SLOKA 15 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
WHAT IS THE SYMBOLISM OF SIVA’S DANCE?
The symbolism of Siva Nataraja is religion, art and science merged as one. In God’s endless dance of creation, preservation, destruction and paired graces is hidden a deep understanding of our universe. Aum Namah Sivaya.
BHASHYA
Nataraja, the King of Dance, has four arms. The upper right hand holds the drum from which creation issues forth. The lower right hand is raised in blessing, betokening preservation. The upper left hand holds a flame, which is destruction, the dissolution of form. The right leg, representing obscuring grace, stands upon Apasmarapurusha, a soul temporarily earth-bound by its own sloth, confusion and forgetfulness. The uplifted left leg is revealing grace, which releases the mature soul from bondage. The lower left hand gestures toward that holy foot in assurance that Siva’s grace is the refuge for everyone, the way to liberation. The circle of fire represents the cosmos and especially consciousness. The all-devouring form looming above is Mahakala, ”Great Time.” The cobra around Nataraja’s waist is kundalini shakti, the soul-impelling cosmic power resident within all. Nataraja’s dance is not just a symbol. It is taking place within each of us, at the atomic level, this very moment. The Agamas proclaim, ”The birth of the world, its maintenance, its destruction, the soul’s obscuration and liberation are the five acts of His dance.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 325 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
SUSTAINING THE CONNECTION
A satguru doesn’t need a lot of words to transmit the spirit to another person; but the shishyas have to be open and be kept open. The little bit of spirit extends like a slender fiber, a thin thread, from the satguru to the shishya, and it is easily broken. A little bit more of that association adds another strand, and we have two threads, then three, then four. They are gradually woven together through service, and a substantial string develops between the guru and the shishya. More strings are created, and they are finally woven together into a rope strong enough to pull a cart. You’ve seen in India the huge, thick ropes that pull a temple chariot. That is the ultimate goal of the guru-shishya relationship.
Upon the connection between guru and shishya, the spirit of the parampara travels, the spirit of the sampradaya travels. It causes the words that are said to sink deep. They don’t just bounce off the intellect; the message goes deep into the individual. Spiritual force doesn’t just happen. It’s a hand-me-down process, a process of transmission, just as the development of the human race didn’t just happen. It was a hand-me-down from many, many fathers and mothers and many, many reincarnations that brought us all here. Parampara is a spiritual force that moves from one person to another. I am not talking about the modern idea of bestowing shakti power, where somebody gets a little jolt and pays a little money and that’s the end of the association with the teacher. Parampara is like giving a devotee one end of a tiny silk thread. Now, if the devotee drops his end of the thread, the experiences are stopped and only words are left, just words, one word after another, another and another. The devotee then has to interpret the depth of the philosophy according to the depths of his inherent ignorance. What other measurement does he have? The relationship with the guru is a constant weaving in and out of one fiber of the thread added to another fiber, added to another fiber, added to another fiber, just like this khadi kavi robe we wear in our Order was woven. Each fiber is attached to another fiber, attached to another fiber, attached to another fiber, and finally we have a thread. Between the guru and shishya many threads are all woven together, and finally we have a firm rope that cannot be pulled apart or destroyed even by two people pulling against one another. That is sampradaya. That is parampara. That is the magical power of the Nathas.
As we look at this great line of satgurus–coming from Lord Siva Himself through Nandinatha and countless ones before Nandinatha, to Rishi Tirumular and countless rishis after him to the Rishi of Bangalore, to Kadaitswami, Chellappaguru and Yogaswami–we see the same spiritual force flowing. We see an undaunted, rare succession of individuals who considered adversity as a boon from the Gods, wherein all the accumulated karmas to be wiped away come together in one place to be taken care of all at once. Nathas don’t run from adversity; nor do they resent it. They take it within themselves in meditation and deal with it, dissolve it in the clear white light within themselves, every tiny little bit of it. They consider it a boon from the Gods that it all came at one time rather than strung out over a period of many years. The mysterious Nathas have their own way of handling almost everything, and much of that is revealed in the Nandinatha Sutras. These sutras have within them, summarized in short stanzas, all the knowledge that’s within our catechism and creed, all the knowledge that’s in our monastic Holy Orders, all the knowledge embodied in our Saiva culture, in our brahmacharya course, and all the other books and lessons we have published and distributed throughout the years. They give codes of behavior, conduct, ways of living, ways of moving, ways of thinking, as well as the basic core of the monistic Saiva Siddhanta taught by our Kailasa Parampara for eons and eons of time.
SUTRA 325 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
PURE VESSELS FOR THE DIVINE
My monastics strive to keep Lord Siva foremost in their mind and heart, seeking pure emptiness, kaif. Having mastered the Shum-Tyeif language of meditation, they are vessels for God’s gracious will. Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 325 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
BEING AND BECOMING
Out of the microcosm ever comes the macrocosm. Out of Parasiva–which is timeless, causeless and formless–ever comes all form. This is the great mystery without a reason why. Out of pure consciousness ever comes the light which binds all form together in specific bondage, individualizing forms, souls, one from another. This is ever happening, as simultaneously struggling souls remove their bondage through the grace of God Siva to come into Satchidananda, later to be absorbed into Parasiva. This, too, is a great mystery without a reason why.
The existence called Parasiva pervades the infinite Satchidananda, sustaining it just as the Divine Light of God Siva’s mind pervades and sustains the gross forms of this world. Parasiva does not create Satchidananda, yet Satchidananda is sustained because of the existence of nonexistence. Now, you might ask, ”Why?” The answer is that this is the will of our great God Siva.
Therefore, first we seek to gain an intellectual clarity as to the path we are on. This purified intellect gives a philosophical clarity and should not in any way be mistaken for attainment. In the technological age there are thousands who are intellectually clear as to the task at hand, how to obtain the objective, and they have the necessary skills to begin. They do not delude themselves that they have already begun or attained anything until failure has been many times encountered, that failure conquered and success achieved in its place. Thus, we draw a distinction between the seasoned yogi whose knowledge has its source in superconsciousness and the armchair Vedantist who often thinks his intellectual comprehension is some kind of advanced attainment. It is not. Peoples of the West have come too far in technology, too far in the understanding and use of the mind, too far in personal study of Vedanta to be impressed by this anymore.
The two perfections explain well the deep questions man asks himself, questions which bring forth far too few answers. Through meditation upon the two perfections inherent in the soul, we can penetrate the mystery of the oneness of man and God. Man and God are one, yet God Siva has yet a third perfection, Maheshvara, the Primal Soul, already perfect and complete, whereas man’s soul body is still maturing, still evolving. One day, the soul body of man will merge with God Siva in this third perfection. So, we see that man is both being and becoming. He is already perfect, for the essence of his soul, Parasiva and Satchidananda, exists eternally within him as him, having never been created. Yet, man is evolving, becoming, for his individual soul body, created by God Siva, is not yet perfect, is still evolving through time, eventually to mature into the image and likeness of the Primal Soul and Creator, Maheshvara.
I might surprise you when I say that man’s soul is created and not created. True, the soul body of light was created by God Siva Himself. Within this body of light and consciousness exist, without beginning or end, the two perfections of Parasiva and Satchidananda. We find the paradoxes of oneness and twoness, of being and becoming, of created and uncreated existence subtly delineated through an understanding of the three perfections of our great God Siva.
