Trika — The Threefold Vision of Reality
Trika (the triad) is the core philosophical framework of Kashmir Shaivism: the three principles of Shiva (pure consciousness), Shakti (divine power), and Nara (the individual) encompass all of reality.
Trika Shaivism organizes reality into three fundamental categories: Shiva (the transcendent, unchanging, pure consciousness), Shakti (the dynamic creative power of Shiva — the energy through which Shiva becomes the universe), and Nara (the bound individual soul — Shiva who has forgotten his nature). All of existence is the interplay of these three, and liberation is Nara recognizing himself as Shiva through the grace of Shakti. The Trika tradition also presents 36 tattvas (principles of manifestation) through which consciousness progressively contracts from pure awareness down to the grossest material reality — and the spiritual path reverses this process through progressive expansion of awareness. This systematic account of how infinite consciousness becomes finite experience is one of the most sophisticated analyses of subjectivity in any philosophical tradition.
Shiva, Shakti, and Nara — these three are one. The one who knows this is liberated.
Philosopher Charles Taylor's critique of the Cartesian subject-object split and his recovery of an 'engaged' model of consciousness — where awareness is not separate from but constitutive of its world — resonates with the Trika vision of Shiva-Shakti as a non-dual movement rather than two separate realities.
Tantraloka