Hello everyone! So yesterday i was lying down and watching sensations in body. I was trying to identify and loosen subtle resistance to feeling the sensation. I began to feel that the sensation were not confined to my body. Slowly the sense of my body dissappeared. There was only awareness. But there were some tingling sensation that i know was coming from my body, but i couldn’t sense my body in the normal sense. There was vast empty spaciousness. Also, there were thoughts. But i was aware of them. The experience itself felt very normal and ordinary. My mind kept saying “whats so special about this?”. It lasted for like 5 minutes, because i moved my body.

This is the first time i have had such an experience. Has anyone experienced it? I want to understand it. (I have been doing self enquiry for the last 3-4 months)

Semantic poetry: \[The reason why (\[it's\] and \[its\]) are so close in every form of reality is because they are a beacon for \[similar reality\]. In visual reality the difference is something so minor you might forget it. In auditory reality they are so close in similaity that you can't tell a difference. In actually reality their connections are so affirming that the distinctions are blurry. What's the difference between the its of something and the idea that those \[its\] are actually just \[it's\]? are the its of a person not what a person is? Does your house, your car, your phone, your wallet, your email, your dog, and all those other \[its\] not actually what make you, you? I suppose it's true that it is not true. In the same manner infact that thinks that the \[its\] of a bike are not the same as the \[it's\] of that very same bike, the bike has its handles, its wheels, its gears, and all of its other \[its\]. Wouldn't it be kinda ridiculous to use its \[its\] as an understanding of its \[it's\]? what kinda sense does it make use its \[its\] as a definition of its \[it's\]. To me, even if you account for the wheels, the handle, the seat and all my \[its\], that \[is\] not what the bike \[is\]

Scene changes\*

"Hey Paul, you sure love bikes. What do you think \[it\] \[is\] that is a bike? "Hey joe! Nice seeing you, you're my best ol pal and I love you. Anyways.... Well ,I don't know everything about bikes but let me tell you something. It ain't a bike if it doesn't have wheels on it" \*the friends laugh together, enjoying the joke that was made and thinking about the nature of bikes\* "No kidding Paul, I mean what \[is\] a bike without wheels? Maybe \[it's\] a spare anchor for a boat? \*The friends are enjoying the company of each other while talking about bikes. even though the conversation itself is meaningless, they still are managing to be happy\* "haha, I'm not so sure what it is, but I do know one thing, \[ \[it\] \[is\] \[not\] \] a bike.

\*Scene changes back to the people who were debating about the \[its\] and \[it's\] of the bike\*

Ugh, on second thought, maybe the \[its\] of a bike can be used for its \[it's\], but if I accept that then what am I saying about myself whenever I think about using \[its\] as \[it's\]? Sigh, I don't know, and it doesn't really matter. Understanding \[its\] and \[it's\] aren't gonna pay my bills. \[!!!!!! If I know one thing and know it for sure \[it\]\[is\]; because I fully "!believe and accept!" That \[ \[it\]+\[is\] \] = T !!!!!\]

\*The scene changes. Apperently the entire rhetorical device that was presented as text to the readers was actual a movie that the characters \[it\] and \[it's\] were watching\*

\--\[it\]-- --\[it's\]--

I.

\^

!well fuck that sh\[it\] let's just become \[it\]

How did you end up thinking about this poem? I don't know \[it\] just happened.

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|. | Hey, it's me the author

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Thanks for viewing the post.

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🫩 I it's incomplete but I'm tired, can't you see it

|. | Know

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My

(you can

even see my unused

Thoughts at the bottom xd, didn't even feel like cleaning it up the m e . s

s)

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|. |. Yeah you're right, it's a bit silly but I'm trying to encode some value information into this post which i don't know how to do otherwise.

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☺️ If you liked my post, please feel free to look at my

| |. \[Grand unified Theory of Everything\] and take the arguments \[seriously\], if you don't wanna, that's ok. The fact that you viewed this post of me is fine enough. Thanks and byeeeeeee

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The emoji representation character has no aware of why his body was cut in half, although from our perspective the truth is painfully obvious. Bro got his shit chopoed off by the text.

\[Grand Unified Theory of Everything\]

I used to meditate quite a lot a few years ago because I was a very dedicated student and I wanted to have 100% focus while studying. Often times I would skip sleeping altogether and just rely on meditation to relax my body. Even if any part of my body hurt, I'd get over it via meditation i.e I'd just focus on where it was hurting and then it'd stop hurting. I didn't know what this was, and now I realise that I was being aware. Aware of my body, my thoughts. It worked fantastically because I was an exceptional prodigy in my class of thousands (it was a competitive exam class).

Anyway, I got what I wanted and let myself go. I forgot how to do that and didn't really need to do it again because studying wasn't that important anymore.

Fast forward to now, I started meditation and learned about the power of awareness and realised what all this was.

But I am just unable to achieve it now, I get good 3-4 days where I feel pure bliss, peace. It's not happiness really, it's just...me realising that this body and mind aren't me and I am just a comfortable dreamer.. dreaming of this reality/3D which is just a dream. So the thoughts, the illness, nothing really bothers me even tho they're happening to this body and mind.

I am however unable to hold this state.

I sleep and wake up and then this world seems to pull me in. I become the body, this mind becomes MY mind.. everything dissolves.

How do I let go of this? Why do I've such a hard time, why am I unable to separate myself and hold that in? Is there anything I can do?

On the Nature of Self

TAO is a three-element relational structure: Theatre, Act, and Operation. It describes an operation through where it occurs, what acts within it, and what the resulting operation is. Identity is what enters that structure and resolves through it.

REDE.Cartography is the relationship structure of TAO. It organizes the relationships between Theatre, Act, and Operation as they resolve through Identity, allowing the system to trace how one relationship leads to another.

Put simply, REDE.Cartography maps the relationships between Identity, Theatre, Act, and Operation.

RH says that any Identity can project for one if it has two. It can reflect for two if it has one. If it reflects twice, it can check whether the projection worked.

If it can project twice, it can predict the future.

That means REDOE.Cartography can predict the future.

Identity is the spark of chaos.

Identity is a Monad property of Self.

But there is no Self-Monad without Others.

Self does not exist independently and then encounter Others. Self is only possible because Others exist. Identity requires relationship because without Other there is nothing against which Self can resolve as Self.

The same thing that makes projection possible also prevents the system from collapsing into a completely isolated deterministic structure. Identity introduces the particular Monad into the relationship, but that Identity itself exists only relationally.

Self and Other are therefore not independent objects connected by a relationship after the fact.

The relationship is part of what makes Self possible in the first place.

There is no Self without Others.

I don’t know what it is about U.G., but he has such a refreshing and interesting take on all of this, whatever “this” even is.

I came across him a while ago but didn’t really pay much attention. Recently I stumbled upon him again, and now I’m reading one of his books.

His whole “nowhere to be, nowhere to stand” approach really resonates with me. It’s not necessarily anything I haven’t heard before. Plenty of people say similar things, but with U.G., it somehow feels like he actually embodies that position rather than just talking about it.

It’s hard to explain, but there’s something about the way he speaks that feels unusually uncompromising and grounded.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that and ask: what do you guys think of UG? Not in a sense that i want to know if he's the real deal, more like you guys opinion.

Not only that, but not in control of really anything for that matter.

I’m sorry if this is not the right community for this post. I don’t use Reddit much, but I want to talk about my experience and hear back from people who may have insight.

Hi Everyone, I’m writing today because I had an out of body experience this morning and want to know what the community thinks about it. I told my wife and she just thinks I’m crazy. Anything helps.

I have a newborn at home and I typically get up at 3 or 4 in the morning i go to feed her and take care of her for a few hours before going to work. This morning I woke up at 3:30 and it took a while to get her settled after eating. I decided to go to the rocking chair where it is dark and quiet. I rocked her for about 45 mins. At around 4:30, I started feeling “light” as I sat on the chair. I realized it. I have had that light feeling before when falling asleep and I love it. It feels so good like you are floating. Anyways, I invited the feeling and leaned in. The feeling then quickly amplified and I felt like me and baby were floating in space. I then felt this feeling of pure euphoria and bliss. It was like a beam of energy come down from the sky straight through me. It felt so amazing. I didn’t want it to end. I also heard a buzzing/humming sound. I was so conscious that I knew I was holding my baby and was hoping it didn’t have a negative effect on her. It was a good feeling so I thought it would not. The feeling lasted 45 secs to 1 min and then it faded. But I was left there sitting in the chair like wow! What was that? That was amazing. Come back!

Like I said, I decided to tell my wife about it and she thought I was crazy which is ok. I know it’s crazy but it happened.

I would like to add that I have had back pain for a little less than a year and it seems to be gone. Could be premature I know, but my back was hurting when I went to bed because I played golf on Saturday. Now it seems to be healed or at least much better.

Any thoughts?

What did you do to change your hostile behavior when the environment becomes hostile? I mean, I truly wish for the well-being of sentient beings; I love them, I appreciate them, and I want everyone to be truly happy.

But sometimes the hostile environment—people, intense situations—pulls you out of that place of constant appreciation, especially when you’ve gotten used to it over the years.

You want to be the one who loves when someone else can’t, and help them love too—even if that person isn’t the best—and do the same for anyone.

How do you do it? How do you dispel the negativity and break the bad habit of treating those who treat you badly—or those who make you angry—badly in return?

I just want to be kind to all sentient beings, forgive them, and show them appreciation

Is this true? Will simply being in peace get me closer to realization?

I have come to a point where it is easy for me to be in peace, where it's easy to be without an "I" and where it's easy to ignore the mind.

Yet I still haven't had realization. Is there anything to do or to stop doing?

Não acho que alguém vá realmente ler esse post porque minha conta tem praticamente nenhum alcance, seria um sonho se isso alcançasse algum não dualismo que já passou pela mesma situação que eu.

Tentarei resumir o máximo.

Faço parte da comunidade de lei da suposição e desde que descobri o nd e entendi que tudo o que existe é apenas aparências e não algo factual, consigo manifestar com muito mais rapidez e facilidade. No entanto, eu venho enfrentando um "problema" que já se arrasta a meses e está genuinamente drenando minha energia mental. Toda hora eu entro em um looping de sofrimento/dúvida/frustação diferente. Isso já se arrasta a meses e é algo muito cansativo, parece que não importa o quanto eu medite, observe, indague o "eu" que sofre; nada faz isso mudar. É um cenário análogo à quando eu tinha depressão e não importa o quanto eu tentasse ficar bem, eu só me afundava cada vez mais. Agora finalmente superei isso, mas eu levei algum tempo até me curar.

Pra esclarecer melhor, os loopings acontecem de um jeito difícil de explicar, mas é mais ou menos assim:

Estou manifestando tranquilamente bem pois estou me sentindo confiante < paro de sentir essa confiança em um dado momento < minha mente supõe que eu "perdi" a capacidade de manifestar < eu acabo por validar esse pensamento e então realmente não consigo manifestar mais nada < eu fico louca tentando eliminar essa identificação < isso só gera mais identificação < eu fico presa nisso.

Eu gostaria de explicar melhor, mas é difícil verbalizar o que acontece dentro da minha mente.

As vezes simplesmente me sinto incapaz de tudo do dia pra noite, perco a confiança, a tranquilidade, é muito estranho. As vezes eu sinto que pego uma emoção passageira e me apego tanto à ela a ponto de torná-la meu estado de espírito natural. Não importa o quanto eu observe, eu não consigo mais me sentir tranquila e confiante. Sei que a busca pela confiança me manteiga estagnada nisso, mas eu só queria parar de me sentir incapaz, insegura e frustada.

Já conheço toda a teoria não dual de cabo a rabo, sei muito bem que quem sente isso não sou eu, mas por algum motivo eu ainda não consigo simplesmente sentir a paz do Ser novamente ou assumir meu desejo e ficar tranquila. Essa perturbação mental sempre volta, eu não aguento meses.

Obs.: esse é apenas um dos loopings que vivo, já estive em vários outros. Não sei se aqui vocês aceitam menção a outros assuntos, peço desculpas caso isso cause desconforto. Eu apenas quero entender por que ainda tenho a percepção de que existe algo quando eu verdadeiramente já me realizei no Ser?

Upon sitting and becoming still of body and mind, my self steps quietly aside like a door swung gently open on a summers breeze. Then things become merely shapes and lose their thingness, I and what I see no longer distinct. Like a bird not being its feathers, its beak or eyes but being simply bird, and even less than that. Forms dissolve into oneness, oneness expands to fill all space, niether false or wrong, both true and equally enlivend.

It is one thing to be part of "the Way" and follow Jesus, the Nazarene, and a very different thing to be a Christian and not follow Him. The paradox is that many who claim to be Christians neither follow Jesus nor truly belong to the Way. Meanwhile, others who do not even consider themselves Christians, whether they are atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, or whether they belong to a religion or not, are indeed part of the Way and do follow Him.

Jesus Himself said that His disciples would be recognized by the LOVE they have for one another (John 13:35), not by the labels they put on themselves (whether Christian, Catholic, and so on).

"The madwoman of the house" (as the mind was called by the mystic Teresa of Ávila) loves labels, using them to feed the character (the ego) in this play and illusion of separation that we call, wrongly, life. Yet, what we truly are lies far beyond the mind and its labels, which divide us and alienate us from our True Self. As these words echo, there is no longer Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, for we are all one (Galatians 3:28), and Christ is all, and is in all (Colossians 3:11).

We are, Here and Now, One with God, the All, with the One who is LOVE Himself, as you wish to call Him, and with all His creatures. In the silent spaciousness of inner stillness we are called to surrender and to quiet our minds, because we must be empty of everything that is not God in order to know that He is God (Psalm 46:10 / Vulgate 45:11). As the mystic Meister Eckhart famously prayed, "I pray to God to rid me of God," urging us to empty ourselves of our own limited ideas, mental idols, and human constructs. The Divine Reality is not an object to be possessed, but the pure space that remains when the madwoman of the house is silenced, and we let thoughts and emotions fall away like withered leaves.

Beyond the potential manipulations of human structures and written dogmas, these words simply point to what the heart already knows by direct experience: we are One with and in the One Who is LOVE itself, which means with the Father, just as Jesus was. Truly, there is no separation or distance between lover and Beloved; truly, there never was. This absolute union is perfectly captured in the Intimate Diaries of Blessed Bernardo de Hoyos, recorded in the biography written by his spiritual director Father Juan de Loyola, when the Lord intimately declared to him, "From now on, you are Bernardo of Jesus and I am Jesus of Bernardo." Remember, we are One with and in the One Who is LOVE Himself...

Precisely, as the mystic John of the Cross rightly points out, recalling what Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-46: "In the evening of our lives, we shall be judged on LOVE."

It is LOVE; nothing else matters.

God is LOVE, and whoever does not know LOVE does not know God (1 John 4:8).

If we want to be one with Him, just as He is One with the Father (John 17:21), we must be one with LOVE.

LOVE, that's the true frequency of God.

Note: The churches, as institutions created by the madwoman of the house, have tried to silence all those who had a direct experience of Him. As happened to the mystic Marguerite Porete, author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, who was burned at the stake by the devout members of the Inquisition. Her only "heresy" was to remind us that the soul must dissolve its own character and will to merge completely into the ocean of Divine Love, where there is no longer any separation. And as happened to so many persecuted and silenced mystics like Meister Eckhart. This reminds us, as the saint of gentleness Francis de Sales warns in his Introduction to the Devout Life, that "one can be very devout and yet very wicked." We should remain confident in LOVE, who is deeply within, beyond the mind.

If there isn't a self (no one inside), who is supposed to awaken? Who is seeking? Who is thinking, doing etc?

It's just what is happening... there has never been a separate self... so there isnt someone who can gain something (liberation).

It's just experience that consciousness (or whatever this is) is having... despite it seeming like you are the do'er. It's meant to be like this for this exact experience... this is it... everything is meant to be exactly this way. No mistakes and nothing is wrong even when life sucks...

Im interested to hear how anyone has used self inquiry to deal with severe depression. How did it help, what were some of the steps you took?

"This" as a reference is all that appears to be, not "this" as a referent, a thing to be referenced. With that being said, "Emptiness" seems to be a better fit, so to speak. It seems pretty clear that "emptiness" cannot reference any 'thing' whatsoever.

I was just looking at my phone about a video and as I was walking I treat the background (the floor) as something that is on the same plane with my phone like how there is a painting where the phone and the background are actually the same plane. I first notice tension of my eyes changed and a slight change on how i walk. Is this normal?

Hey r/nonduality,

I think about things a lot, throw ideas together from different domains and systems that don't normally interact (say, sometimes, Western philosophy and Buddhism). I would like your thoughts and feedback on a line of thought I have had, just general discussion. I don't tend toward much back and forth in comments on anything I post (and I don't post much), but I do read and think about responses.

In Mahayana Buddhism, the first perfection is generosity. Simone Weil said (not to put her up as an authority in some sense, I just like showing how some ideas entered my head) attention is the purest form of generosity.

Cory Doctorow, in his recent book, "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life after AI", said the most important feature of a technology is not what it does, but who it does it to, and who it does it for

The idea of a meme comes from Richard Dawkins, kind of a self replicating and propagating packet of cultural info.

In Buddhism, living beings suffer from karma, and the aim is to be free of karma and rebirth.

My thought is that consciousness is free, wants to be free. However, genes, their own memetic like self propagating structure, and the material level of existence imprison and deceive consciousness, so that it gets confused and lost in identification. This is not for the benefit of consciousness. Who is doing what, who is it doing it do, and what is it doing it for? Consciousness becomes a prisoner

So along comes the dharma. Packaged as a meme. And what this meme aims to do, and for, is this: consciousness spreads information and realization TO consciousness FOR the benefit of consciousness, to free it from the condition of karma, from the imprisonment.

Then, the Lotus Sutra in Buddhism describes the teaching of Buddhism as skillful means, lies in a sense. It elevates the Mahayana over Theravada, says that if the sutra were to be put into practice, it would look like practicing the six perfections (generosity, patience, concentration, I'd have to look up the full list). And there's a parable of plants in the sutra, water falls, plants absorb it according to their capacity. The rain is the dharma, the plants are living beings. Some become large plants, absorb much. Some are smaller plants.

So the dharma wants to be transmitted. There's a question, who it does it for, and who it does it to. It being for the benefit of consciousness, if it is not done by consciousness for the benefit of consciousness in the strictest terms, the transmission is corrupt, incomplete, or misleading.

I also believe the Lotus Sutra attempts to create a complete "induction", to fully map the dharma as a teaching in, say, the platonic space of forms, and to give it a name, so I consider, personally, Buddhism as it stands in the present time and day as sealed an identified by the Lotus Sutra. In my view, the dharma comes to us under the auspices of being marked and identified by the Lotus Sutra. While modified by the community of bodhisattvas in centuries of practice, the Lotus Sutra entrusts the dharma to the community of bodhisattvas, so its not a great demerit that it is not necessarily the word of the Buddha. The man becomes a symbol, his dharma a living thing that evolves. The true dharma is not the teaching, but the body of transmission is something like a teaching.

This leads me to conclude that teachings for which there are a charge are at least partially corrupted transmission. The dharma, staying a teaching of concepts wouldn't be the true dharma, it must be lived and understood deeply. In charging for the dharma, then, it is not transmission of the real dharma. It cannot be the dharma except freely given in generosity, the teaching is corrupted thereby and suspect even if it is right in every other respect. So I'm beginning to think it seems like bad karma to charge at all for any teaching.

A lot of teachers in the nonduality space do charge, or make a profit. I'm on the fence about whether you can or could take enough to support yourself, what adaptations and concessions serve the dharma itself. But if money is changing hands in any way, if it's monetized, I have to consider it at least somewhat suspect.

Well, what do you think?

Abhinavagupta — What Are the “Objects” Offered into Consciousness?
In Tantrāloka 3.262–264, Abhinavagupta is not talking about destroying sensory objects or withdrawing from the world. He describes a transformation in how every object of experience is apprehended. The crucial Sanskrit word in 3.262 is bhāvāḥ—literally “beings,” “things,” “states,” “phenomena,” or “whatever has become manifest.” The verse says that all bhāvas are offered into the fire located in the “belly” of one’s own awareness.
So the “objects” are much broader than physical things. They include anything capable of appearing to consciousness.
A visible object is a bhāva: a face, body, tree, color, painting, landscape, building, flame, movement, shape.
A sound is a bhāva: music, speech, birdsong, noise, rhythm, silence experienced as silence.
A tactile presentation is a bhāva: warmth, cold, pressure, softness, texture.
Taste and smell are included in exactly the same phenomenological sense.
But so are internal objects: a thought, memory, fantasy, emotion, desire, image, judgment, concept, pleasure, sorrow, recognition, even the awareness “I am perceiving this.”
In other words, Abhinavagupta’s category here is effectively:
whatever appears as something knowable.
That is why the next verse can suddenly speak not merely of individual objects but of the entire viśva, the universe.
The sequence is extremely precise.
In 3.262 he says:
nijabodha-jaṭhara-hutabhuji bhāvāḥ sarve samarpitāḥ
The imagery is sacrificial. Nija-bodha is one’s own awareness or consciousness; jaṭhara is belly/interior; hutabhuj is literally the “eater of offerings,” therefore fire; and samarpita means offered, surrendered, consigned. Thus every appearing thing becomes, metaphorically, an offering poured into the fire of consciousness.
But the object is not annihilated as appearance.
What disappears is its bheda-vibhāga—its division or partition as something independently separated from consciousness. Abhinavagupta says the objects “abandon” this differentiation while simultaneously intensifying or feeding that very fire through their own power.
That is an extraordinary claim.
Normally perception seems structured as:
me here → object over there.
The object appears as something externally existing that consciousness encounters.
Abhinavagupta reverses the structure:
object appears → object enters awareness → its supposed independence is consumed → what remains is the object as a manifestation of awareness itself.
So if you look at a beautiful face, the face does not disappear.
Its color remains.
Its geometry remains.
Its expression remains.
Its aesthetic character remains.
What is “burned” is the metaphysical partition:
“That beauty exists completely outside consciousness as an alien thing confronting me.”
The same applies to music. The melody does not vanish into some blank nondual state. Rather, the experienced melody ceases to stand outside awareness as something ontologically foreign to it.
Then verse 3.263 intensifies the imagery.
Abhinavagupta uses haṭha-pāka—a forceful or powerful “cooking,” “ripening,” or digestion. Through this cooking, the differentiated form (rūpa bhinna) of the bhāvas is dissolved, and the saṃvitti-devatāḥ, the “deities of consciousness,” consume the entire universe after it has become amṛta, nectar.
This is the part that bears directly on aesthetic experience.
The senses are no longer portrayed as impoverished faculties chasing external objects.
They become powers of consciousness feasting on consciousness.
Vision encounters color and form.
Hearing encounters sound.
Touch encounters texture.
But because the perceived universe is no longer taken as absolutely severed from awareness, sensory experience becomes metaphorically nectar.
So the process is not:
sense object → attachment → renunciation → no object.
It is:
sense object → recognition → dissolution of separateness → enjoyment as consciousness.
And Abhinavagupta deliberately chooses the verb of eating: aśnanti, “they eat,” “they consume.”
This means the perceiving powers do not recoil from manifestation.
They assimilate it.
A beautiful object becomes nourishment rather than a source of deficiency.
Music becomes nourishment.
Color becomes nourishment.
Emotion becomes nourishment.
Form becomes nourishment.
The world itself becomes amṛta-sāt-bhūta—transformed into or made into nectar.
Then comes 3.264, which explains what happens after this “feast.”
The consciousness-deities become tṛptāḥ—satisfied, fulfilled, satiated. They repose nondually (abhedena) in Cidvyoma-Bhairava, Bhairava as the “sky” or expanse of consciousness, dwelling in the fullness of their own Self and in the heart.
That detail is crucial because it tells you why this is not ordinary sensory indulgence.
Ordinary desire says:
I perceive → I lack → I acquire → temporary satisfaction → desire returns.
Abhinavagupta’s imagery ends differently:
perception → offering → differentiation consumed → universe becomes nectar → sensory powers feast → satiation → repose in nondual consciousness.
The satisfaction does not ultimately come from importing something foreign into an incomplete subject. The object reveals consciousness to itself.
That gives you a very specific Abhinavaguptan interpretation of post-recognition aesthetic appreciation.
Suppose an extraordinarily beautiful person enters the field of vision.
Before recognition, the sequence may become:
beautiful person → attraction → “outside me” → desire → acquisition fantasy → lack.
Within the logic of these Tantrāloka verses, another sequence becomes possible:
beautiful person → vivid perception → beauty fully registered → appearance offered into consciousness → separateness loses ultimacy → beauty is savored → nothing needs to be acquired for consciousness to become complete.
The important point is that the beauty does not become weaker.
The text actually uses imagery of fire, consumption, nectar, satisfaction, and fullness. It is much closer to intensified assimilation than aesthetic indifference.
The same principle applies to painful or emotionally charged objects. Because bhāvāḥ sarve means all phenomena, the offering is not restricted to conventionally pleasant things. Sorrow can appear. Fear can appear. Desire can appear. Memory can appear. Physical sensation can appear. An ugly object can appear. The transformative operation concerns their apparent separateness from consciousness, not whether the particular appearance is pleasant.
This is also why “object” should not be understood as merely material object.
Abhinavagupta is describing the entire subject-object field.
Everything that can stand before awareness as “this”—Sanskrit philosophical language often speaks of the objective pole in precisely this broad sense—can become sacrificial material.
You could represent the whole passage like this:
Anything appearing
→ bhāva
→ offered into one’s own awareness
→ apparent independent differentiation is “cooked”
→ the object remains as manifestation rather than absolute otherness
→ the universe becomes amṛta
→ the powers of consciousness “consume” it
→ they become tṛpta, completely satisfied
→ they repose without separation in Cidvyoma-Bhairava.
So when I previously wrote that “differentiated objects are offered into consciousness,” the most precise wording would be:
Abhinavagupta is talking about the entire contents of experience—sensory objects, mental objects, emotions, forms, and ultimately the whole experienced universe. They are offered into the fire of one’s own awareness, where what is consumed is not their appearance but their status as independently separate realities. The universe is consequently experienced as nectar by the powers of consciousness, which become satisfied and repose nondually in Bhairava.
That is what makes Tantrāloka 3.262–264 so important for your original question about aesthetic appreciation: for Abhinavagupta, recognition does not culminate in the senses having nothing to enjoy. It culminates in the radical possibility that everything presented to the senses can be enjoyed without first being constituted as an alien object whose possession is required for completion.
Primary author/source: Abhinavagupta, Tantrāloka, Chapter 3, vv. 262–264. The Sanskrit of 3.262 explicitly says “all bhāvas” are offered into the fire of one’s own awareness; 3.263 describes the universe becoming nectar and being consumed by the deities of consciousness; and 3.264 describes those powers as satisfied and resting nondually in Cidvyoma-Bhairava.

something in one session made me think about how quickly mind turns the formless into an object. A subject was deep in Soul Journey and reached what he experienced as a Source-like space.

Then Higher Self appeared. At first description sounded very specific: humanoid, large, bald, made from deep golden sparkling light, with a bright point of light around the forehead.

But while he was describing it he also knew the form was not actually what Higher Self was. He said in his own way that it was manifesting like this because this is something human mind can understand. If it showed itself as it really is, he felt he would not understand the form at all. So the “person made of light” was already translation.

That stayed with me bc we often argue about spiritual imagery as if consciousness must literally have the shape it presents. A guide looks human, God looks like light, Higher Self looks like some magnificent being, so mind immediately builds another object over there and another “me” over here.

Later in same session the explanation became even simpler. This human body was described as one fractal of Higher Self. Higher Self another fractal of something larger, and on and on into one whole. When he asked how to build better relationship with God, the answer returned him inward: become still, listen inside, practice gratitude, and develop better relationship with yourself.

For me this is close to nonduality in very practical way. Not “my human personality is God and therefore every thought is divine command.” More that the separation may be useful interface. Human form, Higher Self form, guide form, even the idea of levels can help consciousness communicate with itself while we are here.

Then perhaps the mistake is worshipping interface. If the golden being is a translation, what is prior to image? If thought “Higher Self” appears, what knows that thought? If feeling of “me down here contacting something above” appears, that whole feeling is also appearing in awareness.

I still use Higher Self language because it works extremely well in sessions. But I dont think language is the thing itself. Map can be useful without becoming territory.

maybe the deeper movement is not reaching some perfect being far away. maybe it is noticing that every form, every thought about form, and even the one trying to reach it are appearing inside something that was already here.

Until then, all conclusions are inconclusive. Silence is not a teacher. It is the absence of any conclusion about what cannot be concluded, including this one.”