THE YOGA OF SHIVA

 

THE YOGA OF SHIVA

This unusual perspective of Shiva on the net, where He is seated almost completely submerged in water but still doing His yoga calmly, brings to our mind what a great Yogi He is.

And this is a sort of vision of the iceberg. Now, we all know that an iceberg is a formation whose mass is never visible to us more than 30% of it's actual dimension. 70% of it is under the Ocean, or it is in an area which we cannot see with our human eyes.

Shiva is very much like this: We cannot ever know Him fully.

Pushpadanta in his prayer 'Shiva mahimna stotram' said, even if God Brahma and Ma Saraswati themselves sat down to write the story of Shiva, using all the water available in all the seas as their ink , the sea would dry up but they would not be able to write even a small portion of His story ; So vast is the Lila of Mahadeva, So large His infinite Self. To be infinite, to be not fully knowable, is His very nature!

Still, in His kindness, Shiva Himself always reaches out to us, and lets us know as much about His vision, creation and life as He possibly can. And just like man needs some kind of underwater telescope to see the larger aspect of the iceberg, he needs to see Shiva with special eyes. And that is what Shiva does for us, He opens our spiritual eyes for us to Spiritualise.

Thus too, the ancient rishis of Kashmir, when they compiled the sacred texts of Shaivism as revealed to them by Shiva Himself, took care to say that Shiva's spirituality can never be known in it's entirety. For example the Siva sutras are in four grades:

Anupaya

Shambhavopaya

Saktoapaya

Anavopaya

But the actual teachings begin with the Shambhavopaya.

Anupaya, which is the highest grade, is not taught to anyone because it is not a teaching, it is a happening, a spontaneous entering of the state of Shiva Himself, and therefore perhaps known only to Him.

Aum Namah Shivaye.

~ Shail Gulhati: Shiva and Mysticism.