संसार में दो प्रकार के वृक्ष हैं.....प्रथम.. अपना फल अपने आप दे देते हैं-उदाहरण.. आम, अमरुद, केला इत्यादि....
द्वितीय..अपना फल छिपाकर रखते हैं-उदाहरण...आलू, अदरक, प्याज इत्यादि....

जो अपना फल अपने आप दे देते हैं...उन वृक्षों को सभी खाद-पानी देकर सुरक्षित रखते हैं किन्तु
जो अपना फल छिपाकर रखते है..
. वे जड़ सहित खोद लिए जाते हैं.....ठीक इसी प्रकार......जो अपनी विद्या, धन, शक्ति स्वयं ही समाज सेवा में. समाज के उत्थान में लगा देते हैं.....
उनका सभी ध्यान रखते हैं अर्थात् मान-सम्मान देते है....
वही दूसरी ओर जो अपनी विद्या, धन, शक्ति स्वार्थवश छिपाकर रखते हैं....किसी की सहायता से मुख मोड़े रखते है ...
वे जड़ सहित खोद लिए जाते हैं......
अर्थात् समय रहते ही भुला दिये जाते है...प्रथम प्रकार के व्यक्तित्व को स्वयं में समाहित करे..
Aum

The God Principle

The source of this inspiring story from India is shrouded in antiquity.

Origins unknown.

(In the olden days when there were no motor 
cars, people used to travel on horseback.)

One rich man owned 19 horses when he died. In his final will and testament he had written that upon his death, half the horses he owned should go to his only son; one fourth to the village temple, and one fifth to the faithful servant.

The village elders could not stop scratching their heads. How could they give half of the 19 horses to the son? You cannot cut up a horse. They puzzled over this dilemma for more than two weeks and then decided to send for a wise man who was living in a neighbouring village.

The wise man came riding on his horse and asked the villagers if he could be of any help to them. The village elders told him about the rich man's last will and testament which stated that half of the (19) horses must be given to his only son, one fourth must go to the temple and one fifth to the faithful servant.

The wise man said he would immediately solve their problem. He had the 19 horses placed in a row standing next to one another. Then he added his own horse as the 20^th horse. Now he went about giving half of the 20 horses – that is ten horses to the son. One fourth of 20- that is 5 horses were given to the temple committee. One fifth of twenty- that is 4 horses were given to the faithful servant. Ten plus five plus four made 19 horses. The remaining 20^th horse was his own which he promptly mounted, spoke a few inspiring words, and rode back home.

The villagers were simply dumfounded, full of disbelief and filled with admiration. And the parting words of the wise man were inscribed in their hearts and minds which they greatly cherished and passed on to their succeeding generations till today.

The wise man said: In our daily lives, in our daily affairs, simply add God’s name and then go about facing the day’s happenings. Ever come across problems in life that are seemingly insurmountable? (Like the villagers, do we feel that such problems cannot be solved?).

The wise man continued: Add the God Principle in our daily lives and the problems will become lighter and eventually will disappear. In the manner of the ice which, with the addition of the heat principle will turn into water, and that will eventually evaporate as steam and disappear. And how do we add God’s name (God principle) in our daily lives? Through prayers, filled with true love and devotion with sincerity of purpose and dedication that only total faith can bring about. Meditation is a powerful means of directing the mind Godward.

But without true love and devotion entering into it, it remains like a boat without water. It is not difficult to push a boat that is floating in water, but extremely hard to drag the same boat on dry land. In the same way, if our life’s boat floats on the waters of true love and devotion, we can sail easily in it. The principle of love of God and devotion with total faith, (like water) makes easy the voyage of our lives. When the mind is pure and the heart full of simplicity and holiness, such a devotee becomes an instrument in the service of the Lord.

Vyasa: The Great Witness to Life

The Mahabharata war has ended. Eighteen akshauhinis of warriors have been slaughtered. Bheeshma is lying in the bed of arrows waiting for Uttarayana so that he can end his life. Legends Drona, Karna, Shalya, Jayadratha have been decimated. Every one of the hundred sons of Gandhari has been killed by Bheema, their wives turned widows. Draupadi has lost all her children, her father and her brothers to the war. The battle-field is filled with clotted blood in which chopped off hands and heads lie in heaps, headless bodies lie strewn, crowns, ornaments, weapons lie scattered everywhere, no more of use to their erstwhile owners. There are jackals and vultures tearing the flesh off the bodies of men and war animals and pulling at the intestines of the dead. Ghouls and cannibals mingle with ease with carrion birds and carnivores to feast on the slaughtered.

In the middle of all these, women, widows who have lost their husbands, sisters who have lost their brothers, mothers who have lost their sons, daughters who have lost their fathers, begin moving towards the battlefield to have a final look at their lost ones. They have removed their ornaments, their hair is open, each of them is clad in a single piece of cloth, every eye is filled with tears, every cheek drenched. Heart-rending wails fill the directions. And in the middle of all this, a poet, arguably the greatest this ancient land of ours has seen, a sage at whose feet sages from all over the land fall in reverence, his heart overflowing with indescribable sorrow, sees a sight the beauty of which fills his heart with such thrill that he sings out ecstatically of how the women coming out of the Kaurava homes look like spotted deer coming out of dark caves in white mountains!

Hearing that Dhritarashtra and the widows and mothers of the dead are on their way to the war field, Yudhishthira, along with his brothers and Draupadi and Krishna, goes to meet him. They too are mourners as much as Dhritarashtra is, as much as the widows and the mothers are. On the banks of the Ganga they come across group after group of women wailing aloud inconsolably like lamenting kurari birds.

They gather around Yudhishthira and ask him:

“Where is your famous dharma now, oh king, that you have killed your own uncles, brothers, the sons of your teachers and friends? How wonderful do you feel after killing Drona, grandsire Bheeshma and Jayadratha? How will you enjoy this kingdom now that you have lost your elders, your bothers, Abhimanyu and all the sons of Draupadi?”

Without a word to them, his head bent low, Yudhishthira wades through the masses of lamenting women and moves towards the weeping Dhritarashtra. One by one the Pandavas bow down to their father’s elder brother, each telling him his name.

Dhritarashtra, the tormented, mourning father of a hundred slain sons, hugs Yudhishthira, the cause of the death of his sons, with no pleasure in his heart. After consoling the eldest of his brother’s sons, the old man, his heart filled with murderous evil, starts searching for Bheema as if he would burn the slayer of his sons transforming himself into a fire, The conflagration of his anger fanned by winds of deep sorrow looks as if it wants to reduce the forest that is Bheema to ashes.

Krishna, who had expected exactly this reaction from Dhritarashtra, is prepared and quickly pushes Bheema away and thrusts forward in his place the iron statue of Bheema that Duryodhana had got made and on which he used to vent his hatred. Mistaking the statue for Bheema, Dhritarashtra, famed to have the strength of a hundred elephants in his arms, takes the statue into the deadly grip of his arms and crushes it in his dark fury. As he does it, blood comes out of his mouth and injured chest. Bathed in blood, the mighty Dhritarashtra falls down on the ground. As he lies there Vyasa sees great beauty in the fallen, blood-bathed, dark-hearted Dhritarashtra whose greed for power is perhaps more responsible than anything else for the holocaust that has just occurred.

To Vyasa, the fallen Dhritarashtra looks like a parijata tree that has just fallen down, its branches thick with crimson-hued flowers!

The man who has just fallen down after that murderous act that is the consummation of his lifelong hatred for Bheema is Vyasa’s own son – born of his flesh and blood. The women who were wailing aloud and proceeding to the battlefield to have a last look at the bodies of their fathers, brothers and sons were his daughters-in-law, his granddaughters-in-law, and other close relatives, wailing for the death of his own blood and flesh. And yet Vyasa’s sees beauty in it all.

Let us take one more example. This one appears in the Shalya Parva of the Mahabharata. Yudhishthira and Shalya fight a terrible, long battle. At the end of it, Yudhishthira looks so furious he appears to be dancing in anger in the battlefield. In the words of the Mahabharata, like Rudra shooting the life-taking arrow at the Asura Andhaka, appearing at the moment like Maheshwara slaying the Tripuras, the wrathful Yudhishthira attacks Shalya with a shakti using all his force. Listen to the words of Vyasa describing the fall of Shalya at the end of this savage war:

Like a beloved who welcomes in eager love the lover falling on her, the earth seemed to rise forward to receive the mighty Shalya falling on her. Like a man who falls asleep on the body of his beloved exhausted after a prolonged session of lovemaking, the king looked as though he was sleeping as he fell on the earth that he had long enjoyed embracing her with all his limbs.

Vyasa sees Bheema standing with blood oozing from his many wounds like a lovelykinshuka plant in red blossom. To him Bheeshma bathed in blood from his several wounds looks like a beautiful Ashoka in flowers. Shikhandi, shafts sticking from his shoulders, looks like a splendid tree with spreading branches and twigs.

Vyasa is by no stretch of imagination a sadist lover of blood and war. He is no lover of the beauty of the battlefield or the cremation ground. Sorrow and pain do not please him, misery does not thrill him. Wrath and vengeance do not send shivers of ecstasy down his spine. And yet Vyasa describes all these with the same rapturous thrill with which he would describe the young love between a man and a woman, the smile of a baby, the beauty of a mountain river, the glory of a dawn, the coming home of birds to their roosts at sundown.

How can a sage-poet glorify a war in which blood flows in torrents? How can you be euphoric about the vicious slaughtering of men in their hundreds of thousands? How can you glorify the heart-rending death cries of multitudes of the slain? How can you find beauty in throngs of wailing women rushing towards a battlefield in which their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons lie with their limbs chopped off, their heads hacked away, their bodies already food to ghouls and carrion birds and carnivores?

Vyasa can. He can do it with complete abandon. He can do it with the ease of a torrent running down a mountain, with the naturalness of a river rushing to the ocean. He can do it with the same spontaneity with which the Upanishad rishi can sing “ahamannnamahamannam, ahamannado’hamannadah” – I am food and I am the eater of food. I am all that exists in this world of objects and I am also the destroyer of all that is in this world. And that is what makes Vyasa greater than any other poet the world has seen.

To us Indians, Shiva is not only the source of everything that is beautiful, everything that is sacred, all that is satyam, shivam and sundaram, but the destroyer too. And the Rudraprashna can sing his praise saying namo bhavaya cha rudraya cha, salutations to the creator and the destroyer, and say mrtyave svaha, mrtyave svaha – here, to death; here, to death, this offering of mine.

If srishti, creation, is sacred, then samhara, destruction is no less sacred. If birth is sacred, so is death. The Rudraprashna calls God the one present in vice and in virtue, in piece and in violence, in joy and in sorrow, in life, in death and in liberation. He is there in green fields and farmyards, in trees and in creepers, in sound and its echo. He is in the seated and in the reclining, in the sleeping and in those who are awake, in the static and in the dynamic. He is present in noisy waves and in still waters, is formless and yet with manifold forms, the primordial one. There is nothing in which he is not present.

Our culture has taught us to worship Kali. Kali who is digambari and muktakeshi – clothed in the directions, her hair unbound and free. Kali who wears a garland of skulls, from whose ears hang the carcasses of freshly killed infants, from whose tongue drips red blood, her many hands holding weapons of terrible death. Kali who is seated on Shiva lying prostrate on the earth, making fierce love to him as though she is engaged in a battle with him, and roaring thunderously in her ecstasy, shaking the very directions. For, if she is death, she is also the mother, the source of all life, which she brings forth mating with Shiva.

To us all life is sacred and that sacred life is like Kali. Violent and gentle at once, savage slayer and tender lover, life and death. If one moment life is a savage battle, the next it is passionate lovemaking. And since everything is sacred, everything is beautiful. Immensely, indescribably, thrillingly, rapturously beautiful.

To Vyasa, whose consciousness is seated in the turiya, beyond the vishwa, taijasaand prajna levels, all life is Kali dancing her terrifying, marvelously beautiful dance. And every step of that dance is beautiful, every movement, a rapture.

Vyasa can sing ecstatically of the beauty of death and of the radiance of sorrow, just as he can sing of the beauty of life and the radiance of joy.

And he can sing ecstatically with complete detachment. For, this great sage-poet is as much a witness to life as he is a participant in it, as much in the audience as on the stage.

That is why he can talk without any reservations about his own mother’s birth through an emperor’s lust, through what could very well have been a rape, a poor, hapless woman taken against her will. Beginning the Mahabharata story, after a chapter which explains how he wrote the epic, Vyasa narrates the story of Uparichara Vasu who had to go on a hunting trip against his will ignoring the invitation of his wife who had just completed her ritual bath after her monthly periods and had sent a message to the king telling him she was waiting for him in their bed. In the spring jungle, surrounded by nature in her estrous glory, the whole forest filled with the sights, sounds and scents of sex as animals and birds called for each other, sported and mated, Vasu could not control himself. Satyavati, Vyasa’s mother, is one of the two children born to him by Adrika, who could very well have been a fisherwoman on the banks of the Yamuna whom the emperor used to satisfy his lust. There is no shame in Vyasa as he narrates the story of his grandfather’s lust and how his mother was born, though subsequent retellings have altered this story almost beyond recognition, not surprising since none of these narrators was another Vyasa.

Nor is there any shame in him when he speaks of his own birth. He narrates with complete dispassion how Sage Parashara saw his mother, a dark, foul-smelling young girl engaged in ferrying passengers across the Yamuna then, and lusted for her. He would speak with the same detachment of how he himself could not retain self-control at the sight of the Apsara Shuki and how his son Shuka was born to her. And then he will proceed to speak without inhibitions of the lusts of the future generations of his family – of sexual lusts, of power lusts, of vengeance lusts, of violence lusts.

He will speak passionately with the same dispassion about the great love of Gandhari for her son Duryodhana and her refusal, in spite of it, to bless him with victory day after day on every one of those eighteen days of war when he came seeking her blessings; of Kunti’s admirable goading of her sons to kshatriya-like action through the story of Vidula and of her shameless going to her son Karna, whom she had betrayed all her life, seeking favors from him on the eve of the war; of Duryaodhana’s bold villainy and of Yudhishthira’s cowardly righteousness, of Draupadi’s devotion to her husbands and of her betrayal by each one of them, of the shame she was subjected to in the Kaurava assembly and the shame the Kauravas subjected themselves to through their actions on that day, of the victories and failures on both sides of the war, of the fearlessness and cowardice of heroes in both the armies.

He will sing passionately with the same dispassion, of exultation and of heartbreak, of generosity and of greed, and of honor and of dishonor, of misery, wretchedness, distress and anguish and of felicity, exhilaration and rapture.

Which is possible because Vyasa was not only a witness to life around him, but to himself too. That is what turiya means – witness consciousness, witness to oneself. 
The entire Mahabharata is the narration of a sage-poet of boundless wisdom who was both a participant and a witness to the drama of life that was unfolded through him and all around him – witness in the spiritual, in the Vedantic sense. That explains the passion and dispassion that Vyasa simultaneously displays throughout the narration of the epic – his passionate dispassion, his dispassionate passion. And that is what makes Vyasa’s epic truly different from other great works of literature.

~*~

I have heard a story about Neil Armstrong, the man who took that first historic step on the moon. It is said that as he stood on the moon and looked at the earth in the distant sky, something tremendous happened to him. The vast earth was reduced to him to a small, distant object in the sky – national boundaries disappeared, continents blurred. And when that happened, many things that are vitally important to us down here suddenly shrunk to insignificance. For instance, from that vantage point, how important is an individual human being? How big is he? And how big are his daily concerns? The boundary dispute he has with his next-door neighbor – how important is that? And how important is that quarrel between brothers about the division of their ancestral property?

The story says that as realization dawned, Armstrong lost his mental balance on the moon and back on the earth, he had to be under psychiatric care for years.

Vyasa, the great sage, saw the asarata, the insignificance, of samsara from the vantage point of his turiya consciousness more clearly than Armstrong saw the insignificance of our petty concerns from the moon. It is Vyasa’s greatness that in spite of this we see him working tirelessly for life and joy, for piece and harmony, for understanding and acceptance. When his mother beckons him because the children for whose sake her father had had Bheeshma disinherited have both died and the ancient dynastic line of the Bharatas is facing extinction, he comes readily and does her bidding, though by every account the niyogas he performed in the wives of Vichitraveerya were not to his heart. He wanted it to be done at least a year later, a year during which the princesses would purify themselves through austerities – but his mother said she couldn’t wait and he obliged. When Ambika was asked to undergo niyoga a second time and shrinking away from it remembering her earlier experience she sent her maid in her place, the sage did not fail to oblige the woman who felt blessed by the honor though he did recognize her as a maid.

He is there for Gandhari’s aid when she in her frustration hits her stomach hard and brings out from her womb a mass of flesh – it is under his care that that mass of flesh becomes human. From those early incidents onwards, Vyasa is there everywhere in the Mahabharata, every time there is a crisis, offering his services to those in need. And at the end, after the great war has ended and in that terrible post-war incident when the world is threatened with extinction because of the brahmashira astrasreleased by Ashwatthama and Arjuna, as the all-annihilating weapons move towards each other, he is there, to stand in between them so that they do not clash and wipe out the world, in what is probably the greatest show of his immense spiritual power.

The beautiful shlokas of Jeevanmuktananda Lahari of Adi Shankara, that endless source of beauty and wisdom, say:

Pure pauraan pashyan narayuvatinaamaakrtimayaan
Suveshaan svarnaalankaranakalitaan chitrasadrshaan
Svayam saakshee drashtetyapi cha kalayan tais saha raman
Munir na vyaamoham bhajati gurudeekshaakshatatamaah.

Seeing the people of the city, men and young women of different forms clad in attractive dress and decked with ornaments of gold, beautiful as paintings, the sage joyously interacts with them – yet he never gets deluded, blessed with the grace of his master, for in his heart is the knowledge that he is the witness, the watcher of them all, and of himself.

Kadaachit praasaade kvachidapi cha saudhe cha dhavale
Kadaakaale shaile kvachidapi cha kooleshu saritaam
Kuteere daantaanaam munijanavaraanaamapi vasan
Munir na vyaamoham bhajati gurudeekshaakshatatamaah.

Living at times in mighty palaces and at others in pearly mansions; at times on mountaintops and at others on the banks of rivers, and again in the huts of great hermits, the sage never gets deluded, blessed with the grace of his master – for in his heart is the knowledge that he is the witness, the watcher of them all, and of himself.

Kvachid baalais saardham karatalajataalaish cha hasitaih
Kvachit taarunyaankitachaturanaaryaa saha raman
Kvachid vrddhaish chintaam kvachidapi tadanyaish cha vilapan 
Munir na vyaamoham bhajati gurudeekshaakshatatamaah.

At times clapping his hands and laughing in delight with children and at others reveling with smart, young women endowed with rich youth, at times lamenting with old men sad with heavy hearts, the sage never gets deluded, blessed with the grace of his master – for in his heart is the knowledge that he is the witness, the watcher of them all, and of himself.

Kadaachit sattvasthah kvachidapi rajovrttiyugatah
Tamovrttih kvaapi tritayarahitah kvaapi cha punah
Kadaachit samsaaree shrutipathavihaaree kvachidaho
Munir na vyaamoham bhajati gurudeekshaakshatatamaah.

At times he is full of sattva, at others he is endowed with rajas; at times he acts out of dark tamas and at others he is beyond all the three gunas. At times he is a samsareeand at others he walks on the path of the highest wisdom. Yet the sage never gets deluded, blessed with the grace of his master – for in his heart is the knowledge that he is the witness, the watcher of them all and of himself.

That is Vyasa. These verses are about him: a great witness to his own self, a great witness to life.   

Shiva

If Brahma is the creator, Vishnu the preserver, Siva is the quintessential destroyer. His duty is to destroy all the worlds at the end of creation and dissolve them into nothingness. Modern theories of space do suggest the possible ending of the physical universe after some billions of years through the expansion of a gigantic black hole devouring the matter from endless galaxies. Perhaps Siva would be the black hole performing this task. 

However this does not mean that Siva would remain idle till the arrival of that time. Before the worlds really come to an end, Siva has many things to do to keep the worlds going. His first and foremost task is to destroy many things in order to ensure the Rta or the order of the universe. Siva's destruction is not negative. It is a positive, nourishing and constructive destruction that builds and transforms life and energy for the welfare of the world and the beings that inhabit it. He destroys in order to renew and  regenerate. His destruction is the destruction of an artist, or a surgeon or a cook. Through destruction he facilitates the smooth transitions of things and events from one stage to another.

He destroys our imperfections in order to ensure our spiritual progress. He destroys our illusions, desires and ignorance. He destroys our evil and negative nature. He destroys our old memories, so that we can move on with the movement of time. He destroys our relationships, attachment, impurities, physical and mental wrong doings, the effects of bad karma, our passions and emotions and many things that stand between us and God as impediments to our progress and inner transformation. And in the end when we have made sufficient progress, when we are ready and prepared, and when we are willing without any inner conflict, he destroys death. 

There is no reference to Siva in the Vedas, except as a quality. There are some hymns addressed to Rudra, a fierce storm god, the father of Maruts, who heals with his thousand medicines. (For more information about Rudra please refer the Vedic pantheon). It is said that the practice of worshipping Siva was a non Aryan practice which was slowly incorporated into Vedic religion as an ongoing process of reconciliation with the non Aryan tribes. 

Sivaling

Sivaling literally means the body of Siva. Next to the symbol of AUM, it is perhaps the most potent, powerful and popular symbol in entire Hinduism. In almost all the Siva temples, worship is generally made to Sivalingas only. Very rarely we come across his images in the sanctum sanctorum of any Siva temple. A Sivaling is usually a round or cylindrical and protruding object. The cylindrical part is held firmly by a circular base. 

On the physical plane, the object resembles the male sexual organ, suggestive of the creative power of Siva. The circular base resembles that of the female, suggestive of his consort Parvathi. Physically a Sivaling is a phallic symbol, representing the male and female sexual organs in a state of conjugal bliss. Mentally it symbolizes the union of mind and body. Spiritually it represents the union between Purusha and Prakriti, the highest principles of the manifest universe.

The Sivaling is also symbolic of the Supreme Self. It is verily Maheswara Himself, the Highest Self and the Lord of the universe. In this aspect it has three parts. The lower part represents Brahma. The middle part, which is octagonal in shape, represents Vishnu. The upper part, which is cylindrical in shape, represents Rudra and is also called Pujabhaga since it receives the actual offerings of milk and other substances.

The Sivalingas are normally found installed in the temples . But many devotees of Siva keep them in their houses and offer regular worship. People are however cautioned  not to keep Sivalingas in their houses without offering worship, since they are believed to be powerful sources of divine energy. Sivalingas are either naturally found or made artificially. Different materials are used in their making, such as clay, gold, crystal, glass, diamonds, precious stones and wood. The round and smooth stones found in the river beds of the Narmada or the Godavari are considered to be the most ideal for worship. Sometimes Sivlingas are made temporarily with clay or sandal paste and disposed of after worship. Some devotees wear Sivalings on their bodies or around their necks. When  Sivalings are found fortuitously in the river beds and desolate places, it is considered to be a great omen. They are housed in temples or houses and offered regular worship. 

Description of Siva

Unlike Vishnu who is depicted as dark blue, Siva is white in color, except for his neck which is dark blue. Images of him in dark blue color is however the norm. He leads a life of severe austerities. But in the images we find him tall and well built. His body is usually besmeared with ashes, denoting his frequent rounds to the cremation grounds. He has three eyes. The third eye rests between his eye brows. It is the eye of wisdom, by opening which he destroys our false selves and our myriad illusions. In contrast to Brahma who is generally depicted as old, Siva is usually shown either as a young or middle aged god. 

Though he is described in the scriptures as god of anger, in the images we generally find him in his cheerful and jovial mood. Sometimes he is depicted with a lot of innocence in his demeanor as Bholenath. He is generally shown sitting cross-legged in a yogic posture, with his eyes closed and deep in meditation. When he is shown with his eyes open, his face expresses love and compassion. The images of Siva evoke in us deep emotions. Those who are inclined to worship god are naturally drawn to him as they hold him in their minds.

Unlike Vishnu, who leads a luxurious life, surrounded by opulence, Siva and his family lead austere lives in simple surroundings. He is a god of utter simplicity, exemplary humility and austerity. A tiger skin and an elephant skin serve as his garments. His long matted hair is normally tied into a knot or left flowing. He has four arms. With one he holds his weapon the trident. With another, he holds Damaru, a small drum. The remaining two are held in abhaya  and varada mudras (postures). 

The tiger and the elephant skin symbolically signify his ability to control and transform animal nature. The trident represents the three qualities, namely sattva, rajas and tamas. The damru denotes his connection with the primal sound AUM, the creation of alphabets, languages, grammar and music. His long matted hair denotes his spiritual life and his great powers. It is also compared to the night sky. He wears a garland of snakes around his neck. Sometimes we see more snakes: one across his body like a sacred thread and two acting as bracelets around his muscular hands. The snakes symbolically represents his control over desire and sensuality. Sometimes in his ferocious aspects, he is shown wearing a garland of skulls. The crescent moon adorns his hair like a silver diadem. And the Ganges flows from his head down into the world below.

Though he is an ascetic, he lives with his family. He is very fond of his consort, Parvathi, whom he married after subjecting her to a lot of tests. While Vishnu is shown as being served by Lakshmi sitting at his feet, Siva and Parvathi are being shown as equals sharing the same seat on the snowy heights of Kailash. Parvathi is literally described as his better half sharing half of his body. This earned him the title ardhanariswara (half female half lord). Normally we find her always by his side, especially when he is seated in Kailash, sharing with him all the honors that he receives. 

He seems to dot on his two children, Skanda or Kumara and Lord Ganesha or Vinayaka. The Bull Nandi is his vehicle. Nandiswara is humility personified. He is very knowledgeable also. Nandi taught Hanuman the secrets of Vedas and lessons in humility!  Another important member of his retinue is Bhringi, the zealous devotee who was not inclined to worship anyone other than Siva and refused to worship even Parvathi, till he was made to realize his mistake. Although a mountain dweller, he is not attached to anything and true to his ascetic nature, keeps wandering from place to place. Mount Kailash is his abode, where live his family, his devotees who attained liberation and his great army of goblins, imps and ghosts.

Symbolism

We have already explained some aspects of symbolism associated with Siva in the previous paragraphs and in our other articles on Siva and Trinity. Siva symbolically represents the tamasic quality. Because of this he is called pasupathi, (the lord of the animals). His body color which is white, denotes his purity (sivam) and association with the snowy mountains. His three eyes represents the three worlds, the sun, the moon and the earth, the three paths of liberation and the triple nature of creation. The third eye is actually the eye of wisdom or occult knowledge. The moon that adorns his head represents the movement of time and also his cosmic proportions. With the the moon there, his head becomes the night sky, for which he earned the name Vyomakesa (one who has the sky or space as his hair). His association with the moon is in contrast to Vishnu who is associated with the Sun as a solar deity. The moon also symbolizes his association with the occult and the tantras. 

Siva is generally a seated yogi, a posture with which most Hindus are familiar. However we also come across Siva as nataraja or tandavamurthi in a dance posture. With his hair flying in all directions and hands and feet in dynamic motion, the image of nataraja is a symbol of harmony and rhythm. Among the objects which are associated with him popularly, apart from the trident and the Damaru, are battleaxe (parasu), rosary (aksamala), pasa (noose), khatvanga (magic wand) and khadga (sword).

Followers of Saivism are familiar with three words: pati, pasu and paasa. Pati is Siva himself, the lord and husband. Pasu is the deluded self that is caught in the cycle of birth and death. Pasa is the bond that binds the pasu to this world and it gains liberation through devotion and surrender to pati.

Aspects of Lord Siva

Siva is known by several names and worshipped in various forms. We are mentioning below some of his most famous aspects:

Panchanana Siva:  In some temples Siva is shown with five faces. Each of the faces has a name and represents a specific aspect. These five faces are  Isana, Tatpurusa, Aghora, Vamadeva and Sadyojata. Isana faces south east and represents Iswara aspect of Siva known as Sadasiva, or the Eternal Siva. Tatpurusha faces the east. He is Siva in his aspect as a deluded purusha or ego. Aghora  faces the south and represents the destructive and regenerative aspect of Siva that, like fire, first devours life and then prepares the ground for its renewal. Vamadeva faces north. He is healer and preserver. Sadyojata faces west and represents the creative power of Siva.

Anugrahamurthy: This is the milder or peaceful aspect of Lord Shiva when he is in the company of his beloved devotees or his family members. 

Ugramurthy: Also known as Raudra , Bhairava, Kankala or  Samharamurthy, this is the ferocious or angry form of Siva, generally associated with the events during which Siva assumed his terrible form to slay the demons or the wicked. The following are his well known terrible forms:

•              Kankala-bhairava: The form which he assumed after cutting off the fifth head of Brahma

•              Gajasura-vadha-murthy: The form he assumed while killing a demon named Nila

•              Tripurantakmurthi: The form he assumed while destroying the three cities of gold, silver and iron built by the three sons of Andhakasura

•              Sarabhesa-murthy: The form in which  he allegedly fought and killed, Narasimha, the incarnation of Vishnu.

•              Kalari-murthy: the form in which he fought and defeated Yama to save his devotee Markandeya.

•              Kamantaka-murthy: The form in which he destroyed Manmadha, the god of lust, for disturbing him while doing penance.

•              Andhakasura-vadha-murthy: The form in which he defeated Andhakasura, who subsequently joined his forces as his commander and became popular as Bhringi. 

•              Bhairava-murthy: The form generally found in connection with the secret cults of Tantricism that involve his worship in the cremation grounds and grave yards.

Tandavamurthy:  Lord Siva is a master of dance forms. He is the author of all dance forms. The science of dance ( Natyasasthra) dealing with the 108 types of classical Indian dance forms said to have originated from him just as all the yogic postures. In case of  Lord Siva all dance is a form of expression, which he uses either to relieve the tensions in the world or alleviate the sufferings of his devotees. Sometimes he also entertains the gods or his wife or his devotees with his dance. About nine forms of Siva in dancing mode are described, of which the most popular form is Nataraja (the king of dance). Though we have a number of icons of Siva as Nataraja, he is rarely worshipped in this form either in the temples or in the households. His other dance forms include, Ananda-tandava-murhty, dancing in a pleasant and cheerful mood, Uma-tandava-murhty, dancing in the company of Parvathi, Tripura-tandava-murthy, dancing while slaying Tripurasura and Urdhva-tandava-murhty, dancing in the air.

Symbolism of Nataraja: 

Nataraja literally means lord of the dance. Siva is the lord,  the ultimate and effective cause of all creation and the dance is his act of creation, a dynamic rhythmic movement. His dance is a guided action, under his complete mastery, not an act of chaotic, random movements. The lord and the dance together constitute the projection of the Paramasiva, the highest eternal and formless Nirguna Brahman on the canvas of his own awakened state as Saguna Brahman. 

Every aspect in the image of Nataraja represent an aspect of creation. The lord is surrounded on all sides by a circular ring of fire. The ring represents the whole of creation. It is finite, cyclical and filled with energy or shakti shown here as flames. It ensues from the hands and limbs of the Lord suggestive of the fact that he is the primal and effective cause of creation. 

Nataraja holds a tongue of flame in his upper left hand. The fire represents the energy that is responsible for creation and also the dissolution of the worlds at the end of creation.  As a creator he creates, upholds and also destroys the worlds. 

The upper right hand holds a drum or damaru which is a musical instrument that produces rhythmic sounds. It is suggestive of the sound of breath, the sound of life, the vibrations underlying all currents of creation and manifestation. It also represents the vibrations that arise from our thoughts, emotions, mental activity, movement of the senses and the very samsara in which the jivas continue their existence till they find an escape.

The lower left hand is held in an assuring mode (abhaya-mudra) suggesting that the jivas need not have to despair and that they can escape from the impurities of samsara (anava, karma and maya) and achieve sameness (saujya) with Siva through his grace (anugraha) and intervention. The second right hand is shown pointing towards the downside with the palm upside drawing our attention to the figure lying beneath his feet suggesting that the lord is not holding anything back but revealing the knowledge of creation and the secrets of our bondage so that jivas can find means of escape through the assurance they find in his lower left hand.

The matted hair of Siva is shown as flying high and flowing in all directions. These are the symbols of divinities or the higher gods who live in the higher realms and participate in the cosmic dance enacted by Lord Siva. The tiger skin worn by the deity suggests that even God has respect for the rules of right conduct and the dharma he has established in the manifest creation for the guidance of the souls. The snake around his waist enjoying the dance with a raised hood is suggestive of the kundalini-shakti that remains ever awakened in Siva and is in unison with him.

The dwarf lying at the feet of the dancing nataraja is known as apasmara-murthy. It symbolically represents the jiva that has forgotten about its own infiniteness and its Siva nature because of the impurity of anava which makes it believe it to be a dwarf or anu (atomic or minute or finite being)  and become a subject of the dance of creation. 

Thus we can see that the image of nataraja is an iconic representation of the whole Saiva Siddhanta philosophy one of the most ancient schools of Saivism. The various aspects of the image represent the nature of Siva, the act of creation, the state of the jivas and the means of liberation. By creating it or serving it or by contemplating upon it  one can initiate the process of liberation through  the grace of Siva.

Dakshinamurthy: This is Siva in his aspect as the universal teacher, teaching the secrets of yoga, tantras, yantras, alchemy, magic, occult knowledge, arts and sciences, ancient history or knowledge of the future to the sages and saints, gods and goddesses and his highly qualified devotees. He is called Dakshinamurthy, because he does his teachings sitting on the snowy mountains of Himalayas and facing towards the Indian subcontinent, which is in the southerly direction. The images of Dakshinamurthy, depict Siva in his pleasant mood, seated on a high seat, with one leg folded while the other rests on the Apasmarapurusha, the deluded self. Two of his arms hold a snake or rosary or both in one hand and fire in the other. The snake is a symbol of tantric knowledge and the fire symbol of enlightenment. Of the remaining two one is in abhayamudra (posture of assurance) and the other holds a scripture in gnanamudra (posture of presenting knowledge). 

Lingodhbhava-murthy: This image signifies the importance of Siva in the form of Linga as the Supreme Self, without a beginning and without an end. According to Hindu mythology, Siva once revealed his infinity to Brahma and Vishnu in the form of a pillar of fire that could not be scaled by either of them from one end to the other. As Lingodhbava-murthy, Siva appears seated in the heart of a Linga, with four arms, while Brahma and Vishnu adore him from the two sides.

Bhikshatana-murthi. This is Siva in his ascetic aspect, wandering from place to place, with a begging bowl made of human skull, doing penance or lost in his own thoughts. Even today we can see some followers of Siva going around the villages in India in this form. Some of them even do a little magic to attract our attention or scare away the trailing children.

Hridaya-murthy: This is Siva in a mood of reconciliation and friendship with Vishnu. Also known as Harihara or Sankaranarayana. The images show the right half of Shiva on the right side of the image and the left half of Vishnu on the left side. 

Ardhanariswara: This Siva and Parvathi together in one form signifying the unity of Purusha and Prorate. The feminine left half of Parvathi is fused with the masculine right half of Siva in one continuous form, sometimes standing with the Bull Nandi in the background, or sitting on a pedestal and blessing the worlds, with eyes open or closed. 

Minor Deities of Siva

The minor deities are part of Siva's Retinue. Among them the most important are Nandi, Bhringi, Virabhadra and  Chandesvara.

Nandi: It is interesting to note that unlike the Vedic people who regarded the cow as sacred animal, the followers of Siva venerate the bull! It is because Nandi, the Bull, is Siva's vehicle. Nandi is invariably found sitting right infront of the sanctum sanctorum in every siva temple facing the image and looking at him all the time. In fact no one is supposed to see the chief deity in a siva temple without paying homage first to the seated Nandi and looking at Siva from afar through the space between the ears and the top of his head. There are some temples in India which are exclusively built for him like the famous Nandiswara temple in Karnataka. Nandiswara in his anthromorphic form appears just like Siva, with three eyes and four hands of which two are permanently dedicated to the veneration of Siva while the other two carry his weapons. Symbolically Nandi represents the animal or the tamasic qualities in man which Siva rides and transforms with his energies. As we have already noted, Nandi is well versed in all scriptural knowledge and spiritual knowledge and imparted knowledge of devotion to Hanuman. It is a tradition in many parts of rural India to let a Bull roam free in each village as a mark of respect to Nandi and to inseminate the cows in the village.

Bhringi: He was originally a demon named Andhaka, who was transformed by Siva into a humble devotee and admitted into his force as a commander of his armies. Bhringisa was so loyal to Siva that in his state of devotion he would not offer his worship to any one including Parvathi. It is said that when he saw once Siva in his Ardhanariswara form, he tried to bore through the middle of the body in the form of a bee to complete his obeisance to only the Siva side of the form, much to the annoyance of Parvathi. Bhringi who got his name thus was made to realize his mistake and change his behavior by Lord Siva.

Virabhadra He is Siva in his ferocious mood. Siva manifested himself as Virabhadra, when Daksha, his father in law, ill treated and insulted his wife Sati, Daksha's own daughter, infront of a large gathering. Unable to cope with the insult, Sati immolated herself. This angered Siva so much, that he descended upon the place of Daksha with his large army and beheaded Daksha's. The images of Virabhadra depict the anger and ferocity of Siva in that destructive mood, wearing a garland of skulls, and with four arms holding four different kinds of weapons. Virabhadra is a warrior god who was worshipped during wars in ancient and medieval periods. He is also the principal deity of Virasaiva movement and still worshipped by many in the Karnataka region of India.

Chandesvara He is an aspect of Chandi in human form later elevated to the status of divinity, to signify the connection between Siva and Chandi, or Durga. Chandesvara is a ferocious god, holding weapons of war and ready to do battle for a divine cause. His images are generally found in a corner in all the Siva temples. As in case of Nandi, devotees usually visit him and pay their respects before going to see the Sivaling in the sanctum sanctorum.

Ashtmoorty upasna  mandal.

Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival

Today is the Festival of Lanterns in China - known as the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is the most celebrated festival in the region, after the Chinese New Year celebrations.

Moon Cakes eaten to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon

The Mid-Autumn Festival celebrates the full moon on this particular day - it is always celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month, according to the Chinese calendar, which is usually sometime in September or October, according to the western Gregorian calendar.

This day celebrates the story behind the Yin and Yang concepts - the Male and Female parts which come together to make a whole - seen when the sun meets the moon, making it appear on this day at its fullest and brightest all year.

The story essentially tells of an immortal named Houyi, who was married to Chang'e, a beautiful lady who worked in the palace of the Emperor of Heaven, the Jade Emperor. Because the couple were so beautiful, they arose a lot of jealousy from the other immortals, who had Houyi and his wife banished from Heaven, and forced to live on Earth. Houyi became a hunter, and soon became famous for his skills in archery.

One day, Emperor Yao, who was the Emperor of China at that time, commanded Houyi's assistance. There were ten suns, in the form of three-legged birds, who lived in a mulberry tree in the Eastern Sea. Each day one of these sun-birds would have to travel around the world on a carriage, driven by Xihe, the mother of the suns. One day something strange happened, and all ten sun-birds started circling the Earth together, causing the land to burn.

Emperor Yao asked Houyi to shoot down nine of the ten suns, to save the earth from the heat of all the suns. Houyi did this, and was rewarded with a pill that granted immortality - Emperor Yao advised him not to take the pill immediately, but to prepare himself by praying and fasting for a year before taking it. Houyi took the pill home and hid it.

One day Houyi was called away by Emperor Yao - and his wife Chang'e noticed a white beam of light emitting from the pill. She discovered it in the house, swallowed it, and discovered she could fly. Houyi arrived home as she was flying out of the window - he pursued her half-way across the heavens, but soon found he could go no further and was pushed back to Earth.

Chang'e reached the moon, where she commanded the Jade Hare that lives there to make another pill so she could be reunited with her husband.

The legend says the Jade Hare continues to pound the herbs trying to make another pill of immortality.

Meanwhile Houyi built a palace in the Sun, representing Yang (the male principle).

And Chang'e lived on the Moon, representing the Yin (female principle).

Once a year, on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festiva, Houyi visits his wife on the moon, which is why the moon is said to be at its brightest and fullest on that night.

Education

1. My vision of a right education is to teach people how to grow the ego and how to be able to drop it; how to become great minds and yet be ready any moment to put the mind aside. You should be able to just put your personality, your ego, your mind, on and off, because these are good things if you can use them. But you should know the mechanism, how to put them off. Right now you know only how to put them on.


2.  In fact, the moment a child is perfectly conditioned by you, you are very happy; you call it “religious education.” You are very happy that the child has been initiated into the religion of his parents. All that you have done is you have destroyed his capacity to know on his own. You have destroyed his authenticity. You have destroyed his very precious innocence.
 

3.   The basic education is missing. The first thing to be taught is meditation, the art of     going in, because only out of that arises a discipline.
 

4. A real education will not teach you to compete; it will teach you to cooperate. It will not teach you to fight and come first. It will teach you to be creative, to be loving, to be blissful, without any comparison with the other. It will not teach you that you can be happy only when you are the first. That is sheer nonsense. You can't be happy just by being first. And in trying to be first you go through such misery that you become habituated to misery by the time you become the first.

By the time you become the president or the prime minister of a country you have gone through such misery that now misery is your second nature. You don't know now any other way to exist; you remain miserable. Tension has become ingrained, anxiety has become your way of life. You don't know any other way; this is your very style. So even though you have become the first you remain cautious, anxious, afraid. It does not change your inner quality at all. A real education will not teach you to be the first. It will tell you to enjoy whatsoever you are doing, not for the result but for the act itself. Just like a painter or a dancer or a musician....
 

5.  All values imposed from outside never get to your center. The only authentic values are those which come from your center and spread outwards, not vice versa. That's exactly the meaning of education: drawing the water out from the well. Education means drawing your inner being into expression in your living, your day-to-day life. Your honesty, your love, your compassion, should come from your inner being, not from teachings and scriptures, not from rabbis and bishops and shankaracharyas and Ayatollah Khomeini.
 

6.  Society teaches you, “Become this, become that.” It teaches you becoming. Its whole education system is based on the idea of becoming. And what I am telling you here is just the opposite of it. I am talking about BEING, not about becoming. Becoming is an invention of the crafty politicians and the priests — and these are the people who have poisoned the whole humanity. They go on giving you goals. If you become tired of the worldly things — money, power, prestige — they are there to tell you about paradise, God, samadhi, truth. Again the whole process starts.
 

7. There is nothing like education. All your education simply makes you capable of worrying about situations everywhere in the world, about everyone except you — about all the troubles that are in the world. They have always been there, they will always be there. It is not because you are here that troubles are there. You were not and they were there; you will not be soon and they will remain there. They change their colors but they remain. The very scheme of the universe is such that it seems that through trouble and misery something IS growing. It seems to be a step, it seems to be a necessary schooling, a discipline.


8. The child when he is born functions from the center; we teach him how to function from the circumference. That is our whole educational system all over the world: teaching the child how to function from the circumference. We pull him away from his center, we make him more and more accustomed to the circumference, to living on the circumference... twenty-five years of conditioning, education: good names we have given to ugly things. We call it education -- it is not education, nothing can be a greater mis-education.

The very word 'education' means drawing something out, to draw something out. When you draw water out of the well it is education. Just like that, when something is drawn outwards from your center it is education. But this is not what is going on in the name of education; it is forcing things upon you. It is not bringing your center to function. It is not sharpening your center; it is dulling it, making it more and more sleepy, dozy. The society succeeds the day your center goes into a coma and your circumference remains functioning. Then you are a robot, a machine, no more a man.


9.  In the future, education will have that dimension. My own vision is that each student should be given an opportunity to teach too. The students who are reading and studying for their master's degree should be allowed to go to lower classes to teach; those who are working for their bachelor's degree, they should be allowed to teach the lower classes. Every student should be a teacher also, and vice versa. Every teacher once in a while should sit with the students and start learning again. Each teacher once in a while should be a student, and each student once in a while should be a teacher too. This difference between the teacher and the taught has to be dissolved; the teacher and the taught are part of one process.
 

10.  In the coming century the whole education system is going to be totally transformed and changed because of the computer. It will be stupid to teach children history, geography -- unnecessary, there is no need. All that can be done by a computer; the child can carry the computer. And my own observation is: the less you depend on memory, the more intelligent you become. That's why it happens that in the universities you will not find very intelligent people. 

Professors, chancellors, vice-chancellors -- I have seen many, but it is very difficult to find some intelligent person there. You can find more intelligent people in the farmers, in the gardeners, in the villagers. And the reason is clear: because they are not knowledgeable they cannot depend on the memory. They have to respond to reality, they have to respond to challenges, they have to bring their consciousness to respond -- their consciousness remains more sharp. A farmer, a villager, is far more wise than a professor in the university. The professor can depend on the memory, the farmer cannot depend on the memory.
 

11.  Twenty-five years of education -- almost one third of your life you are being trained to be ambitious. How can you avoid politics? The only way to avoid politics is to get out of your mind; that means that unless mind is dropped totally, politics will go on clinging to you. You can even be antipolitical but then that will become politics.
 

The whole society tries in every possible way to disconnect you from your essential core, and it creates a false, plastic personality around you and it forces you to become identified with it. That's what it calls education. It is not education; it is mis-education. It is destructive, it is violent. This whole society, up to now, has been very violent with the individual. It does not believe in the individual; it is against the individual. It tries in every possible way to destroy you for its own purposes. It needs clerks, it needs stationmasters, deputy-collectors, policemen, magistrates, it needs soldiers. It does not need human beings.

We have failed, up to now, in creating a society which needs human beings, simple human beings. The society is interested that you should be more skillful, more productive, and less creative. It wants you to function like a machine, efficiently, but it does not want you to become awakened. It does not want buddhas and christs -- Socrates, Pythagoras, Lao Tzu. No, these people are not needed at all by the society. If sometimes they happen, they don't happen because of the society; they happen in spite of the society.