By Bob Bongiovanni, MA
I am Shiva, the
voice of destruction,
and the voice of the mountain
I appear in earthquakes, as matter crashes and separates,
and I come forth out the abyss.
I am bright and
dark
Male and female
The spirit which cracks through matter
As I rise through destruction, I am the burning sky.
I can save whom I
choose,
and they are brought back to their roots in Truth
I create layer upon layer, form upon form,
And my three eyes mark the points of the sacred triangle
The yantra through which the devotee may travel.
The flames of
destruction are the fires of creation,
and I make and remake worlds
My devotees travel the roads of blue lightning through the storm clouds,
praying to Shiva
Lord of the Dance of the Universe.
The myths make me
old, lame, drunk, lustful, and uncaring
I am not old but ancient beyond days
Not lame but holding back from action, for my power can destroy
Not drunk but full of the soma of universal vision.
Not lustful but passionate in the grasping of changing forms,
and the creation of new ones
Uncaring that all things must change eternally.
In fire, my dark
side is the smoke,
and my bright side is the flame
My brilliance is the blue at the wick
My devotees must beware, for they come to identify with my power,
and they believe they have my spirit
Instead they have insight into my actions
And the tiny grain of my power that they grasp swells their egos
into identification with me
This is dangerous, and in future lives they will fall
Devotees seek the bliss of merging into the fullness of my power
But none on earth have gained identification
The world is a place of Maya with many false claimants
Who use me as a flag to conquer land and people.
Meditate on the
bursting open of sky and earth,
and on fiery rain and blue-white lightning
Beyond these are Kailash
Whose icy caves are the crystal yantras of light which create worlds
Enter the yantras of light,
and their centers will melt away into great tunnels of light
In my form as brilliance, I am infinite Truth
And all things return to me.
On March 23, 1995 American televangelist Pat
Robertson was broadcasting his “700 Club” television show from Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh, India. In the
course of the show, Robertson declared that Hinduism is a demonic religion,
possessing the poor Indian people. For
proof, he points to Hindu mythology and iconology. He says, "Siva [is] the God of Destruction, and his consort,
the Goddess of death [Kali] -- that black, ugly statue there with all those
fierce eyes." He then suggests that the evil tendencies of death and
destruction can be found in those who worship the deities: "I mean these
people are out to kill other human beings in the name of their God."
Pat Robertson’s defamation of Hinduism is not
surprising – the manner in which Christianity, particularly Protestantism,
deals with shadow and evil could not be more different than the manner in which
Hinduism deals with these topics. As we
have discussed previously, Christianity excludes from the Godhead many
qualities – darkness, femininity, destructiveness, and evil – and then asserts
that these qualities are attributable to flawed human beings and are at the
root of suffering. Hinduism does not
glom these qualities together.
Furthermore, Hinduism has a completely different proposition about the
nature of evil and its role in human suffering. In fact, the Hindu approach to evil has much in common with the
approach proposed by Jungian analyst John Sanford.
In Hinduism, there is the One Absolute Reality,
existing at the most abstract level, which is called Brahman. When Brahman becomes manifest, it takes on
attributes, he is called Ishvara, the overlord, and he has three aspects: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Each of these aspects has a masculine
quality, but each also has a feminine energy or shakti. For Brahma, the shakti is called Sarasvati;
for Vishnu, the shakti is called Lakshmi; for Shiva, the shakti is called Devi
or Kali. Each of the three attributes
of Ishvara has a different character.
Brahma is called the creator, Vishnu is called the preserver, and Shiva
is called the destoyer. In terms of
good and evil, Hindus believe that there is an eternal balance of these
forces. benevolent forces, called
“devas” and malevolent forces, called “asuras” that usually fight each other
into positions of stalemate.
Occasionally, however, asuras achieve dominance – that’s when Brahman become
manifest on the physical plane and redresses the imbalance.
For those schooled in Christian orthodoxy, it is
tempting to equate Brahma with God the Father, Vishnu with Christ, and Shiva
with Satan and evil. This is a false
equation, arising from Christianity’s unhealed split. In Hinduism, all of the attributes of Ishvara, and the shaktis,
are essential to the nature of reality and to human life. One cannot have creation and preservation
without destruction any more than one can have dawn and noontime without
evening. Hindus do not shun or fear
Shiva. Indeed, in terms of popularity,
the sect that primarily venerates Shiva is equal to or perhaps even larger than
the sect that primarily venerates Vishnu, and there is no widespread, popular
veneration of Brahma.
To better understand Hinduism’s treatment of shadow
and destructiveness, let’s discuss Shiva at more depth. Here is how he is described on a popular
Hindu web site:
Lord
Siva is the destroyer of the worlds. He is the supreme yogi who is easy to be
pleased. He is as popular as Lord Vishnu and He is the chief deity of Saivism
which also became popular in the same period as Vaishnavism [i.e., worship of Vishnu].
In fact
a long rivalry existed between the two, each side claiming their supreme deity
to be the Supreme Lord of the universe. While Vaishnavism caught the
imagination of the householders and seekers of material comforts, Saivism
caught the imagination of the renunciates and seekers of knowledge. Today both
these gods are extremely popular across the length and breadth of Hindu
society.
References
to Siva can be found in the Rigveda where in He is referred as Rudra, the god
of anger. According to some Siva is not the same as the Rudra of the Vedas.
Whatever may be the truth, Siva is also known as Rudra because of His nature to
show bouts of occasional temper.
His
anger is the anger of righteousness, not to be confused with the petty anger of
the human beings. It is born of out of a specific divine purpose, to destroy
something in order to create something new. It is the manifestation of an
energy whose intent is to create purity of purpose and harmony of structure in
the object of destruction, but not to destroy some thing for the sake of
destruction only. He is the destroyer of negativism and egoism and purifier of
the consciousness with His abundant grace.
He
resides in kailash atop an icy mountain. The ice signifies the ignorance of a
frozen and static consciousness (the waters of Hindu scriptures). The word
"Si" means cool (sheetal) and the word " va " to live
(vasa). The word "Siva" therefore means, He who lives on the top of
cool mountains ( of frozen consciousness).
(http://hinduwebsite.com/devas.htm)
Shiva is frequently depicted as a dancer, enshrined
in a circle of flames, in a desolate cremation ground. In the words of mythologist Ananda
Coomaraswamy:
The dance
itself represents the activity of Shiva as the source of all movement within
the universe . . . its purpose is to release the souls of men from
illusion. It is frequently emphasized
that the place of the dance is in reality within the heart; the human soul
attains release when the vision is beheld within itself. It will be seen that Shiva has many forms,
‘evil’ as well as ‘good.’ This must
ever be so if we are not to postulate a separate ‘devil.’ As dancer in the
burning-ground, the most desperate and unclean of places, he is essentially a
pre-Aryan demon; he is also ‘the Terrible’ and ‘the Destroyer.’ Later Shaivate thought makes effective use
of this dramatic imagery; not merely arguing that the demons must also be a
portion of God, nor simply transferring the place of the dance to a sacred
shrine, but accepting the dance as it is, and finding a new meaning in the cremation-ground,
the heart of the devotee, waste and desolate, the place where the self and its
deeds are burnt away, and all is destroyed but the dancer himself.
Ponder the deeper
implications of this, in contrast to the typical Christian approach. There can be no birth or evolution without
destruction of that which has outlived its usefulness. God is not just a creator and preserver; he
is also a destroyer. And this
destruction is not just a sanitized rebirth; it is a terrifying ordeal, forcing
a human being to face what fills him with dread and with disgust.
Analyst John Sanford, as we
discussed last week, has made some useful insights along similar lines. As he proposes, it is the nature of the Self
to bring creativity to bear in the service of individuation. For the rigidly egocentric, this will feel
like a terrifying intrusion of evil – a fiery god dancing in a cremation
ground. But it is not truly evil, for
it is in service of the ultimate human endeavor, the path to ever-increasing
wholeness.
What, then, do we say about those aspects of life
that lead one off of this path – that narrow our lives and bring about
suffering without meaning? To
understand this, Hinduism proposes the idea of karma. The literal translation of karma is means "action,” "work,"
or "deed.” treated. The concept
is actually quite simple. When we
choose right action, in accordance with our divine nature, there is a positive
charge or positive karma is accumulated.
When we choose wrong action, discordant with our divine nature, a
negative charge or negative karma is accumulated. Good karma ultimately results in good outcomes, either in this
lifetime or in a future lifetime.
Similarly, if we choose wrong action, accumulating negative karma, a
price will be certainly be paid, now or in a future life.
Here, again, analyst John Sanford provides a Jungian
insight. As we have discussed, Sanford
sees evil as an aspect of the archetype of choice. We constantly choose, and our choices have certain
consequences. Some choices are in the
service of wholeness and individuation, other choices reinforce egocentrism and
one-sidedness. This is quite consistent
with the Hindu concept of karma.
Let’s end with a devotional prayer by Hindu poet Rama Prasada, written in the
18th century, dedicated to the feminine shakti of Shiva, the dark
mother called Kali:
Black as the petal of a blue
lotus at night,
black as the night touched by the light of the moon,
Kali is the essence of Night,
She who is called Sleep,
She who is named Dream,
She who is the joyous dancer
of the cremation ground,
She who chooses from among the corpses
which souls shall be released from the
bonds of existence -- to know eternal bliss.
She is Maha Kali, Great
Mother Time,
She is Nitya Kali, Everlasting Time,
She is Raksa Kali, Goblin yet Protector
during earthquake, famine or flood,
She is Smyama Kali, the Dark One who dispels fear,
She is Smasana Kali, Ever Joyous Dancer
on the corpses of the cremation grounds,
surrounded by wailing female spirits,
a garland of heads about Her neck,
a belt of human hands about Her waist,
blood upon Her lips.
Yet others say that She lives in the triple heaven,
wearing a bodice of gold,
and a string of pearls that glisten like moonbeams,
Her four arms of darkest iron
holding a trident and a sword,
holding a perfect lotus and a pot of honey,
and that Her banner is the peacock's gracious tail,
as peacock feathers adorn Her wrists and ankles.
It is this Kali who dwells forever
on the summit of Mount Vindya,
born again from the womb of Yasoda,
murdered as an infant girl
by the wicked coward Kamsa,
who seeing Her take Her place in heaven
saw his own violent death --
while She lived on Vindhya, eternal and divine.
Daughter of the Ocean, Mother born of Anger,
wet nurse to invincible warriors,
though they say that death
lingers in the waters of Her womb,
still, full devotions are made to Kali
on the ninth day of each month,
and those who worship with full heart
receive all that they desire.
For who does not know
that this is the Kali Yuga,
the Fourth World of bitterness and sorrow,
and that when the Yuga finds its natural end,
Kali shall be there
to gather the seeds --
to create
the new Creation.