Vimarsha Foundation is a modern school (gurukula) for teaching and reflecting on the ancient wisdom of r̥ṣis and siddhas.

Philosophically, vimarśa is the reflective mode of consciousness that makes consciousness self-aware. Theologically, vimarśa is Mother Śakti. Metaphysically, vimarśa is everything that exists as 'this' (idam).

Our logo is itself a depiction of this profound concept. The inner eye is wisdom, light. In the center is a blue circle, the empty space, permeated with the rays communicating with the petals. Bindu and visarga stand for prakāśa and vimarśa. The phonemes (ka, ca, ṭa, ta, pa, ya, śa), written in Brahmī script, are central mātr̥kas, the matrices giving rise to the world. The outer white circle refers to knowledge spread throughout the world.

OUR SAMPRADĀYA

SARVĀMNĀYA

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The Tantric tradition of Nepal relies upon the āmnāya system. The āmnāya, generally translated as 'transmission', is the directional source of the deities who manifest from the different faces of Lord Śiva. The central concept of Āmnāya is thus that Śiva, with his different faces imparts, to the goddess in her corresponding emanations, the secret Tantric teachings in the form of the Āgamas. Āmnāya system integrates various strands of Kaula Tantrism, and the synonyms used to describe this process are the ‘mouth’ (vaktra) of Śiva/Bhairava, or the flow (srotas) of the wisdom imparted by Śiva to Śakti. The full worship of Lord Paśupati in the form of the Mukhaliṅga thus demands the worship of all these faces and their corresponding goddesses, thus integrating all the Śaiva and Śākta Āgamas.

The synthesis of all this Kaula lineages practiced in a system of sequential initiation happened in Nepal as early as the XIIth Century. The Nepalese Krama initiation system identified as the Sarvāmnāya incorporates various deities from different transmissions in a sequence. When incorporating the lower face, this system is described as having six transmissions, and when the ordinal directions are included, its expanded form is called 'ten transmissions'.

Sarvāmnāya, the full Kaula (Śaiva-Śākta) revelation that integrates all these streams, is the core of the Tantric tradition as preserved for a millenium in Nepal. It centers around the imagery of Bhairava as evoking both immanence, the presence of the divine in all forms, and transcendence of all categories.

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OUR FOUNDER

Vimarsha Foundation's founder, Ācārya Dr. Sthaneshwar Timalsina is from Nepal. He was traditionally trained, consecrated with sarvādhikāra-sarvasāmrājya dīkṣā and is authorized as Śaivācārya within Nepali Sarvāmnāya Order by his dīkṣā gurus: Prem Chetan, from Baglung (Nepal), and Śaṁkara Caitanya Bhāratī, from Kashmir. Khaptad Baba, also from Kashmir, was his Yoga guru. He was taught the Vedas, Nyāya, Mīmāṁsā, Vedānta, Śaiva Siddhānta, Trika, Mahārtha and other śāstras in Nepal and Varanasi, by the aforementioned teachers as well as others such as Tanka Prasad Timalsina, Vidyānath Upādhyāya, Rāmānanda Giri, Maheśānanda Giri, Ramji Malviya, Vraja Vallabha Dvivedi and Hemendra Nath Chakravarty.

Acharya Dr. Sthaneshwar Timalsina has also received academic and philological training from Mahendra Sanskrit University in Kathmandu; Sampurnananda Sanskrit University in Varanasi; as well as Martin Luther University in Germany, where he acquired his Ph.D. in Classical Indian Philosophy. While working on his dissertation, Dr. Timalsina taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Washington University in St. Louis. Since 2005, he taught in both the Department for the Study of Religions and the Department of Philosophy at San Diego State University. He is currently the Endowed Chair of Indic Studies at Stony Brook University, New York in the Department of Asian & Asian American Studies.

He has long dedicated himself to the goal of preserving the traditions he inherited in a modern, institutionalized way. This goal dates back to Acharya's time in Nepal, where he founded the Department of Tantric Studies at Nepal Sanskrit University in Kathmandu. Today, Acharya's work as a University Professor allows śāstric traditions to be brought to conversations in the global academic field. In order to further disseminate philosophical knowledge distilled from various Hindu schools of thought, Dr. Timalsina launched the Vimarsha Foundation in 2019 and since then, has continued to offer regular, full courses through this global forum

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OUR VISION

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To teach, research, conserve, and publish Sanskrit philosophical and other literature from the Dharma traditions that expand global awareness.

To engage the wisdom of the Rishis and sages from contemplative traditions for a creative dialogue in the humanities and social sciences.

To create and support platforms for a collaboration between the Dharma philosophical traditions and global philosophies in contemplative, experiential, and scientific empirical levels.

To promote awareness of alternative (non-Western) philosophies and worldviews, diverse cultures, languages, and ways of life, as resources for addressing global problems.

To foster dialogue between science and the humanities, and cultivate a deeper understanding of thoughts and practices from around the globe.

To support implementation of scientific findings derived from the philosophical underpinnings of the Dharma traditions in all disciplines of education.