Śivasaṃhitā 4.55

The assertion that Vajrolī yoga liberates regardless of the practitioner’s state of purity (pavitra) or impurity (apavitra) is one of the most radical declarations in the text. It directly contradicts the Brahmanical orthodoxy of ritual purity as a prerequisite for spiritual practice. The Śivasaṃhitā belongs to the antinomian tradition of left-handed tantra, where liberation requires no external prerequisites of purity.

Apavitraḥ pavitro vā — ‘whether impure or pure’ — is a comprehensive disjunction covering the entire spectrum of ritual condition. Sarvāvasthāṃ gataḥ — ‘one who has arrived at every condition’ — extends the principle beyond ritual purity: even in states of extreme moral or spiritual degradation, practice remains valid and effective. Bhoge yukta — ‘joined to sensory enjoyment’ — specifies the most provocative case: the lover, the meat-eater, the drinker.

This principle is not a license for indulgence but an articulation of tantric soteriology: liberation does not depend on what the practitioner does before practice but on the quality of the practice itself. In the context of Vajrolī, this has an additional meaning: the sexual energy that would be considered ‘impure’ within the Brahmanical framework is precisely the fuel of transmutation. There is nothing to purify beforehand; everything is purified within the practice.