Maha-Kaal - Ujjain

Maha-Kaal - Ujjain

Fire has divine light, and as it glows, it brings alive the invisible presence of the Lord to us. This silent conversation brings deep thought as the Lord plays with the thoughts in the mind. as one observes the Lord in lamp light, there is a certain brilliance to his being as he appears to reside at his seat, within a humble pooja room, enhancing this throne, this space to a higher spiritual presence..

Be it the chilling presence of the Lord on the river side in the cold wintry morning or be it the warmth of the Lord in the darkness of the Garbha griha, his form rings with enigma as one wonders about the various avatars he has taken in different mythologies. We are very accepting when it comes to his soumya forms, where he is depicted with Parvati as a gentle husband, as the divine Lord, but we can scarcely accept his presence as Kaal-bhairav, the fierce self.

talking about Garbh-Griha - well, i see an irony. as per my knowledge, The garbha-griha of a temple should be dark, apart from the light of an oil lamp. The purpose of this is that the Idol contains powerfull vibrations that should not be dissipated for any reason. But here, they put airconditioners inside the sanctorum and light up the whole place. well....

As the conversation proceeds, the mind dwells on the fact that it’s not just material detachment that one is expected to do away with for higher spiritual satisfaction. That is probably the beginning of it. Detachment from the material world brings additional concentration and more time and mind space that can be spent on the Lord. It brings peace of mind and creates the ambiance for higher thoughts to take shape. And then the subtle universe awakens in the mind.

Perhaps with the background knowledge of the wise ancients in mind, one needs to ever remain conscious of real time as well as space as zero. Thus what one appears to see is the history of the Formless Supreme Being as He attained balance between original purely 'spiritual' and temporary 'material' that is believably being reviewed in 'apparent time', which helps Him to leisurely see what He created/ destroyed instantaneously (and therefore the projection being realised as 'maya' that is illusion...In the apparent drama related with humans, there believably is a definite trend that helps one interpolate or extrapolate to arrive at the anticipated happenings, which the astrologers apparently attempted to predetermine with the help of horoscopes (which actually represent the position of 'grahas' in the 360 degrees of sky/ space at the apparent birth time of concerned indivudals)...The variety in human behaviours apparently reflected the variety in "nature' that helped generated the apparent heirarchy...Each individual apparently has a different 'thought plane' or mental trend that help reflect characteristic property of apparent time during different eras. Thus perhaps it isn't correct to expect all humans to behave in the same way...Thus one was expected to surrender in to the creator, as each individual's behaviour is different by design - serving some purpose known only to the Formless Being...

Maha-Kaal rules the land of Ujjain and also the Ghats of Varanasi. And the bhakt follow the rule when they life and experience the presence of the Lord here. Be it the priests today’s world or be it the ancient world of Aghoris, the gore of the cremation ground and the fearful aspect of death is what echoes in these places. Maha-Kaal creates fear, with well documented spells that state that blood and flesh needs to be sacrificed to win the trust and blessings of this form of Lord Shiva. This is enough to make us take a step back, us as in the so called civilized world.

Mahakala, Kalabhairava, Rudra are all fierce expressions of Lord Shiva, dressed in a garland of skulls, smeared with red kumkum on the forehead, free flowing matted hair and shown in a posture that spells destruction. Rudra on the other hand is red eyed and signifies tears with a fiery halo that makes him appear even more dynamic. These forms of the Lord do not look half as scary but the reality of these forms bring fear when the normal aghoris try to ape them, for they have not reached that level of divinity that calls for the warmth that is felt even in these wild forms when the Lord takes them.

This is the subtle world, a world of no bias towards preconceived ideas. This is the second level of renunciation that is expected of us. The first was material, the second is attitude. Did Lord Shiva take on these forms to teach us that there is no room for fear even if he appears fearsome? This appearance can make us squirm or this appearance can intrigue us that there is warmth and protection even when he appears to hold the kabala of a human in his hand and demands blood in his bowl!

The all powerful form of Maha-kaal is seated on his throne at Ujjain, in front of whom Bali is offered, it has been a blood bath of animals or people. This blood of sacrifice was religiously offered to the deity by pouring it into the cup he held in his left hand. In all his forms, with the variations in the number of hands he is depicted with, he is depicted holding a bowl in his left hand in which is offered blood or grain depending on where he is and the form he takes. Bhikshatana, or Nataraaj, Kaal-bhairav or Mahakaal, he walks with matted hair and little cloth roaming the forests or the cremation grounds. This is also Shiva.

In the holy city of Ujjain, Mahalaka here is offered liquor. This liquor represents the blood that used to be offered in ancient days. Mahakala’s association with liquor, may appear to be for the wrong reasons, be it an offering into his cup in the ancient temple at Ujjain or be it into the funeral pyre by the aghoris at Varanasi. This liquor is a lot more than an alcoholic offering for consumption by the deity. What could possibly be the association of liquor to blood that is considered so sacred, be it any form…,,

About liquor...it removes one's inhibitions...the first step forward in the whole process of salvation I suppose! or may be, The use of intoxicants ( soma of rig veda) was more to stimulate certain rarely used parts of the brain for better perception than for lowering inhibitions.

Liquor = Soma , somrus basically means 'moonlight' that believably is the life-giving energy...Moon's essence is believed to be housed in the heads of each animal form, and it is believed to be responsible for higher thoughts in man - an intoxication of the mind !!

But, anthropology indicates that imbibing blood and organs of another being was sanctioned in societies based on animistic belief as a means of absorbing the vitality (or prana) of that being,to strenghthen oneself. more so if its sanctified as "bali". (Sexual intercourse or mingling of the "sap of life" was viewed as empowering for the same reason.) These traditions were spread across the world from South America to Polynesia to Mongolia.

This description brings alive the presence of Mahakala Shiva, to whom human and animal sacrifices were once made, the flesh or the body of the deceased represented the corpse, the end of time, the end of life similar to that on which Ma Kali walks.

Hmm....Shiva as 'Mahakaal', literally 'Supreme Time', indicates the Formless - although itself related with zero time and space - as the controller of Apparent Time that gets generated with the help of relative motions of certain heavenly bodies, such as earth and sun...which result in appearance of all apparent physical forms, which however appear and disappear at certain durations of apparent Time associated with different life forms...and were expressed to be result of 'maya' or illusion due to imperfect physical senses...a phenomenon believed similar to projection on 'silver screen'.

This is the obvious description that hits the eye and that which has been documented. What is missing is the subtle thought of renunciation, where the blood flowing is the life that is within me, where the liquor is this illusion, this bias or attitude to differentiate that I wish to give up as I present it in the bowl that the Lord holds towards me. I give up my fear, I give up my colored thoughts, I give up the self that is so disillusioned. I am pure and I have lost every sense of attachment, to the world and to my thoughts, to my bias and to my attitude. And then I can relate to kaali in her unending bhakti towards Lord Shiva, who dances the tandava among the flames of the cremation ground, and all I see is purity....

Lord Shiva - So..meditation is born

I breathed a heavy breath, was exhausted and wanted to just settle my mind on the form of Dakshinamurthy. Shiva, the intellectual, with his eyes closed in dhyana sits under the fig tree with the six great sages; the Sanakadimunivars listen in silence as the pearls of wisdom fall into existence. This is a form of Shiva who is composed of bliss, intelligence and existence, who controls the world of Maya at will, who has no beginning nor end and yet is formless himself.

There is eloquence in his being; there is purity in the air around him and the soft verses of praise rhythmically bathe the ambience for the seeker to listen.

Through the illusion of Atman, he who sees the universe exist within himself during his hours of sleep, like a city exists within a mirror, such that the universe looks like a manifestation of its own, he who beholds himself when awake, his own, the incarnate of the teacher, to him, the teacher who faces south, to him I bow.

He manifests himself in the bodies of all, of Brahma, of the devas, of Purusha (man) and of pashu(lesser animals). He is within those that are womb born, egg born, sweat born and earth born. When he is realized the world melts into him as if it were a blissful dream. And therefore I come into existence, I am life, I am consciousness, and I am pure.

Tat Tvam Asi

But I am a prisoner in this thick fog of Maya, my consciousness manifests itself as imagination, doubt, confusion, memory, determination, guess... Thus I adopt a school of thought, to understand and find, to realize myself. And thus I hold on to life, to meaning and to philosophy, to escape the clutches of this Maya that imprisons my mind. And so philosophy was born.

Charvaka: or Lokayatas hold that nothing is real except that which is revealed to the senses.

Kanada: founder of the Vaiseshika school of thought, believe that character and attributes are inherent in the atoms themselves and thus gives rise to objects of creation as well as their qualities.

Sugata: the popular Buddha believes Atman is not independent of the state of consciousness which is ever changing with every moment

Sankhyas: who follow the doctrines of Kapila and Patanjali, that the universe consists of two realities, Purusha(consciousness) and Prakriti(phenomenal realm of matter), the experience and the experienced, and where ultimate realization is achieved by following Ashtanga yoga.

Vedantins: who believe in the system of Sariraka-mimamsa, that explains the nature of Brahman

Pauranikas: who believe in the puranas that explain the creation of the universe and its beings and explain the histories and descriptions of various Gods and Goddesses.

Pratyakshas: who believe in sensuous perception, right knowledge obtained by sense organs coming in contact with external objects, like color is obtained through the eye.

Anumana: right knowledge obtained from the process of inference, that where there is smoke, there has to be fire. Hence the inference is fire as the presence of smoke reveals it.

Sabda: right knowledge obtained through verbal statement from a trust worthy source.

Upamana: right knowledge that is obtained from the process of comparison

Arthapatti: knowledge in the form of presumption, surmising a thing to account for something else that is known.

Abhava: immediate consciousness of the non existence of something by the non perception of it, therefore if it existed it should be perceived.

Sambhava: the right knowledge as to the existence of a part, when we know the whole of which it is a part also exists.

Aitihya: right knowledge obtained by centuries of tradition, transmitted generation to generation of which the source is unknown.

I sighed, feeling the silence and bliss within. Time doesn’t exist, its part of the very Maya we are engulfed with, Kala defines the change that is felt or perceived in that which is living, that which has prana, that which is Atman. I stood bewildered with the thought of the great Lord of the South, who touches the consciousness, who governs the ever open mind into a state of everlasting bliss.

I had awoken to the truth of Dakshinamurthy and yet I could scarcely comprehend it. The truth echoed in mind and yet the fog didn’t lift. The peace of equilibrium and high emotional bliss touched me and yet I felt it was momentary. The thought of coming back to this world brought my mind crashing into the depths of Maya we all know so well.

I opened my eyes, Lord Dakshinamurthy continued to be in dhyana with his eyes closed. The apasmara purusha, the emblem of ignorance felt like that of mine as I felt the warm force of divine Lord gently crush mine “imagined” self. I was the seventh present, who tried hard to listen to the truth of the universe and yet those words felt like they fell on deaf ears....

If a thousand altars stream with blood
Of the victims slain by the chanting priest,
Is a great God lured by the savoury food?
I reck not of worship, or song, or feast;
But that millions perish, each hour that flies,
Is the mystic sign of my sacrifice.

Ye may plead and pray for the millions born;
They come like dew on the morning grass;
Your vows and vigils I hold in scorn,
The soul stays never, the stages pass;
All life is the play of the power that stirs
In the dance of my wanton worshippers.

And the strong swift river my shrine below
It runs, like man, its unending course
To the boundless sea from eternal snow;
Mine is the Fountain—and mine the Force
That spurs all nature to ceaseless strife;
And my image is Death at the gates of Life.

In many a legend and many a shape,
In the solemn grove and the crowded street,
I am the Slayer, whom none escape;
I am Death trod under a fair girl’s feet;
I govern the tides of the sentient sea
That ebbs and flows to eternity.

And the sum of the thought and the knowledge of man
Is the secret tale that my emblems tell;
Do ye seek God’s purpose, or trace his plan?
Ye may read your doom in my parable:
For the circle of life in its flower and its fall
Is the writing that runs on my temple wall.…

Let my temples fall, they are dark with age,
Let my idols break, they have stood their day;
On their deep hewn stones the primeval sage
Has figured the spells that endure always;
My presence may vanish from river and grove,
But I rule for ever in Death and Love

(source: Shiva - By Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall)

Saturn in Tropical Cancer

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,–both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

- William Wordsworth