Dhāraṇā 63: The Three States Are Bhairava (Verse 86)¶
1. Exercise Title & Verse¶
Dhāraṇā 63: The Three States Are Bhairava (Verse 86)
2. Sanskrit (IAST)¶
kiṃcij jñātaṃ dvaitadāyi bāhyālokaḥ tamaḥ punaḥ | viśvādi bhairavaṃ rūpaṃ jñātvānantaprakāśabhṛt || 86 ||
3. English (Literal)¶
Having known waking and the other states as the very form of Bhairava, namely fragmentary knowledge that gives rise to duality, the shining of the outer, and then darkness, one becomes the bearer of infinite light.
4. Main Commentary (Bhāṣya)¶
Padārtha. Kiṃcij jñātam means only something is known, not the whole. This is the waking state as limited cognition. Because it is partial, it is dvaitadāyi, productive of subject-object duality. Bāhyālokaḥ literally means the shining of the outer. In this verse it points to the dream state, where impressions taken from the outer world reappear within one's own inner light. Tamaḥ punaḥ means then darkness: deep sleep as obscuration, where differentiated objects are absent. Viśvādi means waking and the subsequent states, traditionally viśva, taijasa, and prājña. Bhairavaṃ rūpam is the decisive phrase. These states are not merely said to resemble Bhairava or lead to Bhairava. They are to be known as Bhairava's very form. Jñātvā means having known, recognized, or rightly understood. Ananta-prakāśa-bhṛt means one who bears, carries, or is filled with infinite light.
Anvaya. The sentence runs plainly as follows: having known waking, dream, and deep sleep as the very form of Bhairava, namely waking as partial dualizing knowledge, dream as the inner shining of outer impressions, and deep sleep as darkness, one becomes filled with infinite consciousness-light.
Tatparya. The previous verse used the vastness of sky and skull-space as the contemplative support. This verse makes a subtler and more interior turn. The field of practice is no longer a spatial image but the whole cycle of lived experience itself. That is the new contribution here. Waking is not outside Bhairava because it is busy and divided. Dream is not outside Bhairava because it is imaginal and unstable. Deep sleep is not outside Bhairava because it appears dark or blank. All three are modes in which the same consciousness presents, conceals, and re-presents itself. Singh makes the doctrinal point explicit: the three states are expressions of turya. Lakshmanjoo sharpens the practical point: they must be owned as not separate from God-consciousness. The verse therefore breaks the instinct to reserve reality for some special state beyond ordinary experience. The ordinary states themselves, rightly known, disclose the extraordinary.
Sādhana. Practice this successively and close to actual experience. During waking, when perception and thought are dividing everything into self and other, recognize: this too is arising in consciousness. As dream arises, or as it is freshly recalled upon waking, recognize that its images are only the residues of the outer world shining in your own inner light. When emerging from dreamless sleep, do not move immediately. Stay with the just-passed darkness before the mind starts naming the day. Know that this too was not outside Bhairava. Lakshmanjoo's decisive hinge is the center between states. Work especially at the actual junctions: wakefulness into sleep, sleep into wakefulness, and dream into dreamless sleep. The operative means is not analysis of states but ahaṃ iti parāmarśaṇaṃ, direct I-awareness. First there is the inward closing at the junction, nimīlanā; then the fruit is the opening into infinite light, unmīlanā. Do not try to remain mentally busy through the night. Catch the transitions and let recognition ripen there.
5. Jaideva Singh — The Logical¶
The verse is terse but grammatically exact. Kiṃcij jñātam is neuter and denotes fragmentary cognition: only something is known. Dvaitadāyi qualifies that fragmentary knowing as duality-producing, which is why the waking state is characterized here by limitation rather than fullness. Viśvādi compresses the whole triad, viśva, taijasa, and prājña, into one compound. Jñātvā is the absolutive on which the result depends: having known these states as bhairavaṃ rūpam, one becomes ananta-prakāśa-bhṛt, a bearer of infinite light. Singh's doctrinal clarification is exact and necessary: waking, dream, and deep sleep are to be known as expressions of turya, the fourth state that is Bhairava. They are not independent domains with separate reality. Singh also classifies the method as āṇavopāya leading to the śāmbhava state.
6. Swami Lakshmanjoo — The Lineage¶
Do not wait for a fourth state apart from the three. Take the three themselves. In waking there is duality. In dream the so-called outer world is appearing only in your own inner light. In deep sleep there is darkness. The hidden cue is ahaṃ iti parāmarśaṇaṃ: self-awareness must be applied here, not philosophical agreement. Lakshmanjoo's practical correction about deep sleep is decisive. One does not gain entry there by argument. One becomes aware in the center where one state gives way to the next: sleep and wakefulness, wakefulness and sleep, dream and dreamless sleep. Jñātvā is the inward folding, nimīlanā; ananta-prakāśa-bhṛt is the fruit, the sudden unmīlanā into God-consciousness. Because three differentiated states are initially being handled, the method begins on an āṇava footing; because the actual operative hinge is self-recognition, a śākta movement is active; because it opens into direct God-consciousness, it resolves in śāmbhava. The practical instruction is simple: stay awake to the junction.
7. Mark Dyczkowski & Christopher Wallis — Context & Philology¶
Wallis' official concordance gives the clearest public verse-specific rendering available in this pass: https://hareesh.org/blog/2023/9/27/vijaana-bhairava-tantra-translation-concordance-part-two. He titles Verse 86 The three states (Y62 ~ B2) and translates it so that waking, dream, and deep sleep are known as the very form of Bhairava. That wording matters. It prevents the verse from being weakened into a mere comparison. He also clarifies bāhyāloka as the illumination of the remnants of the external in dream, which aligns well with Lakshmanjoo's insistence that dream draws on what was first met outwardly. Dyczkowski's official PDF translation confirms the same structure: waking is the state in which something is known that generates duality, dream is the light that illumines the mental traces of the outer world, deep sleep is darkness, and the fruit is infinite light once these are known as Bhairava's nature: https://www.anuttaratrikakula.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Vijnaanabhairava.pdf. Indirect context only: Hareesh's official The Shiva Sutras page says the Fourth expands into waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and that one who experiences these three as the Fourth is vīreśa; his First Flow of the Spanda-kārikā likewise says the essence-nature flows equally in all three states and the perceiver never departs from its own nature. Those passages are not commentaries on Verse 86, but they illuminate the doctrinal world the verse belongs to. No fuller public verse-specific talk or transcript by Wallis or Dyczkowski was located in this pass.
8. Daniel Odier — The Somatic Grounding¶
Odier's appendix rendering preserves the experiential sequence: dissolve duality in wakefulness, let the same presence continue into dream, then cross the night of deep sleep as Bhairava. The bodily hinge is the felt change of density as waking loosens, dream-images arise, and the body sinks into the dark. Do not chase dream content. Feel the same silent presence under the bright sensory body, the dream body, and the heavy night-body.
9. Paul Reps — The "Sudden Hit"¶
N/A — the available Reps extraction for technique 63 appears to map to the subsequent darkness practice rather than this three-state verse, so it is not used as direct evidence here.
10. Upāya Type¶
Primary reading: āṇavopāya leading to śāmbhava. Singh states this directly. Lakshmanjoo complicates the middle by grounding the operative hinge in ahaṃ iti parāmarśaṇaṃ, so a real śākta movement is present; yet he still says the practice begins with three differentiated states and ends in śāmbhava. The safest classification is therefore: āṇava at the outset, resolving through a śākta hinge into śāmbhava.
11. Resonance Check (Adhikāra)¶
This dhāraṇā suits the practitioner who can work with sleep-thresholds rather than only formal seated meditation. It especially favors someone able to notice continuity across changing states without romanticizing dreams or mistaking blankness for realization.
12. The "What Else?" — The Pitfall¶
The trap is to repeat the doctrine at bedtime and then destroy the actual practice by moving immediately on waking, checking the phone, or launching into the day. That erases the threshold in which the just-passed darkness can be recognized as Bhairava.
13. Verse-Specific Glossary¶
viśva: the waking knower. Here it means consciousness functioning through outward, fragmentary, dualizing cognition.taijasa: the dream-state experiencer. Here it means the inner shining in which impressions of the outer world reappear.prājña: the deep-sleep condition. Here it means darkness or concealment, not realization by itself.parāmarśa: direct self-recognition. Here it is the feltI-awareness Lakshmanjoo makes the practical hinge of the method.ananta-prakāśa: infinite light of consciousness. Here it is the fruit of recognizing all three states as Bhairava's own expression.