The concept of SPANDA originates in the nondual tradition of Kashmir and is less known elsewhere. Abinahavagupta called spanda the “pulsation of the ecstasy of the Divine Consciousness.”
It seems to be a linking quality between the energy/body/consciousness and can manifest as a “sacred tremor”.
Do I know it? I don’t know. I can’t know because I haven’t yet conceptualized and assimilated it as such.
Students of Kashmir tradition say “when you experience it, you know it”.
Yet how do we know it? Do various vibrating experiences in our body relate to Spanda or not? I don’t know.
And spanda is different from Kundalini and other specific energy streams.
How is spanda connected to awakening?
Is spanda related to kundalini?
Is there something such as spanda awakening? (similarly as there is kundalini awakening)
So I find this interesting because anything (in this example ‘spanda’) can not be known as such without conceptualizing it appropriately. A strange link between experience and conceptualization. Does conceptualization initiates and prepares the way for certain experiences or realizations?
Different traditions focus on different essential qualities of Reality, such as love, emptiness, nonduality, luminosity, spaciousness, nothingness, compassion, holy spirit, god, spanda, etc. And this particular focus somehow starts to bend the perceptual space (like gravity does) into particular configurations suitable to support the emergence of these qualities.
E.g. Kashmir yoga practitioners may care about spanda but not about the holy spirit and emptiness. And Cristian mystics may care about love and the holy spirit and Christ consciousness but have no concerns about spanda. And modern spiritual streams may be busy with raising vibration, traveling toward 5D, channelling, and ascension but have no concerns about the holy spirit or spanda. And many modern nonduality teachers are occupied with consciousness and awakening but have no interest in 5D and ascension. And so on, ad infinitum. Hey, it’s wild out there (or rather in there), a Wild Blue Yonder (thanks to Werner Herzog).
I feel that these qualities are not only different names for the same thing. No, they are not. Each lineage provides a pathway and a certain Logos for a specific type of realization And I find this rather amazing and wonderful to see – from a far enough perspective – the vast and rich landscapes of possible human realizations. Wow! So much juice to enjoy.
So I’m sitting at this liquid beauty, pure magic at play, and sensing subtle sensations appearing, softly tingling, stretching out in space, traveling and spacing out, playing … endlessly.
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by Primož Potočnik