Parātrīṃśikā Vivaraṇa (Part 43): Pleasure, Grief, and the Inner Force That Moves Both

 

Father and son crying as they say goodbye to their relatives who are boarding a boat to Buenos Aires in search of a better life during the economic hardship in Spain. (1957) It is not theatrical suffering. It is attachment, rupture, helplessness, love, and the force of feeling made visible.

Abhinava now continues the same line of inquiry, but in a more discriminating and experiential way.

In the previous chunk, he had already said that pleasure does not sit inside the object itself. What the object does is stir, intensify, and set in motion a force already present in the subject. But once that is said, another question naturally follows: why do some objects deeply move us, while others leave us almost untouched? Why does beauty sometimes strike like lightning, and at other times remain flat? Why can the same kind of contact produce delight in one case and almost nothing in another?

That is the problem he is taking up here.

So the argument now shifts from the general claim — that pleasure comes from the stirring of one’s own living force — to a more exact claim: the depth of experience depends on the degree of inner intensification, vīrya, and camatkāra. Without that, even very beautiful things remain almost inert for us. With it, not only pleasure but even suffering can open into a deeper expansion.

Only when the sense-object truly intensifies the inner field does it become a source of pleasure

eva sukhadāyi bhavati | śravaṇayośca madhuragītādi |

“Only then does it become pleasure-giving — as in the case of sweet music for the ears.”

Abhinava begins with a very simple correction.

Not everything we perceive gives pleasure.
Even something objectively “pleasant” — like music — does not always move us.

So he says: only then (eva) does it become pleasure-giving. That “then” refers back to what was established earlier — when the inner force (vīrya) is actually stirred and intensified.

That is the condition.

Music is the example: a sweet melody can deeply move one person, while another hears the same thing and feels almost nothing. The difference is not in the sound itself, but in whether it awakens something inside.

So again, he is cutting the same illusion:

• it is not the object that guarantees pleasure
• it is the state of the inner field

In human terms:

you can listen to something beautiful
and feel nothing — if you are tired, closed, distracted, or drained

and at another moment, the same kind of sound
can go straight through you.

That difference is what he is pointing to.

Other sense-experiences fail to reach fullness because the movement collapses back into oneself

anyatrāpi indriye anyat kevalaṃ paripūrṇasṛṣṭitāṃ na aśnute svātmanyeva ucchalanāt

“In other cases too, a sense-object does not attain full manifestation, because it rebounds back into oneself.”

Abhinava now explains why many experiences remain weak.

He says the problem is not in the object — it is in the movement of the experience.

For an experience to become full (paripūrṇa-sṛṣṭi), it has to unfold completely. But often, instead of unfolding, it collapses back into the subject too quickly (svātmany eva ucchalanāt).

So the process gets cut short.

You perceive something, but:

• attention is not stable
• the energy does not stay with it
• it doesn’t deepen or expand

and the experience dies before it becomes vivid.

This is very recognizable.

You look at something beautiful — but you are distracted.
You listen to music — but your mind is elsewhere.
You meet someone — but you are internally closed.

So nothing really “happens.”

The experience starts, but it doesn’t develop.

That is what he means: the movement rebounds prematurely, and therefore never reaches fullness.

Without sufficient inner force, even the most beautiful objects remain inert

tadvīryānupavṛṃhitānām
avidyamānatathāvidhavīryavikṣobhātmakamadanānandānāṃ
pāṣāṇānāmiva ramaṇīyatarataruṇīrūpamapi
nitambinīvadanaghūrṇamānakākalīkalgītamapi
na pūrṇānandaparyavasāyi

“For those whose inner force has not been strengthened, and in whom such agitation of vīrya giving rise to the delight of love is absent, even the form of a most beautiful young woman, even her movements, her voice, her sweet speech — all this does not culminate in full delight, but is like stone.”

Now Abhinava makes the point sharp and almost uncomfortable.

He says directly: even the most attractive, refined, and sensually powerful object can feel like nothing — if the inner force is not there.

The example is deliberately strong: beauty, youth, movement, voice — everything that would normally be considered highly stimulating. And yet, for someone in whom the inner vitality is weak, unawakened, or not intensified, it produces no real experience. It is like looking at a stone.

So the conclusion is unavoidable:

the object does not guarantee experience.

This cuts through a very common illusion:

we tend to think that stronger objects will automatically produce stronger experience.

Abhinava says no.

If the vīrya — the inner potency — is not alive, even the strongest stimulus does nothing. And if it is alive, even small things can become powerful.

This also connects to very concrete situations:

• burnout --> nothing feels interesting
• depression --> beauty feels flat
• exhaustion --> even meaningful things don’t move you

The world hasn’t changed.
The capacity to be moved has.

The degree of intensification determines the depth of experience

yathā yathā ca na vṛṃhakaṃ bhavati tathā tathā parimitacamatkāraparyavasānaṃ

“As the intensification (vṛṃhaṇa) is lacking, so the experience culminates only in a limited measure of wonder (camatkāra).”

Now Abhinava states the rule explicitly.

Experience is not all-or-nothing. It has degrees.

The key variable is vṛṃhaṇa — intensification, amplification of the inner force. The less that happens, the more the experience remains parimita — limited, shallow, partial.

And what is being limited is camatkāra — the sense of vividness, wonder, aliveness, the feeling that something is truly happening.

So this gives a very practical scale:

• low intensification --> flat, dull, forgettable experience
• moderate intensification --> some engagement, some interest
• strong intensification --> vivid, immersive, meaningful experience

Nothing else is required to explain the difference.

This also explains something very common:

why the same life, same environment, same people
can feel either dead or alive depending on your state.

The outer situation may be identical.
The degree of inner intensification is not.

Absence of wonder is dullness; deep immersion in wonder is true sensitivity (sahṛdayatā)

sarvato hi acamatkāre jaḍataiva
adhikacamatkārāveśa eva vīryakṣobhātmā sahṛdayatā ucyate

“Where there is no wonder at all, there is only dullness. But strong immersion in wonder — which is of the nature of the agitation of vīrya — is called sahṛdayatā (sensitivity, responsiveness).”

Abhinava now names the experiential difference in a very direct way.

If there is no camatkāra — no sense of vividness, no inner spark, no resonance — then the state is simply jaḍatā, dullness. Not in a moral sense, but as a fact: the person is not really touched by what is happening. Life passes, but nothing penetrates.

On the other side, when this inner force becomes stirred and fully present, experience is not just “stronger” — it becomes alive in a different way. That aliveness is what he calls sahṛdayatā: a kind of deep responsiveness, the capacity to be genuinely moved.

This is not sentimentality. It is not about liking everything or being emotionally reactive. It is about having a heart that is capable of contact — where things are not flat, not merely observed, but actually felt in their presence.

You can see the difference very clearly in life. There are moments when everything feels distant, muted, almost unreal. And there are moments when even something small — a sound, a gesture, a line of music, a look — carries weight, depth, and presence. The outer world may not have changed much. But the capacity to receive it has.

Abhinava is simply naming that difference without softening it:

without that inner movement, there is dullness;
with it, there is a living, responsive field.

Only the one whose heart has been shaped by repeated intensification can experience deeper wonder

yasyaiva etadbhogāsaṅgābhyāsaniveśitānantavṛṃhakavīryavṛṃhitaṃ hṛdayaṃ
tasyaiva sātiśayacamatkriyā

“Only the one whose heart has been strengthened by repeated engagement, attachment to experience, and the accumulation of countless intensifications of vīrya — only for such a one does heightened wonder arise.”

Abhinava now adds something that cuts against naïve spirituality.

This capacity for deep experience — for real camatkāra — does not appear out of nowhere. It is formed.

He says it comes from abhyāsa — repeated engagement, repeated exposure, repeated intensification. The heart becomes shaped by this. It is not just given; it is cultivated through lived contact.

That is important, because it removes the fantasy that sensitivity or depth is something pure and untouched. In reality, the heart becomes capable of depth through being involved, through being affected, through being repeatedly stirred.

This can sound dangerous if misunderstood. It is not a glorification of indulgence. It is simply an observation:

a person who has never been touched deeply by anything
does not suddenly become capable of deep perception.

The capacity to feel, to respond, to be moved — it grows through exposure and intensification.

You can see this in very ordinary ways:

someone who has listened deeply to music for years hears things others don’t.
someone who has loved deeply feels nuances others miss.
someone who has suffered deeply can perceive layers that remain invisible to others.

The heart becomes trained — not intellectually, but through experience.

So Abhinava is not romantic here. He is almost clinical:

depth of experience depends on a history of intensification.

Even in suffering, the same wonder is present

duḥkhepi eṣa eva camatkāraḥ antarvyavasthitaṃ hi yattat dayitasutasukhādi vīryātmakaṃ tadeva bhāvanāsadṛśadṛgākrandādibodhena kṣobhātmakaṃ vikāsamāpannaṃ punarna bhaviṣyati iti nairapekṣyavaśasaviśeṣacamatkriyātma suḥkhasatattvam |

“Even in suffering, this very same wonder is present. For that inner force which had taken the form of the joy of one’s beloved, child, and the like — that very same thing, through a cognition such as a perception resembling imagination, through weeping and the rest, having taken on the form of agitation and expansion, comes to the sense that ‘it will not be again’; and thus, by the power of detachment, there arises a distinctive wonder-activity whose essence is the reality of suffering.”

Here Abhinava says something very strong: the same living force that appears in pleasure is still at work in pain. Suffering is not some second substance. It is the same inner energy, but now stirred under the sign of loss, rupture, and non-return.

That is why he gives such human examples: the joy of a beloved, of a child, of what is dear. The point is not abstract pain. It is pain that comes because something once living in us has been struck, torn, or made irrecoverable. Then the same force that had moved as delight expands in another mode — as crying, grief, agitation, shock.

And yet he still calls this camatkāra. That is the bold part. Not because suffering is pleasant, and not because one should romanticize it, but because in real suffering the being is often forced into an unusually naked contact with what matters. Things are no longer casual. The heart is no longer scattered in the same way. Something becomes terribly vivid.

The phrase about “it will not be again” is crucial. That is where grief bites most sharply: not just in pain, but in the recognition of non-return. And from that comes a strange transformation. When the mind can no longer bargain with reality in the old way, a different kind of intensity appears — less dependent on getting what it wants, more stripped, more exposed. That is what he points to with nairapekṣya here.

So the line is not saying that suffering is secretly enjoyable. It is saying that suffering too can carry a real depth of experience, because the same force of consciousness is present there, now widened by loss instead of fed by fulfillment.

In simple words: pain hurts because the same force that once loved and enjoyed is still alive there — only now it has nowhere easy to go.

From this, a certain independence arises — experience is no longer tied entirely to objects

nairapekṣyavaśasaviśeṣacamatkriyātma suḥkhasatattvam |

duḥkhe'pi pravikāsena duḥkhārthe dhṛtisaṃgamāt |

“From the power of independence (nairapekṣya), there arises a distinctive activity of wonder, which is the very reality of experience. And as it is said: ‘Even in suffering there is expansion, through the joining with steadiness in the face of pain.’”

Abhinava brings the whole movement to its most sober point.

After showing that both pleasure and suffering arise from the same inner force, he now names what begins to change when this is actually seen: nairapekṣya — a kind of independence from objects.

Not because objects disappear, and not because experience becomes flat, but because the center of experience is no longer fully projected outward. When pleasure is no longer believed to come from the object, and when even suffering is recognized as a movement of the same force, something loosens. The person is not entirely carried away in the same way.

That is why he calls it a distinct kind of camatkāra. It is no longer the sharp wonder tied to gaining something desirable, nor the violent intensity tied to losing it. It is quieter, but more stable — less dependent on circumstances, more rooted in the fact of experience itself.

This is also where the earlier point about suffering returns with weight. Abhinava had already insisted that even in suffering there can be expansion (duḥkhe'pi pravikāsena). By bringing that thread back here, he is not repeating himself casually. He is reinforcing the same insight under a different angle: if even pain can widen rather than collapse the being, then experience is not strictly bound to favorable conditions.

So the shift is not dramatic. It is almost minimal:

things still hurt,
things are still enjoyed,
but they do not define the whole field in the same way.

A certain steadiness begins to appear — not as an achievement, but as a consequence of seeing where experience actually arises.