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hindu-devotionWe're still mapping where this idea was first discussed. Key passages and related ideas below.

Withdrawal / Reabsorption (Saṃhāra)

The drawing-back — not destruction but reabsorption, the world gathered home into awareness.

Saṃhāra is the act of drawing back in — dissolving a world, or an experience, back into the awareness it came from. Often translated 'destruction,' it is better understood as reabsorption: nothing is annihilated, it is gathered home, the way a thought subsides or an experience ends and returns to the silent depth of the mind. In the Trika rhythm, every experience that fades is a small saṃhāra.

Key passages(10)

Bhagavad-gītā · Vyāsa (Yoga-bhāṣya commentator)

High

Know that these (two Prakritis) are the womb of all beings. I am the origin and dissolution of the whole universe.

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Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

High

Tantrasāra · Abhinavagupta

High

Śiva-stotrāvalī · Utpaladeva

High

Śiva-sūtra · Vasugupta

High

Aṣṭāvakra-gītā · Aṣṭāvakra

High

Śiva-stotrāvalī · Utpaladeva

High

Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

High

In that field in which the god, after spreading out one net after another in various ways, draws it together again, the Lord, the great Self , having further created the lords , thus carries on his

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Haṭhayoga-pradīpikā · Svātmārāma

Moderate

Spanda-kārikā · Bhaṭṭa Kallaṭa

Moderate