There is a story of a monk who was deeply devoted to Lord Shiva. He loved silence, stillness, and solitude. He felt the world was nothing but disturbance. He believed that any good or bad that happened in the world would create trouble. So he decided to renounce everything and live only for Shiva.
He worshipped Shiva intensely, but there was one thing that bothered him. Parvati was always beside Shiva. He did not like that at all. He felt that all maya, all complication, was because of Parvati. The world, he believed, was made of the three gunas — sattva, rajas, and tamas — and he wanted to go beyond them and be established in the state of nirguna. So he decided, “I will worship only Shiva, but never Parvati.”
But Shiva and Parvati were inseparable. So the monk came up with a clever idea. He took the form of a bee and began to circle only Shiva, flying precisely between Shiva and Parvati, carefully avoiding her. He was very pleased with himself.
This behaviour, however, irritated Parvati; Shiva smiled and thought, “I must teach him a lesson.” This is like people who say, “I love God, but not the people.” They want only what suits them. They do not understand that spirituality does not come in parts. It always comes as a whole.
When Shiva is there, Parvati is there. When existence is there, the three gunas are there. The world is bound to be there. But the monk wanted to accept only one half of reality and reject the other.
So Shiva decided to play a divine trick. He gave half of his body to Parvati and became Ardhanarishwara — half male, half female. Now the monk had no way out. Wherever he turned, Parvati was there. He could no longer go around Shiva alone.
The saint realised the truth that Shiva and Shakti are not separate. He attained liberation, circumambulated both, and surrendered. This story teaches us to accept the world with all its shortcomings. Shortcomings will always be there. Do not discriminate between men and women. Shiva cannot exist without Shakti, and Shakti cannot exist without Shiva.
In reality, divinity has no form and no boundaries. But to identify divinity, you need some point, something to begin with. That is why murtis are made — vigrahas, statues. The statue itself is not divinity; it points you toward divinity.
For people who are gross, who cannot comprehend the vastness, they make huge statues. But yogis and sadhaks always move from the gross to the subtle. Their minds need to be very refined.
That is why yogis never established big statues. If you see all the 12 Jyotirlingas, they are all very small. The Agama Shastras also say the murti should be smaller than the size of a person.
Across India, in ancient temples, only a few have very large statues, and those were established by kings and emperors. Kings and emperors have big egos. People with big egos want to feel small, and they can feel that only in front of something very big.
People who are humble do not need big statues to feel small.
In fact, forms can become an obstruction. That is what Totapuri Maharaj did when Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was struggling with the image of Kali and was not attaining liberation. Totapuri told him, “Cut the head of Kali.”
Mother Kali would always appear in Ramakrishna’s meditation. Totapuri Maharaj told Ramakrishna to cut the form of Mother Kali with the sword of gnana, or discrimination. Finding that Ramakrishna couldn’t do this due to his intense love for the Mother Divine, Totapuri took a piece of broken glass and stuck it between Ramakrishna’s eyebrows, ordering him to concentrate on that point. Ramakrishna, using this as a point of focus, imagined the sword of knowledge and “clove Her in two” (mentally cut the form of the Mother). The “last barrier” fell, and he went into Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
Spiritual seekers undertake this journey step-by-step. So, from the concept of the form, the seeker transcends to just one particular part of the form, say, only the feet! Many big temples worship the divine in this form. And subtler than this is the Saligram. It is just a stone with no shape and no face. The mind doesn’t have a face. This signifies a journey from the form to the subtler identity of the consciousness!
Actually, Shivlinga isn’t supposed to have any face at all. The Shastras even forbid you to worship Shiva as a form, except in the forms of Shivlinga and Natraj. Do you know that there are three parts of a Shivlinga? They are known as Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh. Out of these three parts, only one is visible above. The other two parts remain hidden inside. What is seen is less than what is unseen.
We move from the gross to the subtle. From subtle to subtler, and then to the subtlest, that is how you get into deep meditation. Mantras are subtler than the Saligram, and from Mantras, one transcends into the profound silence. Close your eyes and meditate upon the Shiv Tatva within!
The writer is a spiritual leader and founder of The Art of Living Foundation
