It is the principle of Kriyā that explains the manifestation of śiva on the form of the world. Out of the joy of śiva, the creative activity of world-manifestation takes place. The creation, therefore, is taken to be the līlā or sport of śiva. This means that in the tradition of Tantra there is a positive attitude towards Creation. In scholastic Advaita, on the contrary, the attitude is to negate the world, to totally disconnect Brahman from the world-process. Brahman, they would say, is not actively involved in the creation of the world, for Brahman is inactive or Niṣkriya; the world is a superimposition on Brahman like the rope-snake created by Avidyā, Brahman being quite unconcerned. The Tantric would say that even if the world is taken to be an appearance, it must positively belong to Brahman, and Brahman must be actively involved in creating the world-appearance; otherwise, Avidyā which is responsible for the creation of the world-illusion, would become an independent power like the Prakṛti of Sāṃhya. If the world is an illusion, Brahman must be conceived as a magician (aindrajālika) who actively creates the magic show. The problem cannot also be solved by making īśvara the real magician and bifurcating or differentiating Him from Brahman; for, in that case, īśvara together with His magical power would become independent reality different from Brahman. Kashmir Shaivism too maintains that the world is an appearance (ābhāsa); but this appearance is an active and conscious projection or ideation (vimarśa) of the śiva-mind. Creation and dissolution are conceived as spontaneous outward flowing (unmeṣa) and recoiling or inflowing (nimeṣa) of śiva respectively.
This is like the ocean overflowing in the high tide. However, this simile does not fit completely, as there is an important difference between the tide of the ocean and unmeṣa of śiva. The tiding of the ocean is mechanical and is conditioned by the factors of nature, whereas the unmeṣa and nimeṣa of śiva are perfectly free activities.
The crucial point is, the Tantra would point out, that the world should be regarded as a positive manifestation of and not merely a superimposition on Brahman; otherwise, the duality and polarity between Brahman and Māyā cannot be overcome. If the world is false, it should be taken as an imaginary projection or a conscious dream of the Parabrahman, and not merely as a superimposition on Brahman from outside. The correct analogy, the Tantra would insist, should be that of the conscious dream rather than the rope-snake. The benefit of the rope-snake analogy, which the Advaitin is so fond of, is that the rope snake is not actively involved in the creation of the snake-illusion; the rope is unconcerned, the snake being superimposed from outside. Kashmir Shaivism would point out that this analogy does not fit in the case of Brahman or śiva. In the case of rope-snake, the illusion is possible even when the rope is not actively involved because there is duality there; the rope is different from the illusioned person who falls outside the rope. But in the case of Brahman who is a non-dual Reality, there is nobody else to project the world-illusion from outside – or if there is, there would be two realities as in the case of rope-snake. The world-illusion, therefore, is a kind of self-projection on the part of Brahman. This is more appropriately illustrated in the case of the conscious dream, and hence this analogy is favored in Kashmir Shaivism.
Thus, the non-duality of the Absolute can be saved by involving the Absolute in active self-manifestation in the form of the world. The Upaniśads clearly state this position when they declare, ‘Where from all these things are born’, ‘He desired – I am alone, let myself become many’, and so on. One need not and cannot explain these Upaniṣadic utterances away by calling them fables [ākhyāyikā] devised by the Upaniśadic seer in order to satisfy the unanswerable question of the seeker regarding creation.
The practitioner of Tantra, in place of calling the world a negation of or superimposition on śiva, would prefer to call it the self-created līlā or sport of śiva. He too negates the world; there could be no Absolutism without negation in some form or other, but he negates or transcends the world not by denying it as non-śiva, but by accepting it as the very form of śiva. He negates or transcends the world by making the world śiva, as it were. The world becomes śiva, so to say. This is like negating the waves of the ocean not by calling them unreal, but by calling them as the ocean itself – the free rippling of the ocean. This is the divinization of the world. This is negation by sublimation. Utpaladeva says, ‘one who has become one with the universal Self and knows – all this is my own glory – remains in śivahood even in the face of prevailing determinations (or limitations)’.
Negation implies correction of some illusion. In the case of dream-experience, the dreamer takes the dream-object to be a real material entity, independent of his mind; he does not take it to be an ideal projection (ābhāsa) of his own consciousness. This is an illusion, and this has to be corrected or negated. When, after waking up, this illusion is corrected, he does not deny that he had the dream-experience or ‘saw’ the dream-objects, he simply realizes that what he ‘saw’ was a mental projection of and within his own consciousness, and not an independent material entity outside his own self. What is negated as false or illusory is the dream-object as a material entity different from and independent of the knower. The dream object is not mere nothing like a barren woman’s son (vandhyā putra) or sky flower (ākāśakusuma); it is ābhāsa (appearance or projection of consciousness) and in this sense it is real. This is why Abhinavagupta calls ābhāsa real. The dreamer later on also realizes that what he ‘saw’ in the dream as different from himself was really one with himself. Similarly in the state of self-realization (ātmajñāna) what is negated as false is the world as different from one-self; it is accepted as one with oneself. In Tantric thought, the sense of duality (bheda or dvaita) is falsity, and realization of oneness (abheda or advaita) is truth.
The question of negation is related to the theory of error. Kashmir Shaivism explains the case of error as an incomplete perception of truth (apūrṇakhyāti). The dream-experience is not completely false, as the appearance or projection part of it is still real, and therefore it should be called incomplete (apūrṇa) rather than false [mithyā]. When in the waking state the dream-object is known as self-projection, then it is complete knowledge. Likewise in the state of bondage, our knowledge of the world is incomplete; in the state of Mukti, it becomes complete, as the truth of the world is seen in its full perspective.