Today, we observe Shivaratri. We celebrate Shivaratri. I’ll express a few truths about Shiva – Mahadeva.
Shiva – the very word means eternal auspiciousness; auspiciousness without reason or cause. When something exists without any cause or reason, it is eternal. You need to understand it is eternal.
Even if you look at the extraordinary qualities of Mahadeva: When He sits in silence, He puts people into enlightenment, the eternal peace under the banyan tree as Dakshinamurti; When He decides to dance, He puts the whole world in bliss as Nataraja; When He decides to destroy, He destroys all negativity as Kalabhairava; When He decides to show compassion, He can take any poison and swallow it and save the world. He can sacrifice anything to any limit. There is no limit to His sacrifice; When He decides to destroy, He will destroy even death, Yama; When He decides to save, He will save from any problem, even sacrificing His very life. Of course, His life can never be taken away, but that’s different; he is ready to go to any extreme for sacrifice to save others. How He swallowed the halahala poison to save the world, risking Himself, His own body.
The grandeur with which He expresses the experience He showers on people who even remember Him; just by remembrance, Sadashiva, the ultimate guru, the ultimate yogi, ultimate king, Ishwara – the ultimate leader, the ultimate bliss, the ultimate compassion, ultimate life – with all these qualities, He’s not too far away, very easy to approach. Easily approachable – Ashutosha – easily pleased. Nothing much is required to please Him. That is why in Sanskrit, we have a word, sorry, not in Sanskrit – in Hindi in North India, ‘bholebaba’ – easily pleased. In Sanskrit, we have the word ‘Ashutosha’.
Today is celebrated as the festival celebration of Shiva appearing, the cosmic consciousness appearing as an eternal light shaft, a conscious shaft, as Arunachala, to allow Brahma and Vishnu to search and find out the head and feet of Shiva. Today is the day the intense cosmic auspiciousness radiates; intense cosmic energy radiates.
Shiva, Mahadeva, the extraordinary experience and the extraordinary being which is beyond our physical plane, enters into the physical plane as the Master in the body, for people to experience the eternal auspiciousness in the body, all the auspicious qualities in the body, so that the auspicious qualities are not just faith or belief, they are experienced as life. He is not an ordinary snake charmer. He is the charmer of the Kundalini snake. He can play with the Kundalini snake, which resides in every being.