Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

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Dear Shaktha Pramodas,

 

112 Techniques of Meditation From The Ancient Indian TextBuddhists learned their crux from Vigyan Bhairav. Sufis also have such exercises; they are also borrowed from Vigyan Bhairav. Basically, this is the source book of all techniques which are known all over the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the most ancient texts and meditation manuals is Shiva's 5000-year-old Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, which is concerned with how to go beyond the mind, to attain glimpes of the consciousness which exists apart from the mind. It is here that one should not be identified with the mind, and this is the fallacy of the West; that we are our minds. For us not to be identified with our minds, to know that the mind is only a moving process, like walking, but not the same as our consciousness, this is the message of the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra. And all the techniques of meditation are not concerned with how the mind operates, but rather are concerned only about how to find the door outside the mind to find the open sky of consciousness.

 

The very setting is most amazing. Unlike the neurotic anti-sex fundamentalism of monotheism, primarily Christianity, Islam and all repressive teachings, the setting here is Shiva speaking to Devi, while she is sitting in intercourse on his lap! Tantric sex is a valley of relaxation that energizes each person, verses what we know as sex to be; a peak of energy that is to be released. The words of the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra were originally written in a love language of depth we have yet to fully understand. And in such love, like meditation and death, there is a complete surrendering and letting go to the Tao. This is the setting of the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra. Complete surrendering itself needs no methods, no techniques, however it is the question of how to surrender, thus the techniques.

 

(Gurdjieff)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gurdjieff made these (stop) techniques very well-known in the West, but he was not aware of Vigyan Bhairav Tantra. He learned these techniques in Tibet from Buddhist lamas. He worked on these techniques in the West, and many, many seekers came to realized the center through these techniques. He called them stop exercises, but the source of these exercises is Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.

 

Buddhists learned from Vigyan Bhairav. Sufis also have such exercises; they are also borrowed from Vigyan Bhairav. Basically, this is the source book of all techniques which are known all over the world.

 

This is the Paul Reps' version, first printed in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. These read like Patanjali's aphorisms and each need to be meditated preferably with your partner.One can also incoporate Vigyaan Bhairava tantra into Srividya Puja by asking these questions satwically to Devi and get the answer from Her.She is the Empress who makes Shiva speak!Devi Asks:

 

 

 

 

O Shiva, what is your reality?What is this wonder-filled universe?What consttutes seed?Who centers the universal wheel?What is this life beyond form pervading forms?How may we enter it fully,above space and time,names and descriptions?Let my doubts be cleared!Shiva replies:

 

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 up to down -through both these turns,realize.

 

3.Or, whenever in-breath and out-breath fuse,at this instant touch the energy-less,energy-filled center.

 

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.Attention between Eyebrows, let mind be before thought.Let form fill with breath essenceto the top of the headand there shower as light.

 

6.When in worldly activities, keep attention between two breaths,and so practicing, in a few days be born anew.

 

7.With intangible breath in center of forehead,as this reaches the heart at the moment of sleep,have direction over dreams and over death itself.8.With utmost devotion,center on the two junctions of breathand know the knower.9.Lie down as dead.Enraged in wrath, stay so.Or stare without moving an eyelash.Or suck something and become the sucking.10. While being caressed, Sweet Princess,enter the caress as everlassting life.11.Stop the doors of the senses when feeling the creeping of an ant.Then.12.When on a bed or a seat,let yourself become weightless,beyond mind.13.Or, imagine the five coloured circles of the peacock tailto be your five senses in illimitable space.Now let their beauty melt within.Similarly, at any point in space or on the wall -untill the point dissolves.Then your wish for another comes

true.14.Place your whole attention in the nerve, delicate as the lotus thread,in the center of your spinal column.In such be tansformed.15.Closing the seven openings of the head with your hands,a space between your eyes becomes all-inclusive.16.Blessed One,as senses are absorbed in the Heart,reach the center of the lotus.17.Unminding mind, keep in the middle - until.18.Look lovingly at some object.Do not go to another object.Here in the middle of the object -the blessing.19.Without support for feet or hands, sit only on the buttocks.Suddenly the centering.20.In a moving vehicle, by rhythmically swaying,experience.Or in a still vehicle,by letting yourself swing in slowing invisible circles.

 

21.Pierce some part of you nectar filled formwith a pin,and gently enter the piercingand attain to the inner purity.22. Let attention be at a place where you are seeing some past happening, and even your form, having lost its present characteristics, is transformed.23.Feel an object before you.Feel the absence of all other objects but this one.Then leaving aside the object-feelingAnd the absence-feeling,Realize24.When a mood against someone or for someone arises,Do not place it on the person in question,But remain centered.25.Just as you have the impulseTo do something,Stop.26.When some desire comes, consider it.Then, suddenly, quit it.27. Roam about until exhausted and then,dropping to the ground,in this dropping be whole.28.Suppose you are

gradually being deprived of strength or of knowledge.At the instant of deprivation,transcend.29.Devotion frees.30. Eyes closed,See your inner being in detail.Thus see your true nature.31.Look upon a bowl without seeingThe sides or the material.In a few moments become aware.32.See as if for the first timeA beauteous personOr an ordinary object.33.Simply by looking into the blue skyBeyond the clouds,The serenity.34.Listen while the ultimate mystical teaching is imparted.Eyes still, without blinking,at once, become absolutely free.35. At the edge of a deep well look steadily into its depths until –the wondrousness.

 

36.Look upon some object,Then slowly withdraw your sight from it,Then slowly withdraw your thought from it.Then.37.Devi,Imagine Sanskrit letters in these Honey filled foci of awareness,First as letters,The more subtly as sounds,Then as most subtle feeling.Then, leaving them aside, be free.38.Bathe in the center of sound,As in the continuous sound of a waterfall.Or, by putting the fingers in the ears,Hear the sound of sounds.39.Intone a sound,As AUM ??Slowly,As sound enters soundfulness,So do you.40.In the beginning and gradual refinement of the sound of any letter,Awake.41.While listening to stringed instruments,Hear their composite central sound;Thus omnipresence.42.Intone a sound audibly,Then less and less audiblyAs feeling

deepensInto this silent harmony.43.With mouth slightly open,Keep mind in the middle of the tongue.Or, as breath comes silently in,Feel the sound ‘HH’.44.Center on the sound ‘AUM’Without any ‘A’ or ‘M’.45.Silently intone a word ending in ‘AH’.Then in the ‘HH’,Effortlessly, the spontaneity.46.Stopping ears by pressingAnd the rectum by contracting,Enter the sound.47.Enter the sound of your nameAnd, through this sound,All sounds.48.At the start of sexual unionKeep attentive on the fire in the beginning,And so continuing,Avoid the embers in the end.49.When in such embrace your senses are shaken as leaves,Enter this shaking.50.Even remembering union,Without the embrace,Transformation.

 

51.On joyously seeing a long-absent friend,Permeate this joy.52.When eating or drinking,Become the taste of food or drink,And be filled.53.O lotus eyed one,Sweet of touch,When singing, seeing, tasting,Be aware you are and discover theEverliving.54.Wherever satisfaction is found,In whatever act,Actualize this.55.At the point of sleep,When the sleep has not yet comeAnd the external wakefulness vanishes,At this point Being is revealed.56.Illusions deceive,Colors circumscribe,Even divisibles are indivisible.57.In moods of extreme desireBe undisturbed.58.This so-called universeAppears as a juggling,A picture

show.To be happy, look upon it so.59.O Beloved,Put attention neither on pleasure nor on pain,But between these.60.Objects and desiresExist in me as in others.So accepting,Let them be transformed.61.As waves come with waterAnd flames with fire,So the Universal waves with us.62.Wherever your mind is wandering,Internally or externally,At this very place, this.63.When vividly awareThrough some particular sense,Keep in the awareness.64.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.65.The purity of other teachingsIs an impurity to us.In reality,Know nothing as pure or impure.66.Be the unsame same to friend as to stranger,in honor and dishonor.67.Here is the sphere of

change, change, change.Through change consume change.68.As a hen mothers her chicks,mother particular knowings,particular doings,in reality.69.Since, in truth,Bondage and freedom are relative,These words are only for thoseTerrified 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.

 

70.Consider your essence as light raysFrom center to center up the vertebrae,And so rises “livingness” in you.71.Or in the spaces between,Feel this as lightning.72.Feel the cosmos as a translucent ever-living presence.73.In summer when you see the entire skyEndlessly clear,Enter such clarity.74.Shakti,See all space as if alreadyAbsorbed in your own headIn the brilliance.75.Waking, sleeping, dreaming,Know you as light.76.In rain during a black night,Enter that blacknessAs the form of forms.77. When a moonless rainy nightis not present,close your eyes, see blackness.So, faults disappear forever.78.Whenever your attention

alights,At this very point,Experience.79.Focus on fire rising through your formFrom the toes upUntil the body burns to ashesBut not you.80.MeditateOn the make believe worldAs burning to ashes,And become being above human.81.As, subjectively, letters flow into wordsand words into sentences,and as, objectively,circles flow into worldsand worlds into principles,find at last these converging in our being.

 

82.Feel: my thought, I-ness, internal organs – me.83.Before desireAnd before knowing,How can I say I am?Consider.Dissolve in the beauty.84.Toss attachment for body aside,Realizing I am everywhere.One who is everywhere is joyous.85.Thinking no thingWill limited-self unlimit.86.Suppose you contemplateSomething beyond perception,Beyond grasping,Beyond not being – you.87.I am existing.This is mine.This is this.O, beloved, even in such know illimitably.88.Each thing is perceived through knowing.The self shines in space through knowing.Perceive one being as knower and known.89.Beloved,At this moment,Let mind, knowing, breath, form,Be included.90.Touching eyeballs as a feather,Lightness between them opens

into the heartAnd there permeates the cosmos.91.Kind Devi,Enter etheric presencePervading far above and below your form.92.Put mindstuff in such inexpressible finenessAbove, below and in your heart.93.Consider any area of your present formAs limitlessly spacious.94.Feel your substance,Bones, flesh, blood,Saturated with cosmic essence.

 

95.Feel the fine qualities of creativityPermeating your breastsAnd assuming delicate configurations.96.Abide in some place endlessly spacious,Clear of trees, hills, habitations.Thence comes the end of mind pressures.97.Consider the plenumTo be your own body of bliss.98.In any easy positionGradually pervade an area between the armpitsInto great peace.99.Feel yourself as pervading all directions,Far, near.100.The appreciation of objects and subjectsIs the same for an enlightenedAs for an unenlightened person.The former has one greatness:He remains in the subjective mood,Not lost in things.101.Believe omniscient, omnipotent,

pervading.102.Imagine spirit simultaneouslyWithin and around youUntil the entire universe spiritualizes.103.With your entire consciousnessIn the very start of desire, of knowing, know.104.O Shakti,Each particular perception is limited,Disappearing in omnipotence.

 

105.In truth forms are inseparate.Inseparate are omnipresent beingAnd your own form.Realize each as made of this consciousness.106.Feel the consciousness of each personAs your own consciousness.So, leaving aside concern for your self,Become each being.107.This consciousness exists as each being,And nothing else exists.108.This consciousness is the spirit of guidanceOf each one.Be this one.109.Suppose your passive form to be an empty roomWith walls of skin – empty.110.Gracious One, play.The universe is an empty shellWherein your mind frolics infinitely.111.Sweet heartened One,Meditate on knowing and not-knowing,Existing and non-existing.Then leave both aside that you may be.112.Enter space, supportless,

eternal, still.

 

Paramba Priyathaam,

 

Yours Yogically,

 

Shreeram Balijepalli

 

 

 

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