There was gold everywhere. Gold in the mountains, gold in the valley, gold in the sky. It was a golden luminosity basking in its own unending lustre. When Sati opened Her eyes, a golden sun was at Her window. She was in the palace.
She remembered everything that Rishi Vashishta had taught Her. She remembered every detail, till She came to the part when She repeated the mystic mantra ‘SO HUNG’ after him the third time. Sati went into the same trance as She had in the cave.
And then She awoke again to see a gold shimmering dawn.
This happened three times before She knew She had reached Samadhi.
A spiritual déjà vu.
And She saw Her own hair raised in the ultimate arousal- The arousal of one’s own Self.
She remembered the fabulously mystic teaching Vashishta had given Her about the self, the Generatrix:
“The Self is an amazing thing: One disappears as soon as one contacts it; the disappearing is the meeting. ”
“Ah yes, Gurudeva,” She sighed. “I have disappeared even though I am back in the palace…”
The moment She opened Her eyes from the vivid dreamality, She thought of Shiva.
Suddenly, Sati knew the whole purpose of Her life.
The thought of Shiva penetrated Sati like an arrow ,and She actually felt Her heart flutter, like a well-gotten target. She had never seen an image of Him, but suddenly, there He was, right in front of Her,dancing on mountain skylines, long-haired and well muscled; a mesmerising figure that seemed to rivet the earth with the sky.
With Shiva, the animals felt a gratification; they felt an immense dimension of themselves in His presence.He liked each of them for what they were. He realised that they were more wronged than doing wrong; that they were scorned, only because they looked different. He saw that mankind had an obsession for devising labels. Humans loved to customise descriptions of other beings, so as to suit their own parameters, ignoring the beauty of Nature’s bigger plan. He realised that to look for beauty only in beauty was a subtle ugliness.
He joked with them about the lighter side of everyone’s looks including, many a time, His own. His sense of humour unburdened them and they felt worthy. They knew they were not just beasts; they were part of a divine plan. An important part. And He was here in their midst, as Pasupati. Just His presence seemed to exorcise them of an age-old sense of being unwanted. They began to think of Him as God.
But it was Parvati, who was the most important one, and through Her unmatched love, she had made Him realise more than what all other creatures put together had acknowledged. He was not just Pasupati; He was Pasupati Nath. Not just the Lord of animals, but also the undisputed master of their very soul. It was She who had brought Him to the more intimate relationships, She who drew out the tenderness.
There always comes a time in our life when we know that we are alone, that we are all that we have for ourselves. What was your first awareness of being on your own, in this world?
Mine was, when as an eleven year old, I was sent away more than a thousand miles from home to a boarding School. On the very first day, we were woken up in the early morning by the matron with her crisp and authoritative voice, calling us by our School numbers. So it was not ' Wake up Shailendra', but rather ' Wake up 314'. Right there, away from ' home' , in the middle of a dormitory of 12 boys, a class of 35, and a school of 700 students, i realized that i was just a number. Oh, the miserable feeling that only i knew my own thoughts and emotions, and that i had to keep them closely to myself. I knew right then , that i had to make my own place for myself in the middle of all the 'Others'. And the knowing that i was alone in this ,was indeed a sad one. And then came the more amazing realisation that actually, the 'Others' were also in the same situation. Hmm.
It is the same with our Cosmopolitan world today. We sometimes realize all too deeply that we are just a number ; This realization can come to you anywhere, when you view and understand how many 'multitudes' of people are present in your world, even though you don't know many of them. Especially for example, when you look at the thousands of windows in a 'High- rise' apartment complex, and though you cannot see them, you know that thousands of people live somewhere inside these windows. .. And there,as a witnessing bystander in the middle of this Universal circus, you may become determined to make some good sense of this beautiful life that has been gifted to you by God: You want to shine out much beyond your ‘ Just one of many thousands’ status.
Am i right?
But wait, the world of God isn’t just a huge challenge after all, there is another beautiful phenomenon that we come by. Togetherness.
What was your first realisation of sharing the world? Mine was when i held my soulmate's hand during our wedding ceremony. Right there, in the middle of a crowd of friends who had gathered for our event, i realised the world was going to be totally different from now on. Somewhere between alone and together, the binary of life started to make itself known - There always comes a time in your life , when you know that it was meant to be lived in Togetherness...
And i knew then, that Alone-ness is not meant by Nature as a way of life. The Alone -ness we get, is for providing us Ekaant, Kevalya; it is good for us to think, to introspect, to wonder about the purpose of life, the challenges and the opportunities; And then, to come out into the world ready to share it with a beautiful partner and together dance this binary dance of Shiva and Shakti…And that fabulous feeling that i can share my thoughts and emotions, that i don't have to keep piling them up like a heap of secrets that only i can know or think about, but rather, that i can share my inner world, every little fairy tale i hold in the heart of the eleven year old child, with my partner in life. Meditate upon this.
Shiva is Hara- He who takes away.The Guru never gives , he takes away your ignorance, illusion and all your veils. Just like a computer vendor makes your machine more efficient , simply by freeing it of unwanted junk, and by giving it more space, restoring it to factory settings: So that you shine in your pristine luminosity! शिव हैं हर — जो हर लेते हैं। गुरु कभी देते नहीं।
वे तुम्हारी अज्ञानता, माया और सारे आवरण हर लेते हैं। ठीक वैसे ही जैसे कोई कंप्यूटर वाला तुम्हारी मशीन को अधिक सक्षम बनाता है — केवल अवांछित कबाड़ हटाकर, और “उसे अधिक जगह देकर”, उसे फ़ैक्टरी सेटिंग पर लौटाकर। ताकि तुम अपनी निर्मल आभा में चमक उठो।
“ Life is a process of learning, every moment of unfolding is a learning. Life is ever on the move, never stagnating. It is like a meditation, a meditation in being.” said the Yogi. The snake had known what it was to be in meditation. But he wondered why the Yogi talked of ‘meditation in being’. “This is an echo process you know” , said the Yogi. “Being in meditation, being in meditation, and then meditation in being”. “Tell me” , said the Yogi, “what do you know of being in meditation, and I shall tell you of meditation in being”.
"Since I had no formal teaching in meditation. I made my own improvisations, said the snake, I took a blanket, folded it for a seat, closed my eyes and meditated upon what there was when there was nothing".
"Good" , said the yogi, "This is a direct way of looking for the source, the beginning. What did you realise?"
"The curious mind, which has, so far identified itself with its conditioning, thoughts, and own conceptions, yearns to transcend itself, to know the truth about the truth, to reach the unreachable. Meditation, is a step to introduce this mind to the truth.During meditation, the meditator strives for maximum awareness." said the snake.
" Yes, and this striving is paradoxical too, it comes only after complete relaxation and ‘at easeness’. One should not be, therefore, rigid or conditioned even about approaches to meditation. Continue", said the Yogi.
" In due course, it perceives many new sensory lights, sounds and smells, which of it, did not exist earlier. These serve as indicators of progress. The mind now knows that there is nothing known as soundless. That in fact, the absence of noise which we call silence, alone leads to anahata, the eternal reasonance, vibrating the universal hum. Similarly, that, which we have known as darkness, is actually permeated by lights.Then, the meditator becomes conscious of an energy formation that rises slowly, up the spine. This is a higher awareness and the arrangement is being made for the mind to meet the self, through (within) the meditator. The steadily rising energy reaches the brain and explodes into permeation. This one moment of culmination is spontaneous and the mind meets with, knows, and fuses into the self, all at once. This is the highest awareness. There is nothing more to be seen, heard or smelled; only a knowingness.This knowingness is known by itself. The mind that has been so stilled by the meditator into perfect awareness, knows that it has transcended itself, that it stands in the truth. That, it is experiencing eternity, void, nothingness, everythingness, all at once. There is the experience of the great ‘I am’ness and all previous conceptions of duality between the meditator and the self stand erased. You are at once the knower and the known, the experiencer and the experienced." said the snake.
"Do not forget the vital links", said the yogi," You are not only the experiencer and the experienced you are the experience. You are the knowing."
"The concept of time too, stands radically altered, because you know you have taken a cosmic journey in a split second; indeed, you have experienced time immemorial in a fraction of the present. Later, when the mind returns to the level of intellect, and then reflects upon the experience, it may be called ‘near death’ since there was no body or mind consciousness at the time; and you are trying to understand it through memory. You are filled with the wonderment again, who was it that experienced all that?" Exclaimed the snake.
"Only pure consciousness reflecting upon pure consciousness", said the Yogi. A declaration of the primordial state of being. So did you realise what there was, when there was nothing?Pure consciousness, pure energy, pure transcendence; no matter, no manifestation, nothing of dynamics, only lots of potential energy. Nothing gross, only a subtle state. Like a seed not sprouted, an egg not hatched, a baby not born to the outer world; Prakasa!"
