For others with Shiv we will sit and pray
Shiv is for me the supreme yogi
And also the dancer
And we the dance
He is also an animal protector
A real hippy master
Of him I now blog on my Universal Collective Prayer!
On Sunday night Trinidad time which is the closest equivalent time at -4GMT to the festival being celebrated on Monday night in India I and other Trinidadians will be celebrating Maha Shiv Ratri 2009. For me it will be a time to sit in pray and meditate on the lessons of someone I consider to be the supreme yogi-Shiv himself. To me you can want no other guru in the Art of dance, meditation and yoga. Those of you following my blogs will be fully aware of my obsession with the great one when I started this blog in Aug of 2008 going on about how a friend I made on Flickr from a place one may not normally associate with Shiv-Estonia, gave me full rights to use his beautiful picture of this beautiful statue-murti of Shiv sitting in meditation himself at Rishikesh in India. Jarmo went on to explain to me that the murti is a little bit bigger in size than the average human being so large enough to be awesome but not too large to become distant...I felt the murti so lifelike that I could see myself sitting at his feet and learning the art of meditation and yoga straight from him! :)
I had the picture up on my computer in work...at first it was a bit intimidating for me...after all snake and all and so serious...but then as I watched and watched...I realised look at the form look at the discipline...look at those abs....look at the positioning of the back...the fingers! And to me he look so focused so at peace...such a supreme yogi! It more and more dawned on me that when he is so immovable so at peace so engrossed in his contemplation of the universe well his hair just grows...all manner of things sit on him...so even if a cobra wrapped his neck while sitting there he would not be disturbed...a normal person would have felt fear, danger at such a poisonous creature poised on his neck...but not him such a Super Supreme Yogi is he! Of course I know officially Hinduism has a list of reasons for the iconography but this is my journey...my story...and in my contemplation of the murti is what I saw...what I learnt...
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik8WOgMH43yIb9Y3B7o7-0vbt-hu6dnZdiSudZETg82HA_IODLa3vLz2F_e7rnAbn2eR2wK6QPG3kqY1vMk0aRuM4JJtXyC_a2LAzi-vFtyjJEig2-LWS8gzg1kxD_yKr6-YtwMf2o44g/s400/Shiv.jpg)
Then one night when I had moved away from the desktop image...I had a dream of him...I saw myself in my room as it is and it was as if I could see myself asleep on my bed yet I was in a dream and at the top of my head there was water flowing and I could hear the water falls...and the swirling spiralling from up above...He sat at the top of my head at the top of the fountain...and as he sat then a snake wrapped his neck...I recalled the coil...I recall the actual path of the swirl...I noted the shape on my white board at work...what did it mean I still do not know but it was so profound an experience and incredibly refreshing and inspiring...also when I awoke and I looked at my clock it was 3:33 AM. Some say that numerical combination is a sign that the gurus are among us! All I can say is that it was one of the most profound, refreshing dreams I've ever had!
Hinduism as it is practised in Trinidad is mostly Vaishnavism but I believe Shiv was such a strong character that when the Aryans invaded India from the North and they started to move to the South and I believe eventually to Lanka (hence the Ramayan epic)...they couldn't help but embrace the Shiv form. So the Vedic civilization that formed very much embraced Shiv as an integral part. He was that supreme you see! :) But yet still most of the North are the Vaishavites...the South the Saivites. My ancestors came from the North as most of the Indians here and so we are mostly Vaishnavites but we all hail the supreme yogi!
Shiv is so much...he is the dancer and we the dance...he is a protector of animals and perhaps in the local folk lore of Trinidad he would be like Papa Bois a bit...is how I see it...he lives in the forest at one with it and with all its inhabitants. My grandfather the late Pandit Parasram Maharaj used to always tell us that story on Shiv Ratri night about how the man who was a hunter got lost in the forest on Maha Shiv Ratri night...the story unfolds about Shiv's love for animals and compassion for all living creatures...
I always knew of the cosmic dance of Shiv in Hinduism but I never fully understood the concept of 'God' or 'The Universe' being the dancer and us being the dance until I was reading Paulo Coelho's The Witch of Portobello and he was saying that and it baffled me...but on contemplation over a year or so I fully appreciated it...it also made sense in terms of this picture the Hari Krishna's have in their Gita in one of the pics describing the universe as this big body...showing a planet as a knee...a sun as an eye etc...Vaishnavites and Saivites combine...one cosmic dance! One Universe...learning from all...Universal Collective Prayer! And it just makes you want to swirl with it all like the dancing dervishes of Rumi and Sufi mystic fame! :)
I used the dance idea in my theatre production Me Eat Manicou?....my character Maa Chinee - Mother Sugar (to represent the Indo Trinidadians as the last people who worked in sugar in Trinidad and still live mainly in those areas). She is a cosmic mother of sorts and combines forces with Papa Bois (the old French Creole character who guards the forest and its animals.) Well she does this dance to show her anger at how things were unfolding...and while it wasn't exactly the cosmic dance it drew on that energy and I show you it here!
And as I leave you in Universal Collective Prayer I attach a vid I've shared on these blogs already when I prayed for the Dalai Lama's health in 2008...here it is again on Universal Collective Prayer...Shankar Sahney reciting the Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra amidst some of the famous Shiv sites in India. The Maha Mrityunjaya mantra sits in the Vedas as one of the great mantras next to the Gayatri. Again an indication of how the Vedic civilization was one for incorporating the best from all parts and corners of the land at the time. I have my own personal story with this mantra as well but I will leave that for another time. Hope you enjoy the lessons with the supreme yogi on Sun night Trinidad time. Blessed Maha Shiv Ratri 2009!
6 comments:
Dear friend by reading this post you made my imagination take me to the time I was a dervishe, since I was a teenager by reding some books by and watching some Indian movies, in the early fifties my affinity with mother India was established with a very stong bond.LATELY I've been experimenting some mystical insights regarding THE BIG VIBRATION, THE COSMIC RHYTHM AND OF COURSE THE GRAET COSMIC DANCE.I even, when I was just ten years old, sitting on one of my father's barber chair, without moving the chair I felt like spinning, every second with much greater force until I felt ptojecyed to the outer space, like now astraunants do, and could seen our planet spinning so harmonously that I "saw" all the planets spinning at the same time and all these planets, stars and galaxies made the sweetest kind of music I ever had listend to at that time. This ocured fifty sven years ago! And I still remember this beautiful experience in which you become part of the harmonious UNIVERSE. THE SUPREME YOGI--KEEP INSPIRING YOU, so we the rest of seekes can also enefit by you.
Love in such harmonious way that I and you and the rest you know who can DANCE together like true siblings.
Amorifer-alden
Hola Ese!
Amor de Trinidad a Mejico!
As I said on Intent you are welcome to join us in meditation from Mejico on Sunday night! :)
Babs
Thank you Babita for sharing and making me more aware about Shiv Shakti!
Rajesh
Cool...Yogi Rajesh! Glad to be able to share my understanding of the supreme yogi with you! :)
Hmm.. not sure about the validity of some of your statements, particularly regarding the Aryan invasion and its leading to the effect of the Ramayana.
Hmm...Mr.Mistry I'm not too sure either...it's not a history blog...more just about my opinions, thoughts, feelings etc...no doubt I can like most of us in the world be misled in some way or the other on somethings though...but I stopped being a student of history a long time ago...since who decides what remains as history...what is put in the books? Usually the people who won the wars got to do that and then even so it is someone's perceptions etc who have no matter what tainted what was recorded...in the case of oral history...stories...again told with a mix of the person's own biases...
But for sure there is some kinda Saivites-Vaishnavite rift thing going on...why are there Arya Samaj today still and why do people say they are Vedic Hindu then? The purpose of Universal Collective Prayer is more to engage with people on 'the feeling' or 'spirit' level and for them to come together and express it...not matter what their history is or is not or how valid it is...plus to embrace the good things out of it not just say well it causes wars and stuff and so don't engage in prayer then...Look at what Anurag Sharma had to say on the Intent comments to this same blog reposted on there to illustrate my belief about this rift being alive:
http://www.intent.com/blog/2009/02/21/maha-shiv-ratri-night-sitting-lessons-supreme-yogi-universe?page=3
"Wish every one Mahashivratri.
I do not understand the Shivaism and Vishnavism in many parts of India. There appears so much division with some people's perspectives over God.
I belong to central part of India, we happen to have equal faith in all the Gods. Sometimes, while praying, I also see the merging of the various manifestations.
But yes as I have to travel a lot, and whenever there is turbulence during flight , I remember Mahakal :)
Best wishes"
Sorry for being a poor student of facts and history though...perhaps only Ram Jaane anyway...bout the Ramayan and stuff...but seriously you are also free to share your views on what is then valid!:)Would make for an interesting read...though not sure if you would ever engage in Universal Collective Prayer! :)
We are a kinda unashamedly dancing airy fairy people here on the prayers...probably not logical and precise enough for ya!:) ...
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