Sivaratri – The Mystic Night
We conceive God as glory, as
creativity and as austerity. Vishnu is glory and magnificence, Brahma is
creativity force, and Siva is austerity and renunciation. Renunciation here, is
the freedom from the consciousness of externality. This is called Vairagya. The
idea that things are outside you, makes you get attached to them. This false
attachment is Raga, and its absence is Vi-raga. The condition of Vi-raga is
Vairagya. As God has no consciousness of externality, because everything is
embodied in Him, there cannot be a greater renunciate than God. And in as much
as this Consciousness of God is the highest form of Wisdom, He is the
repository of Jnana.
In our religious tradition,
Lord Siva, an aspect of God, the Almighty, presents before us the ideal of
supreme renunciation born of Divine Realization – not born of frustration or
defeatism, but born of an insight into the nature of things, a clear
understanding of the nature of life and the wisdom of existence in its
completeness. This is the source of Vairagya, or renunciation. Lord Siva is the
height of austerity, Master Yogin. He does not practise self-control.
Self-control itself is symbolized in the personality of Lord Siva.
During Mahasivaratri we
observe fast during the day and vigil during the night. The idea is that we
control the senses, which represent the outgoing tendency of our mind, symbolized
in fasting, and we also control the Tamasic inert condition of sleep, to which
we are subject to every day. When these two tendencies in us are overcome, we
transcend the conscious and the unconscious levels of our personality and reach
the superconscious level. While the waking condition is the conscious level,
sleep is the unconscious level. Both are obstacles to God-realization. The
symbology of fast and vigil on Sivaratri is significant of self-control; Rajas
and Tamas are subdued, and God is glorified. The glorification of God and the
control of the senses mean one and the same thing, because it is only in
God-consciousness that all senses can be controlled.
Rudra-Adhyaya or the
Satarudriya of the Yajur Veda gives a majestic, universalized description of
Lord Siva. Everything in the world, from the smallest to the biggest, has an
objective character, a subjective character and a universal character.
Likewise, this Mantra, has an objective meaning, a subjective meaning and a
divine, supreme, supra-mental, universal meaning. Objectively, it is a prayer
for the control of the forces of nature. Subjectively, it is a prayer for
self-control and the rousing of the spiritual consciousness. Universally, it is
a surge of the soul towards God-realization. It has an Adhiyajnika,
Adhibhautika, Adhidaivika and Adhyatmika meaning, as we usually put it.
You can also chant the Mantra
'Om Namah Sivaya', the Panchakshara Mantra of Lord Siva with Om preceding it.
It is a Kavacha, a kind of armor that you put on to protect you from danger of
every kind.
While meditation is the
collective force of the mind concentrating itself on God-consciousness, the
senses, when they are active, do the opposite of meditation and you become a
tremendous extrovert. You are connected to the objects of sense rather than the
universal concept which is God. God is unity, whereas sense objects are
multiplicity. They are the opposite of what you are aiming at in your spiritual
life. With moderate behavior in every
manner in your spiritual life, you will attain success.
Lord Siva is easily pleased.
He is called Asutosh, which means 'easily pleased'. Sometimes He is also called
'Bhole Baba' – a very simple, not complicated Person. He comes to help you,
even unasked. So let us tread the path of righteousness and be recipients of
Divine Grace.
We may look at the whole thing
from another angle of vision. The Sanskrit word 'Sivaratri' means 'the night of
Siva'. On this holy day we are to fast during the day and keep vigil during the
night. Siva being connected with night has a highly spiritual and mystical
connotation. According to us, light is perception of objects, and therefore
non-perception of objects is regarded by us as night, because knowledge or
consciousness unrelated to the perceptual process is unknown to the human mind.
So the absence of perception
is equated to the presence of darkness. The cosmic Primeval condition of the
creative will of God, before creation – a state appearing like darkness, or
night – is what we call the condition of Siva. It is very important to remember
that the state of Siva is the primordial condition of the creative will of God,
where there is no externality of perception, there being nothing outside God;
and so, for us, it is like darkness or night. It is Siva's night – Sivaratri.
For Him it is not night. It is all Light. Siva is not sitting in darkness. The
Creative Will of God is Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence – all combined.
Sometimes we designate this condition as Isvara.
The eyes cannot see Him
because He is such dazzling light. When the frequency of light gets intensified
to a very high level, light will not be seen by the eyes. When the frequency is
lowered and comes down to the level of the structure of the retina of the eye,
only then you can see light. The world that we see before us is God Himself.
The world is only a name that you give to a distortion created in the
perception of your consciousness due to its isolation into the subject and the
object.
The world of dream does not
exist. You know it very well, and yet it appears. What is it that appears? The
consciousness itself projects itself outwardly, in space and time created by
itself, and then you call it a world. Likewise, in the waking state also the
Cosmic Consciousness has projected itself into this world. The world is Cosmic
Consciousness. The Supreme Divinity Himself is revealed here in the form of
this world. As the dream world is nothing but consciousness, the waking world
also is nothing but consciousness, God. This is the essence of the whole
matter. So you are seeing God.
It is to awaken ourselves from
this ignorance and to come to a state of that supreme blessedness of the
recognition of God in this very world, that we practise Sadhana. The highest of
Sadhanas is meditation on God.
On Sivaratri, therefore, you
are supposed to contemplate God as the creator of the world, as the Supreme
Being unknown to the Creative Will, in that primordial condition of
non-objectivity which is the darkness of Siva.
"Ya nisa sarvabhutanam
tasyam jagarti samyami; yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato muneh" (BG
2:69): That which is night to the ignorant, is day to the wise; and that
which is day to the wise, is night to the ignorant. While the wise see God, the
ignorant do not see Him; and while the ignorant see the world, the wise do not
see it. Whereas we see sunlight, the owl does not see it. In a way, we are
owls, because we do not see the self-effulgent sun – the Pure Consciousness.
And he who sees this sun – the Pure Consciousness, God – is the sage, the
illumined adept in Yoga.
Sivaratri is a blessed
occasion for all to practise self-restraint, self-control, contemplation,
Svadhyaya, Japa and meditation, as much as possible within our capacity. We
have the whole of the night at our disposal. We can meditate, do Japa or we can
do the chanting of the Mantra, 'Om Namah Sivaya'. It is a period of Sadhana. In
as much as we are unable to think of God throughout the day, for all the 365
days of the year, such occasions are created so that at least periodically we
may recall to our memory our original destiny, our Divine Abode. The glory of
God is displayed before us in the form of these spiritual occasions.
Excerpts from:
Sivaratri – The Mystic Night by Swami Krishnananda
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