Dharana 9: Beyond the Void is Shiva
Melt external beauty within to find its overflowing source in the heart.
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Dharana Summary:
Daily life is a dynamic mandala of creation, the sights and sounds of our senses create a dizzying array of thought patterns that keep our minds running in circles. Dharana 9 teaches us how to melt the beauty of our external world within so that we may experience the source of the mind and senses in our heart. This source, which appears as a void from the perspective of the mind, is actually an overflowing abundance when experienced directly from the heart.
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Dharana 9: Beyond the Void is Shiva
Sri Shambhavananda often shares in Satsang how Swami Muktananda taught him that while many meditation traditions focus on experiencing the void, our tradition goes further, revealing that beyond the void is Shiva. In the current Dharana, the same teaching is emphasized. When we use our practice to detach from the infinite manifestations of the mind and senses, we attain mindful separation, akin to a void. Sustaining that state brings us into union with our true nature, named Bhairava, synonymous with Shiva, who exists beyond the void.
In this Dharana, our mind and senses are depicted as a five-fold mandala—smell, touch, taste, sight, and sound working as one to inform us of our physical reality. These senses are likened to a peacock's feathers, creating a dizzying experience when fanned behind them, similar to how the mind and senses can become overwhelming. As yogis, our task is to witness the mind and senses without multiplying them with our attention. One method, given by Swami Lakshmanjoo, is to see the senses themselves as voids.
Sri Shambhavananda often shares in Satsang how Swami Muktananda taught him that while many meditation traditions focus on experiencing the void, our tradition goes further, revealing that beyond the void is Shiva. In the current Dharana, the same teaching is emphasized. When we use our practice to detach from the infinite manifestations of the mind and senses, we attain mindful separation, akin to a void. Sustaining that state brings us into union with our true nature, Shiva, the abundant source from which all manifestation arises. .
One method of surrendering the senses: Seeing them as ‘nothing’
In this Dharana, our mind and senses are depicted as a five-fold mandala—smell, touch, taste, sight, and sound working as one to inform us of our physical reality. These senses are likened to a peacock's feathers, creating a dizzying experience when fanned behind them, similar to how the mind and senses can become overwhelming. As yogis, our task is to witness the mind and senses without multiplying them with our attention. One method, given by Swami Lakshmanjoo, is to see the senses themselves as voids.
Swami Lakshmanjoo instructs: “Concentrate simultaneously on [the void while experiencing each of] these five, that it is nothing, only a void and nothing else. Forcibly concentrate that these objects are nothing—‘What I see is nothing, what appears to me is nothing, what I hear is nothing, what I touch and what I get [as] the sensation of smell, it is nothing, it is only śūnya.’” We must hesitate to assume that we are being instructed to reject the senses, as we know that ‘accepting and rejecting’ are never a conscious practice in the yogic tradition. Instead, through practice, we may find a subtler understanding of the word “nothing” and “void” as used in this teaching. When you view your senses and thoughts as nothing, are you left with a feeling of nothing, a lacking? Or are you somehow filled with a bigger, but less tangible, something? This alludes to an experience of the ‘power of seeing’, the ‘power of smelling’, etc. which we contact when surrendering the object of the senses.
The Source of the Senses as Mapped by the Tattvas
This teaching aligns with the Tattvas, the yogic map of manifestation, where Shiva and Shakti’s dance creates all of manifestation. As we expand further from Shiva, maya, illusion, covers us, leading to less identification with our true nature.
The outward expansion from the center, detailed in Tattvas 17-21, involves the development of the power of the physical senses—referred to as the Jnana Idriyas. This source gives rise to the sensations themselves (tattvas 27-31), the subtle elements, representing the capacity for sense itself, not necessarily of any particular scent or sight. The power and capacity for the senses eventually give rise to the actual gross elements (tattvas 32-36), the final and most externalized manifestation. Interestingly, all three capacities arise simultaneously, with the object often overshadowing the deeper mechanism within us.
A closer look at The Moment of Sensation
The Intro to Kashmir Shaivism notes: “The moment the senses of perception are produced, the five tanmatras or subtle elements of perception also come into manifestation from the same Ahamkara.” This reveals that the indriyas (senses) have no meaning or existence without the objects they are correlated with. Why is this important? To my understanding, this shows us that in any given moment of sense perception, or when having a thought, we are simultaneously accessing a deeper space from which these senses are arising. Whenever we are contacting a color, sight, sound, etc. we have the chance to experience the source of those senses within us. This is one way of understanding the yogic concept of surrender, as taught by lineage teacher Swami Rudrananda, which describes a paradoxical yet essential practice for living in the world. We can’t reject the world, neither can we fully embrace and accept it, we must learn how to interact with the world while feeling its source within us.
Surrendering to the Source
The void that this Dharana describes is not devoid of content, but is simply devoid of object. As interact with objects we are of course interacting with Shiva, as Shiva is within everything— but we are interacting with Shiva is a very limited way. As the tattvas describe it, the cloak gets thicker and heavier as we make our way out from the center. Therefore, if we want to have a richer experience of our true nature, we can turn our attention within while interact with the outside world— in this way, as Swami Rudrananda taught it, we learn to use our life as fuel for growth and self-realization.
The void: Empty to the mind but Full to the heart
Letting go of the sense object appears as losing something to the mind, but to the heart, it is a gain. Beyond the void is Shiva, another way of teaching us the nature of surrender. When we let go, we begin to receive. Letting go of the sense object allows us to experience its source, which is a much more powerful and enriching experience.
As Jai Deva Singh teaches at the end of his commentary on this Dharana: "The Absolute void is Bhairava, beyond the senses and the mind, beyond all the categories of these instruments. From the point of view of the human mind, Shiva is most void. From the point of view of Reality, Shiva is most full, for Shiva is the source of all manifestation."
Which brings us to the translation and practice of Dharana 9. Though Swami Lakshmanjoo takes the approach of seeing the senses as nothing in order to help us find their source, Paul Reps not only adopts this approach but adds another— melting into the beauty of the senses to find their source. As we see in his translation, we imagine the senses as a beautiful, yet dizzying, peacock tail (as the original Dharana itself described), and we allow that beauty to melt within us as a path to their source in the heart. In this way we find the source by letting ourselves really open up to it. We also see the more traditional approach in the last half, as we perceive a point in space, soften our gaze, until that point becomes nothing. In either case, as Reps teaches, we achieve the goal of the heart, the real wish behind our senses.
“Imagine the five-colored circles of the peacock tail to be your five senses in illimitable space. Now let their beauty melt within. Similarly, at any point in space or on a wall—until the point dissolves. Then your wish for another comes true.”