VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA is five thousand years old and it is exhaustive; complete; it is everything. This is the listing of all the methods possible. Nothing can be added to it.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra is not philosophical. VIGYANA means consciousness, BHAIRAVA means the state which is beyond consciousness. TANTRA means technique.

So this treatise is a scientific one. Science is not concerned with why, science is concerned with how.

Tantra needs you in your totality. For tantra, doing is knowing, and there is no other knowing.

Tantra starts with Devi's questions. Devi is not just a consort, she is Shiva's other half. It is a dialogue between two lovers. It is a language of love.

Encounter these methods with a fresh mind. Play with them. Find one you like and stick with it for three months. Who knows what may happen?

Truth is always here. It is already the case. It is not something to be achieved in the future. YOU are the truth just here and now, so it is not something which is to be created or something which is to be devised or something which is to be sought. If you do a technique, your mind will turn from its journey into the future or the past. Suddenly you will find yourself in the present. That is why Shiva has given techniques, with no intellectual introduction.

Use each technique as given. Do not mix techniques.

Devi Asks:

O Shiva, what is your reality?

What is this wonder-filled universe?

What constitutes seed?

Who centers the universal wheel?

What is this life beyond form pervading forms?

How may we enter it fully, above space and time, names and descriptions? Let my doubts be cleared!

The first eight techniques are concerned with breathing.

You are breathing continuously from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Everything changes between these two points, but between these two points of birth and death, you must breathe.

Breathing is constant and YOU are not needed. Whether you are conscious or in a deep coma, you will breathe.

Your breath is a bridge between you and your body. It is also a bridge between you and the universe. The body is just the universe which has come to you, which is nearer to you. So, breath is also the bridge between you and space & time. Isn't it significant that YOU cannot be found in space & time? Your breath is the bridge.

Breath has two points. One is where it touches the body and the universe, and another is where it touches you and that which transcends the universe; the no-body.

1. RADIANT ONE, THIS EXPERIENCE MAY DAWN BETWEEN TWO BREATHS. AFTER BREATH COMES IN (DOWN) AND JUST BEFORE TURNING UP (OUT) - THE BENEFICENCE.

Watch the gaps. When you're in between breaths, you are not in the world; you are neither body nor mind.

In Buddhist terminology, this method is known as Anapanasati Yoga. Buddha's enlightenment was based on this technique; only this; and, probably by far, more people have gotten enlightened through this single, first technique, than any other.

2. AS BREATH TURNS FROM DOWN TO UP, AND AGAIN AS BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN - THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS, REALIZE.

This method is the same, but with a slight difference. The emphasis is now not on the gaps, but on the turnings; the points where the incoming breath becomes the outgoing breath and the outgoing breath turns into the next incoming breath. Realize the turns and you will realize the Self.

3. OR, WHENEVER IN-BREATH AND OUT-BREATH FUSE, AT THIS INSTANT TOUCH THE ENERGY-LESS, ENERGY-FILLED CENTER.

You have a center and a periphery. When the breath comes in, it goes to your center. When it goes back out, it moves from your center. Breathing fully (not shallowly), free of fear, touch and realize this deep center.

4. OR, WHEN BREATH IS ALL OUT (UP) AND STOPPED OF ITSELF, OR ALL IN (DOWN) AND STOPPED - IN SUCH UNIVERSAL PAUSE, ONE'S SMALL SELF VANISHES. THIS IS DIFFICULT ONLY FOR THE IMPURE.

Your (non-existent) small self is only a daily utility. In an emergency, for instance, even for the impure there will be a pause. Suddenly breathing stops. If you can be aware in that moment, you can attain the goal. When breathing stops, mind stops. The whole Zen technique is based on this fourth technique of Shiva.

5. ATTENTION BETWEEN EYEBROWS, LET MIND BE BEFORE THOUGHT. LET FORM FILL WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD AND THERE SHOWER AS LIGHT.

This was the (Indian) technique to open the third eye given to Pythagoras in an Egyptian mystery school. He is the father of all mysticism in the West. This fifth technique is at the base of all hypnotism. In the third eye, imagination and actualization are one phenomenon.

Close your eyes, then focus both of your eyes just in the middle of the two eyebrows. Focus just in the middle, with closed eyes, as if you are looking with your two eyes. Give total attention to it. This is one of the simplest methods of being attentive, because the pineal gland is magnetic for it. Attention is food for the third eye.

Once your attention is focused at the third eye center, you become immediately the witness of thoughts, rather than being identified with them. Feel the subtle, delicate vibration of breathing. Observe the essence of breathing prana.

Effortlessly, imagine your head is filled with prana. This prana essence is showering from the top of your head as light. And it WILL begin to shower, and under the shower of light you will be refreshed, reborn, completely new.

6. WHEN IN WORLDLY ACTIVITY, KEEP ATTENTION BETWEEN TWO BREATHS, AND SO PRACTICING, IN A FEW DAYS BE BORN ANEW.

Continually, as you go about your days, bring your attention to the gaps between breaths. If this method is practiced, your whole life will become a long drama. You will be an actor playing roles, but constantly centered in the gap, rather than the periphery of life. If you practice this sixth technique, your whole life will be as if it is not happening to you; as if it is happening to someone else.

7. WITH INTANGIBLE BREATH IN CENTER OF FOREHEAD, AS THIS REACHES HEART AT THE MOMENT OF SLEEP, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF.

Practice this technique only when you are falling asleep.

Centered at the third eye, feel the intangible prana in the incoming breath. Feel the empty outgoing breath. Before sleep comes, become aware of the breath and the invisible prana, and feel it coming to the heart. Let sleep come while you are continuously feeling it. If this happens - that you are feeling invisible breath coming into the heart and sleep overtakes you - you will be aware in dreams. You will know that you are dreaming.

First, you will eventually learn to create whatever dreams you want. Once you become master of your dreams you will stop dreaming. When dreaming stops, your sleep has a different quality altogether, and the quality is the same as of death. Death is deep sleep. Once you can know dreamless sleep and can be aware in it, then there will be no fear of death. If you can direct your dreams, you can direct your death also. Once you can direct your dreams you can direct everything, because dream is the very stuff of the world.

8. WITH UTMOST DEVOTION, CENTER ON THE TWO JUNCTIONS OF BREATH AND KNOW THE KNOWER.

If you're not of scientific mind, then add faith, love and trust to your process. Your body is the sacred temple of the divine. While you are taking a breath in, it is not only you who is taking the breath, it is the divine within you. This Divinity deserves utmost devotion.

9. LIE DOWN AS DEAD. ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH. OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING.

Raman Maharshi attained his enlightenment through this technique, spontaneously. Meher Baba attained by constantly staring at his ceiling, a variation on this method.

Krishnamurti spoke for decades about this method. If there is anger, stay in it. If there is grief, observe it without deviation.

Imagine that you are dead. Feel whatever you feel. You are dead and you cannot do anything, so stay so, without movement. This staying is beautiful. Silence of mind can occur, while You are still here.

10. WHILE BEING CARESSED, SWEET PRINCESS, ENTER THE CARESS AS EVERLASTING LIFE.

Relax and lovingly be in your center. Here, there is no becoming; just being. Do not move from this bliss. This very moment is what eternity is.

11. STOP THE DOORS OF THE SENSES WHEN FEELING THE CREEPING OF AN ANT. THEN.

Whatever you are sensing or feeling - stop. Stop any movement; stop even your breath. When the breath has stopped and all the senses are closed, where is this creeping? Where is the ant? Suddenly you are removed - far away.

12. WHEN ON A BED OR A SEAT, LET YOURSELF BECOME WEIGHTLESS, BEYOND MIND.

When there is no weight you are no more a body, because the weight is of the body - not of you. Your body is not you - it is part of the rest of the universe. Drop even the more subtle weight of the mind. What's left is weightless.

13. OR, IMAGINE THE FIVE-COLORED CIRCLES OF THE PEACOCK TAIL TO BE YOUR FIVE SENSES IN ILLIMITABLE SPACE. NOW LET THEIR BEAUTY MELT WITHIN. SIMILARLY, AT ANY POINT IN SPACE OR ON A WALL - UNTIL THE POINT DISSOLVES. THEN YOUR WISH FOR ANOTHER COMES TRUE.

Man is born with a center, but not with the knowledge of the center. This knowledge has to be gained.

This technique can be good for people who are color sensitive; who see color in their dreams.

Imagine that your five senses are five colors, and those five beautiful alive colors, extend into infinite space. Then move within with those colors. Move within and feel a center where all these five colors are meeting within you. This is just imagination, but it can help. Concentrate on this point until it dissolves. Actually, it is the mind, without movement, that dissolves.

14. PLACE YOUR WHOLE ATTENTION IN THE NERVE, DELICATE AS THE LOTUS THREAD, IN THE CENTER OF YOUR SPINAL COLUMN. IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED.

Close your eyes and visulize your spinal column from within. See it, and just in the middle of it visualize a nerve, delicate as the lotus thread of life, running in the center of your spinal column. Concentrate on it, and this very concentration will throw you to your center, which will radiate light.

This technique can be tried when you are in a deep sex act. When in a deep embrace, remain inside. Forget the other person; just go inside and visualize your spinal column in which more energy is flowing and the thread is more visible because you are silent.

Those who become adept at this method learn to see auras.

15. CLOSING THE SEVEN OPENINGS OF THE HEAD WITH YOUR HANDS, A SPACE BETWEEN YOUR EYES BECOMES ALL INCLUSIVE.

This is one of the oldest techniques - very much used, and one of the simplest also. Close all the openings of the head - eyes, ears, nose, mouth. When all the openings of the head are closed, your consciousness, which is continuously flowing out, is stopped suddenly: it cannot move out; instead it will stay at the third eye. In this space, the whole existence is included.

16. BLESSED ONE, AS SENSES ARE ABSORBED IN THE HEART, REACH THE CENTER OF THE LOTUS.

This method is for emotional, heart oriented people. First, relate your senses to the heart; secondly, always think that every sense goes deep down into the heart and becomes absorbed in it. You senses will then lead you to the heart, and your heart will become a lotus.

17. UNMINDING MIND, KEEP IN THE MIDDLE - UNTIL.

Buddha developed his whole technique of meditation on this sutra. Buddha says: "Remain always in the middle, between the extremes - in everything."

The mind likes extremes. Keep in the middle until the mind dies. Keep in the middle until there is no mind. This sutra is for your whole life. A quiet center will grow within you.

18. LOOK LOVINGLY AT SOME OBJECT. DO NOT GO TO ANOTHER OBJECT. HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OBJECT - THE BLESSING.

Every thought comes from the outside; there is no possibility of creating a thought within. Whenever you are thinking, you are not in. To be thinking, even about 'inner' things, is to be out. Especially with this sutra, do not be concerned with results; allow the mind to concern only with the technique. Look lovingly.

Looking lustfully, you turn a person into an object. Looking lovingly, you turn even objects into persons. Forget yourself. All is alive with the same consiousness.

19. WITHOUT SUPPORT FOR FEET OR HANDS, SIT ONLY ON THE BUTTOCKS. SUDDENLY, THE CENTERING.

Sensitize and balance on your ass. Feel the centering.

20. IN A MOVING VEHICLE, BY RHYTHMICALLY SWAYING, EXPERIENCE. OR IN A STILL VEHICLE, BY LETTING YOURSELF SWING IN SLOWING INVISIBLE CIRCLES.

Same thing; just in a moving bullock cart or other vehicle. Do not resist, but relax into the right groove of diminishing circles, until your body is not visibly moving, but only inside you still feel a subtle movement.

Gurdjieff created many dances from this basic technique. There is no need for a vehicle. Just whirl like a child. From the center, you will experience the gap between you and the body and the rest of the so-called objective universe.

21. PIERCE SOME PART OF YOUR NECTAR-FILLED FORM WITH A PIN, AND GENTLY ENTER THE PIERCING AND ATTAIN TO THE INNER PURITY.

Your body is not just a body, it is filled with you, and that you is the nectar.

Concentrate on some pain. The one who is concentrating is you. The concentration is being done on the body - that is the object. When you concentrate, the gap is broadened and the identification is broken. You are observing the pain, not feeling the pain; hence, the gap. Enter it and feel the bliss.

22. LET ATTENTION BE AT A PLACE WHERE YOU ARE SEEING SOME PAST HAPPENING, AND EVEN YOUR FORM, HAVING LOST ITS PRESENT CHARACTERISTICS, IS TRANSFORMED.

One of the great tantrics of this age, George Gurdjieff said that identification is the only sin. Identification is misery; non-identification is bliss.

You were a child once; now you are not. Your childhood is now just a dream. Observe the past and disidentify yourself from it; become a witness. Then observe the future, whatsoever you imagine about the future, and be a witness to that also. Then you can observe your present very easily, because then you know that whatsoever is present just now was future yesterday, and tomorrow it will become the past. But your witness is never past, never future. Your witnessing consciousness is eternal; it is not part of time. Look without getting involved.

23. FEEL AN OBJECT BEFORE YOU. FEEL THE ABSENCE OF ALL OTHER OBJECTS BUT THIS ONE. THEN, LEAVING ASIDE THE OBJECT-FEELING AND THE ABSENCE-FEELING, REALIZE.

First, feel it. See whatever it is and feel it, exclusive of anything and everything else. This technique is a love technique.

Choose some object you naturally love, and then forget the whole world. Relish the presence, taste the presence, feel it, go deep into it and let it go deep into you.

Then, leave it. If you were with it totally, you can drop it totally. Realize the vacuum, the nothingness. This is your nature; this is pure being; the Supreme.

24. WHEN A MOOD AGAINST SOMEONE OR FOR SOMEONE ARISES, DO NOT PLACE IT ON THE PERSON IN QUESTION, BUT REMAIN CENTERED.

Only you are the source of your moods. When you feel hate, do not go to the object. Go to the point from where the hate is coming. Go not to the person to whom it is going, but to the center from where it is coming. Move to the center, go within. Use your hate or love or anger or anything as a journey toward your inner center, to the source.

25. JUST AS YOU HAVE THE IMPULSE TO DO SOMETHING, STOP.

Life has two balances: one is of being and the other of doing. Doing is on the circumference; being is the center, preceding all activity, prior to mind.

Activity can be practiced; inactivity cannot be practiced - if you practice it, it becomes just another activity. You can be truly inactive only suddenly. Stop!

Any real impulse can be utilized for this technique. The pure energy of anger can be well used. Do not think about stopping, just stop - and wait. When you have stopped, no breathing, no movement, no thought - wait and see what happens.

26. WHEN SOME DESIRE COMES, CONSIDER IT. THEN, SUDDENLY, QUIT IT.

A different dimension of the previous technique: 'Consider it' means do not think for or against it, just consider the desire, what it is. The desire is there: look at it directly, immediately. Do not bring in your thoughts or ideas, because no thought is yours and no idea is yours. Just be attentive and, suddenly, quit it!

This technique can be empowering if you want to quit smoking. Without judgment, consider your smoking for seven days. After that, whenever you feel the urge to smoke, simply quit the urge. If you had considered well, it is possible to have a life changing experience along with the quitting.

27. ROAM ABOUT UNTIL EXHAUSTED AND THEN, DROPPING TO THE GROUND, IN THIS DROPPING BE WHOLE.

Do something very active and strenuous. Jump, dance, and run again until you are exhausted. Continue until you feel - not think, until you feel - that the whole body is tired. Then drop! Remember, don't plan it - be so exhausted that dropping happens of itself, in totality. This technique can help you to very easily fall into the cosmic ocean of energy.

28. SUPPOSE YOU ARE GRADUALLY BEING DEPRIVED OF STRENGTH OR OF KNOWLEDGE. AT THE INSTANT OF DEPRIVATION, TRANSCEND.

You can do it in an actual situation or you can imagine a situation. For example: lie down, relax, and feel as if your body is going to die. Close your eyes; start feeling that you are dying. Soon you will feel that your body is becoming heavy. Look at the body. Forget that you are dying and now be the observer. The body is lying dead and you are looking at it. There will be a transcendence. With death, planning ceases, with death worrying ceases, because every worry is life-oriented. You will be out of your mind, because a dead body needs no mind.

This feeling that you are in the body is because of the MIND! If the mind is not there, if it is absent, you will not say you are in the body or out of the body. You will simply be there, no in or out.

29. DEVOTION FREES.

This technique is for 'feeling' types of people and there is no 'how' to it. Pure devotion is freedom. When love goes deep, there is silence. Losing one's self to the silence is devotion.

Ramakrishna was an ultimate devotee. No one was more free than him.

In love, the other is important. In devotion, the "I" disappears - and the 'thou' too. Only Divinity is left. When 'you' are nowhere, the Beloved is everywhere.

30. EYES CLOSED, SEE YOUR INNER BEING IN DETAIL. THUS, SEE YOUR TRUE NATURE.

Eyes are the least bodily part in the human body. If matter can become non-matter, then such is the case with eyes. Eyes are material, but simultaneously they are also non-material. Eyes are a meeting point of you and your body. A single jump from the eyes can lead you to the source. You are NEAREST from there.

That is why, if you know how to look into someone's eyes, you can look into their depths. He or she is there. So if you are hiding a secret, your eyes will reveal it. And to control the eyes is very difficult. Your eyes are the doors to your secrets.

If you know how to unlock them, you will become vulnerable, open. And if you want to enter into your own secret life, your inner life, then again you will have to use the same lock and unlocking system.

If thinking is there, the eyes will move. If there is no thinking, the eyes will not move. Movement is the eye's nature when mind is involved. You can stop your eyes, though, by staring at a dot on the wall. If you do not allow them movement from A to B, a very strange phenomenon happens - they will move from outwards to inwards.

Close your eyes and stop their movements. Do not do anything; just remain there. Suddenly, someday, you will become aware that you are looking inside yourself.

Close your eyes and look at your inner being in detail. You will be separated from the body because the looker is never the looked at. The observer is different from the object.

Once freed from the body, freed from the identity, you are free to move. Now you can move into your mind - deep down. If you enter this cave of the mind, you will see that you are separate from the mind also.

A point comes beyond the mind where simply you are and now you cannot divide your single existence into two: object and subject. When you have come to that witness which cannot be penetrated, that in which you cannot move, which cannot be observed, only then have you come to the entrance to the real self, your true nature.

Look again and again and again into your real nature. It is beyond body and mind; it is beyond name and form; it is beyond space and time even, as they are only aspects of mind. Aren't you obviously prior to it all; empty, yet full; impersonal, yet aware; infinite and eternal?