SHIVA Flight of the Ultimate Time traveler. (Prelude)

SHIVA

Flight of the Ultimate Time traveler.

(Prelude)

The first time Shiva went into a cosmic trance , He was thrilled to bits.

And He realized that’s where His story began, in a cosmic trance.

So many times on His mountain sojourns He had chanced upon a singing shepherd or a wandering minstrel, singing of Shiva!  Sometimes, as a bonus even lovelorn women sang his praise , when they actually pined for another suitor… and He was  amused by the stories He heard about himself .

There was all sorts of stuff talked about him, and he generally liked most of it, just because of the  possibility it offered. It gave him a strange excitement , that there was actually a chance  to choose one’s own act from so many suggested plots .

He loved mountains. He loved to dance.  He loved to wear his hair long.

He was as regular a hilly billy  as they came,  and he loved his fellow mountain men.

But he was not considered in turn, a fellow man.

It was said of Him that he was God Himself, the Primal One. 

He was said to be the timeless Lord of the mountains and the men he so loved.

He was Shiva, the auspicious.  Shiva, whose very presence was able to transmute humans  into demi –gods.  He was supposed to be the ultimate spiritual alchemist.

But whatever he could see of himself , was plainly human.

He felt like a human , always  contemporary , always in the present, always  fond of the forest life . And like all the other creatures that roamed   in the forest , always looking forward to more of it.

Yet, legend  insisted that he was no ordinary Forest dweller, He was the supreme in the midst of all beings. He was God, of almost all things.

Women sang of Him while they wished to get married to someone else, because He was supposed to be, among those many other things, a God who lavishly bestowed boons on  them to find a suitable Groom.

He was much married Himself and the name of His eternal beloved Parvati, was always fused into His own, as were reportedly ,their hearts. So often was He referred to as ‘Shivaparvati’, that this plural had become synonymous for togetherness.

But it was His presence as singular that got Him accredited with some contrary attributes.

The most popular belief had Him listed as The Destroyer.

The ancient Indians , who propitiated many gods, had three principal deities at the Helm of affairs.  Brahma, the creator of the Universe,  Vishnu, who handled its running,  and then ,

 there was another amazing aspect that no one really understood- The ancients had said emphatically that there existed  a God who destroys the Universe at the end,

and that God was Shiva. So it was that he shared Godship with the other two, so it was that He was deemed God of almost all things.

No one really understood why God would need to destroy the Universe, yet horror stories abounded about how Shiva would always signal the end of time for each creation.

And though this was a little strange, because ,no one, surely would have seen the end of a universe and live to tell of it, yet  graphic details about the divine holocaust were chanted in fervent whispers, as though etched in a collective memory. Details of how Shiva literally snuffed out all life. It was whispered that He stomped His feet upon the Earth in such furious a manner that sent massive tremors through the cosmos,and that all this was a dance.The last dance called Tandav, that, always beginning from Prithviloka,ended all things that had ever come into existence.Ending, as it were, existence itself.

This was the great mystery, when did  the endearing mountain dweller become a cosmic hard stepper, the avatar of destruction? And, why?

Ancient seers sensed an enthralling  story here.

Shiva was accredited with this peculiar penchant for Earth, roaming its length and breadth in general, but  preferring  in  particular its mountains, the Himalayas as His  snowy abode.

The Himalayas were noted for their crisp preservation of the pristinity of life itself.

Ironically, the other place where He was said to visit frequently were the cremation grounds.

In all His mentions, different aspects abounded, both terrible and  magnificent, which were spoken of , in whispers. Over a period of time, the repetitive whispers became a routine and fervent chanting. And in times of need and fear,these  came to be passed off as prayer to Shiva Himself.

There were other, less opinionated and therefore more open minded seers ,who ,after a great deal of research and meditation, comparison of notes and deliberation, declared  simply,

” only Shiva knows what He is really” ,

 affording Him the opportunity to express His own truth and pass it on, from time to time.

Those to whom these revelations came , were completely transformed .They became  confident and  trusting of life, shifting to a mode bubbling with  high self esteem.

They were always at ease and  seemed to know their place in the plan of things.

Not that  these seers lived in a different time or place,or were exposed to a different reality:

The same things that some thought were ominous, these few saw clearly as the play of Life.

They had begun to penetrate beyond duality . They did see how all things arrived in pairs, like  light and dark, day and night, heat and cold ,but  saw beyond it all ,a single source.

A  Oneness whence all phenomenon emanated.

 It was as actually as though Shiva was the supreme alchemist, transmuting  the very spirit of the seers with his touch. These seers prayed differently.

They spoke of Shiva in endearing terms as Natraja, the King of the cosmic dance.

Shiva , the auspicious, Shiva the warlord, Shiva the mountain God, Shiva the dweller of the cremation grounds, Shiva the creator of the Universe, Shiva the destroyer, Shiva the ascetic, Shiva the loyal husband, Shiva the intoxicant, Shiva the meditator ;He is Shiva ,the supreme spiritual master!  verily He is all  , Shiva ,Lord of the dance .

One thing that stood out clearly in the descriptions was that there was much paradox about Him.

 The moment anyone thought they understood one aspect of Him, immediately another would come and juxtapose itself in contrast.  And that was the way He was known by most people as the greatest enigma in the pantheon of the Hindu Gods.

No one was ever sure of His antiquity, or His  antecedents, none knew who His parents were ,

or if He was actually a sibling to the Vedic Gods.

Some said He was Brahma’s son, Others asserted He was Swayambhu, the self created ,

who, after manifesting Himself , in fact, created Brahma also.

Every search on Him spiralled into a concentricity of higher realm.

Even after hearing about Him endlessly, one would come back to the same mystery.

What was His story really?  Where were His origins?  Why was he Called Rudra the terrible in one breath and  also Pasupati, Lord of all creatures, in another?

His 1008 other epithets that had astounding ramnifications in their tributes ,left so many tracks to follow , he seemed to be all pervasive.

This omnipresence had a magical effect, it veiled Him.(from the forthcoming book ,SHIVA, by shail gulhati)

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