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Swami Satyananda
Excerpt from Bhakti Yoga Sagar Vol.2

This world is not our permanent abode. It does not belong to us; it is an alien land. This is not the real home of the jivatma, the individual soul.

Yes, this is a foreign land. You are just a visitor here for sixty, seventy, eighty or ninety years. It is like going to a foreign country for some months or years. I came here on a visit in 1923. After completing my visit in this foreign land, I have to return to my original home. Our home is the abode of God. I came to Rikhia on 23rd September 1989. Day and night were equal on that day. Of course, wherever I have lived has been full of blessings; no place has been inauspicious for me. That is proof of God's benign hand. I remember four places. The first is my ancestral home where I was born and brought up, the second is my guru's ashram in Rishikesh, the third is the Bihar School of Yoga in Munger and the fourth is this Alakh Bara in Rikhia. All four places have been auspicious, full of grace and revelation.

In all these places I received some spiritual experience. This is due to the grace of God; it has nothing to do with my luck, fate or fortune. What is fate? It is nothing. Have you seen a conch shell? It is the skeleton of an animal, but Brahmins blow it. Even the Vaishnavas blow it and feel dignified or glorious in doing so. The dignity or glory which is given to the conch shell is certainly due to the grace of God. Otherwise what would be the fate of that conch shell? It is just the skeleton of a conch. Therefore, one's own fate or luck is immaterial. Man's own fate is nothing but a mixture of pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow.

Life is a combination of laughter and sorrow, birth and death. This is applicable to one and all. However, when God showers his grace, each and every place becomes auspicious.

 
Satsang at Ganga Darshan
Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati

Who is Shiva?
Lord Shiva is the destroyer, the transformer, the catalyst for change. In creation, he is part of the Hindu trinity in which Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver and Shiva is the transmuter. Shiva is the first or original yogi as well. He is considered to be the greatest of all the gods, the emperor, yet he lives not in heaven but in the cremation ground where material life is destroyed and a new journey begins.

Shiva’s body is a composition of different symbols. Imagine him as a yogi with matted hair. On his head the Ganga emerges as a stream, representing the fountain of purity, youth and eternal life. He is the only god who has three eyes. When his two eyes see the world of duality, his third eye remains closed. The eye of unity only opens when the eyes of duality are closed, at which time everything dissolves in one single identity. That is why the opening of the third eye is also seen as the bringer of death and destruction to duality.

At vishuddhi chakra, in his throat, he retains poison, blue in colour, so he is called Nilakantha, blue-throated. To save creation, Shiva drank poison churned from the ocean of milk by the gods who were seeking the nectar of immortality, retaining it in his throat where it could not harm him. What does this mean? In kundalini yoga, bindu is the seat of this nectar. When khechari mudra is performed, bindu is stimulated. If the drop of nectar goes down the throat into the stomach, manipura converts it into poison, but if the drop remains in the throat, it stays as nectar. Therefore, yogis try to perfect khechari mudra.

Shiva’s body is smeared with ashes. Ash is what remains after all the elements or tattwas are burned and fused into one. The body has five elements: matter, water, fire, air and space, but when the body burns, everything becomes one tattwa – ash. Matter represents existence. Ash represents non-existence. Symbolically, ashes represent the essence of birth and death.
While the other gods live in beautiful palaces in heaven, Shiva lives in an absolutely desolate area – the plateau of Tibet and the mountain of Kailash. While the other gods wear beautiful clothes and ornaments, he wears a tiger skin, which symbolically represents prana shakti or energy. As ornaments around his neck, arms and waist, Shiva has snakes, which represent awakened kundalini shakti.

Shiva is considered to be the ishta devata, symbol or hero of sannyasins, because of his ability to maintain perfect spiritual balance. It is no easy task for him to keep the balance in his personal life. Nor is it simple to differentiate between the two eyes of duality and the third eye of unity, because creation and destruction are happening at the same time. In the Indian tradition Shiva is the symbol of the equipoised person. He is a yogi who always finds balance in life, although he does not live in the peaceful environment that we all crave. He has the habit of accumulating people and animals that are always after each other’s blood. If you have ghosts, demons, ghouls and spirits as your assistants, how can there be peace?

Shiva also has a wife, Parvati, and two sons, Ganesha and Kartikeya. Each member of his family has an animal for a vehicle. Shiva’s favourite mode of transport is a bull. Shakti has a tiger, Ganesha has a rat and Kartikeya a peacock. The ornaments on Shiva’s body are snakes. Imagine the jugglery Shiva has to perform to maintain order in his home. The bull is always in fear of the tiger, the peacock is always watching the snakes, the snakes are always watching the rat. In this household of tension and frustration, Shiva represents the perfect being who maintains equilibrium in every situation.

Shiva, the yogi, was once a real man, not a mythological person or part of the religious trinity. He lived an incredible wild life in the mountains, not tied by any social conditions. Shiva represents yoga because in duality, conflict and confusion, he remains stable in his identity and at peace. Swami Satyananda has said, “There is no peace in the Himalayas and there is no noise in the world. It is in our own mind. If the chattering of the mind continues, even in the remotest corner of the Himalayas you will not find peace, but if the mental chattering has been stilled, you will find absolute silence even in the middle of the market.” Shiva represents this purushartha or attainment.

Shiva means the auspicious one, the benevolent one. He is the one who always wants what is right and appropriate for creation. It is we who misuse the potential and facilities given to us. Instead of being creative and constructive, we condition ourselves. Instead of being open and receptive, we close ourselves in with our own thoughts, beliefs and ideas. Instead of trying to learn from and understand another’s viewpoint, we overemphasise our own views. Instead of learning to flow with life, we find happiness and strength in struggling, in doing the opposite to what we should do.

The ability to know and to do what is appropriate and auspicious is the power of Shiva. Once an invocation is made to that auspicious nature and the reins of life handed over to that force, life takes on a different meaning. Worship of Shiva, the spirit which is in everybody, is a connection of your mind with your inner benevolent and auspicious self. Some people call it atma, spirit, some call it jivatma, individual spirit, but according to kundalini yoga, it is Shiva, the consciousness which resides in sahasrara chakra. As part of that eternal consciousness, chit, it is also eternal truth, sat. Because it is eternal truth and consciousness, seeking to uplift everyone and bestow freedom from bondage, it is also ananda, bliss or auspiciousness.