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| Lord Shiva's vision could show us the way | | | Bhushan Padmadeo
Shravana, a month dedicated to Lord Shiva closing up on lunar eclipse day, makes this Sunday (which passed by) special. In esoteric terms, the planetary alignment of the day presents an interesting picture for the country's future. For, the Moon, the planet identified with the manifest side of the divine, begins separating from the Rahu-Ketu orbit, leaving the remaining six major players towards the other side. Interestingly, the lunar crescent necessarily figures out with Lord Shiva's image. Let us see how they matter for us in practical terms.
Let us first look at the structure followed by the planetary bodies grouped into three categories:
• Outer circle planets - Uranus, Neptune and those beyond, which carry imprint of the macro-cosmic plan at the causal level;
• Distant planets - Saturn, Jupiter and Mars extend the plan at the astral level by way of promises;
• The inner circle planets - Sun together with Mercury and Venus put promises into action on a physical plane.
The Moon, acting just as the carrier presides over the final culmination into form-matter. Rahu and Ketu being the point of convergence of two energy planes, the ones respectively followed by the Sun and Moon, serve as the link between the planet providing the drive and the one shouldering all actions.
The lunar crescent over Lord Shiva's head thus signifies life energy. Moon's variant, water, flows through Lord Shiva's hair in the form of a perennial river, the Ganges, to give effect to the manifest world comprising all diverse creatures. They are all set to a life cycle running in succession, like the water recycling course. It will be interesting to add here that in terms of Indian philosophy, water creates and sustains life.
The manifest world as a whole finds symbolic reflection as the courtiers of Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva, ignoring the individual limitations of all and sundry in His court, without discriminating, maintains accord with all of them. For, He is also aware that the assigned Karma of all of them put together is what can ensure a smooth run of the interwoven and inter-dependant existential order. So, in order to avail of the positive attributes of all of them, He absolves them of even the three types of sins - the bodily, divine, and material curses, through the three phalanges of His trident.
But, despite being all powerful, He is not possessive either, as a bare-bodied deity with only a tiger skin to cover Him shows. So, He enjoys the confidence of one and all. To sum up, the metaphysical Shiva stands for Unity in Diversity.
Lord Shiva's role as a saviour during the Amritamanthana (the ocean's churning) too deserves mention. In course of the ocean's churning, the first to emerge was Halahal or Kalakut, the deadly poison which He devoured to save the living order from extinction. Obviously, a leader endowed with such vision alone could steer the nation the right way.
The purpose of dedicating a whole month to Lord Shiva is to remind ourselves about this core concept of governance. The problem is that we religiously worship Lord Shiva during Shravan, but confine ourselves to rituals only. Rarely does anybody care to look at the philosophical concept of Lord Shiva.
As happened during Amritamanthan, the same course follows during the ongoing social churning process as well. The scum comes up first, before the better emerges. The truth is that during the past 30 years, since the last transit of Saturn in the sign Leo, it is the scum element which has gained ground.
That polity is at its lowest needs no further elaboration. In fact, the players of the game will not hesitate to promote even divisive forces to secure a position for them. Such divisive forces have been striking at will throughout the country. The nation's security is under constant threat. Corruption is at a high. The obvious question confronting the masses is, whom do they trust? Who would save us from the Kalakut of the ongoing social churning?
Yet, the astrological indication of Poornima day raises some hope for us. It is interesting to note that all the distant as well as inner circle planets are parked towards one side of the Rahu-Ketu axis, with Moon alone towards the other end. The obvious implication is that some strange development in the coming days, although apparently difficult to anticipate at present, will force the people into decisive action for all the necessary corrections. Who emerges to replicate Lord Shiva's role, only time will tell. |
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