Kashmir Shaivism: Nondualism

Catalog description

"Supreme Consciousness is the reality of everything" Shiva reveals in the Shiva Sutras (as rendered from the Sanskrit by 20th century guru of the tradition, Swami Lakshman Joo). Motivating the deity is the desire that the esoteric tradition of supreme nondualism (parama advaita) should remain unbroken, though most of humanity embraces a dualist viewpoint. So explains Kshemaraja, the 10th-11th century (C.E.) exegete, student of the renowned and eloquent Abhinavagupta, and latest in an inspired succession of Kashmiri writers that also includes the philosophical innovator Utpaladeva, and his pioneering teacher, Somananda. Esoteric for centuries, beginning in 1911 with the serial publication of the Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies (KSTS), this lineage of Kashmir slowly began its process of joining a world heritage of philosophical thought, in a world as obsessed with duality as it has ever been. This process also solidified the rather spurious (but catchy, and perhaps inescapable) designation, "Kashmiri Shaivism." But what exactly is "supreme nondualism," a viewpoint as rigorously nondualist as it is affirming of the reality and sanctity of the material world? In this class we explore supreme nondualism as pragmatic ritual strategy, as myth, as polemic, as a premodern integral doctrine, as a mature form of ethics and more, all of which the tradition weighs in on, implicitly or explicitly. In addition to the diverse interwoven historical threads making up this school of thought, we also explore its distinctive status as a tradition occluded and rediscovered, and its progression through practice communities in present day, and into the future.