Shiva Sutras Āsanasthaḥ sukhaṁ hrade nimajjati Āsanasthaḥ sukhaṁ hrade nimajjati Seated in that real posture, the real Asana, the Yogi effortlessly dives in the ocean of nectar. OK. So a little bit uh from Lakshman Joo and then let's explore from a postmodern point of view as well. So Lakshman Joo says, the real Asana actually exists when you're truly residing in this state of absolute awareness, the awareness of the self. In other words, awareness of awareness. He goes on to say this is why the word sukhaṁ in the sutra is used because it means effortlessly without exerting any effort in respect to breathing or yogic exercise or contemplation or meditation. Once one is aware of being aware, then every posture, every action, every thought, every decision comes from the state of uh ultimate reality, the reality of the embodiment of awareness.
And without any effort, there is spontaneous fulfillment of desire from the ocean of awareness, everything arises. So the Yogi uh whether his eyes or her eyes are closed or open, acting or non acting, all sensations, all images, all feelings, all thoughts are actually uh grounded in being. Once the world is seen as pure awareness and everything as a construct in that awareness, then every manifestation is possible. OK. So uh let's go a little more into this. So there are two things uh that I would like to introduce here. One is that in the philosophy of sāṅkhya, there is definitely dualistic thinking, dualistic means there's puruṣa, and there's prakṛti there is pure consciousness and its fluctuations which we call shakti. And the two are in a way different as experiences. But Ājīvika non duality um goes deeper. And Shiva Sutras are actually non dual and says that the shakti itself is a fluctuation of pure consciousness. Now, in the sāṅkhya system that there are 23 tattvas, tattvas are qualities we might even call them 23 tattvas. And all these tattvas are fluctuations of pure consciousness.
So let's uh go over them. The first three. Mind, intellect and ego. So mind is where we experience feelings and thoughts intellect is where we uh where we express discernment and rationality maybe. But remember, rationality is based on the magical lights of perception. In any case, the intellect is something we use to make decisions and discernment. And then there's ego, which is our self image personality. So those are the first three and then there are five uh other uh instruments uh which are called jñānendriya, these are actually the five senses of perception, which of course, you know, are are influenced by the conditioned mind, by the first three mind, intellect, and ego. So every perception is colored by the mind, intellect, and ego.
And that perceptions are in five areas, sound, touch, sight, taste and smell. But these perceptions are not reflective of ultimate reality. They are reflective of the conditioned mind, intellect, and ego. Five sensory perceptions, jñānendriya. Then there are five karmendriyas. Karmendriyas are instruments of activity, instruments of activity. So there are also sensations uh the feet, the hands and vocal cords and then the uh reproductive organs of evacuation. So, bile and bladder. that there are five instruments of action, but we experience them again as sensations, uh five jñānendriyas and perception, five uh in the uh uh actions of uh awareness um which result in motor activity.
And then there are five elements that are actually constructs of the five senses, literally constructs of the five senses, space, air, fire, water and earth or what we call matter in its uh un manifest form space, um air as a subtle sensation and then fire as transformation, metabolism. And then taste, and smell we get the experience of water and, and earth through those five elements. And then there are five than, than tanmātra are subtle senses. So if I ask you to close your eyes and imagine you're listening to your favorite song, that's the tanmātra of sound.
If I ask you to close your eyes and imagine uh snow Flagg mountains, that's the tanmātra of sight. Similarly in your, in your imagination, you can create any experience, sensation, image, feeling, thought, these are all tantra. So when you add these up mind, intellect and ego, the five jñānendriyas and the five karmendriyas, the five elements and the five tanmātras you realize that these are all fluctuations of consciousness. And that's how we conceive, construct, govern and become everything that we call perceived and conceptualized reality. These perceived and conceptualized realities of finite modifications of the infinite pure awareness of Shiva. And prakriti is uh or Shakti is just uh the fluctuations of Shiva.
And what uh the Shiva Sutra is saying is that when we have meta cognition, when we are resting in the Self, when we are aware of being aware in every experience, then uh that is the ultimate arsenal, the seat of awareness and every other arsenal, which means every other position, every other posture, every other movement then is um impregnated by pure consciousness. And that today we would call meta cognition. So um Krishnamurti call that the highest intelligence, the ability to observe yourself without judging yourself. And when you do that, there's insight and that is actually ultimate with personal insight means inner vision in our sight that gives us access to truth. And once we have access to truth with the capital T, then uh we will see uh how this leads ultimately to the spontaneous fulfillment of desire or what we call spontaneous, right action, spontaneous, right thinking, spontaneous, right feeling spontaneous right speech, spontaneous right action.
Uh this is uh Kriyā. Kriyā Kriyā means action without karmic bondage and therefore action in freedom and uh action and freedom allows infinite manifestations. Um But we'll go there uh in the next Sutra In the meanwhile, here's a little, a little exercise. OK. Look at my hand. And so let's call this matter a material or manifest. And let's call this space un-manifest or invisible and un-manifest and invisible and uh the invisible and the visible go together. You can't have an experience of the visible without what we call the invisible of the formless. You can't have form without the formless. But the form itself is the density or contraction of the formless. OK. The form and this form uh is an expression of this formless but this formless is all formless. The space between this, the space between you and me, the space between objects, the space between breath, the space between uh thought, the space between every fluctuation mind intellect and ego is the infinite formless.
And it's the same. The space between this extends all the way to the cosmic horizon, which currently is believed to be some 48 billion light years away from where we are. So this is eternal, timeless, formless, modifying itself into every form and phenomenon. The form itself is a phenomenon and the phenomenon is a fluctuation and it's a fluctuation of pure consciousness.
So pure consciousness is the source of all experience. This is almost like the subjective version of the String theory. Every conceivable uh possibilities is contained in the formless, including meta verses and infinite verses. So onward, with the Shiva Sutras..