Introduction to Tantrik Non-Duality

Many people are becoming increasingly familiar with Advaita Vedanta, the classical Non-Duality of Adi Shankaracharya but fewer people are aware that there are indeed other versions of Non-Dual spiritual philosophy and practice. In this video, we do a cursory introduction to my favorite form of Non-Duality: The Tantrik Non-Duality of Abhinava Gupta which is sometimes called The Kaula Trika, the Pratybhijñā Vada (Recognition School) or more commonly, just "Kashmir Shaivism".

We start the  lesson by exploring the idea of "Bhairava", in his fierce (ugra) form and also in his more, esoteric formless aspect as pure Non-Dual Consciousness which is the interpretation Abhinava Gupta often has in mind when he uses the term "Bhairava".

Then, we explore some of the drawbacks and delusions of Neo-Advaita/Direct Path Teachings and well as some of the difficulties of Bhakti with a reading from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna which teaches us how to realize the Formless God!

Finally, we take up Verses 10 and 11 from the Non-Dual Tantrik introductory manual, Paramārthasāra of Abhinava Gupta to offer a teaching on the nature of the Highest Reality, the Supreme Principle in Non-Dual Shaivism which you can call Paramaśiva of which I tend to call "Kālī."

And here are the Bhairava lectures we mention early in the talk:

Secret Mantras for Bhairava and His 8 Forms
The Secret Teaching of Bhairava
How To Pray To Kāla Bhairava

Here's the German compound word we mentioned in the lecture: 
Donau-dampfschiff-fahrts-gesellschaft

Lectures happen live every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and again Friday at 6pm PST.
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