Read the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra
Verse by verse — Sanskrit, IAST, and English. This edition currently presents 20 verses tied to their meditation techniques; the complete 163-verse critical text is being added in phases.
- ऊर्ध्वे प्राणो ह्यधो जीवो विसर्गात्मा परोच्चरेत् ।ūrdhve prāṇo hy adho jīvo visargātmā paroccaret
Watch where the rising breath becomes the falling breath; rest in the turn.
- maruto antar bahir vāpi viyad yugma anivartanāt
In the still gap after the out-breath, before the next in-breath, Bhairava appears.
Feel the breath as energy rising and dissolving; in its dissolution, peace.
Fix gentle attention at the brow-centre; let thought thin into light.
Visualize the central channel fine as a lotus fibre; awareness travels it and opens.
Listen past every sound to the silence underneath; let hearing rest in it.
- ॐpraṇava / oṃ
Intone a sound aloud, then inwardly; follow its fading tail into soundless awareness.
- a-kāra / visarga (ḥ)
Speak a word ending in an open breath; in the openness that trails it, abide.
Let attention sink into the open space in the centre of the chest and widen there.
Imagine the body burning upward into ash; what does not burn is what you are.
Gaze into clear empty space until the space enters you and the boundary thins.
Picture the whole world dissolving into emptiness; rest in the awareness it leaves.
At the first instant of fear, anger, or longing — before it becomes a story — look.
At the height of union, attention turns from the other to the living energy itself.
In the joy of meeting a loved one, do not cling to the cause — rest in the joy.
In eating or drinking, become the taste itself, and through it the fullness.
At the threshold where waking turns to sleep, hold awareness in the in-between.
Turn attention back on the one who is aware; the 'I' has no edge you can find.
In total darkness with eyes open, rest in the formless dark until it becomes luminous.
- यत्र यत्र मनो याति तत्र तत्र समाधयः ।yatra yatra mano yāti tatra tatra samādhayaḥ
Do not fight the wandering mind; wherever it lands, the nature of Shiva is already there.