1 Introduction

The objective world [1] including the mind and all the processes of the senses are consciousness alone just like the subject (i.e., Sa. aham, I, Śiva) itself. As Vivekananda says, God only is (Sarvapriyananda 2023, 58:06). However, due to the illusionary effect of the “limiting powers” (i.e., Sa. six kañcukās including māyā) this consciousness undergoes transformation [2] and is perceived as an independent object (Sa. aham, idam) for persons without self-realization. Still, this transformation alone gives rise to all the animate and inanimate objects and life processes that surround us day by day. Ancient philosophies like Sānkhya, Advaita Vedānta, Kashmir Śaivism (here Trika) are intuitive explanations, revelations, and expe­riences to answer the most significant questions of existence, for example, to understand the nature of our sufferings and provide effective remedies for them.

The goal of this paper is to highlight key similarities between the world model elaborated in the Trika philosophy and the principles of modern computer science and cybersecurity with the hope of helping sādhakas affected by current computer technologies. On top of that, we show how well-known exploitation techniques can be utilized as dhāranā practices in yoga.

2 World Model

The ancient sages of India worked out various philosophical systems over the millennia the sole purpose of which was to model our very existence and its characteristics. However, Kashmir Śaivism, the central philosophy of tantrism, is not one of the systems of Shad Darśana (Sānkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, Vaiśesika, Mīmāmsā, and Vedānta), but we bend upon inspiring from their model and nomenclature due to its extensive elaboration on the subtle nature of Ultimate Reality. At the same time, we solely focus on those aspects that fits the needs of this paper.

For this reason, in the following we suggest a simplified world model by drawing similarities between the principles of the Trika system and that of computer systems. The only reason of such an attempt is to create certain reference points for the mind to help practitioners map better some ancient concepts with the modern terms of information technology. Our main guide rail will be aligned to the concept of tattwas that are creator principles that build up the empirical world and what is beyond. Table 1. proposes some corresponding terms of software engineering/computer science to the aforementioned tattwa system.

Table 1. Suggested correspondence between tattwas and terms in software engineering/computer science. The tattwas in parentheses indicate the differences between different Śāstras and the Trika Āgama (Abhinavagupta 2017, 27–28, 102).

In our model, an application can be imagined as a being (e.g., deity, asura, human, animal, insect, animate objects, etc.) that lives in a “world” (Sa. loka) created by Prakrti. From a “dualistic” (Sa. apara) point of view, the higher lokas (Woodroffe 2017, 25), such as Satya loka, are inhabited by deities who are willing the help one in one’s sādhanāif one’s maturity is satisfactory enough. Purusa and Prakrti are inseparable so altogether they are viewed in our model as a runtime environment that allows for creating, sustaining and destroying life processes, applications, simply put, beings. Each application is a composition of bytes, just like all the animate and inanimate objects that are the expressions of the spanda (Sa. spiritual dynamism without any movement in itself but serves as a cause of all movements) principle (Vasugupta 2014, xvii, 112). So, a specific byte (e.g., the hexadecimal C3 is the decimal 195) can be considered as a letter of the Sanskrit alphabet, which is a spanda in itself. The only difference that the multiplicity of a byte (8 bits) is not 50, but 256 as 0 and 1 can be represented in 256 different ways on 8 bits, which is a historical foundational data unit of computer architectures. From this point on, the similarity between words, mantras, instructions, or data sequences is inevitable. For example, the byte of C3 can be evaluated as a 1-byte-long instruction (e.g., ret, return) on CISC (i.e., Complex Instruction Set Computers) architectures. Similarly, the “h” (Sa. visarga) letter on its own refers to the specific operation of “reflection” (Sa. pratibimba) (Laksman Joo 2020, 40). However, the mantra of “sauh” comprises three letters “s”, “au”, and “h” just like the 0F 01 D5 (XEND, transaction end) instruction of certain Intel CPUs (i.e., central processing unit). Thus, the entire instruction set of a computer architecture can be viewed as a collection of words (Sa. vāk) or mantras that is capable of expressing the nature of our very existence. Our “attention”, or “cognition” (Sa. jñāna shakti) can be viewed as the position of the instruction pointer that tells the CPU what instruction to run next. We could go even further with more subtle details; however, the goal of the paper is only to give a framework to help move forward with a real sādhanāthe attempt of which is expanded in the following chapters.

3 Reality Escape Using Sankalpa

One of the very first steps to enter the “detached state of mind” (Sa. vairāgya) is to direct one’s attention to a meditation object, for example, a mantra. However, most of the time the mantra is repeated by one’s willpower and effort, which create an extra noise in the process and let the mind wander in its earlier “impressions” (Sa. samskāras). Our goal, however, is to create a well-established approach, where the mind gets automatically absorbed into the “meditation object” (Sa. ekāgra mindset). As we cannot use our logical way of operation here, we have to bend upon on our strong belief coming from nearly all spiritual traditions, that we are also members of a dimensional hierarchy where patrons, angels or other higher beings are willing to react to our request to help us. Thus, we are also going to use their help to resolve our karmic boundaries that disable us to experience a higher state of mind without tamastic adhesives.

At this point, we have to make a clear difference between a sankalpa and willpower. While the former is more related to an intention, which can be handled as an asynchronous request where one doesn’t expect an instant response from the recipient (i.e., a deity living at a higher reality) allowing one to relax from the outcome of the process. The latter, however, bounds and leaves one unsatisfied until the result arrives.

Another key aspect of yoga sādhanā is to get detached from the results of our actions. One of the most efficient ways to do this is to offer the “fruits of our actions” (Sa. karma phala) to a higher cause or, in our case, a deity. This simple attitude carries various advantages. Firstly, we relax from our expectations even more, thus our sankalpa will be indeed an intention and not a mundane will. Secondly, we give forward something for our chosen deity for the help they give us. Lastly, due to the non-dual nature of “pure consciousness” (Sa. Chit), anything we give forward will get back to us multiplied. If we carefully analyse the nature of this aforementioned process between sankalpa and offer it creates a loop between the native and the deity enabling a continuous resonance between them. Additionally, the separation between the native and deity is only illusionary due to the karmic bondages and limiting powers, the loop takes place within me.

3.1 Preparation and Protection

As human beings, we are continuously affected by our environment, which challenge and test us via a wide range of circumstances we experience in our waking and sleeping states. When one doesn’t have enough power to handle properly a given challenge (e.g., the reaction is emotional) the imprint of such an event will be recorded at the deeper layers of the mind (subconscious/ unconscious). This “imprint” or samskāra is a vibration that one resonated with due to one’s false identification with the mind or body. Until this vibration is demodulated and purified from one’s energy system, one has to face the karmic consequences later on potentially in a more elaborate way.

Each of us comes with certain personality traits that shape our way of thinking, “knowledge” (Sa. jñāna), “desires” (Sa. icchā), and “actions” (Sa. kriyā). However, problems arise when these personality traits represented by the distribution of different tattwas are unbalanced and our very attributes are over or underused compared to their normal setups. As mentioned earlier the reason for this lies in the fact that our energy system represented by the purity of our nādīs are conditioned either by our healthy personality or by our environment. The model of Human Design Systems (Ra Uru Hu 2019) mentions nādis that may or may not contain “life force” (Sa. prāna) by design. When there is a full prānic flow in a given nādi, then prāna is consistently emanating out and no environmental influence can affect the practitioner here. However, if a nādi lacks prāna by design, then it exists as a conduit that is to be conditioned by the environment. The problem comes when one resonates with an influence contaminated by the vibration of different talas [3]. Such influences bring long-term toxicity into one’s energy system resulting in, for example, depression, emotional imbalances, diseases and so on. Remedies that handle these problems superficially (e.g., medication) cannot unbound these blockages and only serve as ephemeral painkillers and patches.

For this reason, it is highly recommended to start one’s meditation with proper preparations and protection that serve as a shield against such malefic influences at least for the span of one’s practice. Each vibration is a power owned and emitted by a given entity. In the practice of Śrī Chakra Sādhanā as shown in Timčák (2022, 98–152), we use the power of various mantras as well as the contributions of corresponding patrons to neutralize these influences. Others use the projective power of the Ten Mahāvidyās to protect directions against miscreants. A simple, but efficient approach is to “sit into” the energy system of SrīYantra that either guarantees all the protections due to the guardian principles embedded into it or into the harmonizing vibrations emitted from its nine levels (Timčák 2017, 16–17). The most efficient way to achieve this is to articulate a sankalpa addressed towards a competent deity (e.g., Tripura Sundari, Paramākaśarūpi) to build such a shield around one as well as offer the fruits of this protection to Her/Him as suggested above. This way, one is in safe, and a sound environment is created during meditation without blocking karmic influences.

3.2 Sankalpa, Mantra, and the Problem of Breath Synchronization

Sankalpa is a mental process, where a wish or goal is defined using only positive description. It should be short and during the mental repetition one could make the embedding more intensive through visualization of the said aim. It is a tool where the unconscious part of the mind accepts the resolution of the person and helps one to achieve the said aim. In modern connotation sankalpa was described by Swami Satyananda (2013, 70).

In the following step, it’s worth preparing the mind with a kriyā (e.g., “microcosmic orbiting” as given by Lu 1973, 36), or mantra, before moving forward with more elaborated practices. As in our approach one’s properly chosen deity has full control over one’s “sense of reality” (Sa. jāgrat), they can exactly read and write information that one experiences correspondingly. However, one of the key problems with mantra is that it may create a mist in the mind so the sādhakas lose the connection with their environment, which typically ends up in the lack of grounding. What we have to clearly understand is that it is not the mantra itself that counts at the end of the day, but the vibration it creates.

Also, in practices suggested by, for example, Gheranda Rishi (Gheranda 2012, 401) mantra is repeated in synchronization with inhalation and exhalation. However, the length of different mantras varies and may make these practices difficult to follow specially if the sādhaka is requested to keep the very same iteration loop along breath cycles. Additionally, the “intellect” (Sa. buddhi) is not self-illuminated, so it cannot focus on multiple things at a time so it will flicker the focus on the mantra, the counting of the mantra and the breath. This may bring advantageous results and turn off the mind for a while, but most of the time the breath will not be natural carrying the risk of prāna residuals appearing in the system to take place. A proper sankalpa could, however, help here as well.

Similarly, to our vegetative nervous system, operating systems do many tasks in the background that we are not conscious about as an end user. It is not only the operating system, but users can also instrument a process to run in the background [4], allowing them work on another job simultaneously in the very same terminal. This way, one can ask one’s deity with the proper sankalpa and offer to run a mantra in the background in order to enjoy its reflected vibration. At this point, one’s only job is to relax one’s attention on one’s breath, which will be aligned automatically with the corresponding vibration. The reason for this lies in the fact that breathing and mind are the two branches of the very same tree. If the mind resonates with a vibration, the breath will reflect it. After some time, kumbhaka (Sa. “retention”) will also take place automatically, without enforcing it.

This practice took advantage from the combined application of sankalpa and offer to create a loop between the native and deity as well as the concept of background processes.

3.3 Sankalpa to Schedule Events

During meditation one can easily slip into unexpected states of mind and there is no easy way out unless one formulates a sankalpa before to bring one back after a given period of time. One such a sankalpa could be to run our personal mantra for 108 times for ten minutes only. The advantages of this approach are multifold. First and foremost, one can frame one’s practice by time, secondly, one doesn’t need to put extra effort to keep a counter in mind or use a mala. Lastly, one’s mind gets automatically focused into the “dhāranā practice without any worldly effort” (Sa. kriyāśakti).

3.4 Sankalpa as an Automation Tool

Another great area for the application of sankalpas is to let the mind absorb into different states consecutively for a short period of time in order to “warm up” the corresponding mental centers and prepare the person for meditation. One such an example is when in a dualistic approach, one asks one’s chosen higher deity to help one automatically visits the petals of a chakra in order to let the mind absorbed in the states represented by them for a while. A great test is to use the six petals of the manas chakra (Woodroffe 2017, 55) where each petal corresponds to a binary state helping the mind to turn on and off the five indriyas and the “dream state” (Sa. svapna) for a given native.

This technique is especially useful for ānavopāya dhāranā[5] practices when consciousness uses an object, so the practice itself takes place at the level of objective consciousness. As mentioned earlier, one such an object can be a mantra or a sequence of syllables. For example, the Dhāranā 7 (verse thirty) of Vijñānabhairava (2022, 27–28) can be automated in a way that the twelve consecutively higher energy centers (i.e., Janmāgra, Mūla, Kandha, Nābhī, Hrd, Kantha, Tālu, Bhrūmadya, Lalāta, Brahmarandra, Śakti, Vyāpinī) absorb the vibration of the corresponding vowels (i.e., a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, e, ai, o, au, am, ah) one by one by means of a corresponding sankalpa in a way that each center start resonating with its syllable and the shift to a subtler, spanda-mānatā (Sa. “vibration, pulse”) state will emerge smoothly. “This vibration allows for piercing all the constituents of the subtle body and an up-and-down movement of supreme Energy starts flowing in the sushumna nādī,” according to the Netra Tantra (7:10, quoted in Bäumer 2021, 57).

After a while, this movement automatically ceases, and one enters a subtle, firm state, which is followed by the state of all-pervading Śiva called “parā” where the “mind dissolves” (Sa. cittapralaya). From this highest state of ascent, one should descend to the hrdayam (Sa. “spiritual Heart”) to fill it with supreme Energy as described in more details in the chapter 6.

3.5 Sankalpa to Leave

A key aspect of meditation when the mind enters an undifferentiated state, for example, by merging the mind into the vibration of Ōm. If properly executed, the mind gets totally absorbed into Ōm, where the observer, the observation process and the observed are identical and cannot be separated. As a consequence, there is no “personal I” (Sa. traces of asmitā) that could navigate back the native to its original dimensions. However, a properly formulated sankalpa can also help by using the timing method mentioned in 3. 3. This way, one can safely enjoy the advantages of the Ōm vibration without the fear of total dissolution.

3.6 Sankalpa to Create a New Reality

A more advanced approach is when one’s karmic traces do not allow one to perform a proper meditation due to blocks in one’s energy system. A shortcut could be to ask one’s patron principle to create a nested reality where the jiva is free from these karmic traces thus entering into a higher state of mind can automatically occur. This way even the highest state of samādhi can be worked out. If, for some reason, this request cannot be accomplished one can still ask one’s chosen deity to emulate this state as if it was a nested reality. For us, jivas, it doesn’t really count what type of reality is compiled as every experience is simply a specific distribution of tattwas, however, the consciousness due to its solar nature is totally unbound from such lunar experiences. The key is to experience a higher reality, because any such experience help one remember one’s real origin, which merges all the created dualistic perceptions into unity.

Akey consideration here is to use timing (e.g., give a timespan or deadline) to destroy this emulated reality and integrate the experiences into the native living on the original loka. Another important aspect is to keep the energy system rooted in its initial dimension otherwise the mind “disconnects” from its origin, which is the exact reason why we are in samsāra now.

3.7 Sankalpa of Devotion

While the previous examples were logically built constructions, we should never forget that our consciousness is so powerful, because it is so tiny that nothing can capture it. Human love is “attachment” (Sa. rāga) filled with expectations while “pure love” (Sa. prem) is also the will for eternal sacrifice. When love totally gets absorbed into the highest Consciousness, they unite by merging into a state that can be described as Sat–Chit–Ānanda. As within the limits of our individual consciousness we cannot love the higher/Absolute consciousness the way It loves us, the sankalpa to help us love in a way as It loves us, could also bring a leap in our sādhanā.

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