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| The image reflects the sealed practitioner turned toward the supreme form, where mantra, mudrā, and gaṇa are gathered into the Self and consciousness stands beyond past and future while manifesting time as its own Śakti. |
The previous movement showed how mantra, mudrā, and gaṇa become connected only through living remembrance. Mantra is lordly letter-consciousness; mudrā is kriyā-śakti embodied through gesture and action; gaṇa is the collective Śakti-field formed by them. But these do not become alive by external performance alone. They are connected when the practitioner, even for an instant of unmeṣa, turns toward the supreme form and remembers. Then the ritual complex ceases to be a collection of parts and becomes one living current.
Now Abhinava explains how that connection happens. The practitioner unifies the whole complex in his own Self, not by conceptual assertion, but through a Śākta sealing that touches the universe from all sides. Mudrā here is no longer merely a hand gesture. It is the sealing of the field by the Śākta form, the marking of everything as already gathered into the nondual Self.
But this can be done only by one sealed by Śākta spanda. Not by the merely human-form being, not by the inert, not by the one who repeats formulas from outside. The practitioner must be able to maintain the awareness of the Śiva-form made of this very tattva. Again Abhinava keeps the paradox exact: everything is consciousness, but the power to realize and operate from that truth belongs only to the one whose subjectivity has been transformed.
From there the passage turns toward knowledge, speech, and time. What is past, future, absent, or not yet objectified can be brought into expression because it is not truly outside consciousness. What one seeks to know is already contained inwardly and is then brought outward. The questioned one does not manufacture truth from nothing; he externalizes what is already present in the Heart.
The deeper point is that consciousness is not imprisoned in past and future. The same awareness remains present in memory, expectation, inquiry, and expression. Past and future do not stand independently as ultimate realities. The real is not cut by time, though consciousness itself manifests the variegated power of time. So this chunk moves from Śākta sealing to the deeper truth of cognition: the Self contains, brings forth, and manifests even time, without itself being measured by time.
The practitioner unifies the ritual complex in his own Self
svātmanyekīkaroti advayataḥ kathaṃ (?) -
cumbakena
[cuvi vaktrasaṃyoge iti dhātvanusārāt |]
“He unifies it in his own Self, nondually. How? Through cumbaka — according to the verbal root cuvi, ‘in the joining of mouths.’”
Abhinava now explains how the mantra–mudrā–gaṇa complex is truly connected. It is not enough that mantra is recited, mudrā is performed, and the gaṇa is ritually assembled. These can remain separate pieces. The real act is svātmany ekīkaroti — he makes them one in his own Self.
This is the key. The practitioner does not merely coordinate outer ritual elements. He gathers them back into the Self. Mantra, mudrā, gaṇa, body, speech, action, cognition, and Śakti-field are no longer experienced as separate ritual parts. They become one current inside the nondual Self.
The word advayataḥ is decisive: nondually. This is not mental synthesis. It is not thinking, “All these are one.” It is the collapse of separateness in the actual field of practice. The mantra is not over here, the mudrā over there, the deity elsewhere, the practitioner below, the fruit in the future. The whole complex is gathered into one Self-field.
Then Abhinava asks katham? — how? The text gives cumbakena.
This word is much more technical than it first appears. The gloss explains it through cuvi vaktrasaṃyoge — the root meaning “in the joining of mouths.” So the embodied layer must not be erased. But cumbaka in tantric usage is not merely ordinary kissing or physical contact. It belongs to the field of Kaula transmission, attraction, sealing, and initiatory power.
The mouth is not incidental. It is the gate of mantra, breath, taste, rasa, speech, and transmission. Mouth-to-mouth joining evokes a contact where sound, prāṇa, and Śakti pass without distance. In the Kaula register, cumbaka points to an intimate transmission-current, not distant contemplation. It is contact so direct that the separation between practitioner, mantra, mudrā, and Śakti begins to collapse.
But there is another resonance too: magnetic drawing. In tantric contexts cumbaka can carry the sense of one who attracts, draws, seals, and gathers. This fits the passage perfectly. The mantra–mudrā–gaṇa complex is not merely placed together; it is drawn into unity, as if magnetized into the practitioner’s own Self. The scattered powers are pulled into one center.
And there is still another layer: cumbaka can appear in the field of guru, ācārya, dīkṣaka, sādhaka, and transmission. In Abhinava’s own wider tantric usage, the cumbaka is not a casual figure, but one connected with complete knowledge and initiatory function. So here cumbakena should be heard as a technical Kaula word: embodied contact, magnetic attraction, and living transmission gathered into one act.
This makes the line much stronger. The practitioner unifies the ritual complex in his own Self through cumbaka — not by intellectual interpretation, not by mechanical ritual, not by merely “believing” everything is one, but by a living contact-current that seals the field into nonduality.
This also explains the danger of the word. Some tantric sources use cumbaka or cumbaka-vṛtti negatively, referring to degraded or exploitative forms. That is important. It means this territory was recognized as powerful and dangerous. Contact without knowledge becomes corruption. Transmission without current becomes manipulation. Esoteric intimacy without realization becomes spiritual fraud.
So the true cumbaka is not the one who merely performs contact. It is not someone who imitates Kaula signs, trades esoteric access, or uses bodily nearness as authority. The true cumbaka is one through whom Śakti actually draws the field into unity. Without knowledge, cumbaka becomes a fall. With knowledge, it becomes sealing.
This is why the passage must be read with both fire and caution. Too literal, and the Kaula point collapses into physical act. Too abstract, and Abhinava’s deliberately embodied word loses its power. The right reading is: embodied nondual transmission-contact. A contact of speech, breath, rasa, Śakti, and awareness by which the ritual field is drawn into the practitioner’s own Self.
This continues the previous chunk perfectly. There, even an instant of unmeṣa-smaraṇa connected mantra, mudrā, and gaṇa. Now Abhinava says how that connection becomes sealed: through cumbaka, through a Śākta contact so intimate and magnetic that duality cannot remain standing in the same way.
The ritual complex is therefore not connected by external procedure. It is connected by transmission-contact. The practitioner becomes the place where mantra, mudrā, gaṇa, Śakti, and Self are pressed, drawn, and sealed into one living field.
This is not metaphor only. It is Kaula precision. The Self does not merely observe the powers. It receives them, touches them, tastes them, breathes them, draws them inward, and makes them one with itself.
Everything is sealed from all sides by the Śākta form that touches the universe
viśvasparśakena śāktena rūpeṇābhitaḥ sarvato mudritaṃ mudraṇaṃ kṛtvā
“Having performed the sealing — sealed completely, from every side — by means of the Śākta form that touches the universe…”
Abhinava now clarifies what this cumbaka does. It is not merely intimate contact. It becomes mudraṇa — sealing.
The whole field is mudrita, sealed, marked, closed into recognition, from every side: abhitaḥ sarvataḥ. Nothing is left unsealed. Nothing remains outside the Śākta touch. Mantra is sealed. Mudrā is sealed. Gaṇa is sealed. Body, speech, action, cognition, and the ritual field are sealed. The practitioner does not leave some corner of experience unmarked as “ordinary,” “outside,” “not Śakti.”
The sealing is done through viśva-sparśaka śākta rūpa — the Śākta form that touches the universe. This phrase is immense. The Śākta form is not local. It is not one small ritual visualization placed inside a narrow rite. It is viśva-sparśaka, touching the whole universe. The contact is total.
This is why mudrā here cannot be reduced to a hand gesture. The hand gesture may be one expression of mudrā, but the deeper mudrā is the sealing of reality by Śakti. The practitioner does not merely form a shape with the fingers. He enters the form of Śakti that touches everything and seals everything into the nondual field.
To seal something is to prevent it from leaking back into separateness. The mantra is not allowed to fall back into mere sound. The mudrā is not allowed to fall back into mere movement. The gaṇa is not allowed to fall back into a mere group of ritual elements. All are sealed into the Self through Śakti’s universal contact.
This follows naturally from the previous point. Cumbaka draws the field into intimate nondual contact; mudraṇa seals that contact from every side. First the field is drawn inward, then it is marked and held by Śakti. The scattered ritual elements become one sealed body.
There is also an experiential force here. In ordinary consciousness, things remain porous to forgetfulness. A moment of practice happens, then the world rushes back as “ordinary.” One remembers, then forgets. One performs, then separates. One touches the current, then leaks into old identity. Abhinava is describing the opposite: the Śākta form touches the whole universe, and the whole field is sealed.
So the practitioner’s world becomes mudrita — marked by Śakti. Not selectively. Not only in the shrine. Not only during recitation. Not only in the hand gesture. From all sides.
This is the real transition from ritual to recognition. Ritual seals a limited space; recognition seals the universe. The Śākta form becomes universal touch, and the practitioner stands inside a field where nothing is outside the seal.
Only the one sealed by Śākta spanda can do this
turavadhāraṇe ya eva śāktaspandamudrita
evaṃvidhatattvamayaśivarūpānusaṃdhāyakaḥ
sa evaivaṃ karoti
na tu naraikarūpaḥ pāṣāṇādiḥ
“Indeed, in determining this precisely, only the one sealed by Śākta spanda, who maintains awareness of the Śiva-form made of this very tattva, does this in such a way — not one who is merely human in form, nor something inert like stone.”
Abhinava now gives the eligibility condition. After speaking of cumbaka and universal Śākta sealing, he immediately prevents the teaching from becoming imitation. Not everyone who performs a gesture, recites a mantra, enters a temple, repeats a doctrine, or takes on a sacred identity has done this. Sa eva evaṃ karoti — only that one does it in this way.
Who is that one? The one who is śākta-spanda-mudrita — sealed by Śākta spanda.
This phrase is the key. The practitioner is not merely interested in Śakti. He is not merely worshipping Śakti from outside. He is not merely chanting a Śākta mantra or performing a Śākta mudrā. He is marked by the vibration of Śakti. The current has touched him, entered him, sealed him, and begun to reorganize his field.
A useful image is electricity. One may stand near wires, speak about electricity, draw diagrams of circuits, teach the theory, decorate the altar with lamps, and still not be in the current. But when the circuit closes, everything changes. The current passes through. The body of the system becomes alive by participation. That is closer to what śākta-spanda-mudrita means. The practitioner has become part of the living circuit of Śakti.
This is not metaphor only. Abhinava is speaking about the difference between outer form and actual current.
There are countless people who chant mantras. Countless people perform pūjā. Countless priests conduct rites. Countless temples preserve gestures, sounds, offerings, rules, and recitations. Much of that may be sincere, meaningful, and useful at its level. But the number of those who are truly seized, sealed, and inwardly reorganized by the current is small. The outer religious world is vast. The living current is rare.
Abhinava is speaking about that rarity.
To be mudrita by Śākta spanda means that Śakti has left her seal. The person is no longer exactly as before. Practice has ceased to be an activity added onto life; it has become a current that reshapes perception, body, speech, desire, action, and identity. Mantra no longer remains only recitation. Mudrā no longer remains only bodily sign. Gaṇa no longer remains only ritual assembly. All of them become expressions of one living Śakti-field.
Then Abhinava adds: evaṃvidha-tattvamaya-śiva-rūpa-anusaṃdhāyakaḥ — he maintains awareness of the Śiva-form made of this very tattva. This is the second condition. The practitioner must not only be touched by Śakti; he must be able to hold the recognition. There must be anusaṃdhāna, continuous linking, living remembrance, sustained connection.
This connects directly with the previous logic of bheda, piercing. The guru’s delighted heart opens the disciple. The Heart is received by the Yoginī-born Rudra. The body enters āveśa. The dependent dullness is covered over. The free knower rises. Now that same transformed being is described as sealed by Śākta spanda. These are not separate doctrines. They are one sequence: transmission, piercing, Śākta birth, āveśa, sealing, remembrance.
Without this, the act remains external.
That is why Abhinava says: na tu naraika-rūpaḥ pāṣāṇādiḥ — not a merely human-shaped being, nor something inert like stone. This is severe, and it should remain severe. A person may look religious. A person may wear the robes, carry the lineage name, know the ritual, pronounce the mantra, perform the mudrā, speak beautifully about Bhairava and Śakti — and still remain only naraika-rūpa, merely human in form. The outer shape is there. The current has not reorganized the being.
The comparison with stone is even sharper. A stone can be marked, painted, touched, placed in a sacred space. But it does not recognize. Likewise, a body can perform a mudrā without being inwardly sealed by Śakti. A mouth can recite mantra without becoming transparent to mantra. Hands can offer flowers while the pramātṛ remains asleep. The ritual shell can be perfect while the inner circuit remains open, disconnected, without current.
This is not contempt for ordinary worship. It is a warning against confusing participation in religious form with Śākta transformation. Outer worship may be valuable. It may prepare. It may purify. It may keep a person connected. But Abhinava here is speaking about something higher: the state where the practitioner is not only performing the current, but is inside it.
Modern religious life makes this distinction even more necessary. There are temples, priests, courses, initiations, livestreamed rituals, mantra programs, certificates, and spiritual identities everywhere. A person can surround himself with sacred forms and still remain untouched in the deeper sense. He can consume ritual as culture, status, comfort, aesthetics, or self-image. But Śākta spanda is not consumed. It marks.
The real question is not: “Was the ritual performed?”
The real question is: “Has the current entered?”
Not: “Was the mantra recited?”
But: “Has the mantra awakened the knower?”
Not: “Was the mudrā shown?”
But: “Has the body become kriyā-śakti?”
Not: “Was the person religiously active?”
But: “Has the paśu-form been pierced?”
This is why the phrase sa evaivaṃ karoti is so exact. Only such a one truly does it. Others may imitate the form, and the form may still have relative value. But the act Abhinava is describing — the unification of mantra, mudrā, and gaṇa in the Self through Śākta sealing — belongs only to the one who is actually sealed by the pulse of Śakti.
So this point protects the whole passage from spiritual romanticism. Cumbaka is not casual contact. Mudraṇa is not hand-symbolism. Śākta sealing is not performance. The practitioner must become part of the current, like a closed circuit alive with electricity. Śakti must not remain an object of worship alone; she must become the force by which the worshipper is marked, entered, and changed.
Only then does the ritual complex become alive. Otherwise there may be sound, gesture, temple, doctrine, and identity — but the supreme form remains concealed, as for paśus. The current has not yet taken hold.
The sealed practitioner brings even past and future into expression
yadatītaṃ yaccānāgataṃ yadanartharūpaṃ prāganyābhāvāt itaradapi sa eva kathayati - kathāparyantatāṃ nayati asaṃkalpanāt kathaṃ (?)
“What is past, what is future, and what was previously not present as an object — because there is no otherness — that too he alone speaks forth. He brings it to the completion of expression. How? Not through mere imagination.”
Abhinava now moves from the power of Śākta sealing into the power of expression. The one sealed by Śākta spanda, who maintains awareness of the Śiva-form, does not merely perform ritual correctly. He can bring into speech what ordinary cognition treats as unavailable: what is past, what is future, what is not yet present as an object.
This is a dangerous point and must not be vulgarized. Abhinava is not praising random clairvoyant fantasy. He is not saying that anyone with spiritual excitement can invent statements about the past and future and call them revelation. The phrase asaṃkalpanāt is the safeguard: not through arbitrary imagination, not through constructed fantasy, not through mental projection.
The reason given is anyābhāvāt — because there is no otherness. For the one sealed in the Śākta current, past, future, absent, hidden, unmanifest, and present are not absolutely outside consciousness. They are not independent objects stored somewhere beyond the Self. They are modes of the one field. Therefore, when such a practitioner speaks them forth, he is not importing knowledge from an external container. He is bringing into expression what is already contained in consciousness.
This follows directly from the previous point. The merely human-shaped person cannot do this. The inert cannot do this. The one outside Śākta spanda cannot do this. Why? Because for the paśu, time and objecthood stand as hard external realities. The past is gone. The future is not yet. The absent is elsewhere. The unknown is outside. The paśu lives before a world that resists him from all sides.
But the Śākta-sealed practitioner stands differently. His field has been mudrita from all sides. The universe is touched by the Śākta form. Mantra, mudrā, gaṇa, body, and cognition have been unified in the Self. In that condition, expression no longer arises merely from discursive inference. Speech can become the outward flowering of what is internally held in the Heart.
The phrase kathāparyantatāṃ nayati is beautiful. He brings it to the end-point of speech, to completed articulation. Something inward, subtle, unobjectified, not yet externally formed, becomes speakable. The hidden content reaches the boundary of expression.
This is exactly why Abhinava’s earlier language theory matters. A single letter can reveal meaning. Word, meaning, and cognition are usually mixed through superimposition. But when the deeper structure is known, speech becomes more than convention. It becomes the unfolding of what consciousness already contains.
So the point is not “prediction” in the crude sense. It is the Śaiva understanding of cognition and speech: because all manifestation is contained in saṃvit, the awakened one may bring forth what ordinary consciousness treats as inaccessible. Past and future are not ultimately independent regions outside awareness. They are configurations of consciousness’s own power.
Still, the warning remains necessary. Without Śākta sealing, this becomes delusion very quickly. The mind loves to decorate itself with hidden knowledge. It loves to say, “I know what was, I know what will be, I know what is unseen.” But if this comes from saṃkalpa, from projection, from desire, from egoic imagination, then it is only another vikalpa. It binds.
Abhinava is speaking about something much rarer: speech arising from nondual containment. The practitioner does not fabricate. He discloses. He does not guess. He brings forth. He does not create a fantasy about the absent object. He makes explicit what, from the deeper standpoint, was never outside the Heart.
So this point extends the previous one sharply. The Śākta-sealed practitioner is not merely more religious than others. His relation to time, objecthood, and speech has changed. What the paśu experiences as external absence, he can bring to articulation because the field has already been gathered into the Self.
The sealed practitioner brings even past and future into expression
yadatītaṃ yaccānāgataṃ yadanartharūpaṃ prāganyābhāvāt itaradapi sa eva kathayati - kathāparyantatāṃ nayati asaṃkalpanāt kathaṃ (?)
“What is past, what is future, and what was previously not present as an object — because there is no otherness — that too he alone speaks forth. He brings it to the completion of expression. How? Not through mere imagination.”
Abhinava now moves from the power of Śākta sealing into the power of expression. The one sealed by Śākta spanda, who maintains awareness of the Śiva-form, does not merely perform ritual correctly. He can bring into speech what ordinary cognition treats as unavailable: what is past, what is future, what is not yet present as an object.
This is a dangerous point and must not be vulgarized. Abhinava is not praising random clairvoyant fantasy. He is not saying that anyone with spiritual excitement can invent statements about the past and future and call them revelation. The phrase asaṃkalpanāt is the safeguard: not through arbitrary imagination, not through constructed fantasy, not through mental projection.
The reason given is anyābhāvāt — because there is no otherness. For the one sealed in the Śākta current, past, future, absent, hidden, unmanifest, and present are not absolutely outside consciousness. They are not independent objects stored somewhere beyond the Self. They are modes of the one field. Therefore, when such a practitioner speaks them forth, he is not importing knowledge from an external container. He is bringing into expression what is already contained in consciousness.
This follows directly from the previous point. The merely human-shaped person cannot do this. The inert cannot do this. The one outside Śākta spanda cannot do this. Why? Because for the paśu, time and objecthood stand as hard external realities. The past is gone. The future is not yet. The absent is elsewhere. The unknown is outside. The paśu lives before a world that resists him from all sides.
But the Śākta-sealed practitioner stands differently. His field has been mudrita from all sides. The universe is touched by the Śākta form. Mantra, mudrā, gaṇa, body, and cognition have been unified in the Self. In that condition, expression no longer arises merely from discursive inference. Speech can become the outward flowering of what is internally held in the Heart.
The phrase kathāparyantatāṃ nayati is beautiful. He brings it to the end-point of speech, to completed articulation. Something inward, subtle, unobjectified, not yet externally formed, becomes speakable. The hidden content reaches the boundary of expression.
This is exactly why Abhinava’s earlier language theory matters. A single letter can reveal meaning. Word, meaning, and cognition are usually mixed through superimposition. But when the deeper structure is known, speech becomes more than convention. It becomes the unfolding of what consciousness already contains.
So the point is not “prediction” in the crude sense. It is the Śaiva understanding of cognition and speech: because all manifestation is contained in saṃvit, the awakened one may bring forth what ordinary consciousness treats as inaccessible. Past and future are not ultimately independent regions outside awareness. They are configurations of consciousness’s own power.
Still, the warning remains necessary. Without Śākta sealing, this becomes delusion very quickly. The mind loves to decorate itself with hidden knowledge. It loves to say, “I know what was, I know what will be, I know what is unseen.” But if this comes from saṃkalpa, from projection, from desire, from egoic imagination, then it is only another vikalpa. It binds.
Abhinava is speaking about something much rarer: speech arising from nondual containment. The practitioner does not fabricate. He discloses. He does not guess. He brings forth. He does not create a fantasy about the absent object. He makes explicit what, from the deeper standpoint, was never outside the Heart.
So this point extends the previous one sharply. The Śākta-sealed practitioner is not merely more religious than others. His relation to time, objecthood, and speech has changed. What the paśu experiences as external absence, he can bring to articulation because the field has already been gathered into the Self.
Waking objects are already situated in the heart and are brought forth by the inner creator
yathoktam
yathecchābhyarthito dhātā jāgrato'rthānhṛdi sthitān |
somasūryodayaṃ kṛtvā saṃpādayati dehinaḥ ||
ityādi |
“As it has been said:
‘The Creator, requested according to desire, brings to completion for the embodied being the waking objects already situated in the heart, having brought about the rise of moon and sun.’”
Abhinava now supports the previous point with a citation. The awakened one brings forth what is inwardly contained; now the verse says the same thing cosmologically and experientially: the objects of waking experience are already hṛdi sthitāḥ — situated in the heart.
This is the crucial phrase. Waking objects do not simply come from an external world pressing itself upon an empty subject. They are already held in the heart, in the inner field of consciousness. The embodied being experiences them as “outside,” but their root is interior. The outer world is not denied, but its manifestation is traced back to the Heart.
The verse speaks of dhātā, the creator or arranger. Requested yathecchā, according to desire or will, he brings these objects to completion. This does not mean an ego casually wishes and the world appears. It means that experience manifests according to a deeper ordering of icchā. The will-current moves, and what is already inwardly present becomes completed as waking appearance.
Then comes the beautiful phrase: soma-sūryodayaṃ kṛtvā — having brought about the rise of moon and sun. Moon and sun here suggest the two great lights through which experience becomes manifest: cooling and heating, reflective and illuminating, inner and outer, subjective and objective, perhaps also the subtle currents by which what is in the heart becomes visible in the waking state.
The objects are in the heart, but they need manifestation. Moon and sun rise, and the world appears.
This gives a precise metaphysical answer to the previous question. How can one speak forth what is past, future, or not yet objectified without mere imagination? Because manifestation itself works this way. What appears outwardly is first inwardly contained. The awakened speaker is not producing truth from nothing. He is participating consciously in the same process by which waking experience itself becomes externalized from the heart.
For the paśu, the world seems to come from outside. He feels surrounded by objects and chased by events. The world is over there; he is here. He has to gather knowledge from outside and struggle to understand what faces him.
But Abhinava’s current reverses this. The waking objects are already in the Heart. The question, the answer, the desired object, the revealed meaning, the past and future content — all arise within consciousness before they appear as external fact, speech, or experience.
This does not make the world imaginary in a shallow sense. It makes the world hṛdaya-born. The waking field is not dismissed as unreal; it is understood as manifestation from the Heart. That is a stronger and subtler claim. The world is real as Śakti’s unfolding, but it is not external to consciousness.
This also explains why ordinary imagination and true disclosure must be distinguished. The mind can invent private images. That is saṃkalpa. But here the verse speaks of the deeper Creator-current bringing forth waking objects already established in the heart. True revelation does not fabricate; it participates in the manifesting order of consciousness.
So this point widens the previous one. The sealed practitioner brings inwardly contained knowledge outward because this is how manifestation itself works. The Heart contains. Icchā requests. Dhātā arranges. Moon and sun rise. The inward becomes waking experience.
The world appears outside only after it has already been held inside.
The same consciousness remains present in memory and anticipation, while true reality is beyond time
eko hi asau smaraṇotprekṣaṇādāvapi tāvāneva vartamāno
na sto bhūtabhaviṣyatī
yathoktaṃ
kālobhayāparicchinne vartamāne sukhī bhavet |
ityādi |
prāgbhavata evānadhikarūpasya punaridaṃ jānāti karoti ityādisaṃkocāsahiṣṇoḥ
sakṛdvibhātatvam
ata evoktaṃ bhūtādyapekṣayā vartamānakālasya tadabhāve vastuto'prasakteḥ
akālakalitatvameva vastutattvam iti hi uktamasakṛt
sa eva tu kālaśaktimavabhāsayati citrām |
“For this one alone, even in memory, imagination, and the like, remains just as present. Past and future do not exist as independent realities.
As it has been said:
‘One should be happy in the present, which is not limited by either of the two times.’
And so on.
Because what was already present before does not have the form of something additional, and because it cannot tolerate the contraction expressed in notions such as ‘now this knows,’ ‘now this acts,’ it shines once and for all. Therefore it has been said that the present time is spoken of only in relation to past and future; when they are absent, it has no real application. The true reality is precisely what is not measured by time, as has often been said. Yet that very one manifests the variegated power of time.”
Abhinava now brings the movement to its temporal root. If what is asked is already inwardly contained, if waking objects are already situated in the heart, then past and future cannot be treated as hard external containers standing outside consciousness. The same one consciousness remains present in memory, anticipation, inquiry, and manifestation.
He says: eko hi asau — this one alone. The same awareness is present in smaraṇa, memory, and utprekṣaṇa, imaginative projection or anticipation. When one remembers the past, awareness is present. When one imagines or anticipates the future, awareness is present. The contents differ, but the light in which they appear does not become past or future. It remains present.
Therefore: na sto bhūta-bhaviṣyatī — past and future do not exist as independent realities. This does not mean that ordinary temporal sequence is useless or that practical time disappears. It means that past and future do not stand by themselves apart from present consciousness. The past is present as memory. The future is present as anticipation. Their only access is through the now of awareness.
The cited line says: kāla-ubhaya-aparicchinne vartamāne sukhī bhavet — one should be happy in the present that is not limited by both times. The real present is not the tiny knife-edge between past and future. That would still be time-bound. The present Abhinava points toward is not cut by either side. It is the living presence in which both memory and expectation appear.
This is why he says that what was already present before is not an additional thing. Consciousness does not become more itself when a new cognition appears. It does not first lack the object, then later gain reality by knowing it. The field was already luminous. The object comes to expression, but the light was not absent.
He then rejects the contraction expressed in ideas such as idaṃ jānāti, “this now knows,” or karoti, “this now acts.” These are contracted formulations. They make the knower into a small temporal agent: first not knowing, then knowing; first not acting, then acting. At the level of practical life this language has use. But at the deeper level, it cannot capture the truth of consciousness, which shines sakṛt, once and for all.
That phrase is important: sakṛd-vibhātatvam — the once-for-all shining. Consciousness does not shine in fragments. It is not produced anew each moment like a lamp repeatedly lit and extinguished. Cognitions arise and pass. Objects appear and disappear. Memories and expectations change. But the light of awareness is not chopped into those temporal divisions.
Therefore, Abhinava says, the present time itself is only spoken of in relation to past and future. If past and future are not ultimately established, then “present” as a time-category also loses final standing. This is subtle. The present is first used to release us from past and future; then even “present” as a temporal concept must be released. Otherwise the mind simply builds a refined prison called “the now.”
So he states the real conclusion: akāla-kalitatvam eva vastutattvam — the true nature of reality is precisely that which is not measured, arranged, or divided by time.
This does not mean that time is unreal in the sense of meaningless illusion. Abhinava immediately adds: sa eva tu kālaśaktim avabhāsayati citrām — that very one manifests the variegated power of time. Consciousness is beyond time, yet it displays time. It is not bound by past, present, and future, yet it manifests their beautiful and bewildering variety. This is the Śaiva precision: time is not outside consciousness, and consciousness is not imprisoned inside time.
This closes the movement cleanly. The Śākta-sealed practitioner unifies the ritual complex in the Self. Through that sealing, what is past, future, absent, or unobjectified can be brought to speech because everything is already inwardly contained. Waking objects themselves arise from the heart. And now the final ground is named: the Self is not measured by time. It manifests time as its own Śakti.
The paśu lives inside time and struggles to gather knowledge.
The awakened one stands in the Self that contains and manifests time.
Memory, anticipation, question, answer, waking object, speech — all are movements within the same timeless consciousness. The true reality is not past, not future, not even present as a small temporal point. It is the light in which time appears.
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