I love Shiva but I hate religion and the concept of God. This makes it tough to accommodate both ideas in the confines of my peremptory existence. Shiva as a God is polluted by the later texts and their representations of Shiva, which are ridden by the socio-cultural baggage of the writers and their patrons. Individual acts of Gods are the points of entry of each era. This also effects the collective idea of that god in that era.
Without the baggage of 'God'dom (a product of the collective conscience existing at a point in time), Shiva becomes a pure subjective idea. An idea which is subject to each independent thinking brain's intent and acumen.
In my head Shiva does not lay out ideals of behavior and ethics. He doesn't bother or care nor have the potential nor requirement to pay heed to the way you wish your life was micromanaged by forces allegedly greater than you. A man who chops his son's head off and replaces it with a phallus shouldn't even try.
He is someone who celebrates death and at the same meditates on 'bom' - the eternal void. Each one of us celebrates death in the guise of demise at least twice each year. Once on our birthdays when we are happy about the number of year we have 'put to rest'. The second time when we celebrate New Year. The numbers in both mark the days gone by, the distant demise of a past marked by the chronisms of our kind.
The inevitable halt aka death synthesizes with the absolute void aka eternity and forms a vivid picture of our insignificant microcosmic existence. I don't pray to Shiva, I don't bow my head when I pass by a portrait/statue of Shiva. But Shiva help me feel relieved. The resident godfather of the cemetery, Shiva helps relieve a lot of existential dilemmas. The ideas helps understand the inconsequence of losses as well as of victories. It encourages to not have any photographs and make no attempts to freeze the past. Don't fool yourself by your ability to change time in your wrist watch. You exist in time and not the other way round.
At a simpler level, the idea of Shiva makes it possible for many to smoke pot. Not that this stops the government from banning it. However, in a culture of bhang and thandai (all in the name of Shiva), everyone becomes aware of the effects of cannabis. Due to this people who 'discretely' get stoned are rarely bothered by anyone. The connect between the two goes beyond this. Under the effect of cannabis it becomes easier to think and accept the insignificantly small effect we have over eternity. It helps understand the futility of external judgment and opinion. Focus on the inevitability of the end and ulterior motives seem all so redundant.
So each time I think of Shiva (mine has a beard, matted hair and is stick-thin with ribs jutting out, the way I have seen mendicant all my life) before lighting my chillum I think of the pragmatic philosophy which Shiva gives us with his three biggest symbols #bom #death #weed
Without the baggage of 'God'dom (a product of the collective conscience existing at a point in time), Shiva becomes a pure subjective idea. An idea which is subject to each independent thinking brain's intent and acumen.
In my head Shiva does not lay out ideals of behavior and ethics. He doesn't bother or care nor have the potential nor requirement to pay heed to the way you wish your life was micromanaged by forces allegedly greater than you. A man who chops his son's head off and replaces it with a phallus shouldn't even try.
He is someone who celebrates death and at the same meditates on 'bom' - the eternal void. Each one of us celebrates death in the guise of demise at least twice each year. Once on our birthdays when we are happy about the number of year we have 'put to rest'. The second time when we celebrate New Year. The numbers in both mark the days gone by, the distant demise of a past marked by the chronisms of our kind.
The inevitable halt aka death synthesizes with the absolute void aka eternity and forms a vivid picture of our insignificant microcosmic existence. I don't pray to Shiva, I don't bow my head when I pass by a portrait/statue of Shiva. But Shiva help me feel relieved. The resident godfather of the cemetery, Shiva helps relieve a lot of existential dilemmas. The ideas helps understand the inconsequence of losses as well as of victories. It encourages to not have any photographs and make no attempts to freeze the past. Don't fool yourself by your ability to change time in your wrist watch. You exist in time and not the other way round.
At a simpler level, the idea of Shiva makes it possible for many to smoke pot. Not that this stops the government from banning it. However, in a culture of bhang and thandai (all in the name of Shiva), everyone becomes aware of the effects of cannabis. Due to this people who 'discretely' get stoned are rarely bothered by anyone. The connect between the two goes beyond this. Under the effect of cannabis it becomes easier to think and accept the insignificantly small effect we have over eternity. It helps understand the futility of external judgment and opinion. Focus on the inevitability of the end and ulterior motives seem all so redundant.
So each time I think of Shiva (mine has a beard, matted hair and is stick-thin with ribs jutting out, the way I have seen mendicant all my life) before lighting my chillum I think of the pragmatic philosophy which Shiva gives us with his three biggest symbols #bom #death #weed
