Excerpts from Spanda-Kārikās The Divine Creative Pulsation

We laud that Śaṅkara by whose mere opening and shutting of the eye-lids there is the appearance and dissolution of the world and who is the source of the glorious powers of the collective whole of the śaktis (the divine energy in various forms).

Commentary:

Therefore the Svātantrya Sakti (the Power of Absolute Freedom) of the Lord is called spanda. This power though non-distinct from the Lord goes on presenting the entire cycle of manifestation and withdrawal on its own background like the reflection of a city in a mirror.

Wherein neither pain, nor pleasure, nor object, nor subject, exists, nor wherein does even insentiency exist — that, in the highest sense, is that Spanda principle.

Commentary:

This is the nature of Śiva (or the Spanda principle) that He is untouched, unaffected by the experiences of pleasure, pain, etc; for Śiva or the Essential Self is the eternal experient.

Commentary:

Pleasure, pain cannot be His nature, for two reasons.

Firstly, they are passing phases of experience, perishing in an instant (kṣaṇabhaṅgurā). The Self is eternal. Therefore, they are external to the nature of the Self like sound, form and other objects (ātmasvarūpābāhyāḥ śabdādiviṣayatulyāḥ).

Secondly, they arise from thought constructs (saṅkalpotthāḥ), whereas the Self is nirvikalpa i.e. it transcends the sphere of thought-constructs. For this reason also, pleasure, pain etc. cannot constitute the nature of Self.

Commentary:

Really speaking there is one śakti of the Divine, viz. the consciousness of his essential nature as I. The same Śakti in the form of perceiving or feeling, is known as jñāna or knowledge; in the form of its volitional activity, it is known as kriyā or activity.

Nimilana samādhi is the inward meditative condition with closed eyes, in which the individual consciousness gets absorbed into the Universal Consciousness.

Unmilana samādhi is that state of the mind in which, even when the eyes are open, the external world appears as Universal Consciousness or Śiva.

Man falsely imagines that he moves his senses to perform their respective functions by the power of his will or desire. His so-called desire has no power of its own. It derives its power of both knowing and doing from Śiva or Spanda-principle whose very nature is knowledge and activity. One has, therefore, to acquire the power of Spanda which is our own essential Self, neither by weaving intellectual cobwebs, nor by maiming desire, but by surrendering all desires, the entire personal will to the Divine.

Since the limited individual Self is identical with the whole universe, inasmuch as all entities arise from him, and because of the knowledge of all subjects, he has the feeling of identity with them all, hence whether in the word, object or thought, there is no state which is not Ś𝘪𝘷𝘢. It is the experient himself who, always and everywhere, abides in the form of the experienced i.e. it is the Divine Himself who is the essential Experient, and it is He who abides in the form of the universe as His field of experience.

Or he, who has this realization (viz. identity of his Self with the whole universe), being constantly united with the Divine, views the entire world as the play (of the Self identical with Ś𝘪𝘷𝘢), and is liberated while alive. There is no doubt about this.

Commentary:

When the yogi sees every object as an expression of the inner divine Self, then the delusion of diversity disappears and he has the bliss of unity consciousness. He finds Śiva both within and without.

That afore-mentioned operative power of Śiva existing in the bound soul is a source of bondage; the same when realized as residing in him as the way of approach to one's own essential reality brings about success (i.e. the achievement of liberation).