Parātrīṃśikā Vivaraṇa (Part 32): Beyond Time, Yet Not Outside Life

Ukrainian professor is giving a lecture to his students from a trench under shelling, 2022. Timeless center remaining present in embodied, differentiated, pressured life

“In that very moment” means the collapse of ordinary present-time itself

atatas tasminn eva kṣaṇe iti

vartamāna-kṣaṇasya sā-avadhāraṇatvena bhūta-bhaviṣyat-kṣaṇāntara-nirāse
tad-ubhaya-apekṣa-kalanā-prāṇāṃ vartamānasyāpi kālatāṃ nirasyeta

“Therefore, when it is said ‘in that very moment,’ then by the precise delimitation of the present moment — through the exclusion of other moments belonging to past and future — the temporality even of the present itself, whose very life consists in being conceived in dependence on those two, is rejected.”

Abhinava is cutting more deeply than modern spirituality usually does.

Today, “be in the present” often becomes a slogan. Sometimes it helps at a practical level: less rumination, less anxiety, less mental scattering. Fine. But Abhinava is not offering a wellness version of presence. He is not teaching a more refined attachment to the present moment.

He is saying something harsher: if past and future are truly cut away, then the present itself — as an ordinary temporal slice — also collapses. Why? Because what we call “the present” still depends on contrast with what has passed and what is yet to come. It is still part of the same temporal machine.

So the present is not the final sanctuary.
It is only the most respectable room inside the same house.

That is the knife.

A lot of modern spiritual talk remains trapped exactly here. It rejects past and future obsession, but then absolutizes “now” as though the now were itself the Real. Abhinava does not allow that comfort. For him, if “now” is still a segment in time, still something mentally held over against before and after, it is not yet freedom from time.

This matters because otherwise one can become very proud of being “present” while still remaining fully inside subtle temporality. One is calmer, perhaps more embodied, perhaps less distracted — but still not beyond the structure of time. Abhinava wants more honesty than that.

So a cleaner modern paraphrase would be:

He is not saying, “prefer the present to the past and future.”
He is saying, “the ordinary present is also part of the illusion if it is still thought temporally.”

That is why this line matters so much. It saves the teaching from being reduced to a soothing present-moment spirituality.

A simple way to say it:

if the “present” is still just one point on the timeline,
Abhinava is not there yet.

When the radiant kula is stilled, Anuttara shines as bliss beyond place and time

yato yāvad idaṃ parameśvarasya bhairava-bhānoḥ
raśmi-cakrātmakaṃ nija-bhāsā-sphāra-mayaṃ kulam uktam
tat ca etat antarmukha-para-bhairava-saṃvit-tādātmya-lakṣaṇaṃ nirodham eti
tadā tad eva paramānandāmṛtāsvāda-mayaṃ adeśa-kāla-kalitaṃ
anuttaraṃ dhruvaṃ visarga-rūpaṃ satatoditaṃ

“For as long as this kula has been spoken of as the ray-circle of the Bhairava-sun, made of the expansion of his own light — when that very kula comes to cessation, marked by identity with the inward-turned consciousness of Parabhairava, then that very reality is Anuttara: made of the taste of the nectar of supreme bliss, unmeasured by place and time, constant, of the nature of visarga, ever-risen.”

Now the passage turns from the collapse of ordinary present-time to what remains when the whole radiant display is stilled.

Abhinava does not treat kula here as mere error. It is the raśmi-cakra, the circle of rays of Bhairava’s own light. So manifestation is already divine radiance. But when that radiant spread turns inward and comes to nirodha, not as dead blankness but as identity with inward Parabhairava-consciousness, then the same reality is recognized as Anuttara.

That is the point: not a second thing replacing manifestation, but the same reality seen in its more inward truth.

And then the descriptors come one after another, each cutting a habitual misunderstanding:

• paramānandāmṛtāsvāda-maya — not dry transcendence, but the taste of supreme bliss
• adeśa-kāla-kalita — not measured by place or time
• dhruva — stable, not episodic
• visarga-rūpa — of the nature of outpouring, not inert closure
• satatodita — ever-risen, not newly produced

This is very exact. Abhinava does not let nirodha be misunderstood as annihilation. Nor does he let bliss be mistaken for a passing state. Nor does he let transcendence become a sterile elsewhere. The whole line is balancing inward stilling, bliss, freedom from time, and ever-risen dynamism.

A simple way to say it:

when the whole radiant spread is gathered back into inward Bhairava-consciousness,
what remains is not emptiness in the weak sense,
but ever-risen bliss beyond place and time.

Restrain the ray-circle, drink the unsurpassable nectar

tad uktam śrī-vādyatantre

saṃrudhyaṃ raśmi-cakraṃ svaṃ pītvāmṛtam anuttamam |
kālobhayāparicchinnaṃ vartamāne sukhī bhavet ||

[etad eva atra saṃrodhanaṃ yat nīlāder arthajātasya āśyānasya
deha-prāṇādi-pramātṛtābhimānena vedyatotkarṣāt tan-nimajanāt
tasyāpi prakāśaika-magnatvam ukta-nayena |]

“And this is said in the venerable Vādyatantra:

‘Having restrained one’s own circle of rays and having drunk the unsurpassable nectar,
one becomes happy in the present, unbounded by both divisions of time.’

[And this restraint here means precisely this: that the whole class of objects such as blue, having congealed and sunk through the predominance of objecthood under identification with the knower as body, prāṇa, and the like, is itself immersed in the one light, according to the teaching already given.]”

This verse gathers the whole movement beautifully.

“Restrain the ray-circle” does not mean destroy manifestation or violently suppress experience. The gloss makes the meaning much more exact: what had sunk into hardened objecthood — blue, body, prāṇa, the whole field of the knowable — is no longer left standing in its outward stiffness. It is immersed back into the one light.

That is saṃrodhana here.

So the movement is not from world to blankness. It is from scattered objecthood to re-immersion in prakāśa.

Then comes “drink the unsurpassable nectar.” That is a very good phrase, because it prevents the whole thing from becoming dry metaphysics. What is recovered is tasted. It is living, blissful, immediate.

And then the line most likely to be misunderstood: “happy in the present.” After the previous section, we can no longer read this as ordinary present-moment spirituality. The verse itself blocks that by adding kālobhayāparicchinnam — unbounded by both divisions of time. So the “present” here is not a slice between past and future. It is happiness free of both.

A simple way to say the whole point:

the rays are not denied;
they are re-gathered.
The object-world is not made unreal;
it is sunk back into light.
And the resulting “present” is not clock-time,
but freedom from time’s split.

“Happy in the present” means beyond both divisions of time

kālobhayāparicchinnaṃ vartamāne sukhī bhavet ||

vistāritaś ca vistarato ’nyatra mayaiva kālobhayāparicchedaḥ |

“One becomes happy in the present, unbounded by both divisions of time.

And this freedom from both divisions of time has been explained by me elsewhere in detail.”

This line needs protection, because it is very easy to shrink it.

“Happy in the present” can sound like advice for psychological grounding. But Abhinava has already made it impossible to read it that way. The phrase is immediately qualified by kālobhayāparicchinna — not bounded by either division of time.

So the “present” here is not:

• a better-managed now,
• a calmer mental state,
• a more mindful slice of time.

It is a mode of being no longer cut by past and future at all.

That is why the previous discussion mattered. If past and future are excluded radically enough, the ordinary present collapses too. So the “present” that remains here is not a temporal segment. It is immediacy free from temporal partition.

That is the force of the verse. And Abhinava’s little note — that he has explained this elsewhere in detail — shows that he knows how easily the phrase could be trivialized.

A simple way to say it:

this is not “be more present.”
It is: be free of time’s division altogether.

Siddhi comes into body and the differentiated field not through a gap, but immediately

tathā kulāt
prāṇa-dehādeḥ āgatā siddhiḥ bheda-prāṇānāṃ nīla-sukhādīnāṃ niścaya-rūpā tāṃ
dadāti iti — śarīrādayo

[yad etat saṃkṣepeṇoktaṃ tad eva vivṛṇvan āha śarīrādayo hityādi |
ayam atra bhāvaḥ — yad āhur anye dharmādharmasambandhād eva sarvo vyavahāraḥ
tenaiva icchā-guṇena karaṇāni acetanāny api svasva-kāryeṣu pravartante na punas
tad-adhiṣṭhānād iti śaṅkā | jhagiti iti na tu icchādi-vyavadhānena iti bhāvaḥ |]

“And likewise, the siddhi that has come from kula into prāṇa, body, and the rest gives that — namely, the form of certainty with regard to things such as blue, pleasure, and the like, whose very life is difference. Thus: ‘body and the rest …’

[What has here been said briefly, he now unfolds with the words ‘body and the rest,’ and so on. The point here is this: some say that all worldly activity takes place solely through connection with dharma and adharma, and that by that very quality of desire even the instruments, though insentient, proceed in their respective functions, and not because of any presiding consciousness. This is the doubt. ‘Instantly’ means: not through the mediation of desire and the rest — that is the meaning.]”

The objection Abhinava is answering is roughly this:

“Why bring in deep consciousness at all? Maybe life just runs by built-in mechanisms.”

In other words:

• karma does its thing
• desire pushes action
• body and mind function like instruments
• even if those instruments are unconscious, they still produce behavior
• so why say a deeper conscious power is directly active there?

That is the doubt he is addressing.

His answer is:

No — embodied functioning is not just dead machinery plus desire.
The deeper conscious power is directly operative there.
And siddhi means this becomes clear even in ordinary differentiated experience — blue, pleasure, body, prāṇa, and so on.

So the point of “jhagiti — instantly, not through mediation of desire and the rest” is:

the living conscious ground is not far away,
not waiting behind layers,
not merely supervising from a distance.

It is immediately present in the functioning itself.

Abhinava is not refuting only the idea of God as a watchmaker who built the mechanism and then stepped away.
He is refuting something even closer to home:

the idea that life can be explained sufficiently by mechanisms, drives, karma-patterns, and instruments, without a directly present conscious ground.

So a modern analogy could be:

A reductionist says:
“Your phone works because of circuits, code, electrical signals, and inputs. That is enough.”
Abhinava would say:
“Yes, those are real layers of functioning. But if you think the whole event is exhausted by those layers, you are missing the more primary level that makes manifestation and intelligibility possible at all.”

Or more humanly:

Someone says:
“She acted that way because of trauma, conditioning, hormones, habit, and desire.”
Abhinava would not necessarily deny those layers.
But he would say:
“If you think those layers completely explain the living event, you have reduced consciousness to its instruments.”

That is very close to his point.

So the gloss is trying to protect this:

• body and mind are not denied
• karma and desire are not denied
• causal chains are not denied

But none of them are the final source.

And “instantly” means:
the conscious ground is not added only after those processes finish;
it is already there, directly present in the event.

A simpler final formulation:

He is rejecting the idea that embodied life is just semi-automatic machinery driven by karma and desire.
For him, consciousness is not a remote manager. It is directly operative in the very functioning.

That is why siddhi can “come into” body, prāṇa, and differentiated experience. Not because realization gets translated by dead instruments, but because those instruments were never truly dead in the first place.