1. So long as I asked, “What should I do?” “What shall I establish?” no answer came: there was nothing to be achieved. Indeed – it is a hard lesson – all purpose should be abandoned. God has no purpose. He simply is. “I am” is the highest activity, ‘actus illimitatus’. So, all plans are set aside. It is detachment.
2. I will be free of all that hide that radiance. I will go where light is unhindered, where light simply bursts out of darkness.
3. I will enter into the silence and abandon all things. I can do this only because there is in me a deep faith, a trust. With peacefulness of heart I enter into the unknown. This is not some search for an ideal or an imagined goal, but a plunging into the abyss. This would not be possible if there were not already a trust. There must be something, someone, however the reference is made, who is trustworthy, who is no less personal than me but more so, though I cannot, must not, try to guess how.
4. But this plunging into the abyss is not a plunging elsewhere than into my very depths. This trust in someone is not in someone ‘out there’ but in Someone who is the very basis of my being.

1. There is no clutter in the desert, no house, no fence, no direction, no trees. There is no need to speak, no clock, no concerns, but only limitless expanse and the swelling dome of the sky, blue, unbounded, where the gleaming eye of the sun pours down its brilliant rays. Such power and energy, intense and single‑minded, unabating!
2. The sun is too bright to be seen, invisible because too visible. It suggests another light. So, I walk in the sun and stand in its glare and rejoice in the clarity of truth.
3. But I cannot stay. I am driven back to the town and to food. Therefore, I will create my own space, bare walls, the expanse of floor, the desert of my room, and there dwell in silence as daylight comes and daylight ends, and so arrive at knowledge.

1. 28    Journey                        adhvan

1. It is safe. It is a good journey, to leave all and enter into the silence. The Void is not hostile but welcoming, the true homeland and origin. So, all melts away and there is a great stillness. A music, a Word has called me away into sweetness. This is possible because there is one greater than I into whom I enter.
2. From the peace, the quiet, an energy arises, an authority. There is a wish for a power and an authority in no small measure. Not one which is directed to the generation of children or the company of the wife. The power to create and recreate, to hold all things and to bless them, bringing all to the highest bliss, that moment of exhilaration where all constructs collapse and time ends, that endless vibration that grows exponentially, grace upon grace upon grace, something adequate to the Void from which all comes, leading into the Void which is Fullness: this is possible because flesh becomes spirit.

1. It is beautiful to form one tradition together, to be of one mind and spirit, one attitude and ambition; mutually supportive and encouraging, one revealing the other, the whole revealing each, each manifesting the totality, like schools of fish that move together in the sea. It is stimulating and liberating to be a fellowship, and to be accepted, welcomed as one of them, of one substance.
2. For me it was to be a tāntrika among the tāntrikas, committed to the eternal maithuna.

1. The mantra is given from without. The mantra arises spontaneouslyfrom within.  The mantra from without and the mantra from within are the same, the one mantra. The outer and the inner must coincide.
2. The disciple chooses the guru and the guru chooses the disciple. Already the disciple has perceived that he and the guru have the same mind, the same power. Similarly, the guru chooses the disciple because he recognises that he and the disciple have the one heart. He cannot refuse his own self. He perceives the disciple’s capacity for his mantra. Indeed, he gives the mantra because he knows the disciple already has it.
3. The initiate accepts to become the mantra, to belong to the tradition and its guru, because he recognises it to be himself. He accepts himself as he has been accepted, and he is justified. The mantra heals and warms, enlivens and empowers. It is his very being. It is the guru. It is the tradition. It is his truth, his salvation, for now he can be who he actually is.
4. He proceeds to recite the mantra and so to express what he is. By practice he fully becomes the mantra. He is the word, he is the Word. He enjoys it and finds therein his rest.
5. I recite the word I have received, its blessing and I become what I recite. This is my word, this is myself and I say it again and again. I say what I am and I am what I say. It is all one.      
6. The mantra is a tool in the reciter’shand, a sword jutting from the mouth (Heb 4:12). With it he makes and remakes, curses and blesses (Jr 1:10).

1. The guru says to the disciple and the disciples say to each other:

1. So, we relate to each other. You reveal me in yourself. You are what I am and wish to be. May it be also that I reveal you in myself? And so, we affirm each other and establish each other. It is the mutual initiation. Your speech in my speech, your faculty in my faculty and mine in yours, so that we know each other from within, and out of two form one. We rest in each other and stand before each other without shame or threat, without shyness or trouble, simply one to another, not competing, not dominating or undermining but simply acknowledging that we are of the same stock and destined to be with each other, for each other, on the one journey.
2. And so, we encourage each other, giving way to each other till we reach the state of the “perfect Man” (Eph 4:13).

1. The Word contains in itself a dynamism that cannot be held back; that can do all things and will do some. This energy wells up from deep within, an endless fountainhead. It is the energy of the mantra.
2. The expressions of the Word conceal the Word for nothing can fully express the Word. Remaining one and unique, simply itself, the Word forgets itself, stammering and incoherent. Nevertheless, deep down, beneath the muteness and the opacity, beneath all its contradictions, the Word is present, sustaining all.
3. The Word will fragment into words and become dumb; the light will conceal itself so as to burst in the radiance of truth, displaying itself and showing what it already knew. The energy of the Word leads to its silencing; the energy leads the Word to burst as revelation. Thus, deafness shall hear the Word and darkness be pierced with light. That which is not will be worshipped as the God who is. The Word delights in its energy and takes pleasure in its acts. It is the play of Wisdom concealing and revealing itself.
4. Even lies and wilful darkness are but grist to the mill, occasions for even greater revelation, for the Word delights in the impossible. Only the impossible can be challenge enough to this boundless dynamism.
5. Thus, the Word will truly manifest you, the Void, wonderfully Void and Full at once, and, in the paradox of doing what cannot be done, you will be known at last, Source of all.

1. The meditator is the image of the Unimaginable, the ‘coagulation’ of the All-pervading, the manifestation of the Unmanifest, touching from end to end, incorporating every level and every state and condition. Nothing is separate; nothing is foreign. We will experience all, and so be all, their summation, even as we sit still and single‑pointed.
2. Reaching out in every direction, we walk without hesitation, possessing nothing and having everything; claiming all, desiring nothing; averse to nothing, relating to everything; free. We hold and heal and bring into harmony, creating peace and order, rejoicing in the growth, enjoying the fruits. The whole is apparent in us and we are evident in the whole.
3. The meditator takes on pain and wrong‑doing on order to bring healing and joy, for nothing is concealed. What can anyone do to remove the pain of the world? So little! Except to be their body, at their disposal, to be their food, with compassion and prayer.
4. Meditators are the solid rock from which the water flows, to which all are invited to come and drink. They are the transfigured flesh; the fire of the Spirit enlivens all the faculties and makes them radiate the blissful power.

1. Something, someone has led me to seek the lowest depths, the loss of power and reputation, the loss of achievement and pleasure. I have become nothing because all these other things have lost their savour.
2. Now I being to understand, for the Spirit, so quietly, so forcefully has succeeded in destroying me, the outer me. Like Kālī, the Spirit has yielded her hatchet and reduced me to nothing. I have sought her and she has exacted her drink of blood.
3. Therefore, I feel at one with the insignificant. I am one with them, not through the misfortunes of fate but by the impulse of the Spirit who has led me to this spot. My life seems wasted and I join the great mass of those who have been given sorrow as their lot.
4. But having had her sport, the Spirit now gives to me the power she possesses. She is mine. I am powerful with her power. In her I find my delight and I find you, Father of all.
5. In the darkness, in the collapse, in letting go of all, in abandoning the hidden cravings, dark tunnel opens through which a delicious, cool breeze comes to me.
6. As I stand before them, without achievement or success I have the mind of Śiva.

1. I want that power that springs spontaneously, that blessing of the good and the elimination of the evil. I want, without craving, the universal radiance of “I am”. So, the power wells up in me and I am one with that power. I want to have that endless power and to do works of power, touching the deepest level of things.
2. From the spin of the divine relationships, from the mutuality of the Three in One, all the worlds proceed, and to it all return, in a great vibration.

1. Love speaks the loving Word of love to Love. Love who has the open ear hears full well the message, and endlessly draws forth the song.

1. Love is itself. Love loves Love, and Love receives itself.

1. The Word loves to express the Speaker's love and the Spirit loves the Word for so faithfully communicating the Speaker's message.

1. Who is loved if not the Father, who loves himself for his loving?

1. The Father who is love loves to see love and, Matchmaker, joins the Word and Spirit in love. He engenders the Word to whom he gives the Spirit of love. He projects the Spirit of love to whom he speaks the Word of love, for he loves his loving.
2. Thus, all love, all are loved and all are love. All is all, all in all.
3. Which word of command will I say: “Let there be love”, “Let there be one whom I can love”, “Let there be one who is love”?

Abhinavagupta: The Kula Ritual as elaborated in chapter 29 of the Tantrāloka. Delhi: MotiLal BanarsiDass, 2003.       

Jesus, the Mantra of God. Melbourne: David Lovell Publications, 2005.

Bäumer, B. and Dupuche J. (eds.) Void and Fullness in the Buddhist, Hindu and Christian Traditions. Delhi: D.K. Printworld, 2005.   

Towards a Christian Tantra; The interplay of Christianity and Kashmir Shaivism. Melbourne: David Lovell Publishing, 2009.