The Seven Perceivers (Sapta-Pramātṛ)
Seven grades of the experiencer — from the self that sees only separateness up to pure non-dual Śiva.
Kashmir Shaivism analyzes the 'experiencer' — the subject who perceives — into seven grades, from the most contracted to the most expanded. At the bottom is the ordinary bound self who takes duality and separateness as plain reality; in the middle are subjects partly freed in deep states or by insight; and at the higher levels are liberated perceivers for whom the world is increasingly known as one with the self, up to the supreme Śiva-subject of perfectly non-dual awareness. Crucially, the commentator Kṣemarāja reads these not just as seven kinds of being but as seven ways each of us can experience reality — so that to 'become a higher perceiver' is to shift the very mode of one's perceiving.