The Festival of Shiv 2011: To Be Shiv Like!

Shiv Murti, Rishikesh, INDIA. Copyright Meady's Musings Production 2008

First of all before we go into our topic today we'd just like to apologise for not doing a blog on the festival this last Thursday as we had planned at the start of the festival to at least blog every Monday and Thursday...however to make up for it you should know that now until Maha Shivratri we will be blogging on the festival daily. Also we thought you'd liked to recall what we posted on the festival of Shiv last year to add to the fun and meditative joys!:

The Festival of Shiv 2010!


Now on to today's topic...

TO BE SHIV LIKE!


It is well known that here at UCP we look up to Shiv as the supreme guru of many things and in many ways. But it is important to realise that in all guru-chela relationships or teacher-disciple relationships that the whole point of the relationship is for the chela to become more like the guru i.e. if the relationship goes well and the teacher teaches well and the student learns well...well the end product should be a student who is at least as good as the teacher or if it goes really well he should be even better. However if your guru is already the supreme guru...the Universal guru that is Shiv well then you cannot out do that...so you can only strive to be like him...like Shiv if I could be like Shiv!:)

Om Namah Shivay!

So here are some of the Shiv Like Things we here at UCP strive for:

-His Meditative Focus: The power to be so focussed on one's meditation that it would take an avalanche...a mudslide...a giant volcano erupting...a 10.0 on the richter scale earthquake in a main city centre....a giant tsunami...an atomic explosion even to wake you unless you chose to be aroused from it!

-His Hippiness: Don't get us wrong we're not advocating here careless or licenticious lifestyles. But Baba Shiv has never conformed...just recall in the vid below (taken from the 1974 verison of the film 'Har Har Mahadev!') at his very own wedding where he only conformed momentarily out of his love and compassion (in return for her selfless worship) to Parvati to put on fancy wedding clothes. You see what we're admiring here and advocating as a lesson we learnt from Baba Shiv is his ability to not allow society to define who and what he is...he pushes the envelope...he accepts whatever he likes and rejects whatever he dislikes without worrying what the masses think of him...he is his own man...not a man defined by what he perceives society expects of him!



-His Love and Compassion: Well as in the vid above Baba Shiv extends love and compassion to all his true devotees...and if a devotee slips once they come back again to him he forgives them as an extension of his compassion and loves them all the same. We should all be so loving, forgiving and compassionate and we here at UCP cherish this as our ideal to reach for! And Baba Shiv is not just loving and compassionate to some but to all...to all of the Universe's creatures and creations...he does not discriminate. It is why he is sometimes called Bhoot Nath as he is also the God of the ghosts...he hangs out at cremation sites smeared in ashes, lets snakes hang all over him and is never shying away from conversation with any creature even if it might have a few heads! :) Just look at the people who was at his wedding in the vid above. And we should all be so non-judgemental in our Universal...Divine...Love!:) No wonder we think he lives at our own favourite Shiv place at times...pictured below...


Mosquito Creek, Trinidad copyright Meady's Musings Production 2009.

There is so much more we could say in our admiration and desire to be more Shiv like but for today we shall stop here!

Jai Bholenath!

The Festival of Shiv 2011: Shiv as the Supreme Meditator

Image taken from Wikipedia Commons

While the owner of the Meady's Musings Production House was out on her day job she met someone who saw the image of Baba Shiv in meditation pose in Rishkesh as above on her desktop. She had been given it by one of the guys from here at our UCP desk!:) And the person asked who Baba Shiv was and if she the owner of the Production House meditated. She explained that while she may not always meditate in the exact position like Baba Shiv did in the image that yes she liked to meditate in her own way often! :)

And over the last week the Production House as much as they don't like the re-tweet couldn't help but to re-tweet this on their twitter account:

"Meditation is a constant, direct relationship with the sum of ourselves in the moment."

It was re-tweeted from Guy Finley.

So we felt it was about time on the Festival of Shiv 2011 to talk yet again about Baba Shiv and his role as the supreme meditator. We don't think anyone can beat him at meditation. It is why he is called yogeshwara...Lord of Yoga. He is the supreme meditator. And whilst we find people are often put off by the number of snakes wrapped around Baba Shiv and he is often associated with them. We don't think it's anything what they think!:) In that well Baba Shiv is such a supreme yogi or meditator that whilst he is engrossed in his meditation anything can come and sit on him...and he is also fearless...so very poisionous snakes even come and wrap themselves around him but he Baba Shiv is not moved by this! He is the supreme one...engaged in the highest and the best form of meditation...unstoppable Shiv...no one can awaken him...except those with divine powers themselves or those who surrender themselves onto the divine such that they themselves become divine and one with Baba Shiv then he awakes to shower his blessings onto them....to show love and compassion for his devotees...who by then are Shiv-like themselves!:)

It is what Parvati was doing when she got him to awaken and marry her...she was finding her own Shiv within....so after many years of penance, prayer and meditation...she was able to go within...fight all her demons until she aroused the Shiv within! :)



Om Namah Shivay! :)

The Festival of Shiv 2011: Kundalini Yoga, the Shiv and Shakti and Shiv as Potential Energy

UCP/Meady's Musings Production does not own the rights for this image.

A friend came over to the Meady's Musings Production House and the Purple Elephant quickly threw his long purple trunk forward to open the door. The friend entered and said hello and then quickly went over to the guys at the UCP desk and asked them if they were interested in a course in kundalini yoga. It was quite an interesting course but seeing as the owner of the Production House hardly ever pays the guys at the UCP desk a single penny even...no one unfortunately could afford the fees! :( But it got the guys at the UCP desk who are currently writing about this Festival of Shiv 2011 to thinking and they went over to the guys who write the Tumultuous Thursdays blog posts on Meady's Musings and well...this joint blog that is both about religion and metaphysics was born and today appears on both UCP's Festival of Shiv and Meady's Musings' Tumultuous Thursdays! :)

Now kundalini yoga and yoga as a whole is often associated with Baba Shiv as he is seen as the mahayogi and in the image at the start of the post you can see where Shiv's iconography itself can be used to describe the elements of Kundalini yoga and as a whole the key body/energy points in yoga. And this website titled Kundalini Awakening appears to be a very good research source for anyone wanting to know more about the theories behind kundalini yoga.

However the rest of the blog post will delve more into the shiv/shakti relationship that comes out of the study of kundalini yoga and more so the concept that shiv is potential energy and shakti kinetic energy.

Let's define the two terms in Physics as defined by the Free Dictionary:

POTENTIAL ENERGY: (noun)The energy of a particle or system of particles derived from position, or condition, rather than motion. A raised weight, coiled spring, or charged battery has potential energy.

KINETIC ENERGY:(noun)The energy possessed by a body because of its motion, equal to one half the mass of the body times the square of its speed.

Now in Hinduism it is not only seen that Shiv is like potential energy and Shakti like kinetic energy...it is also seen that both Shiv and Shakti are one...so really it is one being that is at one point potential energy and then at another point kinetic energy.

So let's see it as if Shiv is sitting there in meditative post and then while in meditation he thinks up Shakti as this moving dancing female being...then after she manifests from his thoughts as dancing kinetic energy before him he eventually is also aroused and starts to dance with her...his potential energy is converted to kinetic energy!

Seen in the dance of Shiv and Shakti it would look something like this:


Seen in the metaphysical sense as it's impact on the creation and/or destruction it would be something like this:


Think about it is all the potential energy is eventually converted to kinetic energy ...it you have a coil of string and it has this potential energy in it as it is all coiled up but then begins to unravel as its potential energy converts to kinetic energy...what happens when all the string is unraveled? Well you no longer have a ball of string?

Hey but this is no doom's day blogpost or anything...after all this is a joint blogpost on Tumultuous Thrusdays and UCP i.e. Universal Collective Prayer...but we are just analysing some of the aspects of Shiv here and realising more so now how he might be seen as the God of destruction and how his cosmic dance of destruction...or the Nataraj dance has become so world famous...as he gets up from his coiled potential energy position and dances uncoiling as kinetic energy flows! But remember that energy is neither created nor destroyed so the kinetic energy again can become potential as another ball of string or the cosmos is reformed....Jai Bholenath! :)

The Festival of Shiv 2011: Somvaar-The Monday Fast with Shiv as Matchmaker on Valentine's Day!

Cartoon as shown on our Festival of Shiv in 2010

Today is Valentine's day and it falls on the Somvaar or the Monday which many in Shiv worshipping land regard as an auspicious day of fasting to Shiv...you will recall earlier on the festival of Shiv i.e. last Monday from the Grand Opening blog that Shiv is also known as Som Nath based on his forgiveness and compassion towards the moon...shama karo! So Monday is indeed an important day in Shiv worshipping land! :)

But the significance of Shiv worship on a Monday is interestingly very similar to some aspects of Valentine's Day as many unmarried women especially in India tend to worship Baba Shiv on a Monday in the hope of finding the perfect husband and in this regard they are beseiging Baba Shiv to act as the Ultimate Matchmaker! Some (perhaps those ladies more intent in their worship) even take it a step further and ask for a husband that is like Shiv himself! You see for in Hinduism Shiv can be many things but one of these many things is the family guy....yep the family guy Shiv can be! And we explored that on here on our festival of Shiv in 2010. So yep the ladies can also ask for a husband with the Shiv like qualities that are often seen as conducive for a good marriage...well at least when Shiv is being the family guy that is!

Shiv is no easy catch himself by the way though just ask poor Parvati (as shown in our cartoon from the festival of Shiv in 2010 above!)she had quite the time getting his attention and I'll tell you this Baba Shiv had quite the run ins with the Hindu equivalent of Cupid...Kaam Dev....poor guy! But you see Shiv really doesn't like to be bothered when he is in meditation! So now let's take in these videos where Kaam Dev is assisted by his wife Rati and sometimes Vasant i.e. spring (the season of birth and love) so that he can:

1. Arouse Shiv out of his meditation so he can marry Parvati.
2. Arouse Shiv and Sati (Parvati in another lifetime) so they can have a son.


And then you can enjoy:

3. Shiv and Sati on their honeymoon...well sort of...no arousals needed!







Happy Valentine's Day from UCP and all at the Meady's Musings Production House! :)

The Festival of Shiv 2011: Shiv as the Supreme Guru!

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Shiv as Dakshinamurti.

Today on the festival of Shiv as it is our first Thursday of the festival or guruvaar i.e. the day of the guru in Hindi we visit Shiv in the form of the supreme guru something we know we have time and time done already on UCP but today we do it with some different slants so don't worry we're not rehashing well not really or for sure not totally! :)

We've never before on UCP considered the whole murti or deity contrived and conceived solely for the purpose of Baba Shiv being the guru...so much so that the form or murti is called Dakshinamurti where Dakshina is the Sanskrit word that describes in Hinduism the payment (in whatever form) that is given to the guru from the student in return for his guidance.

It is believed by many and we have to say also by us here at UCP that one can accept Shiv as their supreme guru and learn directly from him and that perhaps as we his lessons learn...well...one day or perhaps one night he may visit us in dream or vision or form and let us know that our lessons are complete or at least we've reached to one threshold and that at this point we can now give him dakshina in return...usually in the form of accomplishing some task towards the Hindu act of seva i.e. service to mankind...you know something like that.

Some believe he may instead come another way for example send instead an apostle of his will and way...perhaps a human being will come to you on his behalf and convey his message and so forth...

But guess what either which way we here at UCP figure Shiv would be saying seva it is...and it made us recall our friends over at the organisation actually called guess what Seva! Check them out at http://www.seva.org and Shiv willing you might be able to join them in their well...seva!

But here for now on UCP all we can do is on behalf of Shiv salute the people at Seva and note a few other lovely seva like efforts as follows:

1.Seva Cafe: Well some other people that use the seva word literally are the yummy people at Seva cafe...and to be honest us at the Meady's Musings Production House as a whole and in particular at the UCP desk have been pondering the idea of opening up a seva cafe ourselves one day...but for now all we can say is isn't a lovely Shiv like idea? You can learn more about them at their site http://www.sevacafe.org

2. Helping Hands is located on the same island as the Production House and the Production House has joined hands with them before...so we hope you might check them out too and lend perhaps hands or if not a paw! :)To do so click on this link to their Facebook page to learn some more!

3. Seva: And then there are these guys at another kinda Seva...the kind that ensures not a little one is harmed or well eaten! For it is very Shiv like to also protect the animals and so really a more encompassing Seva on behalf of Shiv really would also protect the animals or show compassion for them and what better way than to not eat them and go vege like the people at the Seva restaurant in Ann Arbor Michigan since 1973! So deliciously divine! :)

The Festival of Shiv 2011: Grand Opening!

Today on UCP we again for the 2nd year running open what for sure is one of our favourite blog series...The Festival of Shiv! We open it on a Monday...Somvaar...a day named after the Soma of the Vedas...and as we discussed last year on The Festival of Shiv...Hinduism is a religion of twists and tales and about the big and the small! So at one point in Hinduism the Soma known in the Vedas as this important drink ...like a divine nectar of sorts becomes equivalent to the moon and then in such a form he got into some trouble and then well Baba Shiv being the compassionate kinda guy he is granted him forgiveness (shamaa) and so Baba Shiv is also known as Som Nath or Soma Nath...the Lord/Master of the Moon God.

So we felt it fitting to kick off the series today i.e. on a Monday...Somvaar! Also as is no secret on this UCP blog we at the desks of UCP consider Baba Shiv to be our Supreme guru...Super Shiv if you have it and so we hold particular reverence to Baba Shiv on a Thursday as well...also known as Guruvaar in Hindi. So these days are important to note because the Festival of Shiv will run from today until the day of Maha Shivratri-3/4 March 2011...depending on your location on planet earth! But don't be bogged down by the dates for as we noted last year on our very same Festival of Shiv...we should be allowed to worship Shiv when we so Shiv willing please! But yep we will try to run our festival of Shiv daily but if it doesn't become possible we will for sure have a blog up every Mon and Thurs until Maha Shiv Ratri is upon us! So the Soma and Gura vaar or the Mon and Thurs will be some important dates to mark on UCP's Festival of Shiv 2011! :)

So let the Shiv flow! :)

And to kick of the festival this year....in song...Sonu Nigam sings what has now become one of our favourite Shiv things! Gosh every time we hear it we see Shiv dancing before us and doing yogic stretches at our favourite Shiv place! And we also feel like we ourselves could just get up and dance along with Baba Shiv as well...so it is such a lovely tune and really embodies all that is Shiv so come dance with us here on UCP or as we always say dance forth with us in this thing we call UCP-Universal Collective Prayer! :) As Sonu Nigam sings of all that is Shiv and his attributes as outlined in the Shiv Maha puran (the great story of Shiv)!