Kashmir Shaivism

Kashmir Shaivism : 

The teachings of Kashmir Shaivism deals specifically with the 64 monistic tantras, known as the Bhairava Tantras, the essence of which is called ‘Trika Shaivism’. 

Monism is based on the concept of the Monad, derived from the Greek monos meaning ‘single’ and ‘without division’. Thus, the fundamental character of the universe is unity.

Monism can be most clearly identified in Advaita vedanta in which “Brahmn is the eternal, unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being, and everything beyond in this universe”
On the other hand, tantra is defined by the pursuit of power. Tantric traditions are thus those that aim at ramping up the spiritual power of the practitioner to attain a state of Mahasamadhi or Unio Mystica. The soteriological description for the essence of such power is Shakti, the female counterpart to the male divine principle, Shiva.

Shakta Tantrism

Whereas in Shakta tantrism, Shakti as a Goddess is herself the ultimate deity, in monistic Kashmiri Shaivism she is incorporated into the metaphysical essence of the God Shiva. Somananda, a progenitor of the Trika system, likened the Shiva-Shakti dichotomy to fire and the heat generated by it, thus concluding that they were one and the same.

The Tantraloka, considered to be the seminal exposition on Tantric Shaivism was written by Sri Abhinavagupta in the 11th century. Abhinavagupta spoke of Anuttara as the fundamental reality underlying the whole of manifested existence, also identified with Shiva, Shakti (being identical to Shiva), the supreme consciousness known as chitta or Brahmn and spandan, the divine pulsation.

Erotic Friction

“The practitioner who realises anuttara through any means, is liberated and perceives absolutely no difference between herself and the body of the universe. Being and beings become one and the same by virtue of the ‘erotic friction’, whereby subject perceives object and in that act of perception is filled with nondual being/consciousness/bliss. Anuttara is different from the notion of transcendence in that, even though it is above all, it does not imply a state of separation from the universe’’

Om Namah Shivay