Kedarnath Dham Significance

* Kedarnath Dham Significance *

Kedarnath is a tremendous space. The utterance of the sound “Shiva” attains a completely new dimension and significance in Kedar. It is a space which has been specially prepared for this particular sound. When we utter the word “Shiva,” it is the freedom of the uncreated, the liberation of one who is not created. It is not right to say this, but it is almost like on this planet, the sound “Shiva” emanates from this place. For thousands of years, people have experienced that space as a reverberation of that sound.

When we say “Shiva,” it is not about creating one more idol or god that we can ask for more prosperity or better things in life. The word “Shiva”means “that which is not.” Today, modern science is proving to us that everything comes from nothing and goes back to nothing. The basis of existence and the fundamental quality of the cosmos is vast nothingness. The galaxies are just a small happening – a sprinkling. The rest is all vast empty space, which is referred to as Shiva.

Kedarnath is a very heady mixture of energies. This is a place that has witnessed thousands of yogis and mystics of every kind. When I say every kind, you cannot imagine those kinds. These are people who made no attempt to teach anything to anyone. Their way of making an offering to the world was by leaving their energies, their path, their work – everything – in a certain way in these spaces.

When you think of someone on the spiritual path, you would probably think of them within a certain kind of framework in terms of a certain kind of behavior, dress or speech. But this is not a land of just that kind of spiritual person. The kind that fits into your ways of understanding has been here. But there have been many more who are utterly wild, whom you can never recognize as spiritual. But these are people who have touched the very peaks of existence. When we say “a yogi,” we do not mean someone of a certain behavior or morality. A yogi is perfectly in tune with life. So tuned in that he can dismantle life and put it back together again. The fundamental life that is you, if you can dismantle that completely and put it back, only then you are a yogi. There have been many such incredible human beings.

For a person who is seeking some kind of spiritual uplift, Kedar is a boon whose proportions you cannot imagine. That’s how it is, if one is open to this. It is very difficult to explain what it means. After all, it’s just a mountain, an outcrop of rock. But what makes an enormous difference is what has done to the space by the type of people who lived here for thousands of years. This is the place where so many yogis shed their bodies. It is something you must experience. After being born in India, before you are too old and no good for anything, you must make it once to the Himalayas.