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Salutations to SIVA the Supreme Reality transcending the mind and senses
| This Universal Essence adorns everything, pervades everywhere, manifests as everything and which indwells all beings as the subtle Antaryami tattva. The Hindu sect of Shaivites believes that the Universe is created by Siva in His own image for He is Unlimited Consciousness and consciousness alone exists everywhere and space does not limit Him. |
Siva is Param Atma
The Shaiva philosophy ( Shaivism) believe in the Super Soul from which other souls are born in the form of lives. After the completion of the life-cycle of human beings soul returns to the Super Soul, the human soul merges with it, depending upon the deeds and merits one has accumulated in one’s life-time. Siva is taken to be the Super Soul or Cosmic/unlimited Consciousness and prevails over everything and is everywhere. In other words, Siva is the source of all divine powers, all living and non-living beings. |
| He is the Universal Mother/father God. The primordial Source/creator God from which All has come out including all the Atmas /souls. In which shall All go back. Siva is the divine name of this Paramatma. He is also called as “Parampita Parmeshwara”. |
The Sanskrit word Siva has two parts - Shi and Va, meaning redeemer and liberator. The word Siva also means “center point” (bindu) or “seed”. He does not change and remain ONE and WHOLE/complete that is why he is also called “Sadashiv”. He is the center point of the entire creation, which is God’s light so he is referred in the Puranas as the “ Jyoti Bindu swarupa” and the seed form ( Beja shakti swarupa) of all that has been created. It is self illumined –“svaprakasa”. Siva exists by itself, he is “Nirapeksha”, is independent or that which exists and is sustained by itself and does not require anything else to support it. He is unborn ( aja ) and has no beginning or end (anadi).
Staunch Shaivism propounds that the word “Om” stands for Siva and denotes the Universe. Om which represents the five elements of the process of a life-cycle. The Sanskrit symbol of Om is the pranava. The primordial first sound which came out of the cosmic void or nothingness. Om is the first syllable of all holy mantras and chants. Om has three sound elements, which give the sounds, such as 'A', 'Ou' and 'Ma', and two physical elements, such as a 'dot' and a 'crescent'. 'A' represents birth, 'Ou' life, 'Ma' death. The 'dot' signifies the disintegration of the body into original five elements and 'crescent' symbolizes the soul moving to another physical body or returning to merge with the Super Soul
Siva is the pure Absolute person
A person does not necessary mean that it has to be having a three dimension physicality to be a person. A person can be minus the body. God in most religions is conceived as a formless personality having a pure spirit without any physical body. In Judaism, Christianity & Islam, god is an all pervading consciousness/ energy, the Antaryami tattva. This divine person can be without form (nirakara) as well as with form (sakara). |
| What gives personality to a person ? It is the Self-consciousness. What then is self-consciousness ? It is the natural inner dynamism and external vibrations or actions. These actions generate energy and power. According to the ancient Vedas, the personality’s iccha (will) and jnana (wisdom) initiates kriya (action) which causes spanda (external vibrations) and shakti (power). |
| Since Siva is a person therefore Siva has self-consciousness. The Self of Siva is perfect by nature, it lacks nothing; there is no want in Siva. Perfection causes complete fulfillment and satisfaction with no remaining desires. Siva’s consciousness (nitya spanda or eternal energy) is a spontaneous overflow of Shiv’s joy, dance or playfulness but not his desire to create. That is why the Shaivites refer to the Reality (God, Self, the creation or Consciousness) as Siva. They attribute Siva Consciousness as the first and foremost activity (kriya) of the Creator God and is eternal (nitya), it’s external vibrations (spanda) creates energy and power (shakti) to create. Siva with the triad of his will-knowledge-action (iccha - gyanna - kriya) created everything. In Tantra, creation is conceived of as the sporting activity of Siva (Lila) or the dance of Nataraja. The Creator Siva freely projects the world out of Himself. He is one with its creation, the two are identical. Since the world is Siva’s manifestation the duality world is also Siva appearing in different forms. |
| Siva is most pure – the purest because he is the Creator of all that which is ever created (Patitapavan). This name is also associated with Lord Rama. |
Siva has not been created by anyone, he is his own creator that is why he is also given the name “Shyambhu” (Swyambhu) or the self-manifested.
Difference between Siva and Shankara
The first and the foremost activity of Siva in the process of creation of life was the creation of three devas/deities: Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh who have a divine physical form of subtle body like other deities. Siva is therefore given the name of “Trimurti” and “Trideva”, i.e. the creator of Brahma, Vishnu & Mahesh. As ordained, Brahma created the Universe and the world. After this arduous job of creation, the formless Siva created Vishnu also called Narayana, who was assigned the task to run and administer, that which was created, and finally Siva created Mahesh/Shankara who was assigned the work of destroying and recreating. |
| Siva, the God of gods, is incorporeal; is formless (Nirakara), all pervading energy. However, since time immemorial some Siva Upasakas for their own convenience and reverence started associating Siva more with the form of Maheshwara and/or Shankara. They started calling him Shiv - Shankara. Probably because more than the other two devas the entity Shankara had symbolically many similar qualities and attributes with this formless, abstract, all pervading God. So in the form ( Akara), Siva was being referred as Shankara - the destroyer, who comprises the Hindu trinity along with Brahma, the creator, and Vishnu, the sustainer. |
He is depicted as half-naked being, wearing a tiger skin around his waist, decorating his matted hair (giving him the name “Jatadhari”) with spluttering Ganges (Gangadhari) and a crescent moon, wearing serpents on his limbs and around his neck, holding a trident and the body smeared with ashes. These are all symbolic languages which convey the messages of Siva. The trident symbolises the trinity - Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh. The moon and the Ganga indicate that Siva is as clear as the Ganges and as cool as the moon. In carrying the moon he is the lord of all lunar activities affecting the earth (he is also called “Chandrasekhara”), the moon is associated with the mind, memory, with time (Kaal) and tides. Serpents represent anger and threat. The serpents under his arms and neck mean that he has control over anger and is fearless. It also signifies that he has achieved inner mastery. The tiger skin around his waist means the ferocious animal power under his control. The ashes on His body mean that all living beings are subject to death.
Siva Lingam
The Sanskrit suffix linga or lingam signifies sign, symbol and the quality of an entity. Therefore Sivalingam is the symbol of this creator God and depicts his qualities. When subdivided into phonetic consonants lin and gam, respectively, refer to the process of destruction and recreation which Siva epitomizes. Siva appears as a luminous lingam. The Lingam is considered as a formless and infinite object representing the Lord as the universe. The lingam also is believed to have five faces. Four faces are usually carved on all four directions and the fifth, which is not carved, is believed to be facing upwards. Siva is depicted as a five-faced form to represent these five elements that support life on earth. Each face has three eyes, which also represent birth, life and death. He is also called as Tryambaka, the three eyed one. |
| Siva represents the life-cycle and five life- supporting elements which have a form of five faces representing the five elements. The life-cycle represents the creation of life from five elements such as earth, water, fire, air and ether, then the maintenance of life and the completion of life, i.e. death, which means separating the physical body from the soul. The body disintegrates into five elements and returns to their original elementary forms. |
| Shivratri is the day when Shankara married Parvati. Shivratri symbolises the darkest night of the year, meaning the darker side of human character and the darkness of ignorance. And Siva manifested Himself to enlighten the world. Such manifestations may even be through the form of illumined souls. |
Lord Shiva and Maa Parvati |
| The Puranic tradition, pertaining to Sivaratri, has it that Siva manifested Himself as Jyotirlinga, or a being of light, on this night at a time which was indescribable because of its cosmic splendour. There was neither light nor darkness, neither movement nor stillness. It was probably the twilight hour. The luminous being of light is also called Sadasiva or eternal benefactor. Siva also means Kalyana or welfare. The Jyotirlinga was not phallic in shape but oval. It is believed that it was given a phallic shape in stone or marble due to the degeneration in popular practices. |
| Ancient puranas on this subject states that Siva’s first divine creation was the deity Shankara, who then created Brahma with four faces and placed him on the lotus grown out of the navel of Vishnu lying on his back and floating on the ocean of the cosmic world. He gave Brahma four faces to enable him to see in all directions at once to expedite the creation of the world. Brahma first created five life-supporting elements such as earth, water, air, fire and ether and then mountains, hills, lands, rivers and so on. Thereafter, he gave birth to holy men, named them and assigned them duties. Finding it a never- ending process, he felt the need for a biological process of creation for sustaining life on earth but could not think of how to do it. Therefore, he began meditating on Shankar for gaining knowledge of the process of creating the biological life. Shankara then with the help of his feminine aspect(half-male and half-female, called Ardha Nareshwar or Uma-shankar) infused into all living beings on earth the desire to procreate and created the biological process of creation in all forms of life for reproducing other beings. He is therefore the god of procreation. |
| As the process went on, it became clear to Brahma that there should be a life-cycle rather than the never- ending creation of lives by biological means. Therefore, He again requested Mahesh to develop a process that would complete the life-cycle of living beings on the earth. The Lord then created another divine spirit, called Rudra, to complete the life-cycle of living beings developed by Brahma. Thus, Rudra became the symbol of completion of the life-cycle of living beings. In other words, Rudra represented the death or the end of life. Rudra is associated as the wild hunter causing storm with his wind spirits (the maruts). Here, death should be understood as the completion of a life-cycle and as the splitting of a physical body into a spirit called a soul or a corpus. |
| Shankara created an abode called Kailash for Himself and another called Vaikuntha for Vishnu beyond the universe because the universe follows the life-cycle that had to come to an end one day, which means the extinction of the universe in the present form. Therefore, Kailash and Vaikuntha are eternal, permanent and beyond the network of the life-cycle of the universe. No births and deaths occur in those two abodes. Good souls tend to perform meritorious acts on this earth to enable their souls to travel to Vaikuntha after death and live there permanently. |
| Shankara created an abode called Kailash for Himself and another called Vaikuntha for Vishnu beyond the universe because the universe follows the life-cycle that had to come to an end one day, which means the extinction of the universe in the present form. Therefore, Kailash and Vaikuntha are eternal, permanent and beyond the network of the life-cycle of the universe. No births and deaths occur in those two abodes. Good souls tend to perform meritorious acts on this earth to enable their souls to travel to Vaikuntha after death and live there permanently. |
| Shankara is not only the god of gods (devadidev/ mahadeva) but of the demons as well he embodies the primal oneness before the world divided itself into the divine and demonic forces. |
| In ancient Greeks mythology, Shankara can be equated with their god “Dionysos”. Greek believer of this god form (Dionysians) tell of a legend when the god of wine and orgiastic religion arrived from the east riding a white bull. In artifacts excavated from ancient Mayan civilization sites, idols and coins have been found depicting the worship of deities resembling the Indian god Siva. Mexicans worship the bull (nandi) and consider it holy. |
Siva is Rudra the Fearsome; he can be compared to a character of an ancient central and northern European folklore, named as “Odin (Woten)” who has strikingly similar archetypal commonalities with Rudra. This Anglo-Saxon character is the magic wielding lord of the winds and protector of the Nordic warriors. His images engraved on gold are found in excavations done in Siberia and Central Asia.
Neelkantha (the Blue Neck)
One of the most significant tales about Shankara is the story about the gods churning the ocean of milk for getting the nectar of eternal life. The gods/devas wanted to defy death and attain immortality so they decided to churn the ocean to withdraw the amrit or nectar from it. Since they could not do it alone they invited the Demons, who agreed to help the devas in return of half the amrit/ambrosia. They used Mt. Meru, the world mountain, as the churning stick, Vishnu changedhimself as a turtle to serve as a pivotal. Vasuki the serpent king Sheshanag became the rope to turn the buttering stick. Then the devas on one side and demons on the other pulled to and fro churning the waters. Before the ocean would yield the amrit it first sent out a vessel filed with deadly poison kalakuta, a poison slated to destroy all the creatures on earth. Horrified both gods and demons fled. Brahma and Vishnu went to Mt. Kailash to wake Lord Shankara out of his meditation. Calmly he agreed to consume this liquid of death for the sake of saving the earth and drank it. Parvati, his consort was alarmed for his life, leapt forward and held his throat, thus preventing the poison from being swallowed. Holding it within his throat so that it would not consume him, this turned his throat blue thereby earning the name of Neelkanth, the Blue Throated. |
| The spiritual message behind this mythological folklore is what needs to be understood. Numerous masters/Sadgurus have commented on this subject of churning of the primordial sea. Symbolically this parable conveys a lot. The churning of the sea can be compared to the process of meditation or sadhana. Centered in the world using his sankalpa or will power as Mt. Meru which pivots on the turtle in the seabed, the turtle represents the lowest/reptilian consciousness of mankind. Through meditation the sadhak /meditator fathoms the oceanic depths of the unconscious mind. The devas and demons representing the good and the bad (the good ness of man and its negative aspects, nature, attributes etc.) work together in harmony to bring the wonderful spiritual gifts (siddhis/powers) that will given which are all the good things one requires in the material world and finally the sadhak receive the divine cup of the nectar of immortality. But remember you can only enjoy the gifts of life only when there is Siva in our life only He has the power to consume the poisons of your negative karmas that are accumulated on your soul to the very last drop. |
It also conveys that we should learn to live like Neelkantha, Siva and consume our negativity and reach a stage of harmony and serenity. Calm our impulsive outburst of anger and swallow our egos. Only then can we enjoy life as a Gift from the Almighty and get to taste the ambrosia of eternal life.
Kashmir Shaivism
Centuries ago during the reign of King Lalita Ditya (700-730 A.D.), an outstanding Brahmin scholar of Kashmir, Abhinav Gupta propounded a new theistic thought in the form of Kashmir Shaivism. Known as Shaiva- Siddhas, the works of some well-known scholars, describing their spiritual experiences based on these Siddhas, augmented the concept of Kashmir Shaivism which is distinguished from the original Shaivism of thousands of years old. Its most prolific exponents Abhinav Gupta propounded the Shaivistic philosophy of "Recognition" - recognising one's own self and cosmic self-consciousness. According to them, Siva is pure unity (non-dual). Siiva is “Absolute” that which covers or pervades all. Everything in existence can be called Siva, for everything in the Universe is self-manifestation or extension of Siva. He is all around, in everything; it is for one to try and find one's own real self to become Siva himself.
Maha Vakyas
The most sacred and secret truths mentioned in the ancient scriptures are referred as the MahaVakyas. In Advaita Vedanata these are considered as powerful sentences/declarations for knowing our own Higher Self and in the enquiry into our own ultimate reality. All these sentences reveal the identity of the Atman with Brahman. As Brahman is the manifestation of the Antaryami tattva, the Unlimited Consciousness of Siva. The all pervading God’s essence and presence in the entire manifestations of the Cosmos lies within the domain of Siva. The chanting of these vakyas will initiate in the sadhak the “Inquiry into the Self” and shall reveal the Wisdom of the Atman (the “Atma Shastra”). |
MahaVakya
1) Tat Tvam Asi - YOU ARE THAT - (Mentioned in the Chandogya Upanishad belonging to the Sama Veda).
Second Mahavakya is :
2) Aham Brahma Asmi - I AM BRAHMA –( Mentioned in the Yajur- Veda).
3) Prajnanam Brahma - CONSCIOUSNESS IS BRAHMA –(Rig Veda)
4) Ayam Atma Brahma – THIS ATMAN IS BRAHMA- (Atharva Veda).
5) Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma – EVERYTHING IS BRAHMAN –( Chandogya Upanishad belonging to the Sama Veda).
6) Atmaivedam Sarvam - EVERYTHING IS ATMAN (Chandogya Upanishad).
7) Idam Sarvam Yad Ayam Atma – THAT WHICH IS ALL THIS IS THE ATMAN (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad). |
Lord Vishnu and Maha Lakshmi |
| Inter-se conflicts have eroded the sacred substratum of all great world religions and Hinduism is no exception. Since past many centuries the debate of Who Is Superior ? Vishnu or Siva, is going on among the two prominent Hindu sects, Shavites and Vaishites. My God is greater and better than yours syndrome, is still very much active even in this time and age among Hindus. This to my mind is a mindless exercise of fruitless divide of the Divine who is indivisible, is absolute, pure and sublime unconcerned with this debate within its creation. |
| The divide over supremacy between the two divine entities, coming out of the same Source possessing the same energies of the Creator God, is rather unfortunate and needs to be condemned by all lovers of the Vishnu aspect of God and the worshippers of Siva aspect of the Almighty. This is also confirmed by Krsna himself, in this sloka. |
ye me bhakta-janah partha
ne me bhaktas ca te janah
mad bhaktanam ca ye bhaktas
te me bhaktatama matah |
| Krsna says, “You can please Me by worshiping My devotees, Those who worship Me directly are not real devotees; real devotees are those who are devoted to My devotees." |
| Krsna is more pleased when you worship His devotee than when you worship Him directly. And Lord Shankara is a very great devotee of Krsna, infact the most dearest. So it mean that if you worship Lord Shankara in that way you shall please Krsna. |
Radha Rani and Lord Krsna |
| Swami Prabhupäda, the proponent of Krishna Consciousness says : “If you accept Lord Shankara as a devotee of Krsna, then by worshiping Siva you will be benefited. If you think Siva is independent, then you will not be benefited”. |
| The entire universe is born from this Reality known as Siva. He is the only living being here, there is no room for anybody else. Who are you to claim to be "another living being"? Only He is, and He is You right now. To understand that You are Him is the fruit of a continuous vigilance, without accepting or rejecting thoughts. When you merge into Him, you will not retain any longer your separated individuality, but at the same time you will be able to lead your life as before anyway but with the celebration and joy (sat-chit-ananda). |
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