Siva Sutras 1.1

I am going through my Siva Sutras again and I am in awe how each sentense carries so much wisdom. I have to pause and re-read as I try to understand something my heart already knows but my mind gets confused. The ideas expressed sound like familiar truths yet my mind tries to complicate it. I plan one studing one sutra a week.

1.1 caitanyamatma

The independent state of supreme consciousness is the reality of everything.

"The first sutra of the Siva Sutras explains that the reality of the universe is the real self. This self is not false. This is contrary to the theories of those philosophers who argue that the individual being is always individual being and universal being is always universal being. For these philosophers, universal being will never be united with individual being and individual being will never be united with universal being. This first sutra, on the other hand, states that individual being is one with universal being. The reality of this whole universe is God consciousness. It is filled with God consciousness."

To me this paragraph nicely describes the difference between dual and non-dual traditions. I have written about this before in this blog. In the beginning of my meditation practice I was taught basically that I was the individual being that I would never be united with the universal being and the closest I could get is through stilling my mind enough and withdrawing and renouncing my individual being enough that I might be able to comprehend the universal being. This was so challenging and seemingly impossible for me to do.

I love what this first sutra is saying. That everything is God. That when I sit to meditate and my mind isn't still, I am still in the pulsation of the divine. When I move in to to yoga postures I get to experience the physicality of God that comes in this Kim package. And that everything I experience from a honking car to a colorful butterfly...everything in this world is within the pulsation of supreme consciousness.  

"This universe, which is a world of consciousness, is filled with and is one with the supreme state of God consciousness. God consciousness is spanda, a unique reality of supreme movement filled with nectar and an outpouring of the supreme bliss of independence"

Quotes from: Siva Sutras The Supreme Awakening Revealed by Swami Lakshimanjoo