[1] His Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā (IPK, Verses on the Recognition of the Lord) is a central text for the Pratyabhijñā school of Shaiva Hindu philosophy.
In his highest form, the supreme divine personality is solely 'I' - consisting of consciousness and beatitude - in whom all the principles are contained though in a state of complete dissolution.
He is present throughout the IPK as the ultimate essence of every reality and is also directly mentioned here and there, even if the stage is generally occupied by a less extreme form of him, which balances between transcendence and immanence.
On the supreme plane there is only the I resting in his fullness and no trace of the knowable remains...this more accessible form of the God is connected with the second level.
According to Isabelle Ratie, this argument states that "the universe is an effect consisting of a specific arrangement that must have been created by an intelligent agent considered as its efficient cause."
As Torella explains, recognition is:merely the triggering in the devout of an act of identification, which does not reveal anything new but only rends the veils that hid the I from himself; a cognition is not created but only the blur that prevented its use, its entering into life, is instantly removed.
The practice of such a linear (avakra) path is enough to enter into the nature of Siva and achieve the condition of liberated in life, which may also be accompanied by the extraordinary powers...This occurs within everyday reality just as it is.
The light of liberation does not cause its colours to fade, does not cover them but brightens them, performing the miracle of eliminating otherness whilst maintaining the richness of individual flavours.
"[14] While Utpaladeva agrees with the Buddhist critique of the Nyaya categories and uses many of their philosophical tools, he sees their system as lacking an understanding of the supreme lord Śiva, which is "the omnipervasive dynamism of a free and “personal” consciousness.
"[15] Torella writes that Utpaladeva's examination and criticism of the Dignaga-Dharmakirti school of Buddhism "resulted in, or at least was accompanied by, the peculiar phenomenon of a more or less conscious absorption of their doctrines and their terminology, that was to leave substantial traces in the structure of the Pratyabhijñá.
His concept of camatkāra (wondrous enjoyment) marks a higher level of experience, which leaves the reality and beauty of the manifested world intact, but at same time projects it into a totality whose centre is Supreme Consciousness.