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..:: Shiva ::..
By
Alan Schneider
Shiva is the great Creator/Destroyer of
the Hindu Trinity. Brahma – the Initiator – and Vishnu – the
Preserver – constitute the other primary deities present in
this three state model of divine action at the highest level of
manifestation. Shiva, as the personification of the Universal Male
Principal, is the most “human” of the three, and this is particularly
evident in terms of his affiliation with Shakti, the Universal Female
Principal. Although the additional two deities also have female aspects
– Laksmi in the case of Vishnu, and Saraswati in the case of Brahma –
the effect on the male energy involved is not as critical as in the case
of Shiva, where the action of Shakti is the key to the divine
manifestation involved. The Shakti energy expression literally activates
the process of Chakra Manifestation in Yoga practice, and is the method
seen in achieving further progress in this discipline, as the Kundalini
energy/awareness develops. I will have more to say regarding this
relationship at a later point in this essay.
The deity Shiva can be traced
with certainty to the expression of Rudra, a pre-Shiva form of
the Destroyer (and, in this case, Healer) processes in this life,
and has been correlated with the Vedic Age, occurring from c. 1200 – 200
BCE. Rudra evidently held his role as Destroyer/Healer for most of the
Vedic period, and was greatly feared in this regard, the Healing aspect
notwithstanding. Rudra literally means “The Roarer” in Sanskrit, and he
was the Lord of the Maruts, the storm gods, and as such held sway
over nature’s most destructive forces. Three hymns in the Rig Veda are
addressed to Rudra (numbers 2.33, 1.43, and 1.114), and entreat him with
praise and supplications to be merciful to the helplessly mortal
creatures on Earth! Rudra is portrayed as having a black belly (symbolic
of the dark, occult “undersurface” of physical manifestation), a red
back (representing bloodshed as the literal condition frequently
accompanying physical manifestation), and being clothed in animal skin –
an obvious reference to a wild and primitive condition. Apart from the
references to him as “Healer”, it is clear that Rudra was a primarily
destructive entity. It is generally presumed in Vedic Scripture that
the type of “healing” involved was essentially akin to culling –
the selective elimination of disease by elimination of the diseased.
By the onset of the Epic
Period of Hinduism – from c. 400 BCE to 800 CE – the image of Rudra had
been “augmented” with that of Shiva. There are certain evident
similarities in the two figures: Shiva also is generally portrayed as
dressing in an animal skin skirt, and as seated on a tiger pelt – one
that features the intact head of the tiger! The devotees of Shiva, known
as Shavites, were also known to occasionally dress in animal
hides as a part of their tradition. However, where Rudra was considered
to be a god of wild (or feral) and haunted places, and was felt
to live apart from the spaces occupied by human beings in the original
Aryan belief system, Shiva became an established, if still feared,
element of the Hindu Trinity during the Epic period, mirroring the
increasing sophistication of Hindu religious thought at this time, as
the Upanishads were compiled. The Svetasvatara Upanishad is of
particular significance here as an example of the transition from monism
to the trinitarian manifestation of God, stressing the manifestation of
both Shiva and Vishnu – and eventually Brahma – as independent forms of
spiritual expression.
The religious significance of
Shiva is paradoxical. On one hand, he is referred to as “The Merciful”,
and “The Auspicious One” in Hindu traditions, and is seen to be a
destroyer of evil and sorrow (an evolved Rudra manifestation
related to healing?). On the other, Shiva is prone to outbursts of
towering rage and caprice – the well known elephant-headed God Ganesh
was decapitated by Shiva while attempting to protect his mother, (and
Shiva’s wife) Parvati. A repentant Shiva searched the cosmos for the
severed head, but he had cast it beyond the realm of manifest form after
removing it from Ganesh! In despair, Shiva finally removed the head from
an elephant and used that for the replacement. So it is that
Ganesh came to represent protection, and the removal of
obstacles. The bicameral nature of Shiva is very extensive, and
can be seen to include any pairs of polar opposites – static and
dynamic, creator and destroyer, oldest and youngest, male and female,
and so on. And Shiva himself is an element of bicameral
manifestation in combination with the female energy expression of Shakti.
A distinctly Taoist philosophy of the primary interaction of male and
female manifestation (yin and yang) as the essential components of
creation can be seen in the Shiva/Shakti relationship. This relationship
is expressed in the Hindu philosophy of Tantra, the divine love
which creates the universe of manifest form. Tantra is probably the best
way (although certainly not the only way) to approach understanding
Hindu beliefs about cosmology and creation.
Now we can return to the
initial discussion of this essay – the Tantric interaction of Shiva and
Shakti. In the Taoist system, literally everything in evidence is the
result of the cosmic interaction of Yin and Yang, in other words,
of polar opposites combining to form some level of manifestation. The
Taoist interpretation frequently does not assign primary causality: the
interaction is often seen as balanced in nature across a continuum of
manifestation between the polar opposites. But Hinduism does
assign functional causality to creation, and the female Goddess
energy is almost always seen as activating and empowering the
male God energy. In this sense, Hindus could be said to espouse
the doctrine of the universe as primarily female in nature, and
the ultimate spiritual essence of the cosmos, the Brahman, is, in fact,
considered to be female in Vedic cosmology. The male spiritual
expression is seen as serving the female expression through the
provision of motivating principals that the female expression then
carries into manifestation. This characteristic extends to the literal
physical bodies of men and women as well. The man is a necessary
contributor to the woman through impregnation, for example, but from
here on, it is the woman who has the primary power and responsibility in
bearing the child, and for many years thereafter in parenting.
This emphasis on Yin
(the female aspect of the Dao) as having primacy in creation is also
present in Hindu cosmological thought as Tantric doctrine, particularly
with reference to the Kundalini energy. This term means “coiled serpent”
in Sanskrit, and refers to a theoretical “package” of female
energy which resides in dormant form at the base of the spine in the
First Chakra of Mulhadara, the Chakra representing the most basic
level of human perception – the manifest physical plane of existence –
i.e. external physical reality. With the initiation of various Yoga
practices, the Kundalini is activated, and begins to ascend the spinal
column through the succession of the Chakras, becoming spiritually
directly perceptible in the Fourth Chakra, Anahata, the Heart
Chakra. It is at this point that depictions of the Chakras traditionally
feature a portrait of Shakti in the form of a Goddess representation,
although the Kundalini is presumed to be active through the entire
process. Tantra on this bodily level is thought to be caused by
the tendency of the female Shakti to seek “reunion” with the male energy
of Shiva. This process continues to manifest in higher levels of
perception as the Chakras are ascended, until Shiva and Shakti are
finally reunited at the Seventh, and highest, level in Sahasrara,
the Crown Chakra. At this stage, the Kundalini energy is fully
expressed, resulting in the profound state of religious ecstasy known as
Samadhi – the direct perception of God. It should be noted here
that it is the female energy of Shakti which is active throughout
the Yoga process, and it is this energy expression that activates
and ascends through the sequence of the Chakras – the female spiritual
expression accomplishes the manifestation process, while the male
expression motivates it.
In Tantra, the human body is
seen as a microcosm of the universal macrocosm
demonstrated by the cosmos. As such, we all contain the possibility of
divine perception within us, although this remains dormant in many
individual cases. Through the practices of Yoga, the microcosm of the
body becomes the vessel of God-Realization, and becomes capable
of sustaining the direct experience of the Divine Condition while still
incarnate. It is one of the primary tenets of Hindu philosophy that this
perception occurring in the microcosm is tantamount to the same
perception occurring on the macrocosmic level, essentially as
God pouring God into God.
The further outcome of the
successful practice of Tantra (and this may take many, many lifetimes to
achieve in Vedic cosmology) is the attainment of siddhis –
magical powers – something which is understandably a matter of hot
debate in today’s academic circles – and the experience of divine bliss,
Ananda, an ideally contented state of awareness. Bliss in this
spiritual sense certainly is attainable in this life, however
arguable the siddhis may be, although requiring much personal sacrifice
as the price to be paid in the process.
Shiva is frequently
considered to be manifest in the form of the lingam, or male
organ of generation, while Shakti is manifest in the yoni, or
female organs. It is the concept of the lingam which expresses and
accounts for the identification of Shiva in his additional aspect as the
Creator God, and this is also supported by his symbolic
affiliation with the bull as an image of potency. And since all things
that are created in one form or another are also eventually converted to
other forms (i.e. destroyed), we must all eventually encounter
him as his Destroyer aspect as well. It is perhaps significant that
Hindu philosophy also equates the act of creation with the act of
destruction in the combined process of transmutation of form on
the physical plane. This is described as yet another aspect of Shiva
seen in Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer, who generates the universe
in the continuous act of eternally dancing the transmutation of
forms into existence seen on the physical level of perception.
Perhaps the most spiritually
evolved expression of Shiva is the Seated Esthetic and Meditant,
represented by his traditional home on Mt. Kailish in Tibet. It is held
to be the case in Vedic cosmology that this mountain actually is
Shiva seated in deep meditation, and that the river Ganges flows out of
his matted “hair” as the First Form of his Shakti. Shiva is the God of
the Yogis, who seek to attain his state of absolute repose and
detachment from worldly involvement through the practice of yoga,
meditation and austerities, eventually achieving Samadhi at the level of
Sahasrara. The term Samadhi is quite interesting – its Sanskrit meaning
is “to study thoroughly”. There are various levels of Samadhi as well,
with Mahasamadhi considered as the ultimate one attainable – in the
state of physical death! Vedic cosmology postulates that life as
it is perceived in the senses is fundamentally an illusion, and that the
further one can mentally “travel” from that illusion, the more one will
come into contact with “reality”. Meditation is the common means by
which one can make this journey, and this requires withdrawal from the
entire sensory continuum in deeper and deeper trance states. Under this
interpretation, the ultimate departure from life seen in death actually
yields the highest manifestation of the truth of consciousness –
the Supreme Absolute Truth, or SAT – equivalent to the Mind of God
experienced as the Brahman. This is the fundamental ground state of
Shiva’s awareness in meditation – unknowable and indescribable, but the
birth place of all subsequent manifestation of function and form, hence
the root meaning of his Creator aspect.
As the final expression of
the Hindu Trinity of Divine Manifestation, Shiva remains the most
humanly comprehensible of the three, and represents the last vestige of
ego-mediated perception in his human-like behaviors of passion, rage,
and remorse. Beyond these emotional limitations, he assumes the more and
more Divine characteristics seen in his additional manifestations, and
this transitional sequence represents the complete path of the Kundalini
energy in Ascension culminating in the essence of the Brahman – the
comprehensive merging with God in the state of absolutely non-dual
perception and Ananda, as all remaining vestiges of ego involvement
dissolve into the Sea of Bliss and Peace. If this is what awaits us in
death, we are indeed Blessed beyond measure!
- With Love, Alan -
(CR2008, Alan Schneider)
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