The keys to liberation: repose & purification

Spiritual liberation happens through both repose, the subject of my first book, and purification, which is the subject of many spiritual traditions. I love this quote as it reinforces the messages from my book.

"The ascent back to unity can be seen in terms of both repose and purification;

[in terms of repose,] it comprises a series of phases or stages in phenomenal life, which our text refers to as viśrānti [repose]. The commentator glosses viśrānti as samādhi. Viśrānti expresses an attitude so peculiar to India that we can't find an appropriate term for all that the word implies. It's a form of repose and stillness that brings to a halt the perpetual flow of elements that follow one another uninterruptedly through time.

Through viśrānti, the "soul" withdraws into itself, opening a breach towards the interiority of the subject (ahantā).

The personal impulse (karman) that drives transmigration is defeated, and fragmented objectivity vanishes.

This repose consists of a succession of increasingly deep and concentrated contemplations/self-absorptions: initially conceptual and differentiated (savikalpa), self-absorption becomes undifferentiated (nirvikalpasamādhi).

Abhinavagupta tells us that the ultimate goal of all objective consciousness is to become absorbed in the Self.

Spiritual energy is in fact a dynamism that cannot be fixed to any finite form, and finds its consummation only in the undifferentiation of the supreme Śiva."

Lilian Silburn in her introduction to Paramārthasāra (translated in English)