Christopher Wallis Quotes

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” — Thomas Merton

Briefly, the same powers of awareness that allow us to construct mental models of reality also allow us to see that they are mental models, and not reality itself.

The great master Abhinava Gupta suggests to us that if you practice yoga from the perspective that you are not good enough as you are, or that there is something wrong with you that needs fixing, then your yoga cannot fulfill its ultimate purpose because it is a practice founded on wrong understanding. It can only go as far as fulfilling the limited purpose that has been conceived by your limited ego-mind. However, if you undertake the practice of yoga with the right View of yourself, that you already are a perfect and whole expression of the Divine and that you are doing yoga to realize and then fully express what is already true, then you have empowered your practice to take you all the way.

Consciousness, out of its own free will, chooses particular roles to play out of the nearly infinite possibilities—and then naturally seeks to relinquish those roles to make space for new possibility. Adult humans tend to be afraid of letting go of a self-image that matches a role they understand, despite how stale it has become, unless a new prospect is already being offered. But Awareness doesn’t work that way: it seeks to melt into flowing possibility before reforming in organic response to its situation.

The mind sees reality through the lens of māyā (that is, it sees things as fundamentally separate and differentiated) because its primary function is to produce discursive thought-forms, or vikalpas. Vikalpas are mental constructs or interpretive filters that divide up (vi-kḷp) the world into discrete chunks for analysis (e.g., “Dangerous to me or not?” “Source of food or not?” “Potential mate or not?”). This function of the mind was very useful and important in our evolution, but has led to a problematic situation in which our interpretive lenses are constantly interposed between awareness and the rest of reality, such that it’s very easy to mistake the lens for reality. (To be more precise, we take the modified image that appears in the lens or filter as being accurate, when in fact it’s distorted to an unknown degree, until you learn how to remove the lens, at least temporarily). This is one definition of the ‘unawake’ state or dreamstate.

The capacity to be the holiest of saints and the most heartless of killers exists within each of us. You may have heard this before, but take a moment to actually feel the truth of it within yourself. Such a feeling inspires us to embrace our own greatness on the one hand, yet also gives us greater compassion for the wicked on the other hand—for we know that there, but for the grace of God, go I.

any beginning student of Śaiva Tantra must become acquainted with Sanderson’s work, beginning with the easier introductory pieces: “Shaivism and the Tantric Traditions,” “Power and Purity among the Brahmins of Kashmir,” and “EPHE Lectures: Long Summary,” all available on alexissanderson.com.

Both thoughts and feelings are vibrations of citta, or the “mind-stuff.” They are actually two ends of a single spectrum. If this were not true, we could never talk about our feelings or feel strongly about our ideas. The difference between thoughts and feelings is simply that thoughts are vibrations (vṛttis) with a greater linguistic or logical component, while feelings are vibrations with a greater affective charge. The difference is not absolute but one of degree. For example, when we feel sad, that feeling is nearly always strongly tied to a specific thought, often unconscious. Becoming aware of that thought can help us become unstuck, tapping the latent energy of the feeling.

First off, we encounter in this passage the esoteric Kaula doctrine of not one but two Kuṇḍalinīs, an upper and a lower, each of which need to be activated so that, flowing freely in the central channel, they may merge. In this way, the sexual energy (≈ lower Kuṇḍalinī) is sublimated, and the urge to transcend to a higher plane (≈ upper Kuṇḍalinī) is grounded, and each balances the other in the state of embodied liberation.

In Western philosophical terminology, the nondual Tantrik View is considered ‘idealism’ (as opposed to ‘realism’), since it argues that everything is internal to Awareness and is an expression of the same. Regardless of how it’s labeled, the fundamental point here is undeniable: we can be sure that objects of experience are internal to awareness, but we cannot be sure that they have any existence external to awareness, and it is pointless to speculate anyway, since all we have access to are the contents of awareness.

In the Tantrik View, there are two goals in human life: worldly success and spiritual liberation. The former consists of learning how to successfully negotiate the challenges of embodiment. Creating sufficient harmony and balance in relation to one’s work, family, mental and physical health, and so on gives rise to worldly happiness, the ability to simply enjoy life (bhoga). Unlike all the pre-Tantrik forms of yoga, the Tantra does not reject this goal, but actually provides tools to achieve it. The second goal, or purpose, of human life is seemingly very different: to achieve a spiritual liberation that entails a deep and quiet joy that is utterly independent of one’s life circumstances, a joy in simply existing, free from all mind-created suffering (mokṣa). Tantra does not see these goals as necessarily mutually exclusive: you can strive for greater happiness and success (bhoga) while at the same time cultivating a practice that will enable you to deeply love your life even if it doesn’t go the way you want (mokṣa). It’s a win–win proposition. But the tradition correctly points out that unless the former activity (bhoga) is subordinated to the latter (mokṣa), it is likely that pursuit of bhoga will take over. That outcome is potentially regrettable for two reasons: first, if you haven’t cultivated mokṣa (spiritual liberation) and your carefully built house of cards collapses, as can happen to any of us at any time, you will have no inner ‘safety net’ to catch you.

We must thoroughly let go our resistance to what we don’t like to see the beauty in it. Resistance is nothing but commitment to your conditioning. If you want wonder, beauty, and joy to become the leitmotifs of your life, you must become willing to allow the experience, whatever it is, to totally dissolve into the silent presence that you truly are.

Accepting that there are such things as facts requires you to be humble and to have flexibility to relinquish your position when it is shown to be wrong. (...) while the Tantra actively engages the higher mind, it also attempts to transcend the level of the intellect on which "proof" is an operative term. Here your own contemplated experience becomes primary in formulating your understanding of reality. When the wisdom of well-considered experience is joined coherently to well-grounded factual knowledge, you have a strong foundation from which to successfully navigate both the path of yoga and the world in general.  

an exercise in what Cabezón calls “academic theology,” or what I would call a self-conscious experiment in well-grounded constructive theology. It weds together the interests and needs of two diverse communities of readers in a way that, I here argue, only a scholar-practitioner is capable of doing. In

Addressing this doubt, in order to explain the mind, it is taught: || citir eva cetana-padād avarūḍhā cetya-saṅkocinī cittam || 5 || Awareness (citi) itself, descending from its state of pure consciousness (cetana), becomes contracted by the object perceived: this is [called] the mind (citta). Far from teaching an absolute distinction of divine spirit and mundane matter, Tantra teaches that they are in fact different phases of one thing, i.e., Awareness. Take the example of h2o: in one phase, we call it steam, in another, water, in another, ice. These three states are very different from one another, and we necessarily interact with each of them in very different ways. This is a perfect analogy for what Kṣemarāja intends here: there are three different states or phases of one ‘thing’—in one state, we call it God, in another, pure consciousness, in another, the mind. The implications of this are of course huge. First, though, let’s explore the specific three terms that Kṣemarāja is using here for these three states of the One. First we have citi, introduced in the first sūtra, which we translate (imperfectly) as Awareness. Citi (pronounced CHIT-ee) is the state in which Awareness is fully expanded, that is to say, untouched by any trace of contraction, including that of subjectivity or selfhood. In other words, there is no concealment whatsoever operative on the citi level (not that it’s really a level, of course). When citi manifests as an individuated subject, then that is the phase called cetana, here translated as ‘pure consciousness’. We have to define this second phase, cetana, more carefully so that we don’t confuse it with the third phase (the mind). Cetana (CHAY-tuh-nuh) is the state of being the conscious knower or agent of consciousness. We experience cetana in the space between trains of thought, a space of awareness momentarily devoid of thought-forms (vikalpas). That’s why I translate it as ‘pure consciousness’. We experience it dozens of times a day, but usually only for a second, and usually without the reflective self-awareness (vimarśa) by which we can know that we are experiencing cetana. (This ‘knowing’, when it does occur, does not take the form of a thought, or else it is no longer the cetana state.) The cetana state is open and expansive awareness; in fact, it is as expanded as awareness can be while still having a subtle ‘sense of self’.

When I walked into the kitchen this morning and saw the stack of dirty dishes in the sink [objective inarguable], my heart sank [subjective inarguable]. It’s so important to me to walk into a clean kitchen in the morning [subjective statement of value, also inarguable], and I began to worry that that need of mine wasn’t likely to be met [subjective inarguable]. Would you be willing to commit to doing your dishes before going to bed every night [specific actionable request]?

Both thoughts and emotions were understood as vibrations of citta, or the heart-mind, somatically located in the center of the chest

for what Kṣemarāja intends here: there are three different states or phases of one ‘thing’—in one state, we call it God, in another, pure consciousness, in another, the mind.

Objection: “Surely, the individual perceiver is made up of dualistic mental constructs, and the mind is the basis of these mental constructs. So, if the perceiver is the mind, how can it be God?” Addressing this doubt, in order to explain the mind, it is taught: Awareness itself, descending from its state of pure consciousness, becomes contracted by the object perceived: this is [called] the mind. || 5 || The mind is nothing other than this very Goddess Awareness. To explain: when She conceals Her true nature and takes on contraction, there are two modes in which She does so. Sometimes, She vibrates predominantly as Awareness, subordinating contraction, even though it is still present. Other times, contraction is predominant. In the case of Awareness being predominant, If it predominates exclusively as the innate Light of Awareness, that is the state of the Vijñānākala. However, when the Light’s capacity for Self-reflection is predominant, that is the state of being a Wisdom-perceiver. In that state, through the progressive diminution of contraction, one ascends through successively higher layers: the states of Īśvara, Sadāśiva, and Transcendent Śiva. And when the predominance of Awareness is achieved through effort in meditation, the state of being a knower of the Pure Realm keeps gradually becoming greater.

The Divine is here taught as having two aspects, the transcendent and the immanent. The transcendent aspect is called Śiva (SHEE-vuh) and personified as male divinity (sometimes, God). Though Śiva is represented mythologically as having certain characteristics, Tāntrikas (followers of the Tantra) understand Śiva as pure Consciousness: nonpersonal, utterly transcendent of all limitations or qualities, beyond the reach of senses, speech, and mind—in short, the singular Light of Awareness that makes possible all manifestation; the quiescent and peaceful ground of all that is.