The fundamental preoccupation of Hinduism is to put an end
to the infernal cycle of rebirths (sams�ra) and thus to attain 'deliverance' (moksha).1
The Hindu ideal aims at fusion with the totality (brahman), which abolishes all
individuality (�tman).
In this regard, the different systems of Hindu philosophy seem to rally around
this idea expressed in the Parama
Hamsa Upanisad: "I know the Unity; my soul is no longer
separate but united to the cosmic soul; this is indeed the supreme union
(junction)—no more 'me' nor 'you' for him (= the liberated), the very universe
has disappeared."2
Under the influence of Advaita Ved�nta, unity in the Hindu tradition has been
generally understood in opposition to the world of multiplicity, of illusion (m�y�), of bodily
incarnation, which must necessarily be rejected in order to unite oneself with
the Absolute. Within such a perspective, it is difficult to understand how any
concrete union, presupposing as it does the (at least initial) dualism of the
sexes, could lead to salvation. Sexual union is after all based on the
identification with the ephemeral flux of the body and the desire for its
other, whereas unity is precisely the negation of the Other. In the Vedic myth,
it is indeed through the desire for the Other that the One become many. The
valorization of symbols of sexual union and the universalization of their
sacrificial notation in the brahmanical ritual functioned within a public
‘polytheistic’ context where any aim of unity is not at all apparent. It is
only in the later doctrines of Tantrism that ritualized sexual union is
systematically sanctified within a non-dualistic perspective, precisely as a
means to individual liberation. For here unity is understood rather as the
absence of oppositions between moksha and sams�ra, an ineffable
state including both transcendence and immanence that the Trika philosophical
system—more widely called ‘Kashmir Shaivism’—designates by the term anuttara ('that
which has no beyond').
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