ACCORDING TO legend, Lord Shiva appeared in a dream to a venerable teacher by the name of Acharya Vasugupta, who lived in Kashmir

in the ninth century. Lord Shiva told Vasugupta that He had inscribed secret teachings on a huge rock and that he should find this rock and spread these teachings to those who were worthy to receive them. This is the origin of the Shivasutras, and the beginning of the writings on Kashmir Shaivism. Baba visited Kashmir in 1973 primarily to see that rock. It is a big flat stone at the base of Mahadevgiri Mountain. A stream runs beside it. On the opposite bank is a deep forest in which Vasugupta's ashram is said to have been. The intervening years have wiped away the writings which were found on the stone, but the feeling remains. We sat on the rock, Baba broke a coconut and burned some incense, and we all chanted Paduka Panchaka and Guru Gita. So, as the sun set, we sang to the glory of the Guru, the one who helps us realize the teachings of Shiva within ourselves. After that chant, Baba talked about Kashmir Shaivism and explained that this philosophy describes the highest truth as supreme Shiva. Shiva is Chaitanya, the everlasting and all-pervasive consciousness. All that is experienced in the world is Shiva. Although the world appears to be different from Him, it is born of Him and He is the very fibre of its existence. Thus Shiva is within the world as well as beyond the world. Shiva by His own free will sends forth the universe from His own being, imparts existence to it, and