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| Śiva is the outpouring-power of supreme speech and mantra, joined by the Supreme Goddess’s creation dense with the blossom-like fullness of that power |
Vikalpas are not separate from experience or from one another; they are one power
na ca vikalpā anubhavāt vikalpāntarādvā bhinnāḥ api tu sa eva
ekaḥ svātantryabheditabhāvoparāgalabdhabhedabhūtādyabhidhavijñānacakraprabhuḥ
“And vikalpas are not separate either from experience or from other vikalpas. Rather, it is that one alone — the lord of the wheel of cognitions such as the notions of elements and the rest — which has taken on differentiated forms through the coloring of states diversified by freedom.”
Abhinava begins by blocking a crude split.
Vikalpas are not little sealed units standing apart from lived experience, nor are they truly separate from one another as though each thought or cognition were an isolated atom. They are expressions of one power.
That is why he says sa eva ekaḥ — that one alone. The many cognitions, names, categorizations, elemental notions, and differentiated mental forms belong to one underlying field, one lordship, one dynamic center.
The phrase about svātantrya matters. Difference is not treated as a mechanical accident. The many forms arise through the coloring of states under freedom itself. So multiplicity is not outside the one power; it is one of its ways of appearing.
This continues the previous part very exactly. There Abhinava said that even rising vikalpa does not sever the nirvikalpa ground. Here he goes further: even the plurality of vikalpas does not create a true fragmentation. The wheel is many in appearance, one in power.
So the point is simple:
experience is not first broken into separate conceptual pieces and only later unified;
the many conceptual forms are already modes of one conscious dynamism.
A simple analogy: waves may look separate from one another, but the sea is not divided by their shapes. That is close to Abhinava’s point here.
Liberation is nothing but sameness with Khecarī, and this is precisely recognition of the nature of Anuttara
tadevaṃ khecarīsāmyameva mokṣaḥ tat ca anuttarasvarūpaparijñānameva
“Thus, liberation is nothing but sameness with Khecarī, and that is precisely recognition of the very nature of Anuttara.”
Now Abhinava gives the doctrinal seal very plainly.
Mokṣa is not described here as escape to somewhere else, nor as mere cessation, nor as acquisition of a new condition. It is khecarī-sāmya — sameness with Khecarī. And Abhinava immediately makes that still more exact: this sameness is nothing other than recognition of the nature of Anuttara.
That is important because it prevents Khecarī from being misunderstood as a special yogic ornament, a separate technique, or an exotic side-path. She is being placed at the very heart of liberation.
At the same time, the line keeps the whole discussion from floating off into abstraction. Liberation is not left as “Anuttara” in a purely remote sense. It is named through sāmya with a living Śakti-state.
So the point is clean:
mokṣa is not different from recognition,
recognition is not different from Anuttara,
and this is spoken of as sameness with Khecarī.
A simple way to put it:
liberation is not somewhere beyond the living power;
it is becoming equal to that very mode of consciousness which moves in the sky of Anuttara.
Khecarī is not redundant here; she is the Śakti-state by which recognition is actually accomplished
[anuttareti
ayamatrābhiprāyaḥ - na cātra etanmantavyaṃ yadi svarūpameva mokṣaḥ tadalaṃ
khecaryā khecarī hi śaktidaśā āmnāyepūktā anuttarasvarūpaṃ sarvādhvoparivartīti
yato'tra anuttarasvarūpaparijñānaṃ mokṣaḥ tacca khecaryaiva
sūkṣmatamavimarśarūpayā siddhayatīti |]
“Here the intention of the word ‘Anuttara’ is this: one should not think, ‘If liberation is simply one’s own nature, then enough of Khecarī.’ For Khecarī is indeed the state of Śakti spoken of in the tradition, whose nature is Anuttara and which stands beyond all the paths. Since here liberation is recognition of the nature of Anuttara, and that is accomplished precisely by Khecarī in the form of the subtlest vimarśa.”
Abhinava now answers an objection before it hardens.
If mokṣa is simply one’s own nature, someone may say: then why bring in Khecarī at all? Why not stop at bare identity and drop the Śakti-language?
He says no. That would be too abstract, and false to the way recognition actually occurs.
Khecarī is not an unnecessary extra added onto liberation. She is the Śakti-daśā, the state of power, by which the recognition of Anuttara is actually brought to fulfillment. That is why he says it is accomplished khecaryaiva — by Khecarī herself — and specifically as sūkṣmatama-vimarśa, the most subtle reflexive awareness.
That is the key. Liberation may be one’s own nature, yes. But it is not reached by a dead statement of identity. It becomes living, actual, and realized through this most subtle self-relishing awareness, this living Śakti.
So the point is very important:
Anuttara is not opposed to Khecarī;
Khecarī is the living subtle power of its recognition.
A simple way to put it:
you cannot replace the living event of recognition with a correct definition and think the work is done.
Overall in this passage, in very simple words, Abhinava is saying something like this:
You are already not separate from the highest reality. The problem is not that liberation is far away. The problem is that your own power of awareness gets tangled in thoughts, emotions, objects, reactions, and the sense of being a small separate self.
So:
Anuttara means the highest reality, the unsurpassable, the absolute truth of consciousness.
Vimarśa means awareness that is not blank, but aware of itself. Not just light, but living light. Not just existence, but conscious self-knowing presence.
Khecarī here does not mainly mean a physical mudrā. It means the state where awareness moves freely in the “sky” of reality without losing itself. Thoughts, feelings, actions still happen, but awareness is not trapped inside them.
So how does liberation happen according to him?
Very simply:
- You normally live as if you are small, lacking, incomplete.
- Because of that, you get caught in thoughts, emotions, objects, desires, fears, identities.
- Those movements are not outside consciousness, but you misread them and get bound by them.
- Liberation happens when you recognize, in the very moment these movements arise, that they are not separate from the ground of consciousness.
- Then the same energies that used to bind become part of freedom.
So the whole thing is not:
“Kill all thought and emotion forever.”
It is more:
“See their true nature before they drag you outward.”
Or even simpler:
Bondage = forgetting your real nature and getting lost in what arises.
Liberation = recognizing your real nature in and through what arises.
Why does he bring in Khecarī?
Because he does not want liberation to sound like a dead idea.
He is saying:
liberation is not just “the Self exists.”
Liberation is the living, subtle, free state in which awareness remains rooted in its source while everything rises and falls.
This recognition is ever-risen and consists in the union of the two vimarśas in the collision of the Supreme Goddess with Śiva
satatoditaṃ parameśvaryāḥ śivātmani
saṃghaṭṭasamāpattyā ubhayavimarśānandarūḍhi |
“It is ever-risen: through the consummation of the collision of the Supreme Goddess in the Self of Śiva, there is the ascent into the bliss of the two vimarśas.”
Now Abhinava describes the inner event of liberation more positively.
First, it is satatodita — ever-risen. So liberation is not the production of a new light that was absent before. It is a recognition of what is always already shining.
Then he speaks of parameśvarī and Śiva in saṃghaṭṭa — collision, union, impact, intimate meeting. This is his way of saying that liberation is not a dead stillness without life. It is the living meeting of pure consciousness and its own self-aware power.
That is where the language of two vimarśas comes in. In simple words: there is awareness, and there is awareness tasting or knowing itself. Abhinava does not want these separated. Liberation is their blissful non-split.
So the point is:
the highest state is not blank consciousness,
and not restless energy either,
but the living bliss of their inseparable union.
A simple way to say it:
liberation is consciousness fully awake to itself, with no divorce between being and its living power.
Śiva is the outpouring-power of supreme speech and mantra, joined by the Supreme Goddess’s creation dense with the blossom-like fullness of that power
śivo hi
paravāṅmayamahāmantravīryavisṛṣṭimayaḥ parameśvarīvisṛṣṭayā
tadvīryaghantāatmakaprasūnanirbharayā [tasya anuttararūpasya prakāśasya vīryaṃ
parisphuraṇaṃ bāhyavīryaṃ ca tena vanātmakaṃ tattādātmyena vartamānaṃ ca tat
prasūnaṃ viśvalakṣaṇamidantāsphuraṇaṃ bāhyaprasiddhaṃ ca tena nirbharayā
saṃkulayā sṛṣṭyā tādṛkkriyārūpayā |] sṛṣṭyā yujyate |
“For Śiva is of the nature of the emission-power of the great mantra made of supreme speech; and he is joined by the creation of the Supreme Goddess, dense with the blossom-like abundance that is of the nature of that very power. [The power of that light whose form is Anuttara is its flashing forth; its external power too, existing in identity with it, is flower-like. That blossom is the flashing forth of ‘this-ness,’ characterized as the universe and also known outwardly. By that creation, full and crowded with it, and having the form of such activity, he is joined.]”
Abhinava is now making the same point in a more mantric and poetic way.
Śiva is not presented as silent, empty consciousness cut off from expression. He is paravāk, supreme speech, and mahāmantra-vīrya-visṛṣṭi, the outpouring force of the great mantra. That means consciousness is already expressive at its root.
Then comes the Supreme Goddess as sṛṣṭi, creation, but not as something foreign added from outside. She is the blossoming abundance of that very power. The image of the flower matters: manifestation is an opening out, a blooming, not a mechanical production line.
And the gloss makes the point more exact: the universe, the whole flashing forth of idantā, “this-ness,” is this blossoming. So what appears as the outer world is not something cut off from Anuttara. It is the visible flowering of its own power.
This continues the previous point very well. The union of the two vimarśas is now being described as the inseparability of pure consciousness and its expressive, world-unfolding power.
A simple way to put it:
for Abhinava, the world is not an accident added onto consciousness;
it is consciousness blooming.
The whole movement of manifestation is drawn into the middle channel — the innermost ground
tathā hi
sarveṣāmantarbahiṣkaraṇānāṃ
yat yat anupraviśati tattat madhyanāḍībhuvi
“For indeed, whatever enters into all the inner and outer instruments, that very thing enters into the ground of the middle channel.”
Now Abhinava pulls everything inward.
Until now, he spoke about vikalpa, Śakti, mantra, creation, and the play of powers. Here he says: all of that — whatever appears in the inner instruments (mind, senses, emotions) and the outer field — enters the madhyanāḍī, the middle channel.
This is not primarily anatomical. It is ontological.
“Madhya” means the center, the most inward point, the place where everything resolves. So he is saying:
nothing actually remains outside;
everything that arises returns to, and is grounded in, the inner center of consciousness.
This is a direct continuation of the previous points:
- vikalpas are not separate,
- Śiva and Śakti are one movement,
- manifestation is a blossoming of consciousness,
- and now: all of it is continuously resolving into the center.
So the teaching becomes very practical again.
You do not need to chase experiences outward to find truth. Every perception, thought, reaction, and movement is already touching the center, because it cannot exist apart from it.
A simple way to put it:
whatever appears — inside or outside — is already happening in the center of consciousness.
“Middle” means the most inward; what does not rest there becomes like a sky-flower
[sarvāntaratamatvena vartamānatvāt
madhyamiti
yattatra nahi viśrāntaṃ tannabhaḥkusumāyate |
iti-vacanena na caitanmantavyaṃ nabhaḥkusumaṃ vyatiriktameveti tadapi prakāśaikatvānna
tathā iti |]
“‘Middle’ is so called because it abides as the most inward of all.
‘Whatever is not at rest there becomes like a sky-flower.’
By this statement one should not think that a sky-flower exists as something separate; that too is not so, because of the unity of manifestation.”
Abhinava now defines what “middle” really means.
It is not a spatial midpoint. It is sarvāntaratama — the most inward of all. The center not as a location, but as the deepest ground in which everything appears and resolves.
Then comes a very sharp line:
what is not rested there becomes like a nabhaḥ-kusuma — a sky-flower, something unreal, ungrounded, insubstantial.
That connects directly with the whole earlier teaching.
- When vṛttis are not recognized in their ground → they bind.
- When consciousness sinks into objects → it falls.
- When Śakti is taken as bhogya → one becomes paśu.
- Here: when experience is not rested in the center → it becomes like something unreal.
But Abhinava immediately prevents a misunderstanding. The sky-flower is not a second, separate fake reality. Even that is not outside consciousness. It is still within prakāśa-eka, the unity of manifestation.
So the point is subtle:
things do not become unreal because they exist;
they become “sky-like” because they are not recognized in their ground.
A simple way to put it:
if experience is not rooted in the center, it becomes hollow;
but even that hollowness is still not outside consciousness.
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