Consciousness Is Everything: The Yoga of Kashmir Shaivism

Filled with practical and effective content. And that has personally proved to be extremely useful on multiple occasions. Highly recommended!

For me, this was the first book that I felt was truly worth fully giving my time and attention to as thoroughly as possible in order to try to understand what the Author was offering. Initially, I would flick through to different sections of the book and found it wild, engaging and fascinating with a deep ring of Truth. I then chose to discipline my wandering and peculiar mind by moving through the book from cover to cover, and not continuing to the next page until I had at least some grasp of what was being shared. As I did this I found that this regularly sized book seemed to expand like a tardis to contain an ancient library filled with the deepest wisdom known to humanity. What can I say-when speaking on the subject of the meaning of our existence and how to tune into that at the highest octave, of course I will wax lyrical when the Author hits like an arrow to the heart with such a ring of profundity. Since going through the book in this manner, I have again and again dipped into the book, and to my surprise, the tardis keeps expanding and I continue to gain new benefit from the book. I believe that it is possible to enter this book at any point along our path and gain something great, as the author speaks in such an accessible way. As there are such profound depths to these words, however, it seems that the layers will also continue to deepen and offer fresh inspiration as we go deeper on our own journey. Since reading this book, I have looked often at some of the more scholarly works on the Shavite sutras, but although rewarding, they seem often too dense for me to make much headway. I think that the Author of "Consciousness is everything" is able to convey the meaning and spirit of these sutras in a valuable way for the modern reader. For those beginning to explore Sadhana, or spiritual practice, I would also recommend another an accessible and practical book by Swami Shankarananda, "Happy for no good reason".

Swami Shankarananda and his circle of scholars have created a sound psychological guide to yogic meditation practice. It is grounded in, and integrates many profound insights from the scriptural sources of Kashmir Shaivism and other literature as well. It is well orgainzed, simple, yet very subtile. It is profoundly "orienting"; it turns the modern materialistic western mind-set on its head. It contains psychological insights that go beyond much of western psychology. This book is worthy of re-reading many many times. It is a meditation exercise in itself.Students of Advaita may initially be slightly put off by Swami's faint criticisms of that arm of Hindu tradition. Popular Advaita's contemporary proponents are not "otherworldly" in any sense. How many times have I heard the late Swami Chinmayananda advise, "Revel in Life! It is all His Play!" with the enthusiasm of a Kashmiri Shaivite! This is a study guide for anyone interested in human transformation who has any foundation in Hinduism. If you are looking for ways in which to integrate insights gained in meditation into day to day activity and human relationships, if you are truly interested in "making your prakriti the Shakti of your purusha" (Aurobindo), YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!

I first learned about Kashmir Shaivism when being a disciple of Swami Muktananda and found it to be the answers and much more to all the questions and searchings of heart and soul which I had been carrying with me since early youth. Swami Shankarananda describes and makes come to life this profound knowledge in an easy to understand and lively way which makes me feellike I am sittign at Sami Muktananda's feet once more and continue to learn and grow.

There are many Kashmir Shaivism workshops, and related books on tantra and other topics in the West, most of which do not go into much real depth. This book is not one of those - the author is an obvious practitioner for a long time, and nicely sheds light on the many aspects of Kashmir Shaivism that he learned studying under his guru for many years.

Swamiji has a way of taking a foreign philosophy and making it readily understandable to us Westerners. This book is about Kashmir Shaivism, an ancient philosophy that ably articulates how existence is set up. It is based mainly on the Shiva Sutras which in it's opening sutra states the ultimate truth: Everything is Shiva.

A beautiful overview of the old history of the indian or yogic philosophy. It takes a long time to read it because of the many new information.

Khasmir Shavism is a beautiful philosophy. It's states that we're all consciousness and we're all God and to embrace everything with love. Swamiji makes this so easy to understand. Definitely worth the read, it's for the experts and the beginners. I'd also recommend Happy for No Good Reason too.

Really helped me to understand some of the key tenets of Kashmiri Shaivism and how it's applied.

This is a really excellent book on the topics of nondual Tantra in both practice and philosophy. If you are looking for a place to begin then this book is it, hands down. It clearly lays out the basics of the philosophy and methodology and a little bit of the history. Meditations are included in each chapter. Just a really excellent overview. He draws from major texts like the Shiva sutras, the pratyabijna hridayam, Vijnana bhairava tantra and the Spanda Karikas, Tantraloka, etc, all of which I recommend reading to further understand Classical Nondual Tantra. I should also point out that there are translations of 3 of these texts included in the appendices of the book (shiva sutras, spanda karikas, and pratyabijna hridayam). This book by Swami Shankarananda is easy to follow, well laid out, to the point. He makes the essence to true Tantra available to the english speaking westerner, its simply an essential read. The only thing I would add to this book is more information on the subtle body and practices relating to working directly with it.For those who dont know, Swami Shankarananda has done a great deal to bring these teachings tk the west. He spent at least 12 years with the great Guru Baba Muktananda, and he spent time also with Neem Keroli Baba, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Anandamayi Ma, Hari Dass Baba, And Master Goenka. He has a website shivayoga.org, he offers teachings and courses on Hatha yoga, self inquiry, kashmir shaivism and meditation as the director of the shiva school of meditation and yoga in Melbourne Australia. He has written a few other books as well.For additional reading another really good book on classical tantra is called "Tantra Illuminated" by Christopher Wallis and is a must read for anyone who is beginning to learn about true Tantric history, philosophy and practice. If you are new to the subject and want to go deeper I really urge you to also check out written and video material by Christopher Wallis, Swami Khecaranatha, Paul Ortega Mueller, Kamakalar Mishra, Jaideva Singh, Mark Dyczcowski, Igor Kufayev, Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Peter Brown, Swami Lakshmanjoo, Christopher Tompkins, Lilian Silburn, swami Janakananda and Swami Chetanananda to name just a few.

Trika (Kashmir Shaivism) is IMO one of the deepest tantra yoga and philosophy systems and probably without a competent guru impossible to master. Yet this book nevertheless gives you a comprehensive overview of the system and supports one's efforts with some very good exercises. My impression is that this book, compared with the works of Swami Lakshman Joo, Jaideva Singh, Mark Dyczkowski and André Padoux can be considered as an entrance to the great Trika for the general public.The Swami is a disciple of the late Swami Muktananda of Ganeshpuri who was greatly influenced by Kashmir Shaivism in his yogic and tantric teachings and a powerful yogi himself.The missing star is due to the sometimes a bit too matter of fact presentation of some of the deeply esoteric Trika teachings. But that does not really lessen the quality of this book.

I love this book, I wish it was available when I was in my formative years to guide me through life. Although, I did purchase it when it was first published, as I enjoyed Swamiji’s book Happy For No Good Reason, which sparked my appetite for Kashmir Shaivism.And now during COVID 19, Swamiji is running a weekly study group reading directly from this book. It’s every Tuesday night here in Australia. The readings spread a whole new light on this incredible book. I feel so grateful to the author.Highly recommend.

Ottimo testo sul tantrismo shivaita del Kashmir, storicamente molto accurato. L'unico neo sono le illustrazioni un pò sbiadite. Consigliato soprattutto a chi pratica il jnana yoga, lo yoga della conoscenza.