The cosmic dance of Shiva
In most Indian houses, you find an idol or a picture of the dancing Shiva - Nataraja - dancing on a lotus pedestal with one leg raised and crushing a baby-like demon by his foot. A semi-circle arch of flames surround the dancing Shiva. Shiva’s hair is flying all across. A cobra sits on top of his head and the goddess Ganges and a crescent moon also adorn his hair. He wears a man’s earring on his right ear and a woman’s earring on the left ear. He is wearing tight fitting breeches, necklaces, a jeweled belt, and toe-rings. He has four hands. On his left hand, he is holding a fire and on his right hand a musical instrument called udukkai (a small drum). His third hand gestures that he is blessing the universe or saying “do not fear” and his fourth hand is pointing in the direction of the demon under his feet.
Why is Shiva depicted this way – ferocious, violent, and scary? Why Hindu gods and mythological figures are often shown in such unusual and bizarre ways? What is the purpose of such representations? In Hindu mythology, it is a common practice to tell stories about gods, people, and animals and indirectly use the stories to convey complex ideas and important messages. The stories are narrated through dance. Because there was no television or cinema at this time, Hindu saints and philosophers used dance as a medium to tell stories. Ancient Hindus, similar to Greeks and other Western philosophers, believed that dance was created by nature. The orderliness of the stars and constellations, the movement of the rivers, the waves in the seas, and the gentle fluttering of the leaves in the trees – produced images of dancing in their minds. For them, dance represented nature and movement of the universe.
Dance is also a visual medium. It can be used to illustrate not only religion and religious beliefs but also emotions such as anger, love, bravery, sadness, and kindness. In this sense, dance is somewhat like a television show or a movie. It can attract and influence an audience. When you watch a television show or a movie, you are fascinated by the images that you see on the screen. If the program or the movie you are watching is produced well and has a powerful story to tell you, it leaves a lasting impression on your mind. Similarly, the mythological stories and the images created by ancient Hindus were very appealing to the people. The messages that these stories and images conveyed attract us even today. We can relate to these stories, interpret them according to our modern age and learn from them. In this sense, they have universal appeal.
The dance of Shiva is one of the greatest examples of this tradition – using images to convey great truths and values. Before we interpret the meaning behind the dancing Shiva, let us briefly talk about the God Shiva and who he is. In Hindu mythology, the gods Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu are known as the Trinity. The three gods are associated with three important concepts of the universe: Brahma is the creator of the universe; Shiva is the destroyer (of evil and ignorance); and, Vishnu is the preserver of life. Unlike Vishnu who always appears in rich and majestic surroundings, Shiva always appears in simple environments. Shiva lives alone in the Himalayan Mountains, sits on a tiger skin with ashes covering his body and a cobra decorating his neck like a garland. He appears to be a recluse, far removed from the world. In other Indian temple sculptures, Shiva is also shown as Bhikshatana — a person who is begging, as Bhairava, a horrific destroyer or as Nataraja, a dancer standing on one leg and appearing ferocious. These sculptures create strange images of Shiva. However, when you read the stories behind these images, you get a different impression. Shiva comes in these different disguises only to help his sincere devotees and bless them and also, destroy evil things taking place in the world. He is a very benevolent and loving person and his objective is to destroy the evil and preserve the good.
Shiva is considered the master of dance. His dance is called the cosmic dance. In the picture of the dancing Shiva, Shiva is dancing at a great speed with flying arms and legs. This creates an illusion of energy — the energy that is associated with the creation of the world, its destruction, the changes and evolution. Shiva is carrying an hourglass shaped musical instrument called uduakkai in his right hand. The uduakkai or drum represents sound and sound is the basis for speech and communication. In Hindu mythology, sound is also associated with the atmosphere. Atmosphere is one of the five important elements of the universe, fire, water, air, and earth being the other four. Therefore, the drum symbolizes outer space and sound – the universal elements. In the opposite hand, Shiva carries the fire. Fire is an instrument of destruction. That is, through the symbols of drum and fire, Shiva is pointing to the creation and the destruction that follow each other in the universe. His third hand is held in the posture of blessing, to indicate protection and peace while his fourth hand points to his lifted foot. The lifted foot is a symbol of salvation - if you have faith and if you follow your faith with sincerity and dedication, you will be saved from misery. Shiva is also surrounded by flames. The flame is a bright object that gives out light and therefore, represents wisdom and truth. Only a person of wisdom and truth can destroy evil things and preserve good things. Shiva is wearing a man’s earring on one ear and a woman’s earring on the other ear. The different earrings point to the equality and importance of both men and women in the conduct of the world.
Shiva is dancing on a dwarf-demon. The demon’s name is Apasmara-Purusha, the name when translated into English means a forgetful and lazy demon. The demon is supposed to be highly ignorant and a trouble creator. He was causing lots of problems to people and they prayed to Shiva to save them from the demon’s bad deeds. Shiva appears on the world and kills him. Apasmara-Purusha is a symbol of laziness, forgetfulness, bad feelings, and evil thoughts that all of us have within us. The important message in this story is not whether a demon by the name Apasmara-Purusha existed or whether a god called Shiva appeared on the world and killed him and then danced on him. It is a symbol to communicate to us a greater message — get rid of your dark thoughts – jealousy, envy, hatred and laziness. If you do so, you will live happily and peacefully. This is a message that appealed to the ancient Hindus and it is a message that is useful to us even today, after thousands of years later. The Shiva’s dance is just an attractive way to convey this message.
The symbolism of Siva Nataraja is religion, art and science merged as one. In God’s endless dance of creation, preservation, destruction and paired graces is hidden a deep understanding of our universe. Aum Namah Sivaya. Bhashya Nataraja, the King of Dance, has four arms. The upper right hand holds the drum from which creation issues forth. The lower right hand is raised in blessing, betokening preservation. The upper left hand holds a flame, which is destruction, the dissolution of form. The right leg, representing obscuring grace, stands upon Apasmarapurusha, a soul temporarily earth-bound by its own sloth, confusion and forgetfulness. The uplifted left leg is revealing grace, which releases the mature soul from bondage. The lower left hand gestures toward that holy foot in assurance that Siva’s grace is the refuge for everyone, the way to liberation. The circle of fire represents the cosmos and especially consciousness. The all-devouring form looming above is Mahakala, “Great Time.” The cobra around Nataraja’s waist is kundalini shakti, the soul-impelling cosmic power resident within all. Nataraja’s dance is not just a symbol. It is taking place within each of us, at the atomic level, this very moment. The Agamas proclaim, “The birth of the world, its maintenance, its destruction, the soul’s obscuration and liberation are the five acts of His dance.”
Aum Namah Sivaya.
The grand illusion of maya
In the great epic Mahabharata, when Duryodhana enters the hall of illusion (maya sabha), he loses his way, becomes confused and envious. Seeing his predicament when Draupadi, laughs at him, he becomes uncontrollably angry, feeling insulted, and vows to take revenge against the Pandava clan for their audacity to display their power and wealth to belittle him in the presence of women. It is in the hall of illusions that the seeds of the great Mahabharata war were actually sown which germinated and ultimately consumed the whole Kuru family bringing them untold misery and great destruction. The epic Mahabharata shows in many ways how human beings can bring misery and destruction to themselves and others through their weaknesses, egoism and selfishness, unmindful of the consequences of their thoughts, desires and actions and where they may lead them eventually.
The world in which we live is also not very different from the hall of illusions we read about in the Mahabharata. We also live here enveloped by illusion, in a state of ignorance about ourselves, whereby we fail to discriminate between truth and false hood, become confused, engaging ourselves in egoistic struggles and binding actions, and lose our connection with God and our own divinity. If some one comes and tells you that you are a divine soul, you think about it in disbelief, with no conviction of your own that you could not have been here unless there was some underlying purpose. We all want to believe that we are not mere mortals and that there is something about us that extends beyond what we know and what we can feel and touch. But our rationale minds would not be satisfied with mere assurances of religious scriptures or the teachings of self-realized masters. We need proof, which will not come, however, unless we stand on the edge and take a deep plunge.
One of the unique concepts of Hinduism is maya, which is actually used to describe our current state of existence, how much alienated we are from our true nature and how deeply entangled we become with the objects of our desires, weaving in the process a web of deceptions around ourselves that keep us conveniently concealed from the truth of who we are or what we should have been. It is a state in which each individual soul considers itself to be someone else, separate and distinct from the rest of creation and God Himself. Our scriptures make it clear that our world is a trap and maya is the trapping mechanism. It is the idea of butter or the temptation of curiosity or some wicked desire that brings us here in the first place and puts us in contact with the objects of our world. Once we taste it, we enter into a make believe world and stop thinking about going back. We become involved with the process of becoming and being, as embodied souls, imprisoned in our own thoughts and desire bodies, undergoing births and deaths, binding ourselves to the consequences of our own actions and delaying our own liberation.
And who unleashes this potent force? God is described in the Hindu scriptures as Mayavi, the grand master of illusion. He casts his net of illusion to catch the individual souls that are swimming in the waters of life as free souls, enjoying the highest bliss. He then drops them in the lap of His dynamic energy or Shakti to take care of the rest of the process. Maya or illusion thus becomes a very potent
instrument in the hands of the Divine Prakriti, the Primal Nature. Through the force of illusion, She holds the beings under its sway. This objective is accomplished through the interplay of the triple gunas, the sattva, rajas and the tamas and the grand play of desires caused by the formation of the ego and loss of buddhi or the power of discrimination. Under their influence, the indwelling Purusha becomes attached to the outside world and thereby suffers from delusion of the mind and lack of discrimination and true knowledge. God is also described as the concealer. He hides Himself from Himself in our minds and bodies and there by perpetuates the belief that He is not what He is or that He is different from what He is. Maya therefore is not only a binding mechanism but also a concealing mechanism.
The Gita teaches us how to deliver ourselves from this delusion of mind and thereby from our bondage to the cycle of births and deaths and the pairs of opposites such as pain and pleasure or happiness and sorrow. The true meaning of the word moksha is not salvation but destruction of moha or delusion that precedes salvation. To achieve this a correct understanding of the mechanism of maya is essential, which is described in brief in the following lines.
1. The Senses
The sense which are ten in number (five external and five internal) are the main instruments of Maya through which it deludes the beings by developing in them the desire for sense objects. According to the Bhagavad Gita, out of desire comes attachment and out of attachment a man becomes deluded.
2. Loss of buddhi (discrimination)
Senses are imperfect instrument of truth. They cannot go beyond the sense objects. Therefore they actually breed ignorance. Beings who depend upon the senses cannot go beyond the visible and perceptible world. This results in ignorance and the loss of wisdom to know the reality from unreality, to discern correctly truth from untruth, good from bad, divine from demonic, right action from wrong action and so on. Out of the ignorance thus born, the individual soul indulges in wrong actions, beliefs, thoughts, false knowledge, ignorant masters, egocentric view of life and incorrect worship of God. Thus it becomes bound to the material and the mortal existence.
3. Desires and attachment
The person under the influence of Maya is always attached to the world outside him. Not only to the world, but very much to his own egoistic identity of himself, his possessions and his relations. Memories pursue him, time haunts him and thoughts possess him. By becoming attached to the world, conditioned by memory and accumulated knowledge, he develops envy and selfishness and also many such negative dualities as pride, fear, greed, anger, malice, caprice, cruelty, callousness, lust and intense desire for success and personal advancement. Life becomes a battle field in which he alone has to win. There is no
place for failure and weakness. Attracted to pleasures, averse to pain, fearful of loss and hopeful of gain, unable to go beyond the lures and temptations of the world, though aware that all is vain in the end, he plods on, striving and struggling, as if death would never touch him.
4. Sense of duality and multiplicity
The man of delusion cannot see the One hidden in all. He sees only the diversity and the multiplicity of the life and the world around him. Feeling lonely and isolated, unable to trust others and the world he lives in, as if the world is an enemy determined to subdue him and destroy him, he suffers from intense anxiety about himself and his future. Because of the sense of duality he loses his unified vision and sees the world in terms of pairs, divisions, groups, categories, numbers and opposites, and in short, in terms of relative and subjective reality.
5. Transience, Instability and Destructibility
One of the characteristic features of illusory existence is that it gives us the impression that our existence is finite, unstable, impermanent and ever changing. When an individual soul is drawn into this ever changing unstable world, which we call samsara or the world of cause and effect, it is attracted to the sense objects and in the process becomes subject to the conflicting emotions caused by the pairs of opposites such as pain and pleasure, gain and loss etc. It suffers from the insecurity and fear of death and becomes selfish and possessive. The souls develop qualities which direct their behavior. Those of demonic nature use cruelty, death and destruction as the means for establishing their control and supremacy over others.
6. Ego and False identification
Under the influence of illusion, the jivas or individual souls develop ego sense, the sense of separateness and pride in their individual merit, personal possessions and achievements. The ego is responsible for the sense of ownership and doership, identification of the individual with his body and mind, and failure to know his true nature. It makes the individual souls think and act selfishly and egoistically as if they are different from the others and engages them in acts of self preservation characterized by competition and conflict and cooperation and friendship. Thus the ego ultimately lands all the beings into suffering, delusion and bondage to the earthly life.
7. Incorrect Relationship with God
The beings under illusion cannot see the Invisible God and so they cannot correctly comprehend Him. They cannot see Him in all and all in Him. They cannot go beyond the senses and the gunas and experience the soul consciousness. Even if they do, they cannot contain that experience in their limited consciousness. Because of egoism they would not acknowledge God and would not surrender themselves to Him. Due to their inherent imperfections and negative qualities, they fail to show true devotion to God and realize Him in themselves.
8. Mortality and the Cycle of birth and death
Under the influence of illusion, when a jiva or being indluges in egoistic actions, accepting the sense of doership, with a desire to enjoy the fruit of actions, it becomes subject to the laws of karma and dharma and returns again and again to the world of mortality. Depending upon its previous actions, it takes birth in different wombs, circumstances and families and pays the price in the form of suffering from the consequences of its previous actions. This process goes on repeatedly till it realizes its folly and engages in right actions with the right attitude, which is prescribed in the Bhagavad Gita and lays a foundation for its progression towards its freedom and self-realization.
9. Deliverance from Maya
Not everything is lost for the souls in this world. It is possible for a soul to escape from the net of illusion by overcoming its limitations with the help of the teachings of Lord Krishna who showed the true path of liberation to Arjuna in the middle of the battle field. By following the Bhagavad Gita, a person can stabilize his mind by controlling his senses and desires; become a humble devotee of God by concentrating his mind on Him fully, surrendering to Him unconditionally and absorbed in him through single minded devotion; perform desireless actions knowing that only the senses, the organs of the body and the gunas are acting, offering the fruit of actions to God; and attain the Supreme Self.
10. What is Truth?
We all suffer from the grand illusion of maya that what we know and experience through our senses is the truth and that we are capable of knowing the facts of our existence with the help of our minds and senses, where as the truth is we cannot discern reality with our limited consciousness. We cannot answer the question about truth truthfully, because we do not know the answer. We may give an answer, some answer, but that answer would not be correct. It may satisfy our mental curiosity but not our soul’s deepest yearning to be itself. The predicament we face is how can we define something that we have not been able to experience consciously? How can we bring that into our field of experience when it does not exist here. We may explain the transcendental truths of our existence and describe it in roundabout ways, but we cannot translate it perfectly into words unless we can contain and maintain the absolute truth in an absolute way.
With regard to truth, we can take many stand points and justify each of them with necessary validations which we can conceive of. We can make each point of view stand by itself or stand tall or short in comparison with the rest. But we cannot bring them all together or hold them all together as one complete and whole truth. That is what Truth is all about. It is everything as well as nothing. It is multidimensional, indefinable and all encompassing. It reconciles everything into itself and resolves everything and anything into one harmonious whole, something which our human minds can never do, accustomed as they are to relative thinking and perceptivity. This is the limitation of the human existence and human intelligence, brought about by the divine play of maya. It is what happens when you come under the influence of maya and even not aware of it. You see but you do not actually see. You live, but you are not sure whether it is the right way of living. You know something, but you are not sure whether it is the truth. You are not sure whether you are awake when you are conscious and asleep when you are unconscious. You are not even sure why you are here and for what end.
Calming the eye of the storm?
In the story of the calming the storm in the Bible as mentioned in Mark 4:35-41, in which the wind and the seas obey Jesus to return to a still calm, could this actually refer to Jesus saying we must bring peace into our stormy minds by calming the sea of thoughts that arise?
And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.
And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
Jesus also speaks of the awake mind within the self as mentioned in Matthew 6:22-23.
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
“The wind turns a ship from its course upon the waters: the wandering winds of the senses cast man’s mind adrift and turn his better judgment from its course, when a man can still the senses I call him illumined” says Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita 2:67-68.
As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the water, even one of the roaming senses on which the mind focuses can carry away a man’s intelligence.
Therefore, O mighty-armed, one whose senses are restrained from their objects is certainly of steady intelligence.
There is an age old saying that “the eyes are the window to the soul.” But are the eyes the window to the body as well? The study of Iridology, an ancient Egyptian alternative medicine technique, asserts that through studying markings and colors in the iris of the eye, one can learn about the inner workings of the entire body and mind.
Is there a connection to the Egyptian findings in Iridology to the stormy mind as mentioned in the scriptures as noted above?
Conclusion: Practice meditation to still the body and mind, and find the peace within that comes to the self. A calm and still mind leads to a health body with lot of inner sense of peace.
Sanatana Dharma or the eternal function of the soul
Sanātana Dharma or Sanatan-dharma means “eternal religion” or “the eternal function of the soul”, comprises of spiritual laws which govern the human existence. Sometimes we identify with a particular faith or religion, which is changeable, but our eternal religion remains integral to our real self or soul, which is unchangeable.
Sanatana Dharma, also meaning “Eternal or Universal Righteousness” is the original name of what is now popularly called Hinduism. Sanatana Dharma is to human life what natural laws are to the physical phenomena. Just as the phenomena of gravitation existed before it was discovered, the spiritual laws of life are eternal laws which existed before they were discovered by the ancient rishis (sages) for the present age during the Vedic period.
Sanatana Dharma declares that something cannot come out of nothing and, therefore, the universe itself is the manifestation of the Divine being. This truth forms the invocation of the Isha Upanishad (a Hindu scripture):
Poornam-adah, poornam-idam, poor-nath poornam-udachyate.
Poor-nasya poornam-adaya, poornam-eva-va-sishyate.
That is full; this is full. The full comes out of the full.
Taking the full from the full, the full itself remains.
This verse expresses the mystery of creation. This universe comes forth from the Divine, yet the universe takes nothing from the Divine and adds nothing to It. Divine remains ever the same. Since the universe has come forth from the Divine, all things and beings are sacred and must be treated so in human thought and action. The Divine sleeps in minerals, awakens in plants, walks in animals and thinks in humans.
Sanatana Dharma looks upon a person as a part and parcel of the mighty Whole, but never regards him as “the Measure of all things.” In the West, “person” is a supreme and final value, while Sanatana Dharma regards person as a part of the Whole, having the same vital essence as all other human and sub-human creatures of the universe. This cosmic view of Hinduism transcends the sectarian or group dogmas and paves a way for the coexistence of all creatures under the Vedic principle of Vasudev Kutumbhkam, meaning “The Universe is One Family.” This principle guides the humankind towards universal harmony through acceptance and tolerance.
Sanatana Dharma recognizes that the Ultimate Reality, which is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization, cannot be limited by any name or concept. The potential for human wholeness (as in enlightenment, salvation, liberation, transformation, blessedness, nirvana, moksha) is present in every human being. No race or religion is superior and no color or creed is inferior. All humans are spiritually united like the drops of water in an ocean.
In a nutshell, Hinduism = Sanātana Dharma = Eternal Religion = Righteous Action + Mental Virtue.
