The Historical Context
As the story is told in the Mahabharata, the gods and demons churn the ocean in tug-of-war fashion using the Mount Mandara as a churning stick and the serpent Vasuki as a cord. As they churn the ocean various things begin to emerge: the moon, the goddess Sri, the white horse of the sun, the kaustubha gem, and the great elephant, Airavata. As they continue to churn, evil, demonic things also emerge; most threatening is the terrible poison, kalakuta, which paralyzes the three worlds with its dreadful fumes. Siva comes to the rescue by drinking and holding the poison in his throat, which turns blue as a result. A magic, wish-granting tree and cow then emerge from the ocean, and the god Dhanvantari comes forth holding a white pot of ambrosia. Visnu gives the ambrosia of immortality to the gods to drink and tricks the demons into giving up their share. When the demons realize that they have been deceived a terrible battle ensues, from which the gods finally emerge victorious.
This myth may be interpreted on many levels. In yogic and tantric circles, the myth refers to internal spiritual and bodily processes in which the ocean of consciousness is ‘churned’ using the ‘serpent’, kundalini. The end result is that the gods, who here are the equivalents of the tantric yogin’s positive internal forces, become immortalized by the drinking of the nectar of ambrosia that finally emerges from the ‘ocean’. During the process many phenomena, both dazzling and attractive as well as negative and poisonous, will also emerge, and these may cause the yogin to deviate from the process of Yoga and hence impede his progress toward the nectar.
Another important element of the myth is that both the positive and negative elements, the gods and the demons, must cooperate in a rhythmic fashion for the ‘churning’ to be successful. The sun and moon play a prominent role in this myth, and the moon is identified with the Vedic soma, the elixir of immortality.
The Heart as Ultimate Reality
The Heart of Siva :
The Heart, says Abhinavagupta, is the very Self of Siva, of Bhairava, and of the Devi, the Goddess who is inseparable from Siva. Indeed, the Heart is the site of their union (yamala), of their embrace (samghatta). This abode is pure consciousness (caitanya) as well as unlimited bliss (ananda). As consciousness the Heart is the unbounded, infinite light (prakasa) as well as the freedom (svatantrya) and spontaneity (vimarsa) of that light to appear in a multitude and variety of forms. The Heart, says Abhinavagupta, is the sacred fire-pit of Bhairava.
The Heart is the Ultimate (anuttara) which is both utterly transcendent to (visvottirna) and yet totally immanent in (visvamaya) all created things. It is the ultimate essence (sara). Thus, the Heart embodies the paradoxical nature of Siva and is therefore a place of astonishment (camatkara), sheer wonder (vismaya), and ineffable mystery. The Heart is the fullness and unboundedness of Siva (purnatva), the plenum of being that overflows continuously into manifestation. At the same time, it is also an inconceivable emptiness (sunyatisunya). The Heart is the unbounded and universal Self (purnahanta).
The Heart of Siva is not a static or inert absolute, however. In fact, the non-dual Kashmir Shaiva tradition considers it to be in a state of perpetual movement, a state of vibration (spanda) in which it is continuously contracting and expanding (samkoca-vikasa), opening and closing (unmesa-nimesa), trembling (ullasita), quivering (sphurita), throbbing, waving, and sparkling (ucchalata). The intensity and speed of this movement is such that paradoxically it is simultaneously a perfect dynamic stillness.
The tradition states that the Heart is the enormous ocean (ambunidhi), the ocean of light, the ocean of consciousness. The waters of consciousness that in man are broken by countless polarizing and divisive waves (urmi) may be easily brought to a state of dynamic stillness by the process of immersion or absorption (samdvesa) in the Heart.
The Heart as Embodied Cosmos : Kula
As the Embodied Cosmos that emerges from Siva, the kula the grand and complex structure of lived reality. It is the bodying forth, the giving of structure to that which transcends any structure. The term may also be applied to any relatively self-contained unit of manifestation within that lived reality, whether that unit be a universe, a world, a family, or an individual. … If Siva is the absolute totality, kula is a term that can be applied to any emergent manifestation from that totality. Kula seems to be applied on a sliding scale from the largest unit of manifestation to the smallest. This wide applicability of the term is possible because of the peculiar relationship of the absolute to each kula. When the absolute reality moves to manifest itself, it can only structure each part out of itself, that is, out of the whole. If there is only one reality, then any manifestation that emerges from that reality is essentially structured out of that reality. Moreover, even as the absolute appears to be rent, split, and divided by the manifestational process, these divisions do not manage to alter the essential status of Siva as absolute. The vision of the Ultimate reality held by the tradition does not allow the totality of the absolute to be in any way impaired by the process of manifestation. Even as Siva creates the breaking himself into parts which suffer transformation, division, extinction and emptiness, he is nevertheless able to maintain himself free of the game and intact as Siva, all the while taking on the roles required by the game.
In the inconceivable enormity of Siva’s game, any self-contained unit for example, our universe may be termed a kula. The unit is self-sufficient precisely because it is a part that is structured out of wholeness. Since the kula’s essential reality is finally that wholeness which it has bodied forth, every unit, or kula, resonates in identity with every other structure composed of that wholeness. It is in this way that the human body, as a kula, resonates in identity with the entire universe.
The Heart as Vibration : Spanda
Another descriptive term, 𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘢, rendered as “an overflowing,” conveys the sense of a continuous dynamism within the absolute reality, a perpetual movement toward itself. This internal dynamism serves as the source for the external movement that results in the process of manifestation. The term 𝘥𝘩𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘪, rendered as “sound,” conveys the internal resonance, the primordial hum that is set up by this movement within the Ultimate reality. 𝘜𝘥𝘺𝘰𝘨𝘢, an activating inciting exertion, shows the internal power of the absolute reality, a power silently amassing for a ferocious unleashing, a power tremblingly experienced by the yogin who enters into the majesty of Bhairava.
The silence of the Supreme is shot through with a creative tension, a primordial urge, an impelling force. This force is the sakti, the power of the Ultimate, which sets up an agitation (ghurnana), even a disturbance (ksobha), which is responsible for the wave motion within the absolute. Thus, the absolute is continually arising into waves which create the slight and imperceptible movement or vibration that characterizes consciousness, and which allows consciousness to be the foundation and essence of all manifest reality. … This internal urge of the Heart generates the motor dualism of the Heart; we see it in such polarities as prakasa-vimarsa, samkoca-vikasa, unmesa-nimesa, vikalpa-nirvikalpa, duhkha-sukha, bhukti-mukti, and jnana-ajnana. The Ultimate is 𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢: it vibrates, it expands and contracts; it manifests and reabsorbs; it is full of waves and waveless; it is full of bliss and yet suffering occurs; it plays a game of hide-and-seek with itself in which ignorance alternates with knowledge, and in which enjoyment and liberation can coincide. … The notions of contraction and expansion of the Heart are directly related to the spiritual conditions of ignorance or enlightenment of the individual soul. Abhinavagupta describes this relationship as follows:
When the Heart is in a state of contraction the awakened awareness of the individual self is in fact a state of ignorance. But when this contraction ceases to function, then the true nature of the Self shines forth. … While the supreme reality can initially be discovered by the introvertive gaze, its definition as “omnipresent” assures that it will also eventually be perceived as resident even in the external objects. The initial process for realization involves the practitioner closing the eyes to the finite realities that constitute the external world. In this way the practitioner is open to the inner world of the Self. This technique for realization mirrors and reverses the process by which Siva first manifests the external world by closing his eye of knowledge.
As the practitioner advances, however, he is invited to a higher spiritual posture. Here he must remain open to the inner world of the vibratory Self, and yet at the same time open himself again to the external, finite realities. As his practice of this new and apparently contradictory posture advances, he attains a balanced steadiness and is not shaken from his internal absorption even when fully open again to the external world. The final attainment in this posture, known either as the khecari-mudra or bhairavi-mudra, consists of the identification of the inner vibrating Self as constituting the visible essence of the external finite realities. Ksemaraja clarifies this process of alternation between inner and outer:
‘Pratimilana’ means both inward awareness of the Divine (nimilana), and outward awareness of the Divine (unmilana). He now sees the universe over and over again with an awareness in which the residual traces of difference have completely vanished. The yogi has an experience in which he is inwardly absorbed in the Supreme Divine consciousness (nimilana); again when he turns towards the universe, he experiences it as the same as his own essential Divine consciousness (unmilana).”
The play between opening and closing, between expanding and contracting, is the essential charactistic of the Heart. The Heart itself constitutes the highest method for reaching the condition of non-duality which finally unifies the open and the closed, the expanded and contracted.
The Heart and Natural Metaphors
Another aspect of the Self in the Heart is revealed in its nature as ocean and wave. According to the tradition, the Heart is the ocean (ambhonidhi, sindhu, samudra), the ocean of light, the ocean of consciousness (bhairaviya-cid-ambara). The surface waters of this ocean of consciousness are massed into countless polarizing waves (Urmi).
The waves are part of the essential character of the ocean even if the ocean at times is apparently without waves. The vibration, the 𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢, is responsible for setting up the motions, patterns, and activities on the surface of consciousness. As we have seen, the spanda is continuously operative, even if at times patterns do not appear on the surface of consciousness. The ocean of consciousness is the foundation of all the finite waves that appear on its surface. In essence wave and ocean are identical. However, the ocean is unbounded (aparimita) in its nature, while the waves of activity are finite.
It is the powers of the Self (svasakti) that, emerging from the ocean of consciousness and uniting together in various and sundry ways, create the finite realities. The mutual interaction of the powers to manifest the finite is termed the power of action (kriya-sakti).
As Abhinavagupta says, the different powers of the Self, of the Lord, intermingling with each other in various ways, create the patterns that result in the specific cognitions of apparently separate and finite objects. Objects are indeed finally ‘cognitions’, because they are nothing more than the event-areas within the Supreme. Perception is thus a process in which the infinite consciousness encounters its own interference patterns and takes cognizance of them. Furthermore, just as in the Samkhya, it might be noted that the word objects includes all of the psychological structures of the awareness of the individual person. Abhinavagupta makes this point explicitly in the Paratrisika-laghuvrtti when he states that even the purusa (and here he departs radically from the Samkhya) is to be reckoned among the class of knowable objects. In this sense, the individual finds himself truly sunken within the ocean of consciousness. Thus, as the opening verses of the Malini-vijaya-tantra proclaim, “He is the Savior of all of those who find themselves immersed in the ocean of the world.”
Here knowable objects are in essence nothing more than the absolute consciousness, but with the difference that objects which appear to be solid and separate are in reality discrete areas of patterning set up by the internal interferences of the 𝘚𝘢𝘬𝘵𝘪-𝘴. By contrast absolute consciousness is just that - unbounded and unconstrained by a pattern of any sort. The language of manifestation leads one to conceptualize the process of 𝘴𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘪 as an emergence out of Siva, as a separation. Consequently, it also leads one to think of the process of return as a reentrance into Siva. However, from the supreme viewpoint, the claim is made by the tradition that nothing ever really emerges from Siva. The entire 𝘴𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘪 is always within the allpervasive reality. Similarly, it is not that we must travel far beyond the manifested world in order to locate the interior universe of the ocean within the Heart. To speak of distance, of return, of a path, may be useful aids for the spiritual practitioner; in reality, however, all objects, all beings, all possible experiences are continuously and eternally bathed in that ocean.