Śivasaṃhitā 1.89

Cosmology descends to the concrete human being: from gods and elements to reincarnation. The great gods are manifestations of Spirit; bodies and objects are products of avidyā; and the reincarnation of the jīva is the mechanism by which ignorance perpetuates the cycle. Three levels of the same process: the Absolute, the cosmos, and the individual being.

Paramātmani (in the Supreme Spirit, in the highest Ātman) is the field where all gods appear as figures on a screen. Avidyājanita (born from avidyā, produced by ignorance) qualifies bodies and objects as products of an epistemological, not ontological, process. Annamayakośa (the envelope made of food, the physical body) is the first of the five kośa—the layers of human experience—and is the vehicle of the reincarnating jīva.

The doctrine of the five kośa (envelopes: annamaya, prāṇamaya, manomaya, vijñānamaya, and ānandamaya) comes from Taittirīya Upaniṣad II. The annamayakośa—the physical body nourished by the grains of the earth—is the densest and most directly linked to karma. In the Śivasaṃhitā, the body is not an obstacle to liberation but its instrument: the following chapters will transform it into a field of yogic practice.