(The ground of the teaching)
INTRODUCTION The Pratyabhijna Hridayam presents and overview of the entirety of the situational reality of the yogi, all that is necessary for understanding and practicing Yoga.
This great secret of yoga is that the immediate, concrete being of the yogi, YOUR experiential field, is in fact the entirety of the absolute, the divine. The practice of Yoga is possible because this is so; through investigating the accessible nature of ones experience, the absolute condition can be recognized. This is the central tenet of the Pratyabhijna Hridayam.
(Absolute consciousness as the sole reality)
1 citih svatantra visvasiddhi hetuh Absolute reality/consciousness alone is the complete and sole cause and agent of the entire miracle of actuality (the field of experience, the universe). ____________ The absolute reality, that which everything whatever depends on and everything consists of, exists miraculously and alone, depending upon nothing else. This sole thing is what you are experiencing right now, is how you are experiencing it, and is what is experiencing it. Nothing other than this thing, this condition, exists. This is the concrete fact, not a philosophy or mythology, but the immediate actuality of this reality that IS right here right now. All of the seeming elaborations and intricacies of your experience, your being and your world, are actually just this. This document exists to explain the way that this is so, and to show how to fully discover and realize this fact, enabling you to be aware that you live in and are this miraculous condition, and to free you from the difficult implications of falsely feeling yourself to be the limited, separate, dependent being you may be used to feeling that you are. This engagement of discovery and recognition is Yoga.
2 svecchaya svabittau visvam unmilayati The field of experience unfolds in the absolute due to its inherent active nature.
Your field of experience, the panorama of information/experiential characteristics that appear and are the basis for everything you may feel exists (people, the world, the universe, objects, matter, thoughts and dreams, etc. etc.), appears within the absolute due to the inherent nature of that, and not due to some other cause or factor. All of this present experience is entirely this absolute condition, is made of that, exists within that, and is solely the expression of that, appearing as it does solely due to the unresolvable nature of this…
3 tannana anurupa-grahya-grahaka-bhedat The particular way that the field of experience appears is due to the degree…
__________ Experience appears to be what the degree of sensitivity and clear understanding of the perceiver allows. As examples, it can seem to be dull, objective, limited and limiting, dangerous, material, existing entirely separately from the observer; or can be felt as alive, meaningful, interconnected and supportive; or can be seen to be nothing whatever but the divine shining forth of transcendental light of pure consciousness, bliss, and intelligence. Through the development of sensitivity and clarity that Yoga enables, one learns to perceive the nature of ones being more and more truly; and as this develops, the world that you seem to inhabit, your being, and the interrelationship between the two, changes fundamentally in its implication. As your sensitivity unfolds, what you,…
(The contracted self and its illusory limits)
4 citisamkocatma cetano ’pi samkucita-visvamayah The seemingly separate self is the absolute reality/consciousness appearing as if in contracted form; even though the universe of the individual appears limited, it is actually the fullness of the entire absolute pure consciousness. __________ The absolute/consciousness does not create anything separate from itself; nothing other than it is present. The separate self that you may feel yourself to be, as well as the universe you may seem to inhabit, are nothing whatever other than the entire absolute. Any limited thing or condition that may seem to exist autonomously does not exist in the way it seems, but is actually the presence of the unlimited infinite absolute. The apparent contraction and limitation that may seem to…
5 citir eva cetana padad avarudha cetya-samkocini cittam It is absolute reality/consciousness alone that orients to perspectives of particularity, thereby…
Absolute/consciousness can orient to particular configurations of experiential conditions, giving rise to the illusion of your limited mind perceiving through a body, and objects interrelatedly appearing in your experience. As in a dream, seeming objects can appear, a body can appear with seeming sense organs, thoughts and emotions can be experienced, and the apparent coexistence of these apparitions can imply a body in an environment inhabited by an individual consciousness. What actually exists in that context is the dreaming consciousness alone, and all these configurations of apparent objects and limited conditions are nothing…
6 tanmaya maya-pramata The perspectives that imply a seeming individual mind become the basis for misinterpreting the being of the absolute as a limited field of experience. __________ Because a limited mind can seem to appear in apparently limited conditions, these limited conditions can seem…
7 sa caiko dvirupas trimayas caturatma sapta-pancakasvabhava The absolute is itself alone, but appears as presence and radiant characteristics, as the illusion of knower/known/knowing, and as the range of perspectives that make up…
Absolute/consciousness never becomes anything other than itself, but it can appear as presence and experiential characteristics, as an apparent experiencer separate from objects of experience and experiencing, and as all the perspectives of elaboration that can follow from these implications, down to the extreme elaboration of separate senses, functioning material bodies, objects, conditions and environments, seeming to be inhabited by separate…
(Recognition deepens — liberation from interpretation)
8 tadblumikah sarvadarsana-sthitayah All systems of analysis are differing perspectives on this…
15 balalabhe visvam atmasatkaroti As the individual mind is progressively discovered to be absolute consciousness through Yoga, any apparent worlds generated through misinterpretation are realized to also be nothing other than the absolute.
As recognition develops this felt flavor of the absolute is known to permeate experience even when orientation to interpretations is present, and liberation from those interpretations will be felt: the clear certainty that they are not relevant or binding to the being.