Shravan purnima and the enigmatic allure of shiva

Shravan purnima and the enigmatic allure of shiva

The Svetasvatara Upanishad is the earliest text to allude to Shiva as the Parama Purusha: “Eko he Rudra na dwiteeya tasthu” – Since Rudra is One, the knowers of Brahmn know of no other deity. Unique for this theistic framework, the Svetasvatara is an evocative exposition of Shaivite philosophy, a forerunner to the Shaivite devotional traditions, which grew around this wonderfully enigmatic figure of Shiva. From the intense monistic Trika philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism to the devotional melodies of the Tamilian Nayanar saints, Shiva was positioned at the heart of the Self. He is the Supreme Guru, Dakshinamurthy, who inspires yogis and devotees alike to take the path less travelled.

Shiva is the great yogi, lost in penance. He is also a wonderful householder, and tradition sees this as a wonderful symbol of the Prime Cause, waking itself up from a long meditative stupor to initiate creation by becoming a householder. He still remains the Adi Yogi, untouched by the Maya he has created, duty bound in this empirical world by the laws he has himself set down, yet his soul-mind remains above Maya. He is this enigmatic Purusha, who gets pleased with a small prayer of his devotee, yet is difficult to experience – Parvati herself realised, for it required even her to rise above the physical Creation around and merge the mind into the soul through intense tapasya, penance.

He is the great dancer, Nataraja at Chidambaram, whose tandava poses inspire Indian classical dance. He is also seen as the dance of the subatomic particle matter by scientists, who installed this massive Nataraja at the entrance of the CERN Large Hadron Collider machine near Geneva. Alternative history even sees him now as an extraordinary Being who came from a different dimension of the Cosmos to set up and organise living on Earth. He is Ashutosh, easily pleased, yet distant in his meditation. The Indus seal of Pashupati shows a Shiva-like yogi, surrounded by animals. The yogi is shown to be compassionate to all beings, reminding man to maintain Nature’s equilibrium. Ramana Maharishi called Shiva his father, and set out in search of him towards Arunachala at Tiruvannamalai, seeing in him the symbol of the Supreme Reality in which the mind is finally anchored.

All Shiva philosophical traditions see him at the centre of this matrix of Being and Becoming – Trika tradition states that the external world too is seen as a reflection of this Shiva consciousness. Tradition sees the relationship of Shiva and jiva as one of an inherently existing Oneness and identity. This interplay of the soul and world is defined as Shiva’s ‘dynamic’ first impulse, arousing himself from his ‘static’ samadhi, in which there is no outer world to manifest.

Through this divine play of Shiva through his Shakti, Shiva himself is able to recognise his own universal consciousness, otherwise, there is nothing to recognise, for that consciousness is already there. And even though every being has this intrinsic knowledge of his Shiva nature, it is overshadowed completely by the mind and its act of incessant thinking. The Svetasvatara urges the jiva to turn inwards and see himself reflected in the image of Shiva himself and wake up to the knowledge that Shiva and his creation (Shakti) are actually identical.