For Kṣemarāja, failing to recognise one’s own five acts is not merely a gap in knowledge. It means being deluded by one’s own powers. Doubts arising from everyday life and learned discourse then act like stakes driven firmly into the ground. Because the unfolding of one’s own power made possible by śaktipāta has not yet shone forth, Awareness experiences itself as a saṃsārin.

Kṣemarāja explains this self-delusion from three perspectives.

1. The power of language and thought

The highest power of speech (parā-vāk) is not separate from the light of Awareness. It is the ever-present great Mantra, the complete certainty of “I”, and contains the entire circle of powers from a to kṣa. Through the levels of paśyantī, madhyamā, and more fully articulated speech, it brings forth the level of the perceiver.

When this power of speech does not reveal its highest form, it generates fresh conceptual constructions (vikalpa) at every moment in the perceiver limited by Māyā. At the same time, it causes even the pure, non-conceptual ground to appear only in concealed form.

The goddesses associated with the sounds can act in two directions:

• In the bound condition, they create and sustain the experience of difference. They withdraw the experience of non-difference. In this way, a person becomes a vessel for limited conceptions.
• In the condition of the Lord, they withdraw difference and bring non-difference into appearance and sustain it. As limited conceptions gradually diminish, the expansive non-conceptual ground of the Bhairava-Mudrā opens. Thoughts, too, can then arise as “pure conceptual power”—for example, in the insight that the entire unfolding is one’s own form as the universal Self.

2. Vāmeśvarī and the four circles of goddesses

The same power of Awareness is called Vāmeśvarī because it brings forth the world from itself and, in saṃsāra, assumes a movement opposed to freedom. It appears as four circles:

• Khecarī concerns the perceiver and the capacity to act.
• Gocarī operates as the inner organ—intellect, ego formation, and thought.
• Dikcarī operates as outward-directed sensory perception.
• Bhūcarī appears as the world of perceived objects.

In the bound condition, these powers conceal their own expansiveness. Limited agency obscures the freedom of the space of Awareness. The inner organ determines things in terms of separation. The senses perceive differences. Objects appear all around as distinct from one another and conceal their belonging to the universal Self.

In the condition of the Lord, their effect is reversed. Khecarī reveals comprehensive agency. Gocarī recognises non-difference. Dikcarī perceives it. Bhūcarī shows objects as limbs of one’s own body. The same powers can thus bring liberation or bondage, depending on recognition.

3. Vital powers and states of consciousness

The one sovereign power (aiśvarya-śakti) of Awareness is living agency in its own nature. In the bound condition, it conceals itself through three groups of limited experience:

• prāṇa, apāna, and samāna;
• waking, dreaming, and deep sleep;
• body, vital energy, and the subtle body (puryaṣṭaka).

When udāna rises from the central region and the all-pervasive power vyāna shines forth, the fourth state (turya) and the state beyond the fourth (turyātīta) open. Both are filled with Awareness and joy. The condition of the Lord, and thus jīvanmukti, then becomes possible even in embodied life.

Limitation is not the final problem

Kṣemarāja links this explanation with the ninth Sūtra. There, the saṃsārin was explained through the metaphysical contraction of his powers. Here, he shows the same bondage as delusion by these powers in a concrete human being.

What matters, therefore, is not that body, breath, or limited powers disappear completely. One who is no longer deceived by them about his own nature is, according to the tradition, “the highest Lord in a human body”. Kṣemarāja even includes bodies and pots: one who recognises them as forms of Śiva composed of all thirty-six principles can attain perfection through this insight.

The thirteenth Sūtra formulates the movement opposite to that described in the twelfth. When a person fully recognises his own agency in the five acts, ignorance as the cause of delusion falls away. Delusion by his own powers ends with it, and original freedom (svātantrya) comes forth.

The mind (citta) explained earlier then relinquishes its outward-directed, contracting tendency. By turning inwards, it ascends to the level of the conscious perceiver (cetana). As it passes through the different levels of perceivers, the residue of contraction also melts away. The mind is therefore not transformed into something alien. It returns to its own highest form, which consists of Awareness: citi.

Kṣemarāja raises an objection: if the highest power of Awareness absorbs all differences into itself, should it not do so even in the condition of Māyā—just as the sun illuminates things even from behind clouds?

His answer is the image of fire beneath ashes. Awareness is fire because it “devours” the world, absorbing what is perceived into itself. This power remains active even in the limited perceiver. An appearance such as blue or joy is cognised and thereby becomes part of consciousness.

Yet it is burned only “partially”. A residue remains as an impression (saṃskāra) and can bring the appearance forth again later. Absorption in ordinary experience is therefore not yet the same as complete integration into fullness without remainder. For Kṣemarāja, one’s own experience already proves that every perceiver fundamentally takes experiences into consciousness.

KSTS1911 reads āroha-pade (“at the stage of ascent”) instead of avaroha-pade (“at the stage of descent”). Both forms are grammatically regular; since the sūtra is prose, metre provides no criterion for choosing between them. The reversal of direction nevertheless changes the meaning substantially. Kṣemarāja’s Vṛtti directly links avaroha-pade with māyā-pramātṛtāyām, “in the condition of the Māyā-level perceiver”: even there the fire of awareness remains active, although it is covered as if by ash. This contextual gloss supports the base reading avaroha-pade, which is retained for the working translation.