This book clarifies the relationship between God and the creation for Gaudapada, Bhartrhari, and Shankara, and by doing so, demonstrates a major continuity of thought from Gaudapada through Bhartrhari to Abhinavagupta and Kashmir Shaivism.

Cutting across distinctions of schools and types, the author explains the central feature of Kashmir Saivism: the creative pulse of the all-pervasive Consciousness called Siva. This is also the central theme of the Hindu Tantras, and Dyczkowski provides new insight into the most literate and extensive interpretations of the Tantras. This book is significant from four points of view. First, it breaks new ground in Indian philosophy. According to the Spanda Doctrine, the self is not simply witnessing consciousness as maintained by Sankhya and Vedanta, but is an active force. Second, the ultimate reality is not simply a logical system of abstract categories, but is living, pulsating energy, the source of all manifestation. Third, the work elaborates the dynamic aspect of consciousness. It supplies an excellent introduction to the texts and scriptures of Kashmir Saivism. Fourth, it suggests a Yoga for the realization of self.

Rediscovering God with Transcendental Argument provides a comparative philosophical study of the Pratyabhijña system of the medieval Kashmiri Śaiva thinkers Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta. Beginning with intensive descriptive and prescriptive reflections on the nature of philosophy itself, the book examines the special characteristics of the Pratyabhijña discourse as both philosophical apologetics and spiritual exercise. Lawrence situates the Pratyabhijña speculation within the larger context of Hindu and Buddhist deliberations about the role of interpretation in experience, and gives a groundbreaking exposition of the epistemology and ontology of Shiva's self-recognition. He observes the similarities and differences of the Pratyabhijña with Christian understandings of the divine logos, and argues that the Śaiva philosophy elucidates a cogent way of demonstrating the reality of God against contemporary relativism, deconstructionism and other forms of skepticism.

According to Advaita-Vedanta, God or Brahman is identical with the inner self (the Atman) of each person, while the rest of the world is nothing but objective illusion (maya). Shankara maintains that there are two primary levels of existence and knowledge: the higher knowledge that is Brahman itself, and the relative, limited knowledge, regarded as the very texture of the universe. Consequently, the task of a human being is to reach the absolute unity and the reality of Brahman—in other words, to reach the innermost self within his or her own being, discarding on the way all temporary characteristics and attributes.

This book explores one of the most explicit and sophisticated theoretical formulations of tantric yoga. It explains Abhinavagupta's teaching about the nature of ultimate reality, about the methods for experiencing this ultimate reality, and about the nature of the state of realization, a condition of embodied enlightenment. The author uncovers the conceptual matrix surrounding the practices of the Kaula lineage of Kashmir Shaivism. The primary textual basis for the book is provided by Abhinavagupta's Parātrīśikā-laghuvṛtti, a short meditation manual that centers on the symbolism of the Heart-mantra, SAUḤ.

"I have prepared a trident of Wisdom in order to cut asunder their bondage." -- Abhinavagupta This is a long commentary on a short Tantra. One of the most authoritative and venerated texts in Kashmir Shaivism, it deals with the nature of Ultimate Reality and with methods of realization focusing on the theory and practice of Mantra. Abhinavagupta presents his metaphysics of language, of the Word (Vak), and its relation to consciousness. He calls it, "trikasastra-rahasya-upadesa: The teaching of the secret of the Trika doctrine."