Entering the Heart of Śiva: Light of the Heart

The Heart of Consciousness is the source and essence of everything. As the deepest level of being, it pulses into all other layers and levels of existence, including our own individual mind and body.  In the non-dual Śākta-Śaiva teachings offered to us by the great Tantric Masters of Kashmir, one of the ways Consciousness is described is as Light.  

This course is an exploration of the Light of Consciousness, its nature, its function and how it is explained in the many exquisite texts of the non-dual Tantric lineage, such as Abhinavagupta’s Tantrāloka and Tantrasāra, the foundational text of the Śiva Sūtras and Kṣemarāja’s Pratyabhijñā-hṛdayam.

While Classical Yoga and Sāṃkhya provide us important foundational notions of reality and consciousness that serve us as a basis, Śākta-Śaiva Tantra expand the light of those teachings, such as the principles of reality, knowledge, identity and Consciousness itself, and elevates them to a quintessential understanding of non-duality. 

Throughout the course we consider the relationship between the great Light of Consciousness and our relative individual awareness and experience of reality, and how the perspective of these teachings support the vision of the householder path. 

EHS - Light of the Heart studies include Abhinavagupta’s Argument of the Light, the Primordial Forms for the Goddess Potencies and the process of opening of our awareness into progressively more expanded states of Consciousness that lead us into a life lived directly in and from the Heart of Consciousness.