7 Secrets Of Shiva

by Devdutt Pattanaik

Within infinite myths lies an eternal truth Who knows it all? Varuna has but a thousand eyes Indra, a hundred You and I, only two.

The name given to God was Shiva, which means the pure one, purified of all forms. Shiva means that which is transcendent. Shiva means God who cannot be contained by space or time, God who needs no form.

Because humans can imagine, the notion of a reality beyond the senses, a reality beyond nature, has come into being. Without the cerebrum there would be no imagination, and hence no notion of God!

In many temples of India, a head or multiple heads are carved on the linga stone, or a brass mask representing a head covers the linga-stone. This head is identified with Shiva. It is a reminder of the human head that is unique from all other heads in the animal kingdom. It houses the highly developed brain that can imagine and hence forge a path to the divine. 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.

It is imagination that makes us realise that we are distinct from nature. In other words, imagination makes us self-aware. It is also imagination that makes us feel unique because no two humans can imagine the same thing. Imagination therefore makes us wonder about who we are, compelling us to analyse, synthesise, create and communicate. It is our imagination that will not allow us to stagnate. It propels us to improve. It propels us to grow.

In Sanskrit, the sound ‘Brh’ means to grow, to swell, to expand and enlarge. From this sound come two very critical ideas: brahman and Brahma.

Vedas are the earliest sacred scriptures of Hinduism and are full of abstract hymns containing esoteric concepts. The Puranas were written later and use stories and characters to make those esoteric concepts more accessible. The Vedic brahman is a neuter noun, which means the vast, the boundless, and the infinite. Puranic Brahma is a proper noun referring to a form of God that is, very peculiarly and significantly, not worshipped.

Goddess is nature and God is how nature is perceived by the human imagination. When the perception is incomplete and inaccurate, God is not worshipped, as in the case of Brahma. When the perception is complete and accurate, God is worshipped, as in the case of Shiva and Vishnu. In fact, when perception is complete and accurate, the divide between God and Goddess collapses. There is only one. That one is brahman. Brahma is God yearning for perfection that is the brahman.

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.

Those who look at this stone image as merely a stone image are like Brahma, people who lack imagination and who do not yearn for wisdom. Those who look at this stone image as a symbolic container of an idea are like Vishnu, people with imagination who yearn for the truth that exists beyond the tangible.

The Pole Star, for example, is the only celestial body in the sky that does not move at all. It appears fixed. All the stars and the planets move around it. The Pole Star serves as the symbol of a world where nothing changes, nothing ages or dies. The direction marked by the Pole Star becomes the direction of aspiration, the direction of spiritual reality. In the north, lives Shiva, said the wise.

Shiva is imagined as living on a mountain. This mountain is located under the Pole Star, in the north. This mountain is called Kailasa. It is covered by snow, water that does not move.

Shiva, who emerged from the limitless pillar of fuel-less fire, is therefore visualised sitting under the Pole Star, on a snow-capped mountain, in the shade of a banyan tree. Through this form, the idea of spiritual reality is communicated.

The earliest followers of Shiva were mendicants who lived outside human settlements, in forests, and moved around with matted hair, smeared with ash, naked or dressed in animal hide, carrying cups made of gourds or skulls, and bearing a staff. These were hermits, people who chose not to be part of culture. These men were not interested in marriage or children or society or worldly life. They were interested only in realising the infinite.

The self-stirred phallus of Lakulesh is a physical expression of an idea known as sat-chitta-ananda, which means tranquillity (ananda) that follows when the mind (chitta) discovers the truth of nature and of the human condition (sat) by purging itself of all memories and prejudice.

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. This is tapa, spiritual fire that does not need fuel, unlike agni that is material fire which needs fuel.

Tapa cleanses the mind, purges all memories and prejudices so that it experiences sat-chitta-ananda. It makes the body radiant, youthful and prevents it from aging. Tapasya is the process of lighting this fire.

Tapasvins hold Prakriti in disdain, because everything in nature is mortal. They seek immortality. In nature, everything is limited by space and time and restricted by form. The Tapasvin wants to break free from all limitations, expand into infinity, achieve what is called Siddha, the ability to acquire whatever he desires, not be fettered by gravity. And so the Tapasvin seeks to fly in the air and walk on water, expand and contract his size, change his shape. He seeks independence from nature. Withdrawing from nature is the first step in this process.

Detached from nature, a Tapasvin feels no pain, hears no sound, sees no image, tastes no flavour and smells no odour. In art, Tapasvins are shown as seated in cross-legged positions with creepers around their feet, termite hills over their bodies and serpents slithering around their necks. These men are intellectually, emotionally and physically liberated from all things material.

inward gaze away from the material world is called nivritti 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.

The Tapasvin practises celibacy, refuses to have sex with women, and father children. Thus he destroys his family tree voluntarily. No other living creature can do this. Plants are bound by nature to bear fruit and seed. Animals are bound by nature to mate. Humans are the only creatures for whom reproduction is a choice. A male hermit represents the rejection of that choice;

Humans are the only creatures who can voluntarily make themselves extinct, if the men choose not to act on desire.

The followers of Shiva believed that so long as the flow of seed is downward, living creatures will remain mortal.

Plants and animals cannot control their urge to spill their seed. Women have no control over their red seed. Their menstrual cycle is fettered to nature’s rhythms like the waxing and waning of the moon and the movement of the tides. Only the human male has the power to control the movement of his white seed. It can flow downwards in pleasure or to procreate ’ this results in mortality. It can be made to flow upwards with yoga. This generates wisdom, ignites the spiritual fire of Tapa and results in immortality. This upward movement of semen is described in Tantra as Urdhvaretas.

Shiva’s holy city, Kashi, is located at a bend in the river Ganga where it turns and moves northwards instead of southwards. This reverse flow of the river is a reminder of what the human mind can do. Only the human mind, blessed with imagination, can challenge the laws of nature, withdraw from it and even break free from it. This is moksha, or liberation.

Shiva-linga then is at once the self-stirred phallus of the Tapasvin, the reverse flow of his semen, the burning of Tapa, the endless pillar of fire and the form of the formless divine. This is the Stanu, the still pillar of consciousness, the fountainhead of imagination, around which nature dances.

Death ends up sustaining life. This is the truth of nature. Shiva is called Kaal Bhairava because he removes the bhaya of kaal, which is time, the devourer of all living things.

Fear of death leads to two kinds of fears as it transforms all living creatures either into predator or prey. The fear of scarcity haunts the predator as it hunts for food; the fear of predation haunts the prey as it avoids being hunted. Nature has no favourites. Both the lion and the deer have to run in order to survive. The lion runs to catch its prey and the deer runs to escape its predator. The deer may be prey to the lion, but it is predator to the grass. Thus no one in nature is a mere victim. Without realising it every victim is a victimiser, and there is no escape from this cycle of life.

Shiva reveals the power of the higher brain over the lower brain, the human brain over the animal brain. That is why he is called Pashu-pati, master of animal instincts. He offers the promise of a-bhaya, the world where there is no fear of scarcity or predator, in other words no fear of death. Shiva offers immortality.

Nature creates and destroys life without prejudice. Human imagination is the seat of prejudice. It has two choices: to imagine a world without fear or to imagine a world with amplified fears. When the Purusha outgrows fear and experiences bliss, it is Shiva, the destroyer of fear. When Purusha amplifies fear and gets trapped in delusions, it is Brahma, the creator of fear. Naturally, the former is considered worthy of worship, not the latter.

One becomes immortal when one outgrows the fear of death. Markandeya does at the age of sixteen when he clings to the Shiva-linga, which is the symbol of Purusha or spiritual reality. This is a metaphor for faith. Faith is not rational just as immortality is not natural. Immortality is an idea that appears in the human imagination in response to the fear of death. When one liberates oneself from the fear of death using faith, one becomes indifferent to death. Death then no longer controls us or frightens us. We are liberated. We achieve immortality.

The soul is atma.

Atma defines all laws of nature — it has no form, it cannot be measured, it cannot be experienced using any of the five senses. It is a self-assured entity that does not seek acknowledgment or evidence. One has to believe it. There is no other way to access it.

The ego is the product of imagination. It is how a human being sees himself or herself. It makes humans demand a special status in nature and culture. Nature does not care for this self-image of human beings. Culture, which is a man-made creation, attempts to accommodate it.

Brahma splits Brahmanda into three parts: me, mine and what is not mine. This is Tripura, the three worlds. Each of these three worlds is mortal. The ‘me’ is made up of the mind and body. ‘Mine’ is made up of property, knowledge, family and status. ‘Not mine’ is made up of all the other things that exist in the world over which one has no authority. Even animals have a ‘me’ but only humans have ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’. Human self-image is thus expanded beyond the body and includes possessions.

The number three plays a key role in Shiva’s mythology. His sacred mark is composed of three parallel lines. He holds in his hand a trident, a weapon with three blades. He is offered in temples the sacred bilva leaf which is a sprig with three leaves. Shiva holds the shaft of the trident just as the devotee holds the stem of the bilva sprig. What is held is the immortal soul; the three blades and the three leaves represent the three worlds that Brahma creates and values, which need to be given up if one seeks, ‘Shanti, shanti, shanti.’

Wisdom is meaningless if it does not enable the liberation of those who are trapped in fear. That is why the Goddess stands in opposition of Shiva as both the radiant Gauri, producing light, and as the dark Kali, consuming light.

In Indian philosophy, a thing exists when it is seen. And a creature is alive when it sees.

Looking at others is called darshan.

A gaze that is born of fear, a gaze that excludes and exploits is not darshan. Darshan is gaze that is free of fear. Darshan is gaze that looks at the other for its own sake not because it is ‘mine’ or ‘not mine’. Darshan is an empathy-filled gaze. We see people around us as deer who fear predators, or as lions who fear scarcity and seek prey, or as dogs who bark when threatened or whine when ignored. Darshan enables us to see people’s thinking patterns or mind-sets.

If people around us behave like deer, it means we are behaving like lions. If people around us behave like lions, it means they see us as deer. If people around us behave like dogs, friendly or hostile, it means we matter to them.

The Goddess wants humans to look at humans as humans. This will not happen as long as fear governs the relationship. Simply cutting Brahma’s head will not remedy the situation. Some hand-holding is required. Just as Brahma needs to have faith in Shiva, Shiva needs to have patience with Brahma. For this, Shiva has to first engage with the world, not withdraw from it. Determined to get Pashu-pati to help humans, Shakti dances on top of him. She hopes to transform Shiva, the insensitive, angry god, into Shankara, the god who empathises and is patient.

Yagna is all about controlling wild nature and domesticating it so that it comes under human control, becomes manageable, predictable, hence less frightening. Yagna is a metaphor for domestication.

Daksha finds nature inhabited by two sets of divine beings: the Devas who live in the sky and the Asuras who live under the earth. Under the earth, withheld by Asuras, is all the wealth that society needs — plants and metals. The Devas provide the wherewithal — heat, light, wind, fire, rain — to draw this subterranean wealth out. With the help of the Devas, Daksha gets access to wealth hoarded by the Asuras. For Daksha, Devas are therefore ‘gods’ while Asuras are ‘demons’.

The third eye of Shiva indicates transcendental wisdom. Implicit in the idea of desire, is the idea of choice. Desire means the quest for one thing over another. To want something one must not want another thing. In other words, one needs two eyes, one that selects and the other that rejects. When both eyes are shut it means nothing is selected or rejected, nothing is approved or disapproved, nothing is included or excluded. Everything is the same. The third eye therefore embodies absence of discrimination and choice, hence absence of desire.

Only in humans is sex a choice and a pleasure-seeking activity that need not culminate in procreation. Shiva is immortal, so does not need to procreate. Shiva is in a state of eternal bliss and so does not seek pleasure-seeking activities. He needs nothing and wants nothing. He is therefore autonomous, independent of nature.

From fear of death stems the yearning for immortality and this yearning for immortality eventually paves the path towards spirituality.

The scriptures state that every living creature is obligated to produce children to repay the debt they owe to their ancestors who gave them life.

When humanity ignores imagination, there is no growth, no quest to outgrow fear, no desire for spiritual reality. Evolution does not happen. Spiritual reality remains undiscovered. Only the self matters; others remain invisible. In other words, humans stay animals.