Shiva Sutras 3.38, 3.39 & 3.40 – The ‘trick’ & The Final Return to Pain

Shiva Sutra 3.38

Tripad ady anuprananam

Swami Lakshmanjoo here further guides the enlightened yogi in the process of expanding his/her God consciousness. As the yogi emerges from Samadhi, meaning the bliss filled state of God consciousness, the yogi must “insert the absolute bliss of that state into the other three states of consciousness – waking, dreaming and deep sleep – and in time, these four will become one without distinction.” [SLJ]

We are told that there is a ‘trick’ of awareness that is more effective than breath techniques, prayer, or worship. This ‘trick’ involves maintaining an intense awareness at the moment your senses perceive any sensation. If you have the “power and capacity to hold that moment, then you will gain entry into God consciousness.” [SLJ]

The moment that God consciousness shines in any perception is compared to the flash of lightning. “So even if your sense perceptions are covered by the energy of illusion, at the time when you enjoy any sensation, God consciousness is momentarily shining like a flash of lightning.” [SLJ]

This flash of lightning lasts only for a moment, therefore it is up to the yogi to hold it and expand it in consciousness. “Although this God consciousness rises for only one moment, you have to give life to it and sustain it with awareness…hold it internally by keeping your consciousness introverted, not extroverted. It is with introverted consciousness that you will be successful.” [SLJ]

This technique is also explained in the Vijnanabhairava Tantra 15 & 69. The Vijnanabhairava Tantra is a text that gives the aspirant 112 yogic techniques to reach God consciousness. It is a user’s manual for those who seek liberation. If we are able to intensely focus our awareness into a single moment of any sense perception, even everyday experiences such as hearing a song or making love can carry you to God consciousness.

Swami Lakshmanjoo: “This whole universe has come into existence just to carry you to God consciousness. It is not meant to push you down. This universe is meant for your upliftment.”

I love this sentence – “This whole universe has come into existence just to carry you to God consciousness.” What a wonderful thought! It is as if the Creator has left secret clues and hidden doors everywhere. These entry points can open up and reveal our Real nature and they are found everywhere in this universe. It is up to us to recognize them, if only we have ‘the-ears-to-hear.’

Even the experience of intense grief or sadness can act as the ‘trick’ to open you to the Oneness existing everywhere, within everything. God is always present. “There is nothing that can conceal God consciousness.” [SLJ – Spanda Karika 1.25]

God is ubiquitous, permeating and pervading everything in this entire universe. The Oneness could reveal Itself in Its entirety and totality instantaneously at any moment. Only the Free Will (svantantrya) of the Oneness, Parabhairava, has the power to conceal Itself. God consciousness waits eternally patiently within each and every aspect of the manifested temporal illusory hologram, ‘beneath the curtain of each atom.’ God consciousness conceals Itself and longs to reveal Itself.

Shiva Sutra 3.39

Citta sthitivaccharira karana-bahyesu

The enlightened yogi must insert God consciousness in the waking state, dreaming, and deep sleep states. The objective world, the body, and every act of life are to be infused with God consciousness.

Vijnana Bhairava 65: “You must infuse your consciousness with the awareness that this whole universe or your own body has been simultaneously filled with your own state of bliss. Through this bliss, you will become melted in supreme bliss.” [SLJ]

Shiva Sutra 3.40

Abhilasadbahirgatih sambahyasya

Once again the enlightened ones may fall back into delusion. It seems that our journey Home is not always so direct and that each time we move into God consciousness, the forces of Maya have the power to pull us back into illusory differentiated perception. It this the final test?

Here we are told that the yogi comes to have a feeling of incompletion and so a desire arises in him to fill that emptiness. Perhaps imagining that he/she has ‘missed’ something, and seeking to fill the empty feeling in his being, the yogi again turns his awareness out into the external world. Thrown back down into the realm of the five senses and the ego, the yogi is again dependent on and at the mercy of the wheel of energies that carry him in delusion from “one state to another state, from one life to another, from one womb to another.” [SLJ]

The consciousness of that yogi is diverted toward worldly pleasure and internal awareness is lost. Swami Lakshmanjoo has said that when you know you are lost, you are not lost. When you are not aware that you are lost – then you are truly lost.

Then the yogi experiences only pain and sadness …

Kalikakrama Shastra: “When by means of differentiated thought (vikalpa), that self is covered by ignorance, then he is unable to perceive this whole universe…as one with God consciousness…he becomes the object of the two states, good and bad, and this causes him to experience only pain in his own nature. Thus even pleasure is experienced as that pain…they experience only pain and sadness.”

It may be that this inability to experience any pleasure and happiness in the external five-sense world may in fact be a sort of fail-safe for the enlightened ones who have lost their way. Perhaps this is the Creator leading the yogis, who have come so close to their final destination, back into immersion in the Oneness. It may be seen as a blessing, a mysterious form of Grace.

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Vijnana Bhairava, The Manual for Self Realization, Revealed by Swami Lakshmanjoo, edited by John Hughes; Universal Shaiva Fellowship, 2007.

SPANDA-KARIKAS, The Divine Creative Pulsation, translated into English by Jaideva Singh; Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, 1980. 2005.

MAHMUD SHABISTARI: The Secret Garden, translated by John Pasha; The Octagon Press, London 1969.

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Swami Lakshmanjoo 1990