There is a verse in Abhinavagupta's Bhairavastava that has stayed with me, perhaps more deeply than many of his most magnificent philosophical declarations.
mānasagocaram eti yadaiva
kleśadaśā 'tanutāpavidhātrī |
nātha tadaiva mama tvadabheda-
stotraparāmṛtavṛṣṭir udeti ||
"Whenever a state of affliction, bringing immense anguish, enters my mind, O Lord, at that very moment there arises in me the rain of supreme nectar—the hymn of my non-difference from You." (Bhairavastava 7)
I keep thinking about the man who wrote these words.
Abhinavagupta. One of the greatest intellectual and spiritual masters humanity has produced. A thinker of almost unimaginable range, whose writings move effortlessly through metaphysics, aesthetics, ritual, language, and the most intimate depths of consciousness.
And here he speaks of kleśadaśā—a condition of affliction—entering his own mind.
There is such humility in this. Such remarkable humanity.
He could have spoken entirely from the heights of realization, leaving suffering to those supposedly still struggling below. Instead, in this intensely personal hymn, he allows anguish into the very language of his relationship with Bhairava.
The verse does not tell us what particular sorrows Abhinava experienced. Yet the possibility of anguish is expressed in his own voice, with that wonderfully intimate mama—"in me."
And this matters enormously.
Sometimes spiritual discourse creates a cruel distance between the realized master and the ordinary person who suffers. The latter begins to imagine that every moment of grief, every trembling of the heart, reveals some spiritual deficiency.
Then one encounters Abhinavagupta speaking like this.
What a relief there is in such words. What dignity they restore to our humanity.
And the most astonishing part is still to come.
Yadaiva ... tadaiva.
At the very moment ... at that very moment.
The affliction enters the mind, and there arises tvad-abheda-stotra-parāmṛta-vṛṣṭi—a rain of supreme nectar in the form of a hymn celebrating non-difference from Bhairava.
Even the expression itself is beautiful. Abhinava could have described the event as an awakening of nondual knowledge. Instead, recognition takes the form of praise, a hymn addressed to the Beloved.
One can almost feel the movement of his heart through the Sanskrit.
And perhaps this is why I love these devotional compositions so much. The philosophical brilliance remains completely intact, but something more intimate becomes visible. The master who wrote the Tantrāloka is speaking to his Lord, and the language is suddenly so tender.
His predecessor Utpaladeva expresses a closely related vision in the Śivastotrāvalī:
sarva eva bhavallābhahetur bhaktimatāṃ vibho |
saṃvinmārgo 'yam āhlādaduḥkhamohais tridhā sthitaḥ ||
"O All-pervading One, for those devoted to You, this entire path of consciousness—appearing threefold as joy, sorrow, and bewilderment—is a means of reaching You." (Śivastotrāvalī 1.10)
Āhlāda, duḥkha, moha.
Joy. Sorrow. Bewilderment.
All three belong to saṃvinmārga, the path of consciousness.
What an immense vision this is. The human heart, with all its contradictions, is embraced within the possibility of divine recognition.
Utpaladeva goes even further:
niveditam upādatsva rāgādi bhagavan mayā |
ādāya cāmṛtīkṛtya bhuṅkṣva bhaktajanaiḥ samam ||
"Lord, accept the attachment and all the rest that I have offered You. Take them, transform them into nectar, and enjoy them together with Your devotees." (Śivastotrāvalī 5.13)
I find this verse almost unbearably intimate.
He offers his rāga, his attachments, the movements of his emotional nature. And he asks Śiva to receive them, to make them nectar.
There is such openness in this prayer. The entire human condition is brought before the Divine, including everything difficult, entangled, and unresolved.
Amṛtīkṛtya. Make it nectar.
I could linger over that single word for a long time.
And now, returning to Abhinavagupta, another verse from the same Bhairavastava suddenly becomes especially powerful:
svātmani viśvagate tvayi nāthe
tena na saṃsṛtibhītikathāsti |
satsv api durdharaduḥkhavimoha-
trāsavidhāyiṣu karmagaṇeṣu ||
"When You, O Lord who pervades the universe, are my very Self, there is no question of fear of saṃsāra, even while the hosts of karma producing unbearable suffering, bewilderment, and terror remain." (Bhairavastava 3)
Satsv api.
Even while they remain.
Here is the sovereignty I find so extraordinary in Abhinava.
He speaks of durdhara-duḥkha, suffering almost impossible to bear. His vision of freedom is vast enough to encompass even that possibility.
The suffering may continue. The world may remain frightening, and the circumstances of one's life deeply painful. Yet the recognition of Bhairava opens an entirely different dimension of being.
There is an astonishing conjunction of humility and fearlessness in these verses. A heart open enough to acknowledge anguish, and a recognition profound enough to discover the all-pervading Lord as its own Self.
Perhaps genuine spiritual sovereignty looks something like this.
I find it deeply moving that the same hymn eventually arrives at these words:
nṛtyati gāyati hṛṣyati gāḍhaṃ
saṃvid iyaṃ mama bhairavanātha |
tvāṃ priyam āpya sudarśanam ekaṃ
durlabham anyajanaiḥ samayajñam ||
"O Lord Bhairava, this consciousness of mine dances, sings, and rejoices intensely, having attained You—the Beloved, the Beautiful, the One, difficult for others to attain, the Knower of the proper time."(Bhairavastava 9)
Saṃvid iyaṃ mama.
This consciousness of mine.
It dances. It sings. It rejoices.
And the Lord is addressed as priyam—the Beloved.
How beautiful that the culmination of such profound recognition is expressed with these utterly simple words.
There is a traditional account that, toward the end of his life, Abhinavagupta entered a cave in Kashmir accompanied by his disciples, reciting this very Bhairavastava, and was never seen again.
We cannot establish the historical truth of that story; it comes to us through later Kashmiri tradition. Yet I find the image immensely moving.
Abhinavagupta, approaching the final mystery of human existence, with this hymn upon his lips.
The same hymn in which he had spoken of suffering, bewilderment, terror, and the anguish that may enter the mind.
The same hymn in which consciousness sings and dances upon attaining the Beloved.
I wonder what it must have been like to hear those verses from his own mouth.
And perhaps what touches me most deeply is the sense that, across the thousand years separating us, these words have lost none of their intimacy. The human condition remains recognizable. Our hearts still tremble, still love, still grieve, still long for something beyond their present circumstances.
And somewhere in the midst of all this, the possibility Abhinavagupta describes remains astonishingly alive.
Nātha tadaiva mama tvadabhedastotraparāmṛtavṛṣṭir udeti.
O Lord, at that very moment, the rain of nectar arises.
Namaḥ Śivāya.
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