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| Devi as Kuleśvarī seated before the Śrī Yantra, symbolizing the oceanic heart of Kaula where all rivers of dharma converge |
The One Sound Beneath All Alphabets
Take a moment to imagine the alphabets of the world laid side by side.
The sharp, straight lines of Latin.
The curling elegance of Devanāgarī.
The austere block of Cyrillic.
The flowing calligraphy of Arabic.
The labyrinthine strokes of Chinese.
Each script seems to belong to a different world, born of a different imagination, carrying an alien soul.
Yet if you lean in close, if you place your ear not to the page but to the breath that moves through the page, something startling appears: all of them are attempts to capture the same living pulse — sound.
The scripts are many, but the vibration is one.
Letters are costumes, masks, hieroglyphs — sound is the dancer who slips into each disguise.
This is how the mystic perceives the traditions of the world.
Vedānta speaks its language,
Sufis sing their intoxicated poetry,
the Kabbalists turn the Tree of Life,
Christian mystics fall into unknowing,
the Bauls wander with their cracked songs,
the Zen masters split silence with a shout.
From the outside they contradict, clash, exclude.
One says “formless God,” another says “Personal Lord,” another laughs at both.
But enter their depths — not the surface rituals, not the doctrinal quarrels, but the cavern where the soul falls into itself — and the same vibration is heard.
The current is one.
Here lies a Kaula insight, sharp as thunder yet tender as a mother’s hand:
the depth of any true Path is always closer to the depth of another Path than to the surface of its own.
Meister Eckhart at his depth is nearer to al-Ḥallāj drunk on God than to his own bishop.
Marguerite Porete aflame in love is nearer to Mirabai singing to Krishna than to the priests who condemned her.
At the bottom of the well, the waters mingle.
This is not the polite pluralism of conferences, nor the sweet syrup of “all religions are equal.”
Kaula does not flatter or sentimentalize.
Kaula sees with a naked eye: at the root, there is one current; at the surface, only quarrel.
And when you feel that current directly — not as theory but as living fire coursing in your veins — you begin to understand what the Tantras mean when they whisper of Kula.
The Bold Declaration of Abhinavagupta
Tantrāloka 35.30–31:
eka evāgamas tasmāt tatra laukikaśāstrataḥ
prabhṛty āvaiṣṇavād bauddhāc chaivāt sarvaṃ hi niṣṭhitam ॥ 30 ॥
tasya yat tat paraṃ prāpyaṃ dhāma tat trikaśabditam
sarvāvibhedānucchedāt tadeva kulam ucyate ॥ 31 ॥
“Therefore, there is only one Āgama;
beginning from the worldly scriptures, and then through the Vaiṣṇava, Buddhist, and Śaiva teachings,
everything indeed is established in it.
The supreme abode to be attained by that one Āgama is called Trika.
And because in it all duality is dissolved without remainder,
that very state is called Kula.”
Abhinavagupta cuts through sect fights by talking about what reality is and how freedom is realized—not about religious groups or institutions. When he says eka evāgamaḥ—“there is one Āgama”—he is not proposing polite pluralism, nor building a federation of creeds. He is pointing to a single living Current of revelation that appears as many scriptures, rituals, and theologies, the way one sun appears fragmented in many bowls of water.
That is why he dares to start not from Veda or Tantra, but from laukikaśāstra—the “worldly” sciences, codes, and arts. His point is surgical: if this Current is truly real, it cannot be quarantined inside a temple. It must be audible in market chatter, visible in law books, palpable in folk wisdom. The split between sacred and profane is only a surface illusion. The Current ignores it.
When he names the supreme abode of this one Āgama as Trika, he is not stamping a sectarian brand. He is naming the phenomenology of Reality at full burn: Will, Knowledge, and Action vibrating as one freedom. And then he goes further: when even this triadic articulation is recognized as nothing but the spontaneous pulse of Consciousness, when difference ceases to function as difference, that condition is called Kula.
Crucially, Kula is not the erasure of variety but the non-opposition of variety. Rivers do not stop being rivers when they merge into the sea; they simply lose the power to stand apart from it. Scripts do not vanish when sound is heard; they cease to imprison the ear. That is the force of sarvāvibhedānuccheda—not a dull flattening, but a luminous de-weaponizing of difference.
This is why Abhinava’s move is both fearless and practical. He relocates “unity” from the level of doctrine (where it hardens into ideology) to the level of recognition (where it becomes lived life). You do not prove this unity; you test it.
And here lies the razor-edge difference from modern kitsch pluralism. Today one often sees posters of Christ embracing Krishna, Buddha shaking hands with Muhammad, symbols of all religions arranged in a circle under the caption “All is One.” This is sentimentality, not realization. It flattens difference by mixing symbols in a superficial collage. It makes unity into decoration.
Abhinavagupta’s words are of another order. His universality is not a polite aesthetic; it is earned universality. He names Vaiṣṇava, Bauddha, Śaiva because he had entered into their debates, studied their logic, tested their practices. He begins from laukika to insist that even the most profane belongs. He calls the final state Kula because it swallows rivers without denying their flow. His “all is one” is not a pastel poster — it is an ontological recognition that burns away the power of boundaries.
This is the Kaula heart: not sentimental tolerance, but fierce recognition. The recognition that whatever alphabet the world writes in — Devanāgarī, Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic — the sound beneath is the same.
The Ocean and the Elephant’s Footprint (Kularṇava Tantra II.12–13)
praviśanti yathā nadyaḥ samudram ṛjuvakragāḥ
tathaiva vividhā dharmāḥ praviṣṭāḥ kulameva hi ॥ 12 ॥
yathā hastipade līnaṃ sarvaprāṇīpadaṃ bhavet
darśanāni ca sarvāṇi kula eva tathā priye ॥ 13 ॥
“As rivers, whether straight or crooked,
all flow into the ocean,
so too do the many dharmas enter into Kula.
As the footprint of the elephant contains within it
the tracks of all other creatures,
so too do all darśanas abide within Kula, O Beloved.”
The Kularṇava Tantra paints the truth with images as clear as water and soil. Abhinavagupta told us in the language of metaphysics that all teachings culminate in one Agama. The Kularṇava shows us what that looks like in the living world.
Rivers may run straight or crooked, clean or muddy, swift or sluggish — but once they meet the sea, the shapes of their journeys dissolve. The ocean swallows them all without resistance. So too with the dharmas: every path, however winding or contradictory, pours finally into Kula.
The elephant’s footprint is the same lesson in another form. Deer, fox, rabbit, bird — their tiny tracks vanish in the print of the great beast. In the same way, the various darśanas, the many systems of vision and philosophy, are already held within Kula. They are not excluded, not destroyed — but they no longer stand apart.
This is not a unity invented by agreement; it is the inevitability of nature itself. The river does not choose to enter the ocean. The smaller tracks do not ask the elephant for permission. The ocean and the elephant simply are the greater reality in which the others are contained.
So it is with Kula. It is not one school among others, but the vast condition in which all schools, scriptures, and sects are already inscribed.
Kula is that ocean. Kula is that footprint. The place where all paths end, the place where all paths are already gathered.
What Kaula Means
The word Kaula comes from kula — family, cluster, totality. But in the Tantric mouth it is never just kinship or tribe. Kula means that in which everything is already gathered, without exclusion. On one side of the polarity, there is Śiva — pure consciousness, still, witnessing. On the other side, Śakti — the vibrating force, the dance of manifestation. In Kaula, these are not two. Kula is precisely their unity, the living family of Śiva-Śakti, where the silent sky and the blazing fire belong to one embrace.
Thus when the Tantras speak of ‘entering the Kula,’ they mean entering that field in which every opposite is already reconciled, every fragment already housed. It is the great family in which gods, doctrines, rivers, alphabets, and even contradictions are contained without remainder. To be Kaula is not to belong to a sect, but to live in the recognition that nothing can fall outside of Śiva and Śakti in their eternal embrace.
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At the outer level (prākṛta Kaula):
Kaula is a tradition — a body of rituals, scriptures, initiations, mantras, yantras. Here it is something you do. You take vows, receive abhiṣeka, practice the pañcatattva, live in the rhythm of the Kaula family. This is the laboratory, the crucible in which the Current is tasted. -
At the inner level (uttama Kaula):
Kaula is no longer a sect, but a recognition. It is the perception that whatever alphabet a path writes in, the same sound flows beneath. At this stage, the practitioner realizes what Abhinava thundered and what the Kularṇava painted: all dharmas are already rivers running into the same sea. -
At the supreme level (anuttara Kaula):
Kaula ceases even to be “Kaula.” It is not an identity or a lineage. It is the elemental condition of reality itself — the ocean, the elephant’s footprint, the sound that no script can capture. Here, the siddha does not cling to names. One cannot say “I am a Shaiva” or even “I am a Kaula.” At this stage, the Siddha simply is, and people from every tradition feel welcomed in their presence.
This is why we can say without exaggeration:
Those rare ones who hear the same sound beneath all alphabets — regardless of their formal lineage — are Kaulas in the highest sense.
They may never have heard the word “Kaula,” never performed pañcatattva, never read the Kularṇava Tantra — but by recognizing unity in diversity through direct experience, they are already Kula-siddha.
The trademark of such siddhas is radical hospitality. All are welcomed, none are excluded. Neem Karoli Baba feeding Muslim and Hindu alike. Ramana Maharshi answering seekers in whatever language they spoke — Quran, Bible, Upaniṣad. Shirdi Sai Baba praying in mosque and temple both. Baba Lokenath declaring, “I am in every home.”
Here sect and creed dissolve. What remains is the family without boundary — Kula in its truest sense.
Kaula Rituals as Existential Tests
The Kaula vision of universality is not a philosophy you merely accept with the mind. It is a truth that must be tested in the fire of practice. That is why Kaula initiations are often merciless in their design — they do not allow the seeker to hide behind comforting dogma or personal preference.
Two rituals in particular reveal this uncompromising edge:
1. Dig-vijaya — Conquest of Directions
When a disciple is consecrated as pūrṇābhiṣikta, the Guru may order them to undergo initiation into several other darśanas — Vaiṣṇava, Buddhist, Śaiva, even “worldly” disciplines. Sometimes this ordeal stretches for years. The purpose is sharp:
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If your realization collapses when you stand in a different language of worship, it was never realization at all — only attachment to form.
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To survive this test, you must pierce to the sound beneath the alphabets.
One who cannot stand such a test is deemed anadhikārin — unfit. For Kaula, sectarian fragility is proof of immaturity.
2. The Flower on the Yantra — Choosing the Iṣṭa
Another ritual is even more direct. The Guru casts a flower onto a yantra, and wherever it falls, that determines the disciple’s Iṣṭa-devatā — their chosen deity. The disciple must then worship that deity with complete surrender for life.
This is a ruthless blow to the ego’s consumerism. You do not get to “pick the deity that feels right.” Śakti chooses for you, and your task is to bow.
Why? Because the heart of Kaula is the recognition that every form is the Absolute. To worship one form as Absolute until it melts into its own essence is to discover the Current that all forms conceal and reveal.
The Edge of These Tests
These rituals are not meant to be “inclusive gestures.” They are existential crucibles. They force the practitioner to see whether their “nonduality” is just sectarian polish or whether it has teeth.
The new-age mind likes to declare, “All paths are one.” The Kaula Guru replies, “Good. Let us see if you can worship a deity you did not choose, or stand in the fire of a doctrine you were taught to despise.”
Only then does universality stop being an opinion and become recognition.
Kaula Beyond Sect and Surface
Kaula is not one sect among many.
It is not a style of worship, a lineage badge, or an esoteric clique.
It is the condition of Reality itself — the ocean into which all rivers, straight or crooked, inevitably pour; the elephant’s footprint in which all smaller tracks vanish.
Abhinavagupta named it clearly: there is one Āgama. Its supreme abode is Trika, and its final recognition is Kula — where all duality dissolves without residue. The Kularṇava sang it in simple images: rivers into the sea, tracks into the elephant’s mark.
The Kaula path is fierce because it will not allow you to hold this as an opinion. You are tested: through dig-vijaya, where you must find the Current in alien doctrines; through the flower-fall ritual, where you must surrender to a form not of your choosing. In these crucibles you learn whether your nonduality is real or just decoration.
And when the recognition matures, the boundaries burn away. The siddha no longer asks who is inside and who is outside. Muslims, Christians, Hindus, skeptics, seekers — all find welcome. Not because the siddha “believes in pluralism,” but because they see that all alphabets encode the same sound.
This is why the depth of one true path is always closer to the depth of another than to the surface of its own. At that depth there is no sect, no quarrel, no fragile identity — only the luminous Current.
Kaula is not what you practice. Kaula is what remains when every boundary has been burned, when every alphabet dissolves into sound, when every river is swallowed by the sea.
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