Shiva: Interval Between Enjoyment And Its Negation

Swami Nityabodhanandaji was a disciple of Swami Shivanandaji, the second President of the Ramakrishna Order. He was editor of The Vedanta Kesari, from 1942-1948 and later for three decades he was the head of Geneva centre of the Ramakrishna Order in Switzerland. This article is reproduced from the March 1968 issue of Prabuddha Bharata.

- Swami Nityabodhananda

Shiva has many aspects, though the most popular representations are Nataraja, the cosmic dancer, and the lingam. Like a magician he engenders by his Maya the diversity of world-phenomena and in this aspect he is Mayavin. In a subtle sense he destroys and creates at the same time: he destroys a lower harmony to construct a higher one and in this aspect he is the symbol of consciousness, which abolishes a status quo to realise its transcendence on a superior plane.

Again, Shiva is Pasupati, guardian of souls whom he protects and goads on in the path of moksa. He is ascetic, Dhurjati, but the lover and husband of Parvati, the Divine Mother, at the same time. As ascetic, as Mahayogin, he reduced to ashes the god of love, Kama, who came to disturb his meditation. But he is the god of love, the beloved husband of Parvati, whom he holds in eternal embrace in the aspect of Ardhanarishvara. Kalidasa in the invocatory verse in his drama Malavikagnimitra celebrates this aspect of Shiva, saying, “Though in eternal union with your wife, O, Shiva, you are untouched by desire and hence foremost amongst yogins.”