At this point in our exploration of the text, it may be valuable to pause for a thematic overview. Verses 24-27 covered the foundational practice of the text (which we may call visarga); verses 28-30 cover Central Channel & Subtle Body practices; and verses 31-39 cover Esoteric Practices, of the kind we might expect to come later in the text, as they are not accessible to beginners. But we may understand this positioning by observing that nearly of these are yogic practices that fall under the rubric of what would come to be known as āṇava-upāya, and the in its latter portion scripture focuses almost entirely on śākta- and śāmbhava-upāya practices.
Next, in verses 40-51, we encounter a string of what we might call Emptiness or Spaciousness practices. We might also broadly construe these as Shiva-type practices as opposed to the energy-focused Shakti-type practices.
The text is generally organized according to clever mnemonic devices, evidence that it was originally transmitted orally. For example, a key word that occurs in one verse often also occurs in the verse following. As we move into the section on Spaciousness practices, we may note that śūnya was also a key term in the last verse, verse 39, even though that verse was predominantly about the sound-based practice called uccāra. Likewise, the first two practices of the Spaciousness section of the text (presented below) also involve sound, even though the text now definitively turns towards śūnya as its main theme, as evinced by no less than three occurrences of that term in this first verse of this section, which I will now present.
Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra verse 40, Yukti #14 (a śāmbhava-upāya practice suitable for all levels, though it may not ‘click’ for beginners)
यस्य कस्यापि वर्णस्य पूर्वान्ताव् अनुभावयेत् ।
शून्यया शून्यभूतो ऽसौ शून्याकारः पुमान् भवेत् ॥ ४० ॥
yasya kasyāpi varṇasya pūrvāntāv anubhāvayet |
śūnyayā śūnya-bhūto ’sau śūnyākāraḥ pumān bhavet || 40 ||
A person who fosters the experience of the beginning and ending of any syllable or sound whatsoever, becomes spacious openness (śūnya) by means of the Goddess-void (śūnyā), his very form [nothing but] spaciousness. || 40 ||
Alternate translation: Let one tune in to [the silence at] the start and end of any syllable [or sound] whatsoever. By the Power of the Void, this man will become void in appearance as well as in nature. (trans. by Rasikā Sarah Taub) This version is valuable because it brings out the fact that the verse suggests that a person is already śūnya in his/her real nature, and the practice simply reveals that. The same translator (a graduate student of mine) offers this evocative rendering of the verse:
Sense the pregnant stillness that begins and ends any syllable [or sound]. Your true nature is this fertile Void — by Her power, you will know yourself as Void.
Word-by-word breakdown: yasya = of which; kasyāpi = whatsoever; varṇa (in the genitive case) = a letter, sound, vowel, syllable, word, a musical sound or note (also applied to the voice of animals); pūrva = previous, initial, beginning; anta = end, final; anubhāvayet = one should foster or cause oneself to experience; śūnyayā = by means of the Goddess-void / still silent presence / field of Absolute Potential; śūnya-bhūto = being the void; asau = he or this; śūnyākāra = having a form or aspect or appearance that is void / spacious openness; pumān = a man, a person; bhavet = becomes / will become / must become.
This practice, since it is sound-based, will be better exemplified by my forthcoming VBT meditation app than it can be in text format. Here we are to become absorbed in an occasionally recurring sound, such as a spoken or sung vowel, or a musical note, until we feel it arising from and subsiding into the great Silence. The first goal of the practice is the experiential (non-conceptual) realization that the phoneme arises from and dissolves into pure silent awareness. Once you’re dialed into that deep quiet presence, if you pay close attention when a sound occurs, you’ll notice that the silent presence never breaks. It’s not interrupted or disturbed in the slightest by sound. This this deep silence, the silence of the absolute, is available to you in your very own awareness at any time. Yes, you probably need to settle yourself first—you need to settle your energy and get centered and relax a bit so that you can feel into this profound silent stillness. Our author says that if you attune to it, then, by means of that śūnya, that pure void of silent, still presence, you become that very śūnya—one realizes one’s bhūta, ones being, as that very śūnya, that sacred openness.
Śūnyākāra—your form or appearance, too, is nothing but that spaciousness. This is reminiscent of the Buddhist’s Heart Sūtra (more correctly titled the Prajñā-pāramitā-hṛdaya) because there it says that form is emptiness and emptiness is form. We have a similar teaching here, because ākāra means “the aspect that appears”—that is to say, the body and whatever else manifests in experience as what people call “you”—that is also permeated by and ultimately nothing but pure, silent, spacious presence, appearing as form. That is quite the experiential realization to have, because though many people can get on board with the notion that they have a transcendent essence, they conceptually separate that essence from their body-mind, which is clearly not transcendent—it’s often seen as a big bag of confusion and shit. Here it’s said that if you realize your fundamental being as pure spacious open presence, śūnya-bhūta, then you will also realize the aspect that is appearing, the body-mind, as that same spacious presence (śūnyākāra)—or at least permeated by that same spacious presence.
The most surprising word in the verse, though, is śūnyayā, “by means of that feminine Void.” The word śūnya is inherently masculine (Sanskrit, like many European languages, has gendered nouns), and words never as a rule change their genders, but here śūnya is appearing in the feminine (this point is not noted by most translators of the text). So it must be the case that we are to understand that the silent spaciousness or still silent presence to which we are here attuning is the Goddess in her quiescent form. This teaching is unusual, for usually we see śūnya equated with Shiva and energy with Shakti. But in Goddess-centric texts, it can happen that Shiva disappears from the schema altogether, and void and energy, or emptiness and form, is represented by two aspects of the Goddess. When this is the case, the void-aspect is often identified with Kālī, though She is not mentioned by name in this scripture.
Simplified practice instructions:
(from the forthcoming set of VBT “flash cards”, designed by Jesse Molina)
ALTERNATE TRANSLATIONS:
a) The yogī should contemplate over the previous condition of any letter whatsoever before its utterance and its final condition after its utterance as mere void. He will, then with the help of the power of the void, become of the nature and form of the void. (SINGH)
b) One should experience (mindfully) the beginning and end of (the utterance of) any letter as the Void. Having become the Void by (the power of the awareness of) the void, a man’s form becomes the Void. (DYCZKOWSKI)
c) One should meditate on the beginning and end of (the uttering of) any letter (or mantra). By becoming void due to the power of the void, one will reach the state of pure Void. (BÄUMER)
d) One shall become pure awareness, empty of (all content), having become empty through the empty (power): one should experience the (empty) beginning (or) end of any sound (that one may say). (DUBOIS)
e) Whoever contemplates even on the mantras or letters (of Aum) from first to last, in the form of void, verily that sadhaka by meditation on the void becomes the void. (SATSANGI)
f) Concentrate on the void at the beginning or end of the sound of any letter. Then by the power of that void, one will become the Void. (CHAUDHRI)
g) The yogin should contemplate on the status of any letter both prior and after its utterance. It would be understood as void having been rendered so by the Power of void. Having contemplated on it as such the person concerned would understand himself as a sheer void. (Singh & Maheśvarānanda)
h) Il faut se concentrer sur le commencement (ou) sur la fin de n’importe quel phonème. Par (la puissance) du vide, cet homme devenu vide prendra forme de vide. (SILBURN)
i) On doit ressentir le début et la fin de n’importe quel phonème. L’(adepte) devenu vide grâce à cette (Puissance) vide deviendra pure conscience à l’aspect vide. (DUBOIS)
j) Man soll über die Leere vor und nach (dem Aussprechen) jedes Lautes meditieren, dann wird man durch (ebendiese) Leere leer (von Vorstellungen und Gedanken) und erlangt die Form der Leere. (BÄUMER)
k) Al concebir intensamente el inicio y el final de cualquier fonema, este deviene vacío gracias a la energía del vacío; [entonces] la persona misma adquiere una forma vacía. (FIGUEROA)
l) Focus on the emergence or disappearance of a sound, then reach the ineffable plenitude of the void. (ODIER)
m) In the beginning and gradual refinement of the sound of any letter, awake. (REPS)
* * *
Verse 41, Yukti #15 (śāmbhava-upāya practice, suitable for all levels)
तन्त्र्यादिवाद्यशब्देषु दीर्घेषु क्रमसंस्थितेः ।
अनन्यचेताः प्रत्यन्ते परव्योमवपुर् भवेत् ॥ ४१ ॥
tantryādi-vādya-śabdeṣu dīrgheṣu krama-saṃsthiteḥ |
ananya-cetāḥ pratyante para-vyoma-vapur bhavet || 41 ||
One whose heart-mind is completely focused on the prolonged sounds of a musical instrument such as a tantrī (a stringed instrument like a vīṇā), through the duration of the phases [of their resonance], at the limit [of the perceptible sound], will experience their body becoming [like] the spacious sky. || 41 ||
word-by-word breakdown: tantrī = a stringed instrument like a vīṇā; ādi = and so on; vādya = musical instrument; śabda = sound(s); dīrgha = long, prolonged; krama = phases, stages; saṃsthiti = duration, sustain; ananya-cetāḥ = having a one-pointed mind, devoted to no other object; pratyante = at the limit, at the end; para-vyoma = ultimate void or supreme sky; vapus = body, form, nature, essence, a beautiful form; bhavet = one will become.
This is another verse about the relationship of sound and the void. Here, the sound in question is exemplified a stringed instrument called a tantrī that existed 1200 years ago in India, and whose descendants are the tambūra or tanpūra, as well as the vīṇā. We don’t know exactly what this instrument sounded like, but it was certainly a stringed instrument.
Let’s go over a couple of the Sanskrit words that are worth looking at. At the beginning of the second half of the verse we have ananya-cetāḥ, “one whose heart-mind is ananya,” that is, completely focused, undistracted, single-pointed, not here and there. So, one whose cetas, whose heart-mind (remember that every Sanskrit word that means mind also means heart) is completely focused on the prolonged sounds (dīrgha-śabdas) of a stringed musical instrument such as a tantrī through the duration of the phases of its resonance (krama-saṃsthiteḥ). At the limit of the perceptible sound (pratyante), one’s body becomes ultimate void or [like] the spacious sky (para-vyoma). Śūnya and vyoma are synonyms, but the latter term can also mean sky. The Sanskrit word for ‘body’ here, vapus, is difficult to translate because it has inherent connotations of beauty, and there isn’t an English word like that. It’s possible that here it means something more like “one’s nature.” At any rate, through this practice, one’s body or form or nature becomes that of the para-vyoma, the parama-śūnya, the great, open, still, silent spaciousness.
The practice itself is very simple: you absorb yourself completely in meditation on the sound of the tanpūra or vīṇā or sitār (if you select a music track, make sure it’s slow and meditative), and when it ends you may experience this dissolution into totally still, silent presence.
Simplified practice instructions:
(from the forthcoming VBT “flash cards” deck, designed by Jesse Molina for T.I.)
ALTERNATE TRANSLATIONS:
a) If one listens with undivided attention to sounds of stringed and other musical instruments which on account of their (uninterrupted) succession are prolonged, he will, at the end, be absorbed in the ether of consciousness (and thus attain the nature of Bhairava). (SINGH)
b) If one listens with undivided attention to the prolonged sounds of stringed and other instruments, of (the notes played) in their due order, when they come to an end one (realizes that one’s own) body is the Supreme Void. (DYCZKOWSKI)
c) If one listens with undivided attention to the sounds of string instruments and others, which are played successively and are prolonged, then one becomes absorbed in the supreme ether of consciousness. (BÄUMER)
d) By dwelling on the end of each long-sustained sound of a string instrument or any other musical instrument, one who doesn't pay attention to anything else shall become one whose body is supreme space. (DUBOIS)
e) When one-pointed awareness on the prolonged inner sounds of different musical instruments, such as stringed, wind and percussion, is gradually established, in the end the body becomes the supreme space. (SATSANGI)
f) Listen with undivided attention, towards the end of prolonged sounds of stringed and other musical instruments. By staying with the gradual diminishment of the sound, one will obtain the form of the Supreme Space. (CHAUDHRI)
g) If one were to listen attentively to the musical sound produced by stringed and other musical instruments in a prolonged and uninterrupted succession, he, at the end, is most likely to feel himself as the void supreme. (Singh & Maheśvarānanda)
h) En suivant attentivement les sons prolongés d’instruments de musique, à cordes ou autres, si l’esprit ne (s’intéresse) à rien d’autre, à la fin de chaque (son), l’on s’identifiera à la forme merveilleuse du firmament suprême. (SILBURN)
i) En demeurant sur la fin de chaque son prolongé d’un instrument à cordes ou autre, celui qui ne fait attention à rien d’autre deviendra un être dont le corps est le firmament suprême. (DUBOIS)
j) Wenn man mit unzerstreuter Aufmerksamkeit dem Klang von Saiten-oder anderen Instrumenten zuhört, der durch die Aufeinanderfolge der Töne gedehnt ist, dann wird man eins mit dem höchsten Raum des Bewußtseins. (BÄUMER)
k) Quien fija por completo su atención en los sonidos de instrumentos musicales – por ejemplo, el laúd – que se prolongan a través de una secuencia continua, al final de cada uno de ellos alcanza el esplendor del vacío supremo. (FIGUEROA)
l) By being totally present to song, to music, enter spatially with each sound that rises and dissolves into it. (ODIER)
m) While listening to stringed instruments, hear their composite central sound; thus omnipresence. (REPS)