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An example of giving more esoteric meaning to external rites, from Vijnanabhairava (translation by Christopher Wallis):
The Goddess said:
If, O Lord, this is the true form of Parā, how can there be mantra or its
repetition in the [nondual] state you have taught? What would be visualized,
what worshipped and gratified? And who is there to receive offerings?
The revered Bhairava replied:
In this [higher way], O doe-eyed woman, external procedures are considered
coarse & superficial (sthūla). Here ‘japa’ is ever greater meditative absorption
(bhāvanā) into the supreme state; and similarly, here the ‘mantra’ to be
repeated is the spontaneous resonance [of self-awareness], which is the soul of
all mantras.
As for ‘meditative visualization’ (dhyāna), it is a mind that has become
motionless, free of forms, and supportless, not imagining a deity with a body,
eyes, face and so on.
Pūjā is likewise not the offering of flowers and so on. A mind made firm, that
through careful attention dissolves into the thought-free ultimate void [of
pure awareness]: that is pūjā.
When one is connected to [even] one of the practices given here, the aspect of
Bhairava called ‘nourished fullness’ (bharita) will arise and develop day by day:
it is absolute wholeness, it is contentment.
Offering the elements, the senses, and their objects, together with the mind,
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