you.
6.
Or in the
spaces between, feel this as lightning.
7.
Devi, imagine
the Sanskrit letters in these honey-filled foci of awareness, first as letters,
then more subtly as sounds, then as most subtle feeling. Then, leaving them aside, be free.
8.
Attention
between eyebrows, let mind be before through. Let form
fill with breathe-essence to the top of the head, and there shower as light.
9.
Or, imagine the
five-colored circles of the peacock tail to be your five senses in illimitable
space. Now let their beauty melt within. Similarly, at any point in space or on
a wall – until the point dissolves. Then your wish for another comes true.
10.
Eyes closed, see your inner being in detail.
Thus see your
true nature.
11.
Place your
whole attention in the nerve, delicate as the lotus thread, in the centre of
your spinal column. In such be transformed.
12.
Closing the
seven opening of the head with your hand, a space between your eyes becomes all-inclusive.
13.
Touching
eyeballs as a feather, lightness between them opens into heart and
there permeates the cosmos.
14.
Bathe in the centre of sound, as in the
continuous sound of a waterfall. Or, by putting fingers in ears, hear the sound of sounds.
15.
Intone a sound, as a-u-m,
slowly. As sound enters soundfulness, so do you.
16.
In the beginning and gradual refinement of the
sound of any letter, awake.
17.
While listening to stringes
instruments, hear their composite central sound; thus omnipresence.
18.
Intone a sound audibly, then less and less
audibly as feeling deepens into this silent harmony.
19.
Imagine spirit simultaneously within and
around you until the entire universe spiritualizes.
20.
Kind Devi, enter etheric
presence
pervading far above and above your from.
21.
Put mindstuff in
such inexpressible fineness above, below, and in your heart.
22.
Consider any area of your present form as limitlessly spacious.
23.
Feel your substance, bones, flesh, blood, saturated with cosmic essence.
24.
Suppose your passive form to be an empty room
with walls of skin -
empty.
25.
Blessed one, as sense are
absorbed in heart, reach the center of the lotus.
26.
Unminding mind, keep
in the middle – until.
27.
When in worldly
activity, keep attentive between the two breaths, and so practicing, in a few
days be born
anew. [Lakshmanjoo says this is his
favorite.]
28.
Focus on fire rising through your form from
the toes up until the body burns to ashes but not you.
29.
Meditate on the make-believe world as burning
to ashes, and become being
above human.
30.
Feel the fine qualities of creativity
permeating your breasts and assuming delicate configurations.
31.
With intangible breath in centre of forehead, as this
reaches heart at the moment of sleep, have direction over dreams and over death itself.
32.
As, subjectively, letters flow into words and
words sentences, and as, objectively, circles flow into worlds and worlds into
principles, find at last these converging in our being.
33.
Gracious one, play the universe is an empty
shell wherein your mind frolics infinitely.
34.
Look upon a bowl without seeing the sides or
the material. In a few moments become aware.
35.
Abide in some place endlessly spacious,
clear of trees, hills, habitations. Thence comes the end of mind pressures.
36.
Sweet-hearted one, meditate on knowing and not
knowing, existing and not existing. Then leave both aside that you may be.
37.
Look lovingly
on some object. Do not go on to another object. Here, in the middle of this
object – the blessing.
38.
Feel cosmos as translucent ever-living
presence.
39.
With utmost devotion, centre on the two
junctions of breath and know the knower.
40.
Consider the plenum to be your own body of bliss.
41.
While being caressed, sweet princess, enter the caressing as everlasting
life.
42.
Stop the doors of senses when feeling the
creeping of an ant. Then.
43.
At the start of sexual union, keep attentive
on the fire in the beginning,
and, so continuing, avoid the embers in the end.
44.
When in such embrace your sense are shaken as
leaves, entre
this shaking.
45.
Even remembering union, without the embrace, the transformation.
46.
On joyously seeing a long – absent friend,
permeate this joy.
47.
When eating or drinking, become the taste of
the food or drink, and be filled.
48.
O lotus –eyed one, sweet of touch, when
singing, seeing, tasting, be aware you are and discover the ever- living.
49.
Wherever satisfaction is found, in whatever
act, actualize
this.
50.
At the point of sleep when sleep has not yet
come and external wakefulness vanishes, at this point being is revealed.
[Lakshmanjoo says this is another of his favorites]
51.
In summer when you see
the entire sky endlessly
clear, entre
such clarity.
52.
Lie down as dead. Enraged in wrath, stay so.
Or stare without moving an eyelash. Or suck something and become the sucking.
53.
Without support for feet or hands, sit only on
buttocks. Suddenly, the
centering.
54.
In an easy position, gradually pervade an area
between the armpits into
great peace.
55.
See as if for the first time a
beauteous person or an ordinary object.
56.
With mouth
slightly open, keep mind in the middle of tongue. Or as breath comes silently
in, feel the sound H H.
57.
When on a bed or a seat, let yourself become weightless,
beyond mind.
58.
In a moving vehicle, by rhythmically swaying, experience. Or
in a still vehicle, by letting yourself swing in
slowing invisible circles.
59.
Simply by looking into the blue sky beyond
clouds, the
serenity.
60.
Shakti, see all
space as if already absorbed in your own head in the brilliance.
61.
Waking, sleeping dreaming, know you as light.
62.
In rain during a black night, enter that blackness as
the form of forms.
63.
When a moonless raining night is not present, close eyes and find
blackness before you. Opening eyes, see blackness. So
faults disappear forever.
64.
Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop.
65.
Center on the sound a-u-m
without any a or m.
66.
Silently intone a word ending in A.H. then in
the H H
effortlessly, the spontaneity.
67.
Feel yourself as pervading all
directions, far, near.
68.
Pierce some part of nectar-filled form with a
pin, and gently entre the
piercing.
69.
Feel: My thought, I-ness,
internal organs -me.
70.
Illusion deceive. Colors circumscribe. Even divisibles are indivisible.
71.
When some desire comes, consider it. Then, suddenly,
quit it.
72.
Before desire and before knowing, how can I
say I am? Consider. Dissolve in the beauty.
73.
With your entire consciousness in the very
start of desire, of knowing, know.
74.
O Shakti, each particular perception is limited, disappearing in omnipotence.
75.
In truth forms are inseparate. Inseparate are omnipresent being and your own
form. Realize each as made of this consciousness.
76.
In moods of extreme desire, be undisturbed.
77.
This so-called universe appears as a juggling, a picture show. To be happy look
upon it so.
78.
O Beloved, put attention neither on pleasure
or pain but between these.
79.
Toss attachment
for body aside, realizing
I am everywhere.
One who is everywhere is joyous.
80.
Objects and desires exist in me as in others.
So accepting, let them be transformed.
81.
The appreciation of objects and subjects is
the same for an enlightened as for an unenlightened person. The
former has one
greatness: he remains in the subjective mood,
not lost in things.
82.
Feel the consciousness of each person as your
own consciousness. So, leaving aside
concern for self, become
each being.
83.
Thinking no thing,
will limited –self unlimit.
84.
Believe omniscient, omnipotent, pervading.
85.
As waves come with water and flames with fire, so
the universal waves with us.
86.
Roam about until exhausted and then, dropping
to the ground, in this dropping be whole.
87.
Suppose you are gradually being
deprived of strength or of knowledge. At the instant of deprivation, transcend.
88.
Listen while the ultimate mystical teaching is
imparted : Eyes still, without winking, at once become absolutely free.
89.
Stopping ears by pressing and rectum by contracting, entre the sound of sound.
90.
At the edge of a deep well look steadily into its depths until – the wondrousness.
91.
Whenever your mind is wandering, internally or
externally, at this very place, this.
92.
When vividly aware through some particular
sense, keep in the
awareness.
93.
At the start of sneezing, during fright, in
anxiety, above a chasm, flying in battle, in extreme curiosity, at the beginning of hunger, at the end of hunger, be
uninterruptedly aware.
94.
Let attention be at a place where you are
seeing some past happening, end even your form, having lost its present
characteristics, is
transformed.
95.
Look upon some object, then slowly
withdraw your sight from it, then slowly withdraw your thought from it. Then.
96.
Devotion frees.
97.
Feel an object before you. Feel the absence of
all other objects but this one. Then, leaving aside the object-feeling and the
absence-feeling, realize.
98.
The purity of other teaching is as impurity to
us. In reality know nothing as
pure or impure.
99.
This consciousness exists as each being,
and nothing else exists.
100. Be the unsame same to
friend as to stranger, in honor and dishonor.
101. When a mood against someone or for someone arises, do not place
it on the
person in question, but remain centered.
102. Suppose you contemplate something beyond perception, beyond
grasping, beyond not being, you.
103. Enter space, supportless, eternal, still.
104. Whenever your attention alights, at this
very point, experience.
105. Enter the sound of your name and, through this sound, all sounds.
106. I am
existing. This is mine. This is this. O
Beloved, even in such know illimitably.
107. This
consciousness is the spirit of guidance of each one. Be this one.
108. Here is a sphere of change, change,
change. Through change consume change.
109. As a hen mothers her
chicks, mother particular knowings,
particular doings, in reality.
110. Since, in truth,
bondage and freedom are relative, these words are only for those terrified with
the universe. This universe is a reflection of minds. As you see many suns in
water from one
sun, so see bondage and liberation.
111. Each things
is perceived through knowing. The self shines in space through knowing. Perceive one being as
knower and known.
112. Beloved, at this moment
let mind, knowing, breath, form, be included.
What is Zen?
TRY if
you wish. But zen comes of
itself. True Zen shows in everyday living, CONSCIOUSNESS in action. More than
any limited awareness, it opens every inner door to our infinite nature.
Instantly mind
frees. How it frees! False Zen wracks brains as a fiction concoted
by priests and salesmen to peddle their own wares.
Look at
it this way, inside out
and outside in: CONSCIOUSNESS everywhere, inclusive, through you. Then you can’t help living
humbly, in wonder.
“What is Zen?”
One answer: Inayat Khan tells a
Hindu story of a fish who went to a queen fish and asked: “I have always heard
about the sea, but what is this sea? Where is it?”
The Queen fish
explained: “You live, move, and have your being in the sea. The sea is within
you and without you and you are made of sea, and you will end in sea. The sea
surrounds you as your own being.”
Another answer:
THUS SPOKE
LORD SHIVA (from Loka Devadas feb. 2011.)
SATSANG THEATRE
By Loka Devadas from Free Academy (www.friakademi.se )
All people know the name of Shiva
few know what Shiva spoke…this will be clarified.
In the beginning of
time, Lord Shiva gave 112 Sutras
Called:
The Vighyan Bhairav Tantra. The text is a love talk between Lord Shiva and
his wife Devi…and they are all about Meditation. The 112 Sutras are about HOW
to meditate.
Lord Shiva simply
gives 112 techniques how to meditate in all different situations of life. And
in this Shiva is the destroyer of ignorance…and your own experience with the
different techniques will cut through illusions of mind dreams, destroying all
ignorance
When I met with
OSHO in
Some 20 of the
techniques we have translated to Swedish, selling them on CD. And more than 200
different mixes was made on the material (English and Swedish)…to make the
treasure of these sutras available to lovers of life. Now these mixes are all
to be found on the homepage of www.friakademi.se for free download.
Also as an
introduction I have given a SATSANG-THEATRE SHOW to demonstrate practically how
the techniques can be used. These shows are available for you to listen to and see
as film on www.friakademi.se and also on Youtube and Facebook as Loka Devadas I explain this in detail.
These Sutras: Vighyan Bhairav Tantra belongs to the World Heritage of Wisdom books as the
oldest book known in the world only on meditation techniques. ( more than 5000 years old )
Please experiment
with it..make your own techniques..enjoy
no technique also. May it all
intuitively lead you home to your Natural State of Basic Awareness & Clarity. Love /Loka Devadas