Shiva: turning sensation inwards

Photo: Geoffrey Dunn

The self is a problem that thought cannot solve.

-J Krishnamurti

Shiva comes at a time when we are in throes of a mind-dominated reality that is increasingly remote from its organic and material reality. For centuries we have sought to mechanically construct realities that separate us from Nature and Earth, having forgotten that Earth is our own consciousness and the fullness of our self.

The most ancient invocation of Shiva comes from a perception that is remarkably radical in its understanding of consciousness as a continuum between Earth and all Her life, including humans. And this invocation also perceived the nature of the movement between the mind and embodied consciousness and its flow which is necessary to humanise us by connecting us to Earth.

Shiva is an ancient invocation, more ancient than the time He was given the name by which we know Him today. The earliest signs of His invocation date back to at least 8-10,000 years ago in the Harappa Indus Valley times in northwestern Indian subcontinent. He has evolved and taken on thousands of stories, forms, philosophical interpretations and meanings.

Yet, the central attribute of Shiva as the dancer has been largely invisible as a lens through which to lead inquiry. Rather, dance has also been interpreted through textual lenses, as if the dance merely illustrates philosophy rather than being the source of philosophy and civilisation.

The earliest Shiva was seated on the balls of his feet, a position well known to dancers. There are similar images, often associated with worship towards a female deity. Shiva or His ancestor, was part of ancient Goddess-led traditions, served by women priestesses as evidenced by other artifacts from the same regions. These images find strong echoes in the Natya Sastra or the 400 year old seminal text on Indian dance (of course dance is much older than the text which sought to record it).

When one considers the pattern of many ancient Goddess-led dance traditions, the masculine invocation to the feminine divinity is a union rather than duality. The devotee and the Deity meet in the calling—in their desire for each other. This was beautifully embodied as flow, the dance of the calling. This dance was the movement of the mind, from its nature to attach sensations to objects, towards the primeval expression of sensation liberated from meaning. Sensation becomes dance rather than word, held in the body of consecrated dancers who are in a state of Yagna, or freedom from the known (mind).

In this liberation, the mind melts into Nature—the primeval sensations of earth, water, fire and air. This is the revelation in the body of Nature or Earth or the Goddess, who is always calling and waiting for the mind/Shiva to remember Her and to turn His desire towards Her.

With the advent of mind-dominated traditions, the primacy of dance and the Goddess receded, and Shiva, along with many other masculine deities, became more significant. His dance became a “symbolic” invocation of Reality rather than Reality itself. Movement and pulsation as Reality, and dance as the way to experience the wholeness of one’s own self and the universe (which is the same thing), were also forgotten except as an evocative philosophy or symbol.

Today when Shiva appears amongst us, He holds an ancient memory, a memory before Time was invented by the mind. It is the memory of a mind that can return its passion towards the source and free it from its fragmentation of words and meanings. This is no ascetic withdrawal but a fiery and energetic epiphany when Shiva Himself wants to end His anguished wandering across the desolation of His separation from his Self, his Nature.

Shiva is the moment our minds turn towards our longing for wholeness and, with the fire of our passion and anguish, we realise the futility of looking for answers outside. It is then that we return to the caverns of our Nature to finally hear Her calling.

Like none other deity, Shiva holds the power of the mind in both its destructive and regenerating dimensions. The mind is destructive when it has forgotten its source which is the Earth. Separated from Earth, the mind is anguished and fragments its passion in desperate external grasping. When the mind can connect with its Shiva dimension which is His dance, we are drenched with Earth/Goddess’s danced calling and desire for us.