Bad vibes

"The Doctrine of Vibration" is an extremely difficult book by Mark S G Dyczkowski, a British scholar who has written extensively on Kashmiri Shaivism, a Tantric tradition within Hinduism. I believe he is practicing it himself, too, so I suppose you could say Dyczkowski "has gone native". The book seems to be a kind of personal-scholarly reflection on Kashmiri Shaivism, Dyczkowski using a scripture known as Spandakarika (Stanzas on Vibration) and Kshemaraja´s commentary on the same to interpret Kashmiri Shaivism as a whole. Most of the book is "theoretical", but a few sections on practice has also been included. I admit that the whole thing was a bit over my head (or is it my vibratory frequency), but a few things did strike me when trying to read it. 

This is obviously where the Vajrayana Buddhists of Tibet picked up their worldview. The similarities are striking. It´s essentially the same system, except that the Buddhist version dispenses even with the semblance of theism. And what a worldview it is! You probably can´t go any further from Christianity (or atheism, for that matter) than this. You could easily accuse the Kashmiri Shaivas of megalomania, black magic, or both. These guys really do believe in "the lie of the snake": ye shall be like gods, hiss...

The system is quasi-theist, with Bhairava (a fierce form of Shiva) often being seen as the supreme god. On the most esoteric level, however, the Kashmiri Tantrikas worship Kali. I noticed that the list of divine attributes doesn´t include all-good, loving or omnibenevolent. The emphasis is on God´s omnipresence and omnipotence, but above all on His (or Her) absolute freedom. Shiva creates, destroys and recreates the universe as part of his divine play. "Good" and "evil" doesn´t exist, since all opposites are reconciled in Shiva. Freedom and power are the goals of the Tantric practitioner. To make this possible, the yogi must "become God", or to be more precise, realize that he is already God - since everything is God. God is really a kind of super-consciousness, and nothing exists apart from it. The yogi must expand his purely individual consciousness to expand the entire cosmos, and hence become co-terminous with God´s consciousness (i.e. with everything that exists). I get the impression that Kashmiri Shaivism ultimately doesn´t believe in a "personal" god, since the super-consciousness spontaneously generates all phenomena within itself, but "spontaneity" (at least to me) suggests that "God" doesn´t plan ahead or intelligently design the universe, rather all phenomena arise by chance. Dyczkowski´s more positive interpretation is that the divine is infinitely creative and free from any constraints whatsoever. In contrast to Advaita Vedanta, which claims that Brahman only is real and everything else is an illusion, Kashmiri Shaivism suggests that both God and the phenomenal world are equally real, since they are both one and the same! The material universe we inhabit is really Shiva hiding from himself for his own enjoyment. Once the yogi realizes this, he doesn´t have to "go" anywhere, he can stay right where he is and enjoy the show himself. Or as a Vajrayanist would no doubt put it: "Samsara is nirvana".

There is also a strong emphasis on desire. All desires are good, and enlightenment is often compared to aesthetic enjoyment or sexual pleasure. Indeed, Enlightenment can be achieved through such means. Shiva´s creative power, Shakti, is often depicted as a goddess having sex with Shiva. (I note that this book refers to divine emanations as "emissions".) Another name for Shakti is Spanda or Vibration. It is through Spanda that Shiva creates the cosmos and all phenomena. Desire binds the unenlightened to the illusion of being separate from Shiva-Shakti, but the same desire can liberate, if it´s creatively used to expand the yogi´s consciousness. The human body seems to be God´s finest creation, making it holy and an extraordinary tool for liberation. As already noted, Dyczkowski says relatively little about the notorious "Left Hand" practices of Tantrism, such as ritual sex or necrophagy. He mentions kundalini yoga in passing.  Instead, the emphasis is on various inner meditative processes. When the yogi is liberated, he can enjoy everything in the cosmos through Shiva´s power and freedom, while simultaneously continuing his individual earthly enjoyments. I´m almost tempted to say "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is". I think this strong emphasis on desire is the main reason why Kashmiri Shaivism can´t argue that the world is an illusion. The power of Maya is negative only for those who don´t realize that all is divine. For those who do, Maya is just another name for the Shakti or Spanda, the creatrix or creativity of the universe. The "illusion" is there for us to enjoy to the maximum.

Some psychological observations of the author are intriguing, but (again) hard to understand. In order to become liberated and realize his identity with Shiva, the yogi´s consciousness must become clear, primordial and non-conceptual, like the mind of a small child who sees the world for the first time and gasps in wonder. However, since all humans above a certain age "think in words", emptying the mind of concepts is extremely difficult. Language, after all, is conceptual. Tantrikas apparently try to shortcircuit conceptual language by using language in original new ways. Mantras are a kind of non-conceptual language. A strange form of meditation in which different kinds of phonemes are associated with different deities is another way. 

In general, I have to say that I got quite "bad vibes" from "The Doctrine of Vibration". This seems to be the philosophy of both hedonistic aesthetes and crazy cults in the charnel ground. I´m uncomfortable with a religion that thinks of the divine solely in terms of unlimited "freedom" and power "beyond" good and evil, and that the goal of a small spiritual elite is to emulate this divine vibration. It becomes even more scary if these guys are actually in power somewhere (say a medieval Indian kingdom) and decide on a less "hippie" approach to things, or want their skull-caps freshly carved. (See my review of "Indian Esoteric Buddhism" by Ronald M Davidson.) 

With that little reflection, I end this review.