He paused to sip his drink.
“When Kundalini enters the Anahata Chakra you begin to hear the Ana hata Nada, which will sound either like Krishna’s flute or Shiva’s drum depending on which path you follow. Other Nadas are also described in the books, but these two are the most important.
“Let me try to explain to you the differences in Nada by describing how Krishna’s hair differs from Shiva’s hair. Krishna’s hair has been compared to a swarm of bees. What does a bee do with its time? All day long it moves from flower to flower, enjoying the nectar ar each one. The flower longs for
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the bee to come and take its nectar; many flowers in fact exist only because of bees. Likewise, Lord Krishna moves from girl to girl, from Shakti to Shakti, and enjoys with each one. They long for Him to come to them; they exist only for Him. By their longing they draw Him to themselves. Every sin cere devotee of Krishna is female, no matter what sex the physical body might be.
“Bees are always buzzing, and the sound of Krishna’s hair is likened by the Rishis to the murmuring drone that arises from innumerable intoxi cated bees. That buzz is Nada. If you use this image to improve your con centration on Krishna you will begin to perceive this Nada when your concentration on Krishna becomes perfect.
“Lord Krishna has long, flowing, luxurious hair. Lord Shiva’s hair is also long, but it is matted into thick locks, what do the West Indians call them?”
“Dreadlocks."
“Like dreadlocks. His hair, which is called a jata, is compared to a snake because it is long and ropelike, and because if you listen carefully you may hear a low hiss like a snake’s coming from it. This is Shiva’s Nada.”
“And of course Shiva wears a snake around His neck.”
“Yes he does. And yes, Kundalini is the Serpent Power. Think of this: Shiva wears a cobra around his neck, and Vishnu sleeps on Shesha, a thou sand-headed snake. Just as Shiva allows Kali to dance on Him while He remains an inert corpse, a sadhaka who awakens Shiva in himself allows Kundalini to play about on him, but is never tempted to allow Kundalini to identify with any aspect of limited existence.
“Krishna has also subdued Kundalini, in a different way. Once He danced on the head of a venomous serpent named Kaliya in the middle of the Yamuna River, the Lunar Channel; Krishna used lunar energy to bring Kun dalini under His complete control, and then He danced on Her! Normally Ma dances, but Krishna turned the tables on Her. This is why Shiva loves Krishna’s play. But Krishna could do this only because His mind had been made totally firm by Shiva, which is why Krishna loves Shiva’s play.
“How many people realize that sadhana of Shiva is sadhana of Krishna, and vice versa? Shiva cannot do without Vishnu and Vishnu cannot do with out Shiva; it is a mutual bondage of love and necessity. It has to be; They are merely two aspects of the same Being. If you follow the path of jnana you must worship Shiva. In fact, only when you actually become Shiva will you really know how to worship Krishna. If you follow the path of bhakti you must worship Krishna, or some other aspect of Vishnu, and when you achieve Krishna, He will teach you about Shiva–that is, if you can still
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remember Shiva as you gaze at Krishna’s beauty. One is the Absolute Unmanifested, the other is the Perfection of Manifestation.”
“So on the path of jnana you actually become Shiva, while on the path of bhakti you worship but remain separate from Krishna."
“Yes; it is the difference between non-duality and duality. Shiva contains everything within Himself; He is the ultimate jnani. When the god of love came to Him to tempt Him, He incinerated that god with a single glance from His third eye, the eye of jnana. When there is no lust, no desire, there is no outward movement of energy, and the universe ceases to exist. The god of love was reborn as Krishna’s son, because Krishna is rasatmaka, full of blissful emotion. This is why He dances the Rasa-Lila, and why He is called Ananda Ghana, the ‘Mass of Bliss.’ He loves all the fineries and luxu ries of life; it is all His Maya. If you have become tired of Maya and want renunciation you must go to Lord Shiva. No other being in the universe has ever renounced as Shiva has. He has not renounced everything out of pride in His renunciation, but because He loves only Krishna, and always craves to see Him. He has renounced because He has given everything to Krishna.
“How few people understand Shiva! Shiva says, “My Gopala loves beauti ful clothes; let Him have them! To remind me of Him every moment, I will never wear clothes. Instead I will wear the ashes of burnt bodies. My Gopala loves jewels; I will wear a cobra, to remind me that I have offered all other garlands to Him. I will drink poison; all other food I offer to Him,’ and so on. No one wants to come near Shiva in this state, so He plays with spirits; He doesn’t even crave devotees. All He craves is Gopala. Once He went so far as to actually turn Himself into a gopi so that He could take part in the Rasa-Lila Himself.
“And if He craves Vishnu, don’t you think that Vishnu will crave Him in return? It is only natural; Vishnu loves His devotees better than He loves anything else in the universe, and Shiva is His ultimate devotee. Do you know how strong Krishna’s love for Shiva is? You have probably never thought about it. Even Krishna, Perfection Personified, died when He met Mahakala face to face; His love for Mahakala was so intense that He could not remain living separate from Him.
“It is this way for everyone. While they are alive people say, ‘Rama, Rama,’ or ‘O Krishna’ when they are in trouble; they invoke Vishnu and ask for His help. You rarely hear anyone saying, ‘Hara, Hara,’ because everyone is afraid of death. But really their love for Lord Shiva is much stronger than their love for Lord Vishnu. The moment they see Shiva they have to die, the emotion is so intense. This is how He performs His duty.
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“Shiva is the Great Giver, and because He sees Krishna in every living being He gives people unlimited boons when He is properly propitiated. The problem is really not how to propitiate Him; the problem is how to get his attention. He is in perpetual samadhi, and it takes quite a lot of intensity to drag Him down into the consciousness of His surroundings.
“To give you an idea of what kind of giver Shiva is, let us take just one verse from the Shiva Mahimna Stotra, the ‘Hymn to the Greatness of Shiva.’ This verse describes how Vishnu was in the habit of daily offering one thou sand lotuses to Shiva. One day Shiva stole one of the lotuses, as a test. When Vishnu found that one was missing and that His offering might be incomplete He thought to Himself: ‘My eyes are described by my devotees as “lotus eyes.” Therefore they are fit offerings to Lord Shiva.’ He thereupon plucked out one of His two lotus eyes and offered it. Shiva was so pleased by this offering that He immediately appeared and converted the lotus eye into the Sudarshana Chakra, the discus which is Vishnu’s favorite weapon.”
“Does this story have anything to do with the Vishnu Sudarshana Man tra?” I wondered.
“It may.” Though pleased that I remembered that reference of many months before, he was not so easily distracted from his point. “Here is a part of the esoteric meaning of this verse—not all, just a part. Vishnu’s one thou sand lotuses are in the Sahasrara; He offers them to Shiva daily by offering these internal shaktis to His internal Shiva. One day Shiva took one; what is that one? The ego, Vishnu’s own personal Shakti. This naked Shakti then embraced Her Shiva. Remember the difference between Shakti and Ma: Ma is the maternal aspect and is very sweet—Be prosperous my child,’ and so on. Shakti, on the other hand, is immediate and impartial, like a knife: fast, sharp, cutting. This accounts for the ‘plucking’ of the ’lotus.’
“After the loss of His eye of duality (because it was Shakti) Vishnu had but one eye left: the eye of non-duality. Shiva took the Shakti and returned the Sudarshana Chakra. Sudarshana means ‘good sight’: clairvoyance. And why a chakra? Ask me that.”
I tried to ask him that, but he continued to talk: “I’m not going to tell you the answer, though. What is the use of my telling you everything? There are some things you have to find out for yourself by experience.
“Shiva is pure consciousness. When you succeed in propitiating Shiva your own consciousness is transformed into a divine consciousness, so that forever after as long as you live you are in the world but out of it, like the lotus which grows from the mud but remains unsullied by it. The lotus is dear to Shiva because it is the very embodiment of discrimination.
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“Ordinary people have minds filled with the heat of passion, caused by the friction generated by the mental turmoil due to sankalpa and vikalpa (certainty and uncertainty). Desire and heat are the same thing.”
“Of course; raga means both ‘passion’ and ‘melody,”” I said, “and in Ayurveda raga means ‘inflammation.’” And, I thought to myself, it is cog nate with the English word rage.
“Good. Coolness, on the other hand, means lack of mental turmoil. Lord Shiva is always doing penance, destroying the passions day in and day out, just as He destroyed the god of love with a single glance from His third eye. Shiva’s terrific penances create heat, and so He needs to be continuously cooled off. This is one reason why he wears a crescent moon on His fore head, and a cobra around His neck. Snakes are cool to the touch, and are usually quiet and immobile unless disturbed; it is only when you disturb them that they will bite you. The image of Lord Shiva sitting immobile in samadhi in the extreme cold on top of Mount Kailash observing silence indicates the complete absence of sankalpa and vikalpa. Lord Shiva’s mind is always as firm as a rock; this is why the linga is His symbol.
“Why does Shiva need to do penance when He has already achieved such a high state? Because He swallowed the terrible Halahala poison, the poison of samsara, which threatened to destroy the world. To protect cre ation, because He sees Gopala Krishna in all beings and cannot bear to see His Gopala troubled in any way, He drank this poison, and it stained His throat blue.”
“Which is why He is called ‘Nilakantha’ (‘The Blue-Throated One’).”
“Exactly. Halahala manifested at the time of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk. We will discuss that event someday, but for right now consider that *Ham’ and ‘Lam’ are the Bija Mantras for the Vishuddha and the Muladhara Chakras respectively, so ‘Halahala’ represents the poison of everything which exists in the lower five chakras, meaning everything made up of the Five Elements. Because Shiva holds the poison of samsara above His Vishuddha Chakra and never allows it to affect him He is always above the samsara, in perennial samadhi.
“Ganga, the Ganges River, flows from the celestial regions down onto the earth, and Shiva catches her in His matted locks, breaking her fall so that Earth is nor troubled by the force of her descent. It is well known that bath ing in the Ganga can wash away one’s evil karmas. The River Ganga was proud of this ability of hers until she learned that it was given to her by a Rishi who purified her each day, not for her glory but to provide coolness to Shiva. This Rishi loves Shiva so much that he is willing to take on millions of
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bad karmas daily just so Shiva will not be troubled. Only a Rishi could be so magnanimous.”
“But there is probably an esoteric meaning to this story also.”
“Of course there is, just as there is with bathing in the Yamuna. Evil kar mas are definitely washed away when you take a bath in your internal Ganga, the right nostril. This is the bath of jnana.”
“So finally it comes down to the two rivers, the Ganga and the Yamuna.”
“Yes. Shiva and Krishna, jnana and bhakti; call them what you wish, they are the two paths to the Absolute.”
TU
21
TO
Peaceful Offering of the Five Senses Mirror (sight); Lute (sound); Fruit (taste); Perfumed Conch (smell); Cloth (touch).
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Teft
haw
Wrathful Offering of the Five Senses Eyes (sight); Ears (sound); Nose (smell); Tongue (taste);
Heart with Feather (touch).
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