Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. Author, Anna-Maria Garza, Editor
From 1974 through 1982, I was a student of Swami Muktananda who was a Master of Kashmir Shavism.The essence of Muktananda’s teaching was awareness. Awareness becoming of awareness as expressed in Shiva sutras, Vinjanavahraba, Spanda Karikas and other Shavite texts. Or as Baba would so often say god dwells within you as you...and see god in each other. And later in studying Qi Gong with Siddha Qi Gong Master Dr. Yan Xin and studying with a number of Masters of Dzogchen and Vajrayana Buddhism, I would enter these understandings through the doorway of Shaivism of Swami Muktananda.These teachings and understandings were completely complimentary to each other.. Sat-chit-ananda is the dharmakaya; shiva shakti is dharmakaya manifesting actualities. The tattvas are manifestations of awareness becoming aware of awareness. The Sambhogakaya dimensions manifestations of the Dharmakaya just as shiva...pure awareness…manifest the shakti in its unfoldment as energy and light into flesh. The tattvas are described as awareness becoming aware of awareness manifesting as worlds.
1. Awareness is everything and everything is awareness.
2. Sat-chit-ananda (being, awareness, bliss) is the essential being of awareness. Chit sat the pure awareness of beingness.
3. This pure awareness is not a being (being is not a being) and this pure awareness is potentiality, pure awareness of potentiality, one might say the actuality of potentiality. So this awareness as potentiality is an actuality...it is and as potentiality is non-being…is not . This non-being is the plenum, the fullness of pure potentiality, shakti is the dynamic manifestation...shining forth becoming being. The guru is the self-revelation of this process. The guru is unconcealment of this drama of awareness, play of consciousness in its manifestation of one’s own self and one’s own life.
4. Awareness does not know itself as a being or as an entity. Awareness is aware of itself as being (sat) and knows of no thingness as potentiality, a sat; the infinite inward plenum purna of potentiality within itself as itself. Potentiality is empty and filled to manifest. Shiva shakti is the potentiality manifesting…they are completely in oneness. Dharmakaya is in oneness with its manifestation of form and the relative and absolute are oneness.
5. Awareness embraces being and non-being, for non-being is potentialities of awareness …primordial awareness is potentiality, infinite potentiality ready to manifest, to bring forth beings. There is this boundary of awareness of being as being of awareness as non-being as potentiality…
6. This non-being is not an empty nihilistic void but the plenum or pleroma {fullness of the divine} of potential awareness, manifestations of awareness, configurations of awareness…primordial awareness is shiva is Dharmakaya…potential consciousness yearning to be released as actualities as beings.Within Dharmakaya is the desire to become, the movement to become, the wind of becoming, the display of awareness .
7. Everything is an expression or manifestation of this one awareness…this one desire…itcha shakti.
8. Potential becomes actualities…the actuality of potentiality becomes actualities… infinite possibilities become actualities…a potentiality has infinite possibilities to become actualities. Multidimensional actualities…often in more than one dimension…these manifestations are time.
9. These actualities becoming aware of themselves as the awareness field itself…is freedom…the freedom of the indestructible field of awareness, potentiality…Namkhai Norbu would say know your potential condition, your condition of potentiality.
10. Ultimate awareness both embraces being and non-being, for non-being is the potentialities of awareness. There is this dynamic boundary between the awareness of being and the awareness of non-being…potential of actuality…there is this drama of concealment and unconcealment, manifestation and unmanifest, appearing and disappearing…the continuity is awareness as potentiality in its manifestations.
11. Potentiality permeates all awareness…your subjectivity is the openness of potentiality in circumstances. Circumstances are the manifestations of potentiality. Your subjectivity is awareness itself, Shiva itself, Dharmakaya itself. Vajra kumara. Is unborn and undying primordial awareness.
12. How do you know you exist…from the awareness of existing.
13. How do you know anything exists at all, from the awareness of things and beings existing. Everything is awareness,all the things and beings are awareness. This Singular field of awareness manifest as everything in everything as everything…potential manifesting actualness Early . Buddhist philosophy lacked the paradigm of actuality and potentiality. Kashmir Shaivism does not lack this expression.
14. Do beings exist independent of our awareness? Things exist independently of our mind.And yet these beings are nothing other than shapes of primordial awareness itself…just as you and I are. There is one singular awareness manifesting as all of us.Experientially This awareness is different then the mind and all thought the mind is the manifestation of the very same awareness.
15. What is god…god is awareness…what am you and I ...we are awareness. God is the singular awareness that manifests infinitely. God is infinite configurations of awareness…god dwells within you as you…see god in each other...as the awareness; the singularity of awareness manifesting as infinite singularities. In this configuration it is never useful to take abuse...the dharma of awareness is meeting and dealing with all these various configurations …compassion is both beneficent and fierce...compassion can bring forth and compassion can destroy…shiva is the destroyer. Creating, sustaining, destroying, concealing and revealing…the five fold act.
16. What is awareness itself…a field of potentiality manifesting itself as different dimensions of actuality…infinite actualities.
17. Awareness is field. Awareness is not a thing and is light and manifests as the radiance of light. You are pure awareness manifesting as light…as illuminated phenomena….all phenomena is awakened and open, your awareness is awakened and opened as light. The light of awareness meets the light of phenomena. Inner ying meets outer ying. Father Buddha meets mother Buddha...awareness meets phenomena...they are in oneness. You are in oneness with phenomena...the different dimensions of phenomena…
18. Awakened awareness and awakened phenomena are in oneness…the realm of potentiality is no less real than the realm of actualities. Actualities are no less real than the realm of potentiality. Your essential essence is potentiality…that is the vajra kumara. To realize this is the deathless state…qi gong calls this the immortal state.
19. Awareness is the light of compassion and the radiance of compassion. It is the source of manifestation of all the realms and all the beings. Light and life are oneness. Everything is alive…anima.
20. There is a dual and non-dual character of awareness field. The field of awareness is unbounded utterly open utterly oneness. The field of awareness above and below the line of potentiality and within all the bounded individual awarenesses is a singular and unbounded field. To become aware of the unboundedness of the field that you are is freedom and liberation.
21. The extension of awareness through boundaries, infinite boundaries, brings forth the unbounded experience of the field of awareness…penetrates all boundaries and is direct perception. Going beyond the boundaries is sadhana of oneness.