Listen with your whole being. Your true nature and how you appear are not two.
Kashmir Shaivism gives a particular language to this inquiry through Spanda: the subtle pulsation or dynamism of consciousness. The word invites us to explore how stillness and activity belong together, rather than placing the truth of Being somewhere apart from living.
This tradition is an important source of my approach to the energy body. My study with Jean Klein brought the inquiry into the immediacy of body-feeling, listening and movement. Here I introduce that influence and explain how I use it in Being Yoga.
What Is Kashmir Shaivism?
Kashmir Shaivism names a family of Śaiva philosophical and contemplative traditions associated with Kashmir. Its non-dual teachings explore consciousness, its powers of manifestation, and the recognition of our true nature. Important texts include the Śiva Sūtras, Spanda Kārikā, Vijñāna Bhairava and works of recognition associated with Utpaladeva, Abhinavagupta and Kṣemarāja.
In this vocabulary, Śiva points to universal consciousness and Śakti to its power of knowing, expressing and manifesting. These do not describe two independent realities. Appearance is explored as inseparable from the consciousness through which it is evident.
For a traditional presentation, the teachings preserved by the Lakshmanjoo Academy introduce the principal systems and texts. The account here connects selected themes with my own teaching; it is not a complete survey of the tradition.
Spanda: Stillness Alive with Expression
Spanda is often rendered as pulsation, throb or vibration. These words can suggest an object oscillating in space. The teaching points more subtly: consciousness is not inert, and its living expression is not separate from it.
Swami Lakshmanjoo’s teaching uses the expression “vibrationless-vibration”. It draws attention to dynamism that is not simply the physical travel of a thing from one place to another. See the Academy’s presentation of the Spanda Kārikā and Spanda Sandoha.
A sound appears and resolves. A sensation becomes distinct and fades. A thought is known. The invitation is not to collect these events, but to inquire into their living presence and the Awareness by which they are evident. Nothing requires us to turn Spanda into a particular measurable frequency.
A Still Image That Appears to Vibrate
Look gently at the pattern below. Although it is a still image, you may notice an impression of vibration, shimmering or movement. Other viewers may experience it differently. Let the looking be brief and easy; look away if it is uncomfortable.
The pattern has not become an animated picture. Yet the experience of seeing it may have a dynamic quality. This makes it a useful teaching image: what we call a “thing” and the living encounter with it are not the same description.
I use the image as an invitation to inquire into perception, not as a literal demonstration of Spanda. Notice the pattern, any apparent movement and the knowing of both. Is Awareness itself another line in the picture?
Jean Klein and the Energy Body
Jean Klein’s approach brought self-inquiry, meditation and bodywork into one living exploration. Rather than beginning with a body that had to be forced into an ideal shape, his teaching invited sensitivity to the body as it is felt.
Billy Doyle describes this approach from his experience of studying with Klein in Yoga in the Kashmir Tradition: The Art of Listening. His introduction, reproduced with the publisher’s permission, places this body exploration alongside Klein’s non-dual teaching.
For me, the energy body is approached through this immediate body-feeling: sensitivity, aliveness, openness, contraction and movement. We understand it through its expression and activity. The name directs attention; it does not replace the encounter.
Jean Klein pointed out that working with the energy body still involves a subtle separation. In my approach, this work prepares the ground for inquiry into that separation itself. The doing flowers as Being—not by producing wholeness, but through recognizing the not-two that has always been the case.
Consider descending a flight of stairs while expecting one more or one fewer step than is actually there. The physical body abruptly meets the discrepancy. In my teaching, this illustrates how the felt anticipation of movement can lead the physical action. The surprise invites attention to the relationship between an idea of the body and its living response.
This is not a demand to produce unusual sensations. A hand resting on a table, the contact of the feet with the ground or a breath moving through the ribs can be enough to begin.
Prāṇa Is the Breath within the Breath
Prāṇa is vital life-force energy. Like energy, we understand it through what it does—through its activity and expression. Prāṇa is Flow: breathing, sensing, moving, and the constant change of everyday life. The name points to this living activity; it does not contain or replace it.
Prāṇa is the breath within the breath. Prāṇa is Flow.
Prāṇa and Spanda belong to related fields of inquiry, but the words are not interchangeable. Prāṇa directs attention here to vital activity; Spanda points more broadly to the dynamism of consciousness. The connection is explored through Listening-Feeling rather than through a fixed equation between terms.
Advaita and Vedanta: What Do the Terms Mean?
Advaita means “not-two”: a, not, and dvaita, duality. It points to the absence of an ultimate separation between the Self and Reality. It is not the joining of two independently existing things into one.
Vedanta means the end or culmination of Vedic knowledge. Here, “end” points to the outcome of exploring the Vedas and Upanishads: self-knowledge, wisdom that includes and transcends intellectual knowledge. It is the recognition lived through Knowing via Being.
Doing That Flowers as Being
My approach brings practice and self-inquiry together: a doing that flowers as Being. This is why I call it Being Yoga.
We often begin with an apparently dualistic relationship: “I am here, attending to my body, my breath or that sound.” There is a felt practitioner and something being practised. This is a useful beginning. Listening-Feeling allows the assumptions within that relationship to become evident.
As the inquiry deepens, attention turns toward the assumed separation itself. Is the listener an independent entity apart from listening? Does a changing image of “me” contain the truth of what I am? The approach moves from the experience of duality toward the recognition of not-two.
The doing does not manufacture Being. Practice supports attention, sensitivity and the assimilation of understanding. Self-knowledge removes the error of misidentification; what is recognized has never been absent. A moment of insight can be a switchover in understanding, rather than the production of a new Self.
In my teaching, the energy-body approach is a pathway and preparation within this inquiry. It is helpful to distinguish the philosophical view being taught from the standpoint adopted in a particular practice. A practitioner may begin by distinguishing the knower from bodily sensation or movement, while the inquiry ultimately examines the assumed separation itself.
Dualistic Practice and Non-Dual Understanding
The wider Śaiva scriptural traditions include dualistic, mixed and non-dual presentations. The Trika and recognition teachings commonly introduced as Kashmir Shaivism are presented as non-dual in Swami Lakshmanjoo’s account. “Kashmiri Yoga” can also name practical body approaches whose teaching begins with distinctions between practitioner, sensation and movement. We need to ask which teaching, practice and standpoint are meant, rather than settle the question with a single label.
A comparison with Sāṃkhya and its distinction between consciousness and nature can help clarify the question. Beginning with a distinction in practice does not, by itself, decide whether separation is regarded as ultimately real. My approach blends practical exploration with Advaita Vedanta inquiry: from the experience of duality to recognition of not-two.
How This Relates to Advaita Vedanta
Being Yoga’s central inquiry is spiritual awakening in the Advaita Vedanta tradition: self-knowledge, the recognition that Ātman is Brahman. Kashmir Shaivism is a distinct tradition, with its own texts and explanations. Its language of Śiva–Śakti, Spanda and recognition offers a valuable influence without requiring us to make the two traditions identical.
In my use of the Ātman and Brahman lenses, the difference lies in the teaching standpoint, not in two separate realities. Likewise, the activity of experience need not be set against Being. The inquiry concerns the assumed separation.
We often treat living activity as a fixed noun. Regarding the heart, for example, we treat a verb as a noun when the name obscures its living movement. The same question can be brought to a fixed personal image: is this image the whole truth of what I am?
Listening-Feeling in Everyday Life
Sit comfortably and feel the support beneath you. Let breathing happen. Hear a nearby sound, then allow the whole field of sensation to be present without choosing a special sensation as the answer.
Notice when the thought “my body” gathers this changing field into a familiar picture. There is no need to fight the thought. Simply notice the picture and the living encounter it names.
In a conversation, listen to the end of a sentence. Feel the response beginning to form. Can an assumption be seen before it becomes a conclusion? It is the nature of an error to cease once seen. Understanding finds expression in the way we respond.
This is the direction of Knowing via Being: wisdom that includes and transcends intellectual knowledge. The point is peace of mind, lasting contentment and well-being. The exploration returns us to living, relating and care.
Continue the Inquiry
Explore What Is Energy Body Yoga?, Ātman and Brahman: Two Teaching Lenses, One Reality, and The Universe is Sounded Om.