More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Within Infinite Truths lies the Eternal Truth Who sees it all? Varuna has but a thousand eyes Indra, a hundred And I, only two.
God is beyond all forms, but a form is needed to access even this idea.
This is the very same reason that sacred marks are placed on the forehead of devotees: to remind them of the critical role our brain, hence our imagination, plays in defining our humanity.
Brahma is God yearning for perfection that is the brahman.
Every human being is in the process of moving from the finite to the infinite, from Brahma to brahman, on the path forged by the imagination.
Brahma is God who creates all forms, hence is called the creator; but he has not yet found the perfect form and is still yearning and searching, making him unworthy of worship. Vishnu is God who has realised that no form is perfect and so works with the limited forms. This is why he is called the preserver and is worshipped in various forms. Shiva is God who breaks free from all forms, having found all of them limited, hence he is the destroyer who is worshipped as the linga.
Shiva is Hara, who is indifferent to form, while Vishnu is Hari, who is appreciative of form.
when the mind withdraws from material reality, it does not depend on nature anymore. It does not need to be fed. It generates heat autonomously without fuel.
inward gaze away from material world is called nivritti marga, while the outward materialistic gaze is called pravritti marga.
The inward gaze seeks the seed from where the tree comes; the outward gaze seeks the fruit of the tree. That is why Shiva is always bedecked with the seeds of the rudraksha tree. Rudraksha literally means ‘the gaze of Shiva’. In contrast, Vishnu, patron of the outward gaze, is bedecked with leaves and flowers.
This upward movement of semen is described in Tantra as Urdhvaretas.
This reverse movement is also known as the northern movement, towards the Pole Star, in contrast to the southern movement, out of the body, which results in children, family and social responsibilities. It is depicted in art as an erect phallus in a Tapasvin whose eyes are shut.
Shiva is called Kaal Bhairava because he removes the bhaya of kaal, which is time, the devourer of all living things.
Prakriti is visualised as the female body without the head while Purusha is visualised as the male head without the body.
BRAHMA RENAMES PRAKRITI AS SHATARUPA,
It is said that the serpent around Shiva’s neck is Patanjali, who wrote the Yoga Sutra, the aphorisms of yoga.
Animals have territory but humans create property.
Territory is held on to by brute force and cunning; it cannot be inherited;
The future is created, the present is sustained and the past is destroyed.
The relationship between Shiva and Parvati is not based on power. There is no conqueror and there is no conquest. Each one allows the other to dominate. Neither seeks to dominate the other. This is love.
Shiva however kills the elephant. He is Gajantaka, slayer of the elephant,
uncooked food in the form of nuts and raw milk is offered to the hermit Shiva of Kailasa while the householder Shankara of Kashi is offered cooked food.
The concept of debt to ancestors or Pitr-rin is an integral part of culture aimed at preventing men from becoming indifferent, self-absorbed hermits and forcing them to become householders, responsible for others.
No one wanted to marry a man with the head of an elephant. So, his mother draped a sari around a banana plant and gave it to Ganesha as his wife.
To remind himself of this, he replaces his lost eye with an eye of gold, which is why Kubera is called Pingalaksha, he with a golden eye.
This Shiva-linga that Ganesha prevented from reaching Lanka is located at Gokarna along the Konkan coast.
Agni, the fire-god, to claim Shiva’s semen, which is why Kumara is also called Skanda, the spurt of life.
Vel Murugan, the spear-bearing warrior god, ready to do battle on the seventh day of his life when he is six days old.
As the son of the forest of reeds, he is known as Saravana.
As the wild, red-coloured warrior, he is Senthil.
Shiva asked his foremost disciple and devotee, the Rishi Agastya, to move south with his students, until the end of the discourse.
Agastya is said to have brought the river Kaveri to the south.
In Kerala, the son of Shiva and Mohini is called Ayyappa or Manikantha.
This wife is Devasena, or Sena.
She is the daughter of Indra given to Murugan in gratitude for defeating Taraka.
Thus while Ganesha helps devotees move from south to north, Kartikeya himself moves from north to south for the benefit of devotees.
She is the water pot hanging above the Shiva-linga dripping water on him, making sure he does not shut his eyes but opens them to look at the other.
Only in Kashi does the Ganga flow northward, drawn by the wisdom of Dakshinamurti.
The hooded cobra is the symbol of the alert and still Tapasvin who sits still and watches with full attention the world around it.
Shiva dances on the back of a demon called Apasmara, which means the demon of forgetfulness.
