Parātrīṃśikā Vivaraṇa (Part 104) — The Descent of “I” and “This” in Consciousness

sādhaka receiving the descent of consciousness through the trident-like currents of aham and idam, where the levels of Śiva, Sadāśiva, and Īśvara come to repose within one inner axis.

The previous chunk ended by explaining why Īśvara can be called Parāparā in one context and Aparā in another. That could easily sound unstable if read superficially, as if the śāstra were shifting labels freely. This new passage prevents that misunderstanding. Abhinava now brings in Utpaladeva and the Īśvarapratyabhijñā to show that the distinction is not arbitrary. It rests on a very precise analysis of how aham and idam — “I” and “this” — appear within consciousness.

This is why the chunk is difficult but important. We are no longer dealing only with the vertical structure of inner worship, nor only with the levels of speech. We are now inside the grammar of divine experience itself. The universe may appear as “this,” but that “this” can appear in different ways. It can appear as alien and separate. It can appear as resting in the same consciousness as “I.” It can appear faintly within the dominance of “I.” It can appear clearly enough that manifestation stands forth as objectivity, while still remaining divine.

Sadāśiva and Īśvara are distinguished precisely here. In Sadāśiva, the emphasis is still on I: “I am this.” The universe is present, but the “this” is still dim, still swallowed by the radiance of the divine subject. In Īśvara, the “this” becomes clearer: “This am I.” Manifestation stands forth more distinctly, though still within the light of consciousness. This is not ordinary dualism yet. It is divine objectivity, not Māyā-bound separation.

The Māyā-bound subject is different. There, “I” and “this” appear in separate substrata: the “I” is the grasper, the “this” is the grasped. That is the ordinary fracture of experience. Śuddhavidyā begins when this split is overcome and both are gathered into one substratum. But even within that unity, there are refinements: sometimes the “this” is indistinct, producing the Sadāśiva-state; sometimes it becomes clear, producing the Īśvara-state.

So this passage is not abstract metaphysical bookkeeping. It is Abhinava showing the reader how manifestation thickens. The whole descent from Parā toward Māyā can be read through one question: does consciousness recognize “this” as itself, or does “this” begin to stand apart? The answer gives the level. Parā, Parāparā, Aparā, Śiva, Sadāśiva, Īśvara, Śuddhavidyā, and Māyā are all being clarified through the subtle relation of I and this.

Utpaladeva supports the distinction between Aparā, Parā, and Parāparā

śrīmadutpaladevapādaiḥ [yathoktam
atrāparatvaṃ bhāvānāmanātmatvena bhāsanāt |
paratāhantayācchādātparāparadaśā hi sā ||
iti |

“As the venerable Utpaladeva has said:

‘Here, the Aparā-state of beings comes from their shining as non-self.
Their Parā-state comes from being covered by I-ness.
And that, indeed, is the Parāparā condition.’”

Abhinava now brings in Utpaladeva to support the distinction he has just been making. This is not a decorative citation. The previous chunk ended with the difficult claim that the same Īśvara-state may be treated as Parāparā in one context and Aparā in another. That needs grounding, otherwise the reader may feel that the terms are floating. Utpaladeva gives the inner rule: the level is determined by how beings shine in relation to ātman, to the self-luminous “I.”

First: aparātvam bhāvānām anātmatvena bhāsanāt — beings are Aparā when they shine as non-self. This is the lower condition: the world appears as “not I,” as object, as something over there. It does not mean that it has actually fallen outside consciousness. That would be impossible in Abhinava’s vision. It means that the mode of appearance is alienated. The object shines, but it shines as if it were other than the Self.

Then comes the opposite movement: paratā ahantayā ācchādāt — Parā-ness comes from being covered by I-ness. This phrase must be read carefully. “Covered” here does not mean obscured in a negative sense. It means enveloped, absorbed, swallowed by aham, by the supreme I-consciousness. When beings do not stand forth as separate “this,” but are covered by the radiance of “I,” they belong to the higher condition. The universe is present, but it has not become alien objectivity.

And then Utpaladeva names the middle: parāparadaśā hi sā — that is the Parāparā condition. The line is compact, but it fits the whole movement. Parāparā is not a confused mixture. It is the condition where manifestation is neither fully alienated as non-self nor dissolved into pure unarticulated I-ness. “I” and “this” are both involved, but their relation is still luminous, still held inside consciousness.

This is why the citation belongs exactly here. Abhinava is not making a loose mystical statement that “everything is one.” He is distinguishing degrees of manifestation by the way the universe appears: as non-self, as absorbed in I-ness, or as the middle condition where both poles are present. The same beings can be read differently depending on this mode of shining. That is the key to understanding why Parā, Parāparā, and Aparā are functional designations, not dead labels.

Parā means fullness as independent “I”; Aparā means incompleteness as dependent “this”

paratvaṃ pūrṇatvamananyāpekṣāhamiti aparatvamapūrṇatānyāpekṣatedamiti |

“Parā-ness means fullness: ‘I,’ dependent on nothing else. Aparā-ness means incompleteness: ‘this,’ dependent on another.”

The gloss now makes Utpaladeva’s distinction almost brutally simple. Paratva is pūrṇatva — fullness. It is the condition of aham, the “I,” which is ananya-apekṣā, dependent on nothing other than itself. This is not the individual ego saying “I.” It is the self-luminous fact of consciousness, the power by which anything can appear at all. It does not need another object to confirm it. It rests in itself.

Aparatva, by contrast, is apūrṇatā — incompleteness. It is the condition of idam, “this,” which is anya-apekṣatā, dependent on another. A “this” cannot stand by itself. It appears to someone, in some field, under some light of awareness. Its very mode is dependence. It points away from itself toward the consciousness in which it is revealed.

This is the clean metaphysical nerve of the passage. “I” is full because it is self-revealing. “This” is incomplete because it must be revealed. The object depends on consciousness; consciousness does not depend on the object in the same way. That is why aham is linked with Parā and idam with Aparā.

But this also prepares the more delicate middle. If reality were only a flat opposition between “I” and “this,” we would have a simple dualism. Abhinava is not allowing that. The real subtlety lies in how “this” can appear inside “I,” how manifestation can arise without becoming fully alien, and how “I” and “this” can share one conscious ground. That is the domain of Parāparā, and the next points will unfold it more precisely through the Īśvarapratyabhijñā.

The Īśvarapratyabhijñā also teaches the common substratum of “I” and “this”

tathaiva īśvarapratyabhijñāyāmapi
sāmānyādhikaraṇyaṃ ca saddviyāhamidaṃdhiyoḥ |

“Likewise, in the Īśvarapratyabhijñā too, it is taught that there is a common substratum for the cognitions ‘I’ and ‘this,’ which are two existent cognitions.”

After giving Utpaladeva’s verse on Parā, Aparā, and Parāparā, the gloss now brings in the Īśvarapratyabhijñā itself. The purpose is to strengthen the same point from another angle. The relation between aham and idam is not a loose interpretive idea. It is a central structure of recognition: “I” and “this” may appear as two cognitions, but they can share one adhikaraṇa, one underlying locus.

This is the key phrase: sāmānyādhikaraṇya. In ordinary grammar, two expressions may refer to the same thing while differing in form. Here the principle is taken into the structure of consciousness. “I” and “this” seem different. One sounds like the subject; the other sounds like the object. One is inward-facing; the other points outward. But in the purified state, they do not belong to two separate realities. They are held in one conscious ground.

This prepares the next explanation. In Māyā-bound experience, “I” and “this” are split: I am the grasper, this is the grasped. But in the higher states, this division is undone. The “this” does not vanish; it is gathered into the same field as “I.” That is exactly why the middle state can be called Parāparā. It is not pure Parā, where everything is swallowed by undivided I-ness. It is not Aparā, where “this” appears as non-self. It is the shared ground of “I” and “this.”

So Abhinava is tightening the argument. The whole doctrine depends on whether “I” and “this” are experienced as having separate supports or one support. Separate supports produce the ordinary fractured world. One support produces the divine middle, where manifestation shines but does not yet become alien.

The inward-facing vimarśa resting in self-luminosity is called “I”

prakāśasya yadātmamātraviśramaṇe'nanyonmukhaḥ svātmaprakāśatāviśrāntilakṣaṇo vimarśaḥ so'hamityucyate

“When the vimarśa of prakāśa rests in the Self alone, turned toward no other, characterized by repose in its own self-luminosity — that is called ‘I.’”

The passage now explains what aham, “I,” really means here. It is not the contracted personal ego. It is the reflexive self-rest of prakāśa, the light of consciousness. When consciousness does not turn toward another object, when it rests only in itself, when its reflective awareness is marked by repose in its own self-luminosity, that vimarśa is called aham.

This is important because “I” can easily be misunderstood. In ordinary experience, “I” usually means the limited subject: this person, this body, this history, this psychological center. But here aham means consciousness recognizing itself before dependence on any object. It is not “I as opposed to the world.” It is the pure inward self-presence by which both “I” and “world” will later become possible.

The phrase ananyonmukhaḥ is decisive — “not turned toward another.” This does not mean unconscious blankness. It means consciousness is not leaning outward for confirmation. It does not need an object in order to be itself. Its vimarśa is svātmaprakāśatā-viśrānti-lakṣaṇa — defined by resting in its own self-revealing nature. This is fullness, the pūrṇatva mentioned in the previous point.

So the passage is tightening the distinction. Parā is linked with this self-resting “I” because it is independent. It does not appear by borrowing light from something else. It does not become known through an object. It is the very light in which objectivity can arise. Before “this” appears, before manifestation is displayed, consciousness rests as self-luminous aham.

This is also why Ramana Maharshi’s Self-Inquiry has such force. It is not psychological introspection into the personal ego. It is the attempt to trace the sense of “I” back before it becomes entangled with “this” — body, mind, emotion, memory, world. In Abhinava’s terms, inquiry becomes powerful when it refuses to let aham collapse into object-facing movement and turns it back toward its own self-luminous rest. The language and metaphysical architecture are different, but the nerve is close: the true “I” is not the ego that grasps objects, but consciousness resting in itself.

The outward-facing vimarśa is called “this,” though ultimately it also rests in self-luminosity

yastvanyonmukhaḥ sa idamiti sa ca svaprakāśanamātre punarananyonmukhe rūpe viśrāmyati paramārthataḥ |

“But the vimarśa that is turned toward another is called ‘this.’ Yet, ultimately, that too rests again in the form that is turned toward no other, in mere self-luminosity.”

After defining aham as the inward-facing vimarśa of prakāśa resting in itself, the passage now defines idam, “this.” When the reflective awareness of consciousness turns toward another — anyonmukhaḥ — it is called idam. This is the beginning of objectivity: consciousness no longer simply rests in its own self-luminous “I,” but faces something as display, as knowable, as “this.”

But the passage immediately prevents a dualistic misunderstanding. This outward-facing “this” is not truly outside consciousness. Sa ca svaprakāśanamātre punar ananyonmukhe rūpe viśrāmyati paramārthataḥ — ultimately, this too rests again in the form that faces no other, in sheer self-luminosity. The “this” appears as outward-facing only within the play of manifestation. In truth, it still rests in self-revealing consciousness.

This is the whole subtlety. “This” is not false in the sense of being nothing. It is a real mode of manifestation. But its apparent otherness is not final. From the lower standpoint, it appears as something turned outward, something knowable, something that consciousness faces. From the highest standpoint, even that outwardness is grounded in the same self-luminous awareness that never truly leaves itself.

This is why Abhinava can speak of Aparā without making it absolutely separate. Aparā is the field of “this,” of manifestation, of dependence, of what appears as other. But even Aparā is not outside Parā in the deepest sense. The “this” depends on the “I”; the object depends on prakāśa; outwardness depends on the consciousness that reveals it.

So the movement from aham to idam is not a fall into a second reality. It is consciousness turning toward its own display. The tragedy of Māyā begins only when this “this” is taken as truly alien, as standing in another substratum from “I.” But in the deeper doctrine, even “this” returns into the self-luminous, inward-resting form of consciousness.

The first vimarśa is Śivatattva; the second is Vidyeśvara

tatrādye vimarśe śivatattvaṃ dvitīye vidyeśvaratā

“In the first vimarśa there is Śivatattva; in the second, there is Vidyeśvara-hood.”

The passage now classifies the two movements just described. When vimarśa rests in self-luminosity alone, not turned toward another, this is Śivatattva. Consciousness is not yet facing manifestation as “this.” It rests in itself as pure self-revealing I. This is the supreme inward poise of awareness, where nothing is needed from outside because no “outside” has yet been allowed to stand forth.

The second vimarśa — the one turned toward another and therefore called idam, “this” — is linked with Vidyeśvara. Here consciousness has begun to display knowability. The “this” appears. The universe becomes something that can be revealed, known, held before awareness. But, as the previous point made clear, this outward-facing movement still ultimately rests in self-luminosity. So even Vidyeśvara is not Māyā-bound objectivity. It is the divine beginning of manifestation as knowable.

This distinction is simple in wording but very precise. Śivatattva corresponds to the inward self-rest of consciousness. Vidyeśvara corresponds to the emergence of knowable manifestation. One is the pure “I” before other-facing movement; the other is the divine orientation toward “this.” The split is not yet the ordinary split of subject and object. It is still inside the body of consciousness.

So Abhinava is not saying, “first there is God, then there is world” in a crude sequence. He is distinguishing two modes of vimarśa: self-resting awareness and outward-facing awareness. The first is Śiva; the second is Vidyeśvara. This prepares the middle state, where “I” and “this” are held together like two balanced pans of a scale.

The middle vimarśa balances “I” and “this” in Sadāśiva and Īśvara

madhyame tu rūpe'hamidamiti samadhṛtatulāpuṭanyāyena yo vimarśaḥ sa sadāśivanāthe īśvarabhaṭṭārake ca

“But in the middle form, the vimarśa is ‘I-this,’ like the two pans of a balance held evenly; this belongs to Sadāśivanātha and Īśvarabhaṭṭāraka.”

After distinguishing the first vimarśa as Śivatattva and the second as Vidyeśvara, the passage now turns to the middle form. Here the awareness is neither pure inward rest as aham alone, nor simple outward-facing display as idam. It is aham idam — “I-this,” or “I am this.” The two poles are present together.

The image is exact: samadhṛta-tulā-puṭa-nyāya — like two pans of a scale held evenly. Neither side has fully overpowered the other. If the “I” alone dominates completely, we are closer to Śiva, pure self-rest. If “this” becomes fully objectified and separated, we move toward the lower field. But here there is balance: manifestation appears, yet it has not broken away from the “I.” Consciousness sees its own display and still holds it as itself.

This is why the middle vimarśa belongs to both Sadāśivanātha and Īśvarabhaṭṭāraka. They share this balanced field of “I” and “this,” but not in exactly the same way. Sadāśiva and Īśvara are both beyond ordinary Māyā-bound separation, yet they differ by emphasis. In Sadāśiva, the “I” is stronger and the “this” is more dimly contained within it. In Īśvara, the “this” becomes clearer and more vividly displayed, while still remaining within consciousness.

So the “middle” is not vague compromise. It is a precise divine tension. The universe has appeared, but not as alien. The “I” remains, but not as blank self-absorption. There is a luminous balance where consciousness can say: aham idam — “I am this.” This is the living nerve of Parāparā: not pure undifferentiated Parā, not separated Aparā, but the held-together field where manifestation and self-recognition face each other in one conscious light.

The middle vimarśa balances “I” and “this” in Sadāśiva and Īśvara

madhyame tu rūpe'hamidamiti samadhṛtatulāpuṭanyāyena yo vimarśaḥ sa sadāśivanāthe īśvarabhaṭṭārake ca

“But in the middle form, the vimarśa is ‘I-this,’ like the two pans of a balance held evenly; this belongs to Sadāśivanātha and Īśvarabhaṭṭāraka.”

Sadāśiva and Īśvara share the middle vimarśa, but differ by the clarity of “this”

idaṃbhāvasya tu dhyāmalādhyāmalatākṛto viśeṣaḥ -

“But there is a distinction made by the dimness or non-dimness of the ‘this’-aspect.”

The passage now adds the necessary refinement. Sadāśiva and Īśvara both belong to the middle vimarśa of aham idam. Both hold “I” and “this” together. Both are beyond the crude Māyā-bound split where the subject stands here and the object stands there. But they are not identical. Their difference lies in the condition of idaṃbhāva, the “this”-aspect.

In Sadāśiva, the “this” is dhyāmala — dim, indistinct, not yet fully clear. The universe is present, but it is still submerged in the dominance of the divine I. The awareness is: aham idam — “I am this,” with the weight falling on I. Manifestation has appeared, but it has not yet stepped forward with full clarity.

In Īśvara, the “this” becomes adhyāmala — not dim, clearer, more distinctly manifest. The universe begins to stand forth as display, as knowable form. The awareness leans toward: idam aham — “this am I,” with the “this” now more luminous and pronounced. Still, this is not ordinary objectification. The “this” remains divine manifestation, not alien matter.

This distinction is small in wording but massive in importance. Without it, Sadāśiva and Īśvara blur together as vague high states. Abhinava refuses that. The difference between them is not a change from consciousness to non-consciousness, nor from unity to dualism. It is a change in the clarity of manifestation within unity. How brightly does “this” shine? How much does objectivity stand forth? How strongly is it still swallowed by “I”?

That is why this whole chunk is so subtle. The descent is not a fall from truth into falsehood. It is the gradual thickening of display. Consciousness does not leave itself; but the “this” becomes more and more explicit. Sadāśiva is the first faint shining of “this” inside the vastness of “I.” Īśvara is that same “this” becoming clear enough to be displayed, known, and governed.

In the Māyā-bound subject, “I” and “this” have separate substrata

ye ete ahamiti idamiti dhiyau tayormāyāpramātari pṛthagadhikaraṇatvam ahamiti grāhake idamiti ca grāhye

“These two cognitions, ‘I’ and ‘this,’ in the Māyā-bound knower, have separate substrata: ‘I’ in the grasper, and ‘this’ in the grasped.”

The passage now descends from the divine middle into the ordinary fractured structure of experience. In Sadāśiva and Īśvara, “I” and “this” are held in one conscious field, though with different emphasis. But in the Māyā-pramātṛ, the Māyā-bound subject, the two are split into separate supports.

This is pṛthag-adhikaraṇatva — having different substrata. The cognition aham belongs to the grāhaka, the one who grasps. The cognition idam belongs to the grāhya, the grasped object. Here the balance has broken. “I” stands here as subject; “this” stands there as object. Experience becomes relational, divided, outward-facing in the hard sense.

This is the ordinary world we know. Not merely because objects appear, but because they appear as other. The problem is not that there is manifestation. Abhinava has already shown that manifestation exists even in the higher states. The problem is that, in Māyā, manifestation is no longer recognized as resting in the same consciousness-substratum as “I.” The “this” seems to have its own separate standing.

That is the real fracture. Consciousness still illuminates both poles, but the Māyā-bound knower does not recognize their common ground. The subject thinks, “I know this,” and the object appears as “that which is known.” The relation between them becomes grasping. The world is no longer experienced as consciousness’s own display, but as something facing the subject from outside.

So this point clarifies by contrast what Śuddhavidyā, Sadāśiva, and Īśvara are overcoming. Liberation is not the destruction of “this.” It is the undoing of the false separation between the grasper and the grasped. The object does not need to disappear. Its separate substratum has to be seen through.

Śuddhavidyā removes the split by joining “I” and “this” in one substratum

tannirāsena caikasmitrevādhikaraṇe yatsaṃgamanaṃ saṃbandharūpaṃ tat satī śuddhā vidyā aśuddhavidyāto māyāpramātṛgatāyā anyaiva |

“And by the removal of that separation, the joining of the two in one single substratum, in the form of relation, is pure Vidyā. It is entirely different from the impure vidyā belonging to the Māyā-bound knower.”

After describing the Māyā-bound subject, where “I” and “this” stand in separate substrata — the “I” in the grasper and the “this” in the grasped — the passage now shows what Śuddhavidyā does. It removes that split. Tannirāsena — by the negation, removal, or dissolution of that separation — the two are brought into one adhikaraṇa, one common ground.

This is the decisive difference between ordinary knowing and pure knowing. In impure knowing, the subject knows an object across a gap. “I” here, “this” there. The relation is built on separation. In Śuddhavidyā, the relation remains, but it is no longer the relation of two alien realities. It is saṃgamana, a coming-together, a conjunction, in one substratum. “I” and “this” are still distinguishable, but they are no longer housed in separate ontological places.

The phrase saṃbandharūpaṃ matters. Śuddhavidyā is not simply a blank identity where all distinction vanishes. It is relation purified of alienation. The “I” and “this” are connected within one consciousness-field. The structure of knowing remains, but its bondage-form is removed. The subject-object relation is not destroyed; it is transfigured.

That is why the text says this pure Vidyā is anyaiva — entirely other — than aśuddhavidyā, the impure vidyā belonging to the Māyā-bound knower. Ordinary vidyā can also know, distinguish, classify, and relate. But it does so from inside separation. Śuddhavidyā knows relation without losing the common ground. This is not more information. It is a different mode of awareness.

So Abhinava is making the passage sharper. The fall into Māyā is not simply the appearance of “this.” The problem is the separation of supports. Śuddhavidyā begins when “I” and “this” are seen in one support. Difference remains, relation remains, manifestation remains — but the wound of alienation is removed.

Sadāśiva arises when “this” appears within the consciousness-substratum of “I,” but indistinctly

tatra yadāhamityasya yadadhikaraṇaṃ cinmātrarūpaṃ tatraivedamaṃśamullāsayati tadasyāsphuṭatvāt sadāśivatā

“There, when the substratum of ‘I,’ whose nature is consciousness alone, causes the ‘this’-portion to shine forth within itself, then, because that ‘this’ is indistinct, this is Sadāśiva-hood.”

The passage now explains Sadāśiva with surgical precision. The ground is still aham. Its substratum is cinmātra-rūpa — pure consciousness alone. The “this” has appeared, but it has appeared there itself, inside the very ground of “I.” It has not yet broken into separate objectivity. It is not standing opposite consciousness as an external world.

The verb ullāsayati matters. The “this”-portion is made to shine, to flash forth, to arise as a luminous stir within consciousness. Manifestation is beginning, but it is still tender, still absorbed, still almost swallowed by the brilliance of “I.” That is why the text says idamaṃśasya asphuṭatvāt — because the “this”-aspect is indistinct. It is present, but not yet clear.

This is Sadāśivatā. The divine experience here is not blank self-absorption. The universe has begun to appear. But it appears as a faint inner shimmer within the vast “I,” not as a fully displayed object. The formula is still aham idam — “I am this” — with the weight falling overwhelmingly on aham.

This is why Sadāśiva is so subtle. It is already manifestation, but manifestation before objectivity becomes confident. The “this” is like a first glow inside consciousness, not yet a world standing forth. The Self has begun to show itself as universe, but the universe has not yet stepped out of the Self’s embrace.

So the distinction from Māyā is total. In Māyā, “I” and “this” stand in separate supports: grasper and grasped. In Sadāśiva, the “this” appears only within the pure consciousness-substratum of “I.” Difference has begun as a luminous possibility, but the wound of separation has not opened.

Īśvara arises when the “this”-portion becomes clear

ahamidamiti idamahamiti tu idamaṃśe sphuṭībhūte'dhikaraṇe yadāhamaṃśavimarśaṃ nipiñcati tadeśvarateti vibhāgaḥ |]

“But the form ‘I am this’ becomes ‘this am I’ when the ‘this’-portion has become clear; when, in that substratum, it presses the reflective awareness of the ‘I’-portion into itself — that is Īśvara-hood. Such is the distinction.”

This final point completes the distinction between Sadāśiva and Īśvara. In Sadāśiva, the “this”-portion has appeared within the pure consciousness-substratum of “I,” but it is still indistinct. The universe is there, but faintly, almost hidden inside the overwhelming radiance of aham. The stress remains: aham idam — “I am this.”

In Īśvara, the “this”-portion becomes sphuṭībhūta — clear, distinct, manifest. The universe now stands forth more vividly as knowable display. The formula turns toward idam aham — “this am I.” This does not mean separation has begun in the Māyā-bound sense. The “this” is still held in the divine field. But now manifestation has gained brightness and articulation.

The phrase ahamaṃśavimarśaṃ nipiñcati is strong. The clear “this”-portion presses or compresses the reflective awareness of the “I”-portion into that manifested field. In Sadāśiva, “this” is swallowed by “I.” In Īśvara, “I” enters the clearly revealed “this.” This is still unity, but unity now turned toward display.

So Īśvara is not ordinary objectivity. It is divine objectivity: the world shining clearly as “this,” while still known as the body of “I.” Only later, in Māyā, will “I” and “this” seem to fall into different substrata — grasper and grasped. Here the manifestation is clear, but not alien. Īśvara is consciousness beholding its own universe as itself.

This closes the passage by showing the whole descent of aham and idam with exactness. Pure “I” is self-luminous repose. “This” is the outward-facing movement of that same light. In Māyā, the two are split into grasper and grasped. In Śuddhavidyā, that split is healed by joining them in one substratum. In Sadāśiva, “this” shines indistinctly inside “I.” In Īśvara, “this” becomes clear while still carrying the reflective awareness of “I.”

So the passage does not describe a fall from consciousness into dead matter. It describes the gradual articulation of consciousness’s own display. The question at every level is simple but ruthless: does “this” appear as alien, or as the Self’s own manifestation? The answer determines the state.