Nataraja, Shiva as the Cosmic Dancer “The perfect embodiment of rhythmic movement.” - Auguste Rodin, The Dance of Shiva - A Study on The Tiruvalangadu Nataraja at Madras Museum His dance is the dance of the cosmos, the eternal rhythm of the universe. Encircled in flames representing the cyclical nature of creation and destruction, Shiva is the center of it all. The artist ingeniously combines the two seemingly antithetical elements of Shiva’s dance, the tremendous frenzied activity of the universe with his calmness, the complete tranquility of his facial expression shows supreme bliss and a wonderful poise, his raised leg giving him a beautiful sense balance and grace. Shiva himself representing your own fundamental consciousness, the center of all this activity. The drum in his right hand, a Damaru, represents the rhythm of creation and in his left hand a flame represents destruction, balancing each other out perfectly. He points at his foot, bent slightly giving him a further sense of balance, and the little, hideous dwarf being crushed beneath. This dwarf represents ignorance, or illusion, Maya; the small and selfishly absorbed parts of yourself which blind you from perceiving the true nature of our world. That you are not separate from all the gyrations of atoms and molecules which make up the universe, that you are the great dance of Shiva. You are not aloof, you are and are made of the cosmos. When you crush the illusion of separateness, see through it, you will be released from bondage and achieve Yoga, Union with Shiva. Know Thyself. (Adapted from V.S. Ramachandran’s Neurology and the Passion for Art lecture)                                                ॐ नमः शिवाय

Nataraja, Shiva as the Cosmic Dancer

“The perfect embodiment of rhythmic movement.”

- Auguste Rodin, The Dance of Shiva - A Study on The Tiruvalangadu Nataraja at Madras Museum

His dance is the dance of the cosmos, the eternal rhythm of the universe. Encircled in flames representing the cyclical nature of creation and destruction, Shiva is the center of it all. The artist ingeniously combines the two seemingly antithetical elements of Shiva’s dance, the tremendous frenzied activity of the universe with his calmness, the complete tranquility of his facial expression shows supreme bliss and a wonderful poise, his raised leg giving him a beautiful sense balance and grace. Shiva himself representing your own fundamental consciousness, the center of all this activity.

The drum in his right hand, a Damaru, represents the rhythm of creation and in his left hand a flame represents destruction, balancing each other out perfectly. He points at his foot, bent slightly giving him a further sense of balance, and the little, hideous dwarf being crushed beneath. This dwarf represents ignorance, or illusion, Maya; the small and selfishly absorbed parts of yourself which blind you from perceiving the true nature of our world. That you are not separate from all the gyrations of atoms and molecules which make up the universe, that you are the great dance of Shiva. You are not aloof, you are and are made of the cosmos. When you crush the illusion of separateness, see through it, you will be released from bondage and achieve Yoga, Union with Shiva. Know Thyself.

(Adapted from V.S. Ramachandran’s Neurology and the Passion for Art lecture)

                                               ॐ नमः शिवाय

1 year ago · 116 notes

Dont’ tell me you can live without an ego; or good and bad don’t exist - a (perhaps embarassing) letter of sorts

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1 year ago · 5 notes

Accomplished Presence-Meditation ~ Kapalika: Kaula Tantra

1 year ago · 2 notes

Two birds in my hands and nothing inside them

I’m starting to feel my grip on certain aspects of reality dissolving. Not that this is unusual in a sense, said grip has been in tenuous flux for years. Though this is different, as my ability to function in the world, social world specifically, seems to be improving, internally I am experiencing a far stronger feeling of being lost at sea. I can no longer rationally tell if I am gaining greater clarity or falling into deeper illusion. I’m feeling kind of anxious. I’m loosing reference points. Everything truly is composed of shifting sands.

I’m being split in two; a feeling like being able to communicate more and more fluently in a language I can understand less and less.

I’m content to let this keep unraveling, it’s not like I really have a choice. I just have to continue to try to treat the people I love and those who come into my life as best as I can. I’m experiencing a lot of confused emotions, confused because their genesis is not clear, nor is their direction and they are quite persistent, if not in the foreground, just waiting below the surface. I felt very angry for a couple of weeks and this changed to sadness all of a sudden a few nights ago, though that is fading again.

Part of this is my increasing experience of Buddha Nature, (though I would like to be more secular about it, I haven’t yet found a term I really like.) I have formal relationships with a few teachers from different traditions and through these channels I’ve experienced profound formal and spontaneous pointing out instruction, which has built on raw experiences I’ve had since I was much younger. Which is exactly what should be happening and will continue until enlightenment.

My lived and participatory relationship with aspect of my awareness is very strange and I feel the root of much of these feelings, of greater clarity simultaneously with greater sense of being lost.  (My ability to use language is breaking down in my attempt to clearly convey these concepts and experiences without to much time and effort spent, so increase babbling will ensue.) Kind of like the sense of internal clarity, space and transparency is disorientating and pleasurable. It feels almost completely removed from my participation in the external world, but threaded intimately through it and one reason I can negotiate this world with greater ease these days, precisely because I’m loosing sense of queued reference points, things are dissolving into an amorphous mass and I mostly can just kind of enjoy the absurdity of it all. When I do/can focus with unmuddled conscious purpose I tend towards a seemingly very simple desire for pleasure and happiness for myself and those around me within all the complexity I can sense but not understand.

An intense sense of I

Don’t Know Mind?

1 year ago · 9 notes