SLOKA 20 FROM DANCING WITH SIVA
WHAT ARE GOD SIVA’S TRADITIONAL FORMS?
Our adoration of the one great God Siva is directed toward diverse images and icons. Primary among them are Sivalinga, Nataraja, Ardhanarishvara, Dakshinamurti, Hari-Hara, Bhairava and the trishula. Aum Namah Sivaya.
BHASHYA
Every form is a form of Siva. Tradition has given us several of special sacredness. The Sivalinga was the first image of Divinity. After it all other icons evolved from mystic visions. We contemplate God Siva as Parasiva when we worship the Sivalinga. Its simple elliptical shape speaks silently of God’s unspeakable Absolute Being. We exalt Siva as Parashakti or Satchidananda, God’s living omnipresence, when we worship any form of His never-separate Shakti, especially Ardhanarishvara, whose right half is masculine and left half is feminine, and in whom all opposites are reconciled. We adore Him as Parameshvara, the Primal Soul, when we worship Nataraja, the Divine Dancer who animates the universe. Thus we worship Siva’s three perfections in three forms, yet knowing that He is a one Being, fully present in each of them. He is also Dakshinamurti, the silent teacher; Hari-Hara–half-Siva, half-Vishnu–and Bhairava, the fierce wielder of trishula, the trident of love, wisdom and action. The Tirumantiram declares, ”Everywhere is the Holy Form. Everywhere is Siva-Shakti. Everywhere is Chidambaram; Everywhere is Divine Dance.” Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 330 FROM LIVING WITH SIVA
MONASTIC COMMUNITIES
Monks of every Hindu order are guided and guarded by unseen beings who look after their lives as if they were their own. Families are blessed who share in and support the renunciation of their sons born through them to perform a greater dharma than the grihastha life could ever offer. It is the monastic communities worldwide, of all religions, that sustain sanity on this planet. It is the monks living up to their vows who sustain the vibration of law and order in the communities and nations of the world. This is how the devonic world sees each monastic community worldwide. This is how it is and should always be. This is how humanity balances out its experiential karmas and avoids destroying itself as it passes through the darkness of the Kali Yuga. The monastic communities that surround the planet, fulfilling their dharma, compensate for the adharma that is so prevalent, thus ensuring that humanity does not self-destruct in these trying times. We must, for the sake of clarity, state here that monastic communities are either strictly male or strictly female. Coed mixed-group ashramas are not monastic communities, but classed traditionally as communes.
Our Holy Orders of Sannyasa introduce monastic life in the following passages: ”The two fundamental objectives of sannyasa, renunciation, are to promote the spiritual progress of the individual, bringing him into God Realization, and to protect and perpetuate the religion. Renunciation and asceticism have been an integral component of Hindu culture from the earliest days, the most highly esteemed path of the Sanatana Dharma. Sannyasa life has both an individual and a universal objective. At the individual level, it is a life of selflessness in which the sannyasin has made the supreme sacrifice of renouncing all personal ambition, all involvement in worldly matters, that he might direct his consciousness and energies fully toward God Siva. Guided by the satguru along the sadhana marga, he unfolds through the years into deeper and deeper realizations. Ultimately, if he persists, he comes into direct knowing of Parasiva, transcendent Reality. At the universal level, the sannyasins foster the entire religion by preserving the truths of the Sanatana Dharma. Competent swamis are the teachers, the theologians, the exemplars of their faith, the torchbearers lighting the way for all. Paramaguru Sage Yogaswami sang: ’Hail, O sannyasin, thou who know’st no guile! Establish in thy heart and worship there the Taintless One–Panchakshara’s inmost core. Thou that regard’st all others as thyself–who in this world can be compared with thee?’ ”
SUTRA 330 OF THE NANDINATHA SUTRAS
FACING KARMA IN WISDOM
Siva’s monastics, knowing the law of karma, accept as their own karma all that comes. They forgive others of all offenses inwardly at once, but outwardly only after transgressors sincerely reconcile. Aum Namah Sivaya.
LESSON 330 FROM MERGING WITH SIVA
MORE SOLID THAN A NEUTRON STAR
The Self is like a neutron star, one million times harder than a diamond, not light, not dark, not within, not without, all things and nothing. You can’t smell it, yet you sense its smell. You can’t hear it, yet you feel its noise. You can’t see it, yet you are blinded by the thought of its light. You can’t know it, yet you know it; and knowing it is irresistible. The compact neutron star is heavier than heaviness itself, lighter than a balloon within air, space, nonspace, matter, nonmatter, air, the absence of air, light, the absence of light. How can we compare the neutron star to the Self, which is a trillion times greater, infinitely greater? There is no comparison, only an analogy of its greatness, of the stability-of-hardness, ever-present Self within each and every one of you. Quell the wanderings of the external mind. Bring it in through breathing, regulated breath. Quell the waves of the subconscious mind by bringing it into right belief, right words, right action–dharma–thus acknowledging all wrong actions, wrong words, wrong belief with penance, perseverance and final dissolution. Then there is nothing left but dharma–right action, right thought, right speech–within every experience of life. Dharma is sustained.
The neutron star: a trillion times more solid is the Self, which is you this very moment. Feel strong, feel secure, feel invincible, untouchable and yet able to be touched. Claim your heritage. Learn to work with yourself within yourself to accept your inherent identity. Don’t waste your time looking for your religious roots, racial roots, from the past. Once found, they will only give you momentary fulfillment. Accept and learn to deal with the realization of your acceptance of the undisputed fact of the strength of the Source. You are always your Source, emanating, ever emanating, creation, preservation and dissolution, but to create again to preserve the whims and fancies of the emanations of the neutron star. The emanations of the star, of which the Self, Parasiva, you, is a billion times more compact, is this maya of a constant, intricately complex series of performing, sustaining and cancelling out to perform again. Let’s all dance with Siva and unfold within ourselves Siva consciousness–the all-rightness of whatever happens, of all the happenings in the perfect universe called Sivaness.
