Rasa: The Transformation of Emotion into Sublime Beauty

[outro jingle] Tantra Illuminated with Dr. Christopher Wallis is a journey through the depths of the human experience as viewed through the lens of the tradition called Nondual Shaiva Tantra. This multi-format podcast delves into the fascinating world of classical tantra and its intersections with philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, human development, and the broader world of spirituality. [outro jingle] This episode is a teaching talk on the much requested topic of rasa, the transformation of emotion into sublime beauty. And this talk was given on my Tantra Illuminated learning portal, where you can become a subscriber and get access to a vast treasure trove of content. And this month, I also have an important announcement. Did you know that in addition to our learning portal, we also have a beautifully designed and comprehensive tantric meditation app for putting everything you're learning about here on the podcast into practice? There are more than 60 guided meditations on this app involving the energy body, stillness, awareness practice, the chakras, mantras, and much more. We put out new updates frequently. There's a new meditation and audiobook chapter added every month. And there's a special discount for listeners to this podcast. You can find it by going to the link in the show notes or using the code ILLUMINATED in all caps in the app. Check it out at tantra112.app. And now I give you the teaching on rasa, the nine modes of aesthetic beauty through which emotion is transformed into sublime, expansive experience of wonderment. Among Sanskrit scholars who are not specifically studying Shaivism or Tantra, uh, among the wider community of Sanskrit scholars, the great tantric master Abhinavagupta is better known as a philosopher of aesthetics. That is to say, a, a Sanskritist is more likely to have heard of him in relation to the philosophy of aesthetics. That is to say, the science or f- or study of what is beauty, what makes something beautiful. Because Abhinavagupta wrote extensively on this topic, focusing on the, on the artistic disciplines of poetry and dance and drama. So he wrote a huge commentary on the Na- Natya Shastra, which is the sort of seminal foundational work of, um, dramaturgy, as it's called, uh, uh, dance and theater. And also wrote, uh, a commentary on the great Dhvanyaloka. So the Dhvanyaloka is a book on poetics, on, uh, the, the science of Sanskrit poetry. I say science because it is a science [chuckles] in the, uh, in pre-modern India. It was treated that way with a lot of precision. And Abhinavagupta's commentary is called the Locana. So he wrote this Dhvanyaloka Locana, uh, this comprehensive study of beauty in poetry. And in the context of h- of these works, he elaborates, uh, what we sometimes call rasa theory, um, the, the theory of aesthetic beauty in nine types, nine rasas, as they're called. A rasa, rasa literally means savor or flavor or juiciness or sap, but in this context it means something like aesthetic sentiment, experience of artistic beauty. And what is, uh, surprising about this list of nine rasas is that it includes, uh, rasas that we wouldn't necessarily expect. And in this way, it becomes