Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra

[4][5][6] The VBT is framed as a discourse between Bhairava (the "fearsome one", or "the dark matter") and the goddess Bhairavi in 163 Sanskrit anuṣṭubh stanzas.

It briefly presents around 112 Tantric meditation methods (yuktis) or centering techniques (dhāraṇās) in very compressed form.

[9] In the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra (VBT), Bhairavi, the goddess (Shakti), asks Bhairava (the fearsome manifestation of Shiva) to reveal the essence of how to realize the true nature of reality.

[4][5] The VBT describes the goal of these practices, the "true nature of reality", as follows in the Christopher Wallis translation from 2018: Beyond reckoning in space or time; without direction or locality; impossible to represent; ultimately indescribable; Blissful with the experience of that which is inmost; a field of awareness free of mental constructs: that state of overflowing fullness is Bhairavī, the essence of Bhairava.

The result has been various poetic or free form renderings which fail to properly communicate the actual practices which are briefly outlined in the text.