Contemplation from the Siva Sutra’s
The Siva Sutra was revealed to and written down by Vasugupta around 875-925 CE. Vasugupta was not a guru. He was an ordinary man who, through deep devotion and practice, was gifted this divine revelation.

There are 77  sutras and the text, which acts both as pointing out instructions and as view teachings, describes our true nature beyond mind- our Sva Svarupa. The sutrasinspire us to work with the mind and open up its boundaries.

Here is the first verse from the Siva Sutra for you to contemplate!“Caitanyam atma”Caitanyam means: consciousness, intelligence, pure awareness
Atma means: self, self-experience, principle of life, nature, essence, sensation, character

My teacher describes the self  as not being a soul or spirit, an attribute or a thing! The self, he says, is best described as being a capacity or a function of the ultimate that comes through as energy and is not a discrete object. This means, that the individual exists as an emanation of essence (see translation of caitanyam above).

In non-dual Tantra, one of the powers of consciousness is its power for reflective self-awareness.  As an emanation of essence/consciousness, this reflective self-awareness means that we have a knowing in us that something is happening. This self-knowing is extremely important, and is not an action initiated by an individual object towards a subject. Rather, this self-knowing is inherent in the subject and is an integral aspect of it. Given that the atman is not an attribute, then this is what makes our atman not a discrete object. And, my teacher goes on to explain that this verse is what destroys any sense of an ego!….phew…..this takes a lot of contemplation and some basic understanding of the view of non-dual Tantra to really understand. So I encourage you to sit with this verse and use it to contemplate in your meditation practice!

“Consciousness is my self” “
Consciousness is my essence”
“Consciousness is the principle of life”
“All we have and are is awareness”