The Path of understanding
Yesterday was Markiji's birthday. Our beloved teacher, Mark Dyczkowski.
We met, his community, those people who were close to him and those who loved him. I want to take this occasion to write some words about him and his teachings. For myself, not to forget what I feel, and for you, so that the essence of the teaching he stood for can remain and grow.
The path Markiji stood for, the tantric path of Kashmir Shaivism, is a very elevated path. It doesn't speak about morals, even though it is very moral. It doesn't speak about right actions, even though all its followers engage in right action. It also doesn't tell you what to do in the first place, even though everyone does the right thing.
It speaks instead about the development of the right awareness, the right understanding about the nature of God and the reality that flows out of it. Doing so, it assumes that when we become one with elevated consciousness, all truth will flow out of it.
Why Is Kashmir Shaivism So Important?
Kashmir Shaivism is so important in our times because its understanding is the mula — the root of actual religious or spiritually conducive behaviour. The moment we understand this spirituality deeply, everything we need to do flows out of this understanding, and all actions are one with the higher goal.
Our ways of acting, whether they are done right or not, are without that inner understanding — just actions, empty in spirit and meaningless in their effect. Like a block of wood flowing in the river, carried to some destination.
Shaivism in a Changing World
When the world is changing, however, what we need is the right attitude of perception, the right form of awareness, so that we can determine anew each day where that block of wood has to flow and how it shall find its course.
In this way, the Kashmiri understanding of spirituality is the river itself. Not the wood carried in it. It is the stream of the waters in which we find a course in a changing landscape of technology and greed and endless wanting.
When we taste the nectar of God, the awareness of what we truly are ever expands, and we are fit for the world to arise on the horizon.
Here I allow myself to publish a transcript of one of Markiji's lectures that was transcribed by one of his close students. It reflects his thought, in his own words — read, think, contemplate, and enjoy:
"You see, the sutras are talking about what is taking place for very elevated yogis, but it is of relevance to us because Kashmiri Śaivites model their practice on these higher states of consciousness.
Just as Christians, you might say, imitate Christ, Kashmiri Śaivites imitate in their limited consciousness higher states of consciousness.
We cannot manage to do that so well… but we can try.
It is that attempt which is, as one sutra just says, prayatnaḥ sādhakaḥ; it is that effort that we exert to conform our individual states of consciousness, to configure them, imagine them in any way we can, to the higher states, and then everything follows from that.
Ethics, right behaviour, sound understanding, a good way of living one's life, the development of our spiritual well-being — all of this will take place to the degree in which we conform ourselves, our own limited consciousness, to the higher levels of consciousness.
In order to do that we have to know about them. And at first, we know about them through our thoughts, through our imagination, through what we hear, through what we ourselves can understand, and above all through the teachings of the scriptures.
… We learn about higher states through our scriptures so that we can imitate those states in our limited condition.
There are places where this is discussed, whether this is possible. And the answer to that is that it is quite possible, because there is no discontinuity in any level or state of consciousness, there is no break between the finite and the infinite, because the infinite is the existence of all finite things.
So if there was a discontinuity, things would cease to exist, they would be separated from their existence, as it were — which is an idea, it is not at all really possible.
Each one of us as human beings… has an innate connection with infinite consciousness, and that innate connection with infinite consciousness allows us to participate in its life. And that we do by exerting ourselves in that manner.
This is what religion is about in the real sense, from the Kashmiri Śaiva point of view.
There are some religious paths that like to avoid mysticism because they say, well, first we have to get our things in our house straight and neat and clean, we have to be moral, we have to behave correctly, and so on and so forth. And then what happens after that — well, that's God's business, we will see.
… we find that in all major religions…
But nonetheless this path does exist. This path affirms the reverse. It says if our consciousness is developing, then our moral conduct will be in accord with that development, our so-called sinful behaviour will become more moral, we will become at the mundane level better people in all respects, we will become altruistic, generous, loving, kind, etc.
In fact they affirm that that would not be possible unless there is an expansion or development of consciousness.
I say this because when you read the Śiva Sūtra, and you think, well, what does this have to do with me, when these sutras are expounding the Siddha's experience — a person who is fully accomplished?
So the reason is something like that."
From an early Śiva Sūtra course, available on Anuttara Trika Kula. Audio labelled ŚSū 1.12 (although Mark Dyczkowski is actually speaking on sutra 1.14). Citation begins at around minute 20.
Sources & Further Reading
- Anuttara Trika Kula — Dr. Mark Dyczkowski's official site (lectures, writings, music)
- Shiva Sutras course — full verse-by-verse lecture series referenced above
- Course: Anuttara — Dyczkowski on the meaning of "Anuttara" in the Kashmiri tradition
- About Anuttara Trika Kula — the community and its aims
- The Tantrāloka translation project — Dyczkowski's translation of Abhinavagupta's Tantrāloka
- Mark Dyczkowski — Wikipedia biography
More Tantra & Trika Teachings at Matsya
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