Awakening Project

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​Yogpulse, the reflection of consciousness and its vibration

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​The absolute is the light of consciousness, is Prakasa, because it makes all things manifest by shining in its universal form. The phenomena that appear in the field of consciousness are directly experienced in this way at the initial instant of perception, when they are still in harmony with the perceiving subject. The light of consciousness is itself this direct experience that we had before the constructions of thought came between the subject and the object, thus degrading the latter to the level of objectivity, which obscures the light of the subject's immediate perception. But although the light of consciousness explains the appearance of phenomena in this way, it does not in itself fully explain our experience of them. No experience is possible without self-awareness. Experience must be personal to be experience.

Experience is not possible without reflection [Mirroring], because experience is a process of assimilation without which there could be no understanding if it were not reflected. From the Saivist point of view, this reflection is an awareness of the images that appear within the mirror of Light. In order for the cosmic processes occurring at the level of universal consciousness to be accessible to experience, consciousness must reflect, thus literally the mirror “bends back,” upon itself to know itself, and then what appears within it manifests itself in a subjective, relative way.

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Shiva carries within Himself the reflection of the universe, and the reflection is His nature as all things. Nor is He unaware of His nature as such because that which is conscious necessarily always reflects upon itself, destroying all permanence.

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The act of reflective consciousness is called Vimarsha. The word is derived from the root “mrs” which means to touch, feel, understand, perceive, reflect, or examine. Thus, Vimarsha is the power of consciousness by virtue of which it can understand or perceive itself, feel, reflect, and examine the events occurring within it—in short, behave as a living and limitless being at the same time. This ability to reflect upon itself is inherent in the very nature of the light of consciousness; indeed, it is its most specific characteristic and the very life of its sentient nature. Deprived of reflective awareness, the light of consciousness would amount to no more than the emergence of phenomena unknown to anyone, everything would be unknown to us, like the light that shines reflected in an ordinary mirror or crystal without anyone seeing this mirror.

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Through this awareness, the Light knows that it is the only reality and therefore rests in itself forever, but not as a self-confined and lifeless object. It enjoys perfect freedom and is satisfied in the knowledge that it is all that exists, whether subject, object or means of knowledge. Self-awareness is the omniscience of God, the fullness [Purna] of all-encompassing consciousness, its bliss [Ananda] or aesthetic ecstasy [Samádhi] that contains within itself the infinite variety of things. As such, it is the pulse of pure contemplation, the inner activity of the power of action of the absolute [kriyashakti], in this pulse, vibration, all the powers of the absolute merge to form its consciousness the uncreated “I” [Aham], whose radiant vibration manifests itself as the form, emanation and reabsorption of the universe. In contemplating its own nature, consciousness assumes the form of all planes of existence, from the subtlest to the grossest. The power of reflection is therefore the inherent creative freedom of the light of consciousness to turn inward upon itself introspectively and free itself from its external forms, or to go out of itself to visualize its external manifestations, without ceasing. In harmony with the oscillation of consciousness between these polarities, the universe of manifestation is ceaselessly renewed and is the essence of the vitality of its pulsation as internal and external vibration. The vibration of consciousness serves, in short, to explain the manifestation of phenomena without material cause or essential change in curiosity, and distinguishes the Light as a primary and uncaused principle from its creations. Exactly as physics does.

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Consciousness is the unity of the unlimited vision of the Whole. Lack of consciousness results in incomplete vision and divides the whole into parts, each seen separately as a specific “this” [Idam] contrasted and distinct from all that it is not. Turning away from the unity of self-consciousness, we become obsessed with the part and ignore the whole. Maya covers up the infinity of consciousness. But when consciousness rests in itself and contemplates its own nature, it sees itself as the pure subject unfolding as the unity of all things. This consciousness [Vimarsha] can therefore be said to have two aspects:

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Internal. This is the act of awareness when the light of consciousness rests in itself alone. It is pure consciousness, devoid of all thought-constructions, Nirvikalpa, spoken of as 'total freedom and immaculate wonder'.

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External. This aspect corresponds to the act of reflection directed away from the subject towards the object which he perceives as separate from him. Reality then becomes accessible to discursive representation [Vikalpa] and amenable to symbolic definition for the subject.

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Consciousness relates objectivity to subjectivity in such a way that the object ultimately comes to rest in the self-consciousness of the subject. In reality, reflective consciousness is always consciousness of "I am" [ahamvimarsha]; it never objectifies even when, in the form of consciousness of "this" [idamvimarsha], it reflects upon the object. The experience we have of things that exist outside consciousness is due to a lack of self-consciousness of the nature of vibrations. The consciousness of the object is never “out there”; it is registered and known within the subject. All forms of consciousness come to rest in the subject and return to absolute consciousness. In other words, God is seeing the world through you. Shiva is not seeing you, he is seeing what you are seeing, and when a person knows this he can take refuge in consciousness [Gachchami].

 

Just as every drop of water comes to rest in the ocean, so all acts and cognitions come to rest in the Great Lord Shiva, the ocean of consciousness. In the same way, all knowledge and action in the universe merges into the ocean of Shiva, either spontaneously and evidently, of its own accord, or indirectly through a series of other processes.

 

Individual and universal consciousness are one. The same processes operate in both; the only difference between them is that in the case of individual consciousness, these processes are restricted or limited representations by the parts of things of the expanded operation of universal consciousness. The activity of the mind is that of consciousness itself, or to be more precise, of its reflexive, vibrational consciousness, the power of vibration. Thus, at the individual level, reflexive consciousness is the capacity of the Being to know itself in all its purity in the state of perfect freedom from all kinds of affections; to analyze all its states of varied affections, due to internal or external causes; to retain these affections in the form of residual traces of vibrations [samskaras]; to withdraw, at will, at any time, anything from the existing stock of vibrations and bring back an old affected state of itself into the present, as in the case of remembrance; to create an entirely new state of self-affection by making a judicious selection from the existing stock and displaying the material thus selected in the background of the reflected aspect as in the moment of free imagination.

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Cognition would be impossible if consciousness as Citta were incapable of this. This capacity is the reflexive awareness it has of itself as pure consciousness. When it is conditioned by the object of knowledge, which in turn is conditioned by the forces and laws governing the physical universe, all of which are aspects of the power of Maya, it operates as cognition out of the vibrations, memory, and all the other functions of the mind. Cognition, in other words, is the reflective awareness of the “I” limited by the affections imposed upon it by the variety of external manifestations generated by that consciousness itself. This blissful self-awareness [Vimarsha] is the permanent condition of the subject, even as he perceives the world and reacts to it. It is the inner activity of the vibrational principle, which is the inspired wonder of consciousness from which the powers of will, knowledge, and action flow as phases in their vibratory rhythm from Vikalpa.

The evidences [Pramana], the inventiveness [Viparyaya], the purpose [Vikalpa] are levels of vibrations that capture and finally define a discursive representation creating a purpose, and now the vibration that was indefinite, Nirvikalpa, defines itself—Vikalpa. Therefore, what defines us is our discursive representation, Vikalpa, the final meeting that comes together in a purpose from which we exercise our function of being.

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Typically, the individual subject fails to recognize the creative nature of this flow of consciousness to the object in the act of cognition. He is unaware that the vibrations shape in his own consciousness the various forms that populate his objective field of consciousness. At the universal level of subjectivity, however, this movement from the inner to the outer and vice versa is experienced within consciousness as the arising and destruction of all vibrations. Consequently, reflective consciousness (Vimarsha) is characterized as an action, which is the flow of becoming, while Light [Prakasha] is knowledge or passive Being. In other words, consciousness is the creative act of making reality known, while Light is the actualization of its Being known in this act. The latter without the former would be an inactive principle, a state of pure potential that could never be realized in an act of consciousness. From this point of view, the two aspects of consciousness that occur through vibrations are:

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Karma Vimarsha. When the act of consciousness is directed outwards and coincides with the unfolding of the universe’s expansion outwards from the absolute into everyday perceptions.

Kriya Vimarsha. When this activity is still limitless and infinite, completely internalised within the absolute as its agency, undisturbed by any goal of action as the pure vibration of consciousness.

Knowledge and action together constitute the basis of daily life and the life of all living beings. One is never without the other; they always function together. At the universal level, the power of action develops forms from the power of consciousness, while the power of knowledge makes them manifest. At the individual level, they represent the objective and subjective poles of all sentient activity. As the inner consciousness of ‘I am’ (aham), knowledge is the stable referent of all actions. It persists undivided in all actions, however diverse. If it did not, then we would act like an AI following a program.

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While our own self-awareness informs us of its existence, action, thus illuminated by knowledge, is the awareness that “I and I am” [Aham]. Together, they are the pure awareness of “I am this” (Aham) as the knowing and acting subjectivity, which is how the inner vibrational nature of consciousness reveals the world.

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It turns out that due to the vibrations, they would cause the end of consciousness in them if they could not be recycled at some point, breaking the continuity of the light of consciousness. This is why Yoga describes five levels of vibrations, two beyond Vikalpa: sleep/dreams and memory. The Pramana level, of evidence, can be accessed by man in his 9 Padarthas and achieve the realization of Vikalpa and then Nirvikalpa.

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Yoga, Yuj, is the mirroring of the reflection of consciousness that produces the vibrations that allow us to have a shared life with universal consciousness – this notion of consciousness is for us Yogis – Shiva.