Tantraloka Quotes

According to Shaivism, anupaya may also be reached by entering into the infinite blissfulness of the Self through the powerful experiences of sensual pleasures. This practice is designed to help the practitioner reach the highest levels by accelerating their progress through the sakta and sambhava upayas. These carefully guarded doctrines of Tantric sadhana are the basis for certain practices, like the use of the five makaras (hrdaya) mentioned earlier. The experience of a powerful sensual pleasure quickly removes a person's dullness or indifference. It awakens in them the hidden nature and source of blissfulness and starts its inner vibration. Abhinavagupta says that only those people who are awakened to their own inner vitality can truly be said to have a heart (hrdaya). They are known as sahrdaya (connoisseurs). Those uninfluenced by this type of experiences are said to be heartless. In his words:

"It is explained thus - The heart of a person, shedding of its attitude of indifference while listening to the sweet sounds of a song or while feeling the delightful touch of something like sandalpaste, immediately starts a wonderful vibratory movement. (This) is called ananda-sakti and because of its presence the person concerned is considered to have a heart (in their body) (Tantraloka, III.209-10).

People who do not become one (with such blissful experiences), and who do not feel their physical body being merged into it, are said to be heartless because t ~ Balajinnatha Pandita

According to Abhinavagupta, a yogin who is established in the understanding and experience of supreme non-dualism, sees only one reality shining in all mutually opposite entities like pleasure and pain, bondage and liberation, sentience and insentience, and so on, just as an ordinary person sees both a ghata and a kumbha as only one thing (a pot) expressed through different words (Tantraloka, 11.19). ~ Balajinnatha Pandita