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

Concealment (Tirodhāna / Vilaya)

The divine's strangest act: hiding from itself, so that the infinite forgets it is infinite.

Tirodhāna is the act of self-concealment — the divine consciousness hiding its own boundless nature within the world, so that it appears as countless small, separate selves who have lost sight of what they are. This is the act that makes bondage possible: not an outside force binding us, but awareness veiling itself from itself. In the personal rhythm, it is the moment the self loses sight of the fact that its experience arises from its own consciousness, and takes itself to be only a small, separate subject.

Key passages(1)

Tantrasāra · Abhinavagupta

High