The Recognition Sutras (Christopher Wallis)
The Tantric Woo-Woo of Christopher Wallis
[My 2-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Recognition Sutras: Illuminating a 1,000-year-old Spiritual Masterpiece” by Christopher Wallis.]
I’ve read two other versions of Pratyabhijna-hridaya (which Christopher Wallis translates as “The Recognition Sutras”), so I was already familiar with Ksemaraja’s work before reading Wallis’s translation/explanation. What’s somewhat disturbing, to me is that not one other reviewer of this book seems to have read any other version that they can compare with Wallis’s.
I encountered major “problems” with Wallis’s exegesis and elaboration of Pratyabhijnahrdaya, which I’ll proceed to explain. Firstly, I take umbrage with Wallis’s “marriage” of idealist monism (which asserts that all that exists is Consciousness) and quantum physics, which he uses throughout his discourse to elaborate Ksemaraja’s text. I have problems with Wallis’s “marriage” because I believe it not only misrepresents what nondual Tantric Shavism is really about, but also provides a warped view of idealist monism and quantum physics. I have pages of notes regarding my criticisms of Wallis’s “marriage,” but because this is just a review and not a book, I’ll limit my number of responses to Wallis’s statements.
WALLIS: As quantum physicists have now thoroughly demonstrated, it is meaningless to talk of the existence of even a particle of matter without an observer; before observation, there is only probability, potentiality. Observation is creation.
MY RESPONSE: Physicists have not thoroughly demonstrated this, and many debunk it. And even if it were true on the quantum level, it is not true on the macroscopic level. Nobody can create anything in the visible world through observation.
WALLIS: There is only your consciousness manifesting the various qualia of your experience. Thus, focusing on something is actually manifesting it in more detail.
MY RESPONSE: Focusing on something does not make it manifest in more detail. You simply notice more detail because you are focusing on it.)
WALLIS: Your assumption that things exist without a perceiver to perceive them is just that: an assumption. It cannot be proven.
MY RESPONSE: Everything is not being perceived in every moment, yet things continue to exist when they aren’t being perceived. Moreover, cameras and scientific instruments prove this. Scientists have dated the earth and universe, and they existed before living beings perceived them.
WALLIS: In other words, the very fact that it [an object] is manifest within Awareness and known only through being illuminated by Awareness demonstrates that it can be nothing but Awareness.
MY RESPONSE: No, it doesn’t. It only demonstrates that awareness is necessary to be aware of an object.)
WALLIS: There is no reality to whatever you are aware of apart from your awareness of it.
MY RESPONSE: Yes, there is. Only someone suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance believes that there is no reality apart from one’s awareness of it.
WALLIS: Perception is creation, and that you— what you really are— are the creator (and sustainer and dissolver) of everything you experience.
MY RESPONSE: Your cat and dog perceive you. Did they create you? You aren’t the creator of everything you experience. I’ve never met anyone who can create even a lowly flea or cockroach, let alone an elephant or a whale.
WALLIS: But the apparent common sense of that assumption has now been deconstructed by the most advanced branch of science we have, that of quantum physics. It has demonstrated that the belief in observer-independent reality is nothing other than that: a belief. And one without any evidence whatsoever to support it. Kṣemarāja reveals this truth in these words: “Whatever one is aware of in this world, its nature is nothing but that awareness.” Another way of saying the same thing is: there is no reality to whatever you are aware of apart from your awareness of it. “But wait a second,” you say. “If I experience a specific thing, let’s say a tree, and then when I’m not there my friend experiences the same thing and reports it to me, surely that proves its existence is independent of my awareness?” No— it only demonstrates that perceivers are coordinated, which we discussed back in Chapter Three. They agree on the tangible aspects of reality because their awarenesses co-create that reality, giving rise to the illusion of objectivity. But perceivers are and must be coordinated simply because they are all instantiations of a single underlying Perceiver.
MY RESPONSE: It has not been demonstrated by quantum physics that the belief of observer-independent reality is nothing more than a belief. Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman said, “Nature does not know what you are looking at, and she behaves the way she is going to behave whether you bother to take down the data or not.” Whatever one is aware of is not that awareness, and it has reality even if you are not aware of it. And the idea that perceivers co-create the same reality, giving rise to the illusion of objectivity, is absurd. Moreover, perceivers do not always perceive the same reality.
Per Wikipedia.org under the entry Observer Effect (Physics):
“The need for the "observer" to be conscious has been rejected by mainstream science as a misconception rooted in a poor understanding of the quantum wave function and the quantum measurement process.”
What I’m going to do now is to shift my focus to briefly critiquing Wallis’s spiritual exegesis and elaboration of “The Recognition Sutras.” As my statements critique makes clear, I have little regard for Wallis’s spiritual hermeneutics, which I find superficial, imprecise, and, at times, misleading. Because this is just a review, I can only, sans extensive detail, identify a few of the “problems” I have with his explanations. Again, I quote Wallis from his book, and then provide my responses.
WALLIS: If we oversimplify a little bit, we can say that Śakti practices are those dynamic practices that emphasize Energy, such as yoga āsana, energy-body practices, prāṇāyāma, mantra, working with thought-constructs, and so on.
MY RESPONSE: The practices Wallis describes are sakti (and not Sakti) practices because they pertain to stepped-down cosmic energies (including prana) and not to pure Spirit, or Clear-Light Energy, which is Sakti, the Force-flow of Consciousness Itself (Siva). In truth, the only true Sakti practice is that of conducting and merging with the Spirit Power (or Current) of Consciousness. Wallis, however, fails to differentiate between saktis, which are created, or manifest, energies, and Sakti, which is uncreated, or unmanifest, Energy.
WALLIS: Now, citta is a word that we translate as ‘mind’ but is more accurately rendered ‘heart-mind’ in English because it is the locus of both thought and emotion, these being inextricably linked. It is therefore no surprise that Kṣemaraja argues that the citta is the primary locus of our limited sense of self, our sense of our separate, different, and independent identity.
MY RESPONSE: Citta is better defined as one’s individual consciousness than as one’s mind, because it implies the intersection of Cit (universal Consciousness) and manas (the individual mind). Citta is rendered heart-mind because the intersection of universal Consciousness and the “root” of the mind (in the form of samskaras, or subconscious psychical seed tendencies) is located in the Heart-center (Hridayam, as distinct from the anahata, or heart, chakra).
Wallis, in his glossary, defines Citi as Consciousness, or Awareness, when it, more properly, should be defined as Consciousness-Power. Cit (which isn’t even in his glossary) is the Sanskrit equivalent of Consciousness, or Awareness. Wallis knows this, and he knows that Citi means Consciousness-Power—but because attention to detail is lacking in this slovenly-edited text, it is tainted with errors.
WALLIS: First, he [Ksemaraja] invites you to place your mind in the Heart. In the specific language of the nondual Śaiva Tāntrikas, the Heart is a synonym for bodha, awareness. So to place the mind in the Heart, or entrust the mind to the Heart, is simply to bring reverent attention to awareness itself— to focus on the fact of being aware.
With one’s sense-faculties dissolved in the space of the Heart— in the innermost recess of the Lotus— with one’s attention on nothing else: O blessed Lady, one will obtain blessedness (saubhāgya). Though any of the cakras can be visualized as a lotus, the heart is described as such much more frequently than the others.
MY RESPONSE: What “dooms” Wallis’s exegesis and elaboration of “The Recognition Sutras” to mediocrity (or less) is his failure to “crack the code” of the text. The text’s title in Sanskrit is “Pratyabhijnahrdayam,” which translates into “The Heart of Recognition” –but Wallis doesn’t grok what the Heart (Hridayam) is all about. Hence his exposition never moves beyond the surface level.
The Heart is a synonym for the Self (Divine Being-Awareness), and the Self, in an embodied human, can only be Realized (or Recognized) in, at, and through the Heart-space (or Heart-locus), which is felt-experienced two digits to the right of the center of one’s chest. This is the “place” where universal Consciousness intersects (and outshines) individual consciousness. Hence the immanent Heart (Hridayam) must be distinguished from the heart chakra (anahata)—but Wallis fails to do this.
To reduce the Heart to mere “awareness” (uncapitalized), as Wallis does, is to misrepresent the Heart. And one doesn’t “place one’s mind in the Heart.” What occurs yogically is that the mind and sprouting vasanas or habit-energies (which Wallis mistakenly equates with samskaras (the psychical seed tendencies that concatenate into and “sprout” as vasanas) are literally, via intense Shaktipat, sucked into the Heart-center (or Hridayam-locus).
Wallis is a competent writer--until it comes time to describe, in detail. the esoteric aspects of yoga and Awakening. I made this clear in my four-star Amazon review of his book “Tantra Illuminated,” and it bears emphasis here, because this liability alone undermines this book. And when this liability is coupled with the faulty science and twisted ontological epistemology that permeate this text (see Part 1 of this article), what you have is a recipe for a literary failure.
If Wallis wants to “up his game” as a spiritual writer, he needs to move beyond Adyashanti, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and Byron Katie, all of whom he lauds in this book, and none of whom, IMO, were/are Enlightened (or capable of elaborating the esoteric details of Self-Awakening). He needs to read the esoteric teachings of Adi Da (available in dozens of his books) and Ramana Maharshi (available in “Sri Ramana Gita, “Sat Darshana Bhashya,” and the original, undumbed-down “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi). Da and Ramana, unlike Adyashanti, Nisargadatta, and Katie, were true Heart masters who describe, in unmatched detail, the Heart and Heart-Awakening.
Finally, Wallis needs to find himself a qualified editor, because the Kindle edition of this book could hardly have been more poorly edited. The spacing mistakes between words and paragraphs are legion, margins are mangled, and capitalization of terms is inconsistent. Most importantly, he needs an editor steeped in Tantric Shaivism to refine his prose. And the ideal choice for this would be Paul Muller-Ortega, a now-retired professor (but still active Kashmir Shaivism teacher) who taught Wallis as an undergrad. Muller-Ortega edited the (now out—of-print, but available as an ebook) “The Doctrine of Recognition” by Jaideva Singh, which, IMO, provides a much deeper and richer presentation of Ksemaraja’s “Pratyabhijnahrdyam” than does Wallis’s “The Recognition Sutras.”
[My 2-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Recognition Sutras: Illuminating a 1,000-year-old Spiritual Masterpiece” by Christopher Wallis.]
I’ve read two other versions of Pratyabhijna-hridaya (which Christopher Wallis translates as “The Recognition Sutras”), so I was already familiar with Ksemaraja’s work before reading Wallis’s translation/explanation. What’s somewhat disturbing, to me is that not one other reviewer of this book seems to have read any other version that they can compare with Wallis’s.
I encountered major “problems” with Wallis’s exegesis and elaboration of Pratyabhijnahrdaya, which I’ll proceed to explain. Firstly, I take umbrage with Wallis’s “marriage” of idealist monism (which asserts that all that exists is Consciousness) and quantum physics, which he uses throughout his discourse to elaborate Ksemaraja’s text. I have problems with Wallis’s “marriage” because I believe it not only misrepresents what nondual Tantric Shavism is really about, but also provides a warped view of idealist monism and quantum physics. I have pages of notes regarding my criticisms of Wallis’s “marriage,” but because this is just a review and not a book, I’ll limit my number of responses to Wallis’s statements.
WALLIS: As quantum physicists have now thoroughly demonstrated, it is meaningless to talk of the existence of even a particle of matter without an observer; before observation, there is only probability, potentiality. Observation is creation.
MY RESPONSE: Physicists have not thoroughly demonstrated this, and many debunk it. And even if it were true on the quantum level, it is not true on the macroscopic level. Nobody can create anything in the visible world through observation.
WALLIS: There is only your consciousness manifesting the various qualia of your experience. Thus, focusing on something is actually manifesting it in more detail.
MY RESPONSE: Focusing on something does not make it manifest in more detail. You simply notice more detail because you are focusing on it.)
WALLIS: Your assumption that things exist without a perceiver to perceive them is just that: an assumption. It cannot be proven.
MY RESPONSE: Everything is not being perceived in every moment, yet things continue to exist when they aren’t being perceived. Moreover, cameras and scientific instruments prove this. Scientists have dated the earth and universe, and they existed before living beings perceived them.
WALLIS: In other words, the very fact that it [an object] is manifest within Awareness and known only through being illuminated by Awareness demonstrates that it can be nothing but Awareness.
MY RESPONSE: No, it doesn’t. It only demonstrates that awareness is necessary to be aware of an object.)
WALLIS: There is no reality to whatever you are aware of apart from your awareness of it.
MY RESPONSE: Yes, there is. Only someone suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance believes that there is no reality apart from one’s awareness of it.
WALLIS: Perception is creation, and that you— what you really are— are the creator (and sustainer and dissolver) of everything you experience.
MY RESPONSE: Your cat and dog perceive you. Did they create you? You aren’t the creator of everything you experience. I’ve never met anyone who can create even a lowly flea or cockroach, let alone an elephant or a whale.
WALLIS: But the apparent common sense of that assumption has now been deconstructed by the most advanced branch of science we have, that of quantum physics. It has demonstrated that the belief in observer-independent reality is nothing other than that: a belief. And one without any evidence whatsoever to support it. Kṣemarāja reveals this truth in these words: “Whatever one is aware of in this world, its nature is nothing but that awareness.” Another way of saying the same thing is: there is no reality to whatever you are aware of apart from your awareness of it. “But wait a second,” you say. “If I experience a specific thing, let’s say a tree, and then when I’m not there my friend experiences the same thing and reports it to me, surely that proves its existence is independent of my awareness?” No— it only demonstrates that perceivers are coordinated, which we discussed back in Chapter Three. They agree on the tangible aspects of reality because their awarenesses co-create that reality, giving rise to the illusion of objectivity. But perceivers are and must be coordinated simply because they are all instantiations of a single underlying Perceiver.
MY RESPONSE: It has not been demonstrated by quantum physics that the belief of observer-independent reality is nothing more than a belief. Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman said, “Nature does not know what you are looking at, and she behaves the way she is going to behave whether you bother to take down the data or not.” Whatever one is aware of is not that awareness, and it has reality even if you are not aware of it. And the idea that perceivers co-create the same reality, giving rise to the illusion of objectivity, is absurd. Moreover, perceivers do not always perceive the same reality.
Per Wikipedia.org under the entry Observer Effect (Physics):
“The need for the "observer" to be conscious has been rejected by mainstream science as a misconception rooted in a poor understanding of the quantum wave function and the quantum measurement process.”
What I’m going to do now is to shift my focus to briefly critiquing Wallis’s spiritual exegesis and elaboration of “The Recognition Sutras.” As my statements critique makes clear, I have little regard for Wallis’s spiritual hermeneutics, which I find superficial, imprecise, and, at times, misleading. Because this is just a review, I can only, sans extensive detail, identify a few of the “problems” I have with his explanations. Again, I quote Wallis from his book, and then provide my responses.
WALLIS: If we oversimplify a little bit, we can say that Śakti practices are those dynamic practices that emphasize Energy, such as yoga āsana, energy-body practices, prāṇāyāma, mantra, working with thought-constructs, and so on.
MY RESPONSE: The practices Wallis describes are sakti (and not Sakti) practices because they pertain to stepped-down cosmic energies (including prana) and not to pure Spirit, or Clear-Light Energy, which is Sakti, the Force-flow of Consciousness Itself (Siva). In truth, the only true Sakti practice is that of conducting and merging with the Spirit Power (or Current) of Consciousness. Wallis, however, fails to differentiate between saktis, which are created, or manifest, energies, and Sakti, which is uncreated, or unmanifest, Energy.
WALLIS: Now, citta is a word that we translate as ‘mind’ but is more accurately rendered ‘heart-mind’ in English because it is the locus of both thought and emotion, these being inextricably linked. It is therefore no surprise that Kṣemaraja argues that the citta is the primary locus of our limited sense of self, our sense of our separate, different, and independent identity.
MY RESPONSE: Citta is better defined as one’s individual consciousness than as one’s mind, because it implies the intersection of Cit (universal Consciousness) and manas (the individual mind). Citta is rendered heart-mind because the intersection of universal Consciousness and the “root” of the mind (in the form of samskaras, or subconscious psychical seed tendencies) is located in the Heart-center (Hridayam, as distinct from the anahata, or heart, chakra).
Wallis, in his glossary, defines Citi as Consciousness, or Awareness, when it, more properly, should be defined as Consciousness-Power. Cit (which isn’t even in his glossary) is the Sanskrit equivalent of Consciousness, or Awareness. Wallis knows this, and he knows that Citi means Consciousness-Power—but because attention to detail is lacking in this slovenly-edited text, it is tainted with errors.
WALLIS: First, he [Ksemaraja] invites you to place your mind in the Heart. In the specific language of the nondual Śaiva Tāntrikas, the Heart is a synonym for bodha, awareness. So to place the mind in the Heart, or entrust the mind to the Heart, is simply to bring reverent attention to awareness itself— to focus on the fact of being aware.
With one’s sense-faculties dissolved in the space of the Heart— in the innermost recess of the Lotus— with one’s attention on nothing else: O blessed Lady, one will obtain blessedness (saubhāgya). Though any of the cakras can be visualized as a lotus, the heart is described as such much more frequently than the others.
MY RESPONSE: What “dooms” Wallis’s exegesis and elaboration of “The Recognition Sutras” to mediocrity (or less) is his failure to “crack the code” of the text. The text’s title in Sanskrit is “Pratyabhijnahrdayam,” which translates into “The Heart of Recognition” –but Wallis doesn’t grok what the Heart (Hridayam) is all about. Hence his exposition never moves beyond the surface level.
The Heart is a synonym for the Self (Divine Being-Awareness), and the Self, in an embodied human, can only be Realized (or Recognized) in, at, and through the Heart-space (or Heart-locus), which is felt-experienced two digits to the right of the center of one’s chest. This is the “place” where universal Consciousness intersects (and outshines) individual consciousness. Hence the immanent Heart (Hridayam) must be distinguished from the heart chakra (anahata)—but Wallis fails to do this.
To reduce the Heart to mere “awareness” (uncapitalized), as Wallis does, is to misrepresent the Heart. And one doesn’t “place one’s mind in the Heart.” What occurs yogically is that the mind and sprouting vasanas or habit-energies (which Wallis mistakenly equates with samskaras (the psychical seed tendencies that concatenate into and “sprout” as vasanas) are literally, via intense Shaktipat, sucked into the Heart-center (or Hridayam-locus).
Wallis is a competent writer--until it comes time to describe, in detail. the esoteric aspects of yoga and Awakening. I made this clear in my four-star Amazon review of his book “Tantra Illuminated,” and it bears emphasis here, because this liability alone undermines this book. And when this liability is coupled with the faulty science and twisted ontological epistemology that permeate this text (see Part 1 of this article), what you have is a recipe for a literary failure.
If Wallis wants to “up his game” as a spiritual writer, he needs to move beyond Adyashanti, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and Byron Katie, all of whom he lauds in this book, and none of whom, IMO, were/are Enlightened (or capable of elaborating the esoteric details of Self-Awakening). He needs to read the esoteric teachings of Adi Da (available in dozens of his books) and Ramana Maharshi (available in “Sri Ramana Gita, “Sat Darshana Bhashya,” and the original, undumbed-down “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi). Da and Ramana, unlike Adyashanti, Nisargadatta, and Katie, were true Heart masters who describe, in unmatched detail, the Heart and Heart-Awakening.
Finally, Wallis needs to find himself a qualified editor, because the Kindle edition of this book could hardly have been more poorly edited. The spacing mistakes between words and paragraphs are legion, margins are mangled, and capitalization of terms is inconsistent. Most importantly, he needs an editor steeped in Tantric Shaivism to refine his prose. And the ideal choice for this would be Paul Muller-Ortega, a now-retired professor (but still active Kashmir Shaivism teacher) who taught Wallis as an undergrad. Muller-Ortega edited the (now out—of-print, but available as an ebook) “The Doctrine of Recognition” by Jaideva Singh, which, IMO, provides a much deeper and richer presentation of Ksemaraja’s “Pratyabhijnahrdyam” than does Wallis’s “The Recognition Sutras.”
