Understanding true meaning of Shiva... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------- What is true meaning of devotion to Lord Shiva? Following are extract of the Yug Rishi Gurudev Pt. Sriram Sharma Acharya's amrit vani. Why our devotion is of no avail? I had read it while translating the eighteen Puranas from Sanskrit to Hindi. It clarified to me why our devotion to Lord Shiva does not result in the kinds of miraculous boons our ancestors were receiving? Why don't we see any signs of His generous boons, which were so easily showered in the ancient times on anyone who did tapa for His grace? It is not that people like you and me are per se debarred from receiving such boons; rather, it is the fault in our approach, the half-heartedness of our dedication, insincerity of our devotion and the shaky nature of our faith that hinder accomplishment of our sadhana. We will have to find out and eliminate our shortcomings, our infirmities. Unless we are honest in our own efforts towards spiritual elevation, how can we gain and demonstrate the immense benefits of spirituality and how could we convince the world that we are the devotees of the Supreme Power and Presence that can change for the better the course of human history and destiny? So, where has been our major mistake? Well, the root cause of our failure is our misconception. We have only seen the external form in the idols of Lord Shiva (and Parvati) and have
mechanically followed the customary rituals of worship. We have not understood the philosophy, the true meaning, of devotion to Lord Shiva. What we see in the temples as the idol of God is only like the gross representation of His limited manifestation. The gross body is only an outer shell; the source of life, the prana lies inside. We ritually put our heads at the feet of the idol; worship it with flowers, sandalwood powder, and what not. We pray before it, sing devotional songs, etc but that is only an external activity. It remains incomplete without the understanding and the linkage with the inner, the subliminal and the true divine power. We should know the subtle and causal forms of Lord Shiva, which when realized in the idol, would make His presence real for us in that gross physical symbol. What is the inner form of Shiva that we should realize in His idols? What is its philosophy? Well, as symbolized by his round globular linga, He is Omnipresent; the globe, the entire cosmos is His manifestation. If we regard the universe as His emanation and interact with it accordingly, we would be able to touch the bedrock of spirituality and see the limitless expression of God that was projected by Shri Ram and Krishna before their deserving devotees. Their instances teach us that we should regard the whole world as God made manifest. The round stone worshipped as the pindi of Shiva also indicates this deep aspect of divine philosophy. It reminds us that the cosmic expression is round, it has no beginning or end; an atomic orbit is also round; the earth is also globular. Thus the philosophy of worshiping the pindi implies worshipping the world loving service for global welfare. It
also tells us that we should treat others with the same respect and warmth, as we would like to receive from the world, because we are all different sparks of the same Light. If we could understand and adopt this philosophy in life, we would no doubt be the true devotees of Shiva, and our power, our knowledge and our potentials would also become grand like those of His true devotees. Teachings from Shivas Idols in Human Form: Lord Shivas human-image is so beautifully depicted in the scriptures. It depicts the sacred Ganga flowing through His hair lock. But it is symbolic. Here Ganga represents he flow of pure knowledge. Sheer common sense would tell us that a river or spring of water can't flow through ones hair, and if so, the person concerned would not be able to even stand or walk. Instead, he himself would get swept along these currents. The depiction of the Ganga of Knowledge on Shivas head is also a philosophical teaching. It implies that if we are the true devotees of Lord Shiva, our feelings and thoughts should be pure, enlightened and of superior quality. A low level of thinking, feeling and a life confined to sensual pleasures, satiating the gross urges and a hunger of the senses depicts an animal like existence. Such people can never be the devotees of Lord Shiva. How could one be accepted as a worshipper of the Omniscient Divine Power if he can't think and feel beyond the narrow confines of selfishness? One who never cares to ponder over and strive for the wider and deeper domains of the society, the nation, morality, ethics and spirituality, one who is not aware of and committed to his duties, can't even be a good human being, let alone a devotee of God.
The principal attribute of a true devotee of the Lord is that the Ganga of pure knowledge flows through his head; that means his mind is illumined and blessed with righteous thinking, which gives peace and bliss to the soul. Attitudes and thoughts of those coming in his contact would also be purified by the sprinkles of this Gyan Ganga. If your mind and heart also begin to evolve in this direction, then only you will have followed the underlying philosophy behind the specific image of Lord Shiva. We also find a half moon beautifully encircling the forehead of the Lord. Moon is the symbol of soothing serenity. Its presence on Shivas head teaches that a worshipper of Shiva should have a cool, calm and awakened mind. His mind should be stable and strong so that no hardship, adversity or exciting situation could ever perturb his mental peace. Look at the great achievers in human life; they have faced great challenges without losing patience. Those who get anxious or do not have a stable mind cannot do much; they easily get tensed up, or nervous and fritter away their energies and talents. A calm and cool mind alone can contemplate deeply and think rightly. An agitated mind is not dependable. It often triggers one to do what one should not have done; it tends to think erroneously and even immorally. Today, when the whole world is living under great difficulties and threatening challenges of one kind or the other, it is all the more important that we take shelter at the feet of the ultimate Savior God Shiva and pray that the moon of piety, peace, balance and equanimity on his head may also inspire patience and serenity in our minds. We should
pray him to bless us with inner peace, patience, endurance, and courage. Instead of begging for worldly attainments (as we usually do before any deity), had we prayed for divine inspirations before the infinitely generous Lord Shiva, we would have really acquired real peace and happiness in life and lived gracefully like a true devotee. The images of Lord Shiva that we see in pictures depict Him wearing a garland of skulls and with dreaded cobras dangling around his neck. The intimate company of deadly poisonous snakes reveals the secret of divinity, which is love everyone; it can turn everyone, even the venomous cruel cobra like foes into good friends. See, even the cobras live so amicably with Him! We should understand and adopt this philosophy of a loving and fearless attitude. The presence of a garland of skulls on the Lords chest reminds us that the face, which we identify ourselves with, for which we feel so proud and remain engaged in decorating and taking care of, is only a structure of bone. That is its sole reality. We remain deluded and cheated by the covering of flesh and skin around it; not only that, we use cosmetics and what not upon that skin to make our face look beautiful. But have we ever thought about its reality? Just remove the illusive covering and the fact will be obvious for everyone to see. The garland of skulls conveys that we should not let the falsehood and the associated silly attachments cover up our Real Self. We should learn this important lesson while worshipping Lord Shiva or sitting at His feet.
The ox symbolizes strength, courage and hard work in our (Indian) culture. If you want to become a devotee of Lord Shiva, you will have to be courageous and depend upon your own wisdom and endeavors. No one will open the doors of progress for you. You alone will have to come forward and initiate your ascent in the desired direction. He lives in the marghat (crematorium)! Why should He do so? Well, this again is a symbolic depiction. It teaches us that we should always remember death. We get so engrossed in the worldly affairs that we almost forget that death could knock at our door any moment and then we will have to leave this world instantly. We seem to remember everything else but this bitter reality of life. If we had remembered the absolute fact that we had to die some day or the other, our attitude towards life would have been different. In that case, we would have cared for what we ought and what we ought not to do? We would have been more alert towards our duties. A home and a crematorium are alike for a duty-bound, altruist person who has acquired pure knowledge. Such a wise man knows that this moment he is living comfortably in the house but any other moment he would be no more and his body would rest in peace in a crematorium or a graveyard; then he will have new life and a new home and so on. Todays life would be tomorrows death, which would again turn into new life some day This is how the cycle of life continues Life and death are like the relay games of day and night. Then why should we be scared of death? Rather, we should remember it to make our life more meaningful, more useful, more enlightened every day.
This is another significant teaching of Shivas Philosophy of Life. If we look carefully and ponder over it, we will find that innumerable teachings are hidden in Lord Shivas manifestations as we see Him in the temples and religious stories. We often find His depiction in human-like form with a coating of ash on his body. If we knew the righteous attitude of life and the ideal mode of living, the importance of this ash-coating would have been crystal clear to us. The most important implication of smearing bhasm on any part of the body is to recall the Vedic teaching of "Bhasmantaka Goum Shariram" this body is going to become (a heap of) ash one day. That means, this body might either get mixed in the soil or water or fly like the dust particles with the wind. This physical body of ours, which we are so proud of and are so much attached to, is going to be crushed (with the soil) beneath others feet one day. If we are His true devotees, the bhasm on Shivas body should constantly remind us of this ultimate reality and therefore keep us away from the ego and attachments that arise because of our mistaken identity with the physical body. The Third Eye: The three eyes of Lord Shiva are often the focus of mythological interpretations and mystic curiosity. The third eye symbolizes the source of sagacity pure, discreet wisdom. This center in the human body is hidden subtly in an endocrine gland inside the brain right behind the position (on the forehead) where the third eye of Shiva is depicted. The divine radiations emanating from the third eye instantly burnt the gross body of Kamadeva. It conveys the fact that the insidious
force of erotic thoughts and sexual excitation can be instantly checked and eliminated if our discerning prudence is awakened. The opening of the third eye means awakening of our sagacity and creative activation of our inner wisdom. The third eye is subtly located in the third dimension inside our brain. It teaches us to look into the deeper aspects of every phenomenon, every thought and every experience. Our ordinary eyes (the two eyes on our faces) see only extrovertly; they can only show us our materialistic gains and losses or the worldly affairs in the limited peripheries of our interactions. The needs of the body or the sense organs are easily seen by them. But there is a third eye, which opens inward. It enables us to look deeply in the sublime folds of mind and shows us the world of inner peace, everlasting happiness and absolute truth. This is the eye of foresight and clairvoyance. When a sincere devotee of Lord Shiva seeks refuge under His grace, he first inspects his own character and conduct to check whether or not he measures up to the virtuous standards with respect to the philosophy of Shiva. The human-like image of God Shiva is a kind of an ideal model for the true devotee. A potter makes a pot in the desired design by processing and fixing the clay into appropriate mold. The devotee should also try to mold his personality, his attitude, his thinking, his life, etc as per the ideals of his Deity. Our worship and devotional practices have no meaning without commensurate endeavors of refinement and improvement in our thoughts, behavior and deeds. The Sanskrit word for devotional worship is "Upasana", which literally means sitting nearby.
Sitting near the fire makes us feel warm. Similarly, sitting near God should inspire us with His attributes. Sitting in the closed vicinity of a powerful source of energy would bestow the associated significant effects on us only if there is a linkage, a direct connection between the source and the beneficiary. A piece of wood becomes fire only when it sacrifices itself in the fire nearby. This is how "upasana" brings the desired results only if the devotee sets a live linkage of his inner self with the Deity of his worship. For this, he has to discipline and mold himself as per the inspirations of his God. We, the aspirants of the beatitude of Lord Shiva, should also consciously and ceaselessly attempt at transforming ourselves according to the ideals of His manifestation. We should endeavor opening our third eye (that means, awaken our intuitive insight and pure intellect). The very purpose of murti puja (idol-worship) in Indian Culture is to enable the masses to access and imbibe the teachings and inspirations of divine emanations. Every idol, every symbol of Gods manifestation represented here is indicative of some important teaching related to the spiritual evolution of human consciousness. Today, I gave you the example of Shankar (Shiva) in this context and tried to explain the principles, the occult implications of His worship and devotion. Unfortunately, we often get engrossed in worshipping the gross form the idol of God and consider the performance of some customary rituals, chanting of some prayers etc as all that is required for His devotion. Even if we have read or heard about the occult significance of the symbols of divine manifestations, we don't seem to remember anything. We just want to take shortcuts and regard ourselves great devotees
simply by symbolic worship. The word "Shiva" in Sanskrit means highest good. Lord Shiva (Shiva) is the presiding Deity of eternal, auspicious well-being of all creation. But we, the so-called worshippers of Shiva never even think of global good. (Forget about global, we don't even attempt to expand the narrow domain of our selfish interests and engage ourselves in altruistic service and upliftment of the needy around us). We keep chanting "Om Namah Shivaya" but don't bother to know its meaning; in reality, Shiva (Shiva) is far away from our lives. We don't even know what is the true well-being of our soul or our own life and how to attain it? The japa (rhythmic chanting) of Shivas name will be beatifying if "Shiva" (Highest Good) is embodied in our attitude, aspirations, thoughts and deeds. It is time we realize that worshipping only the external, gross form is no better than not doing anything at all. Be Blessed by Shivas Grace: The Almighty God of Hindu religion for whom we observe fasting on Shivaratri, perform japa, ceremonial worship, sacred ablution (abhisheka) and what not cant He, the Omnipotent, destroy all evils and eliminate our adversities? Can't He help us in our progress? He indeed can and He will, if we are His deserving devotees. He loves all of us and wants to bestow all His grace upon us; but it is our infirmities, our vices that hinder or limit the flow of His blessings. His grace is like the water-laden clouds. (The clouds shower the treasure of rains without discrimination wherever they fall). But how much water a pond or a pot would collect from the rain depends upon its own capacity.
If we deserve, we will surely be beatified by Shivas enormous generosity. His beatitudes will continue to grow as our abilities, our merits increase and we shall get everything that a true devotee of Shankar deserves. We discussed today the meaning and philosophy of the gross manifestations of Lord Shiva as described in the Puranas. Divine beings generate love, peace, beauty, piety, bliss and prosperity wherever they go. You should also adopt and expand such qualities. I wish you all the success in your endeavors to proceed in this direction. Thank you for listening with patience. http://www.awgp.org/event/2016/maha_shivratri_celebration/what_is_lo rd_shiva Type: article, Category: /ARTICLE/AMRITVANI, Language: english