Shiva is the silent witness. When you finally awaken to the full value of the Transcendent, you become Cosmic. All of this relative world then becomes as if lightly etched on the face of Being. It’s almost like a virtual image. That Being is just pure Consciousness. Whose Consciousness is it? Shiva. Shiva is the silent witness.
Shiva is oftentimes represented as something amorphous. Pick up a blob of clay. It’s Shiva. It has no form. Pure no-thingness. But no-thingness is not nothing. It’s Consciousness, the silent witness.
We feel it all the time. If you walk in front of a big rock formation, a big piece of granite, it almost has a presence to it. That is kind of like the Shiva value. Shiva is no nonsense. Bottom line.
They say that Shiva can be likened to a black hole in outer space. Nothing survives, it just transcends, it goes right into the Absolute. But around the black hole, there is this event horizon, and things break up, become fragmented in the event horizon. For that reason, devotees of Shiva include insects, goons, gargoyles, like that. In some cities, certainly New York is one, there is real coherence in the city, but as you go into the outskirts, there are some pretty peculiar towns, strange people, etc. It is similar to the black hole phenomenon.
Shiva’s Connection to Rama
Shiva is like the sun. You can’t touch him. But then there are the radiations from the sun, the glow of the sun. Really, the grandeur you feel is the radiation. To me, Rama is like that. The resplendent one. It’s so beautiful.
My favorite poster is Shiva and Rama, where in Shiva’s heart is Rama, and in Rama’s heart is Shiva. The beautiful interconnection between Shiva and Rama, ShivaRam. The connection between Shiva and Rama is so fine, so beautiful.
Lord Shiva’s Nature
Shiva is the underlying basis of all existence… pure Consciousness. Consciousness by its nature is conscious. Becoming conscious of itself, the notion of other, duality, is born. By becoming conscious of those two things, a third thing is born. And the process continues to infinity, creating the underlying structure of all existence, the geometry of which is the knowledge of yantras.
A Shiva linga is an egg-shaped stone. When taken care of properly, there is a subtle and powerful presence to it. When instilled with the presence of Shiva, it becomes a solid, monolithic, unshakable, fullness of bottom-line pure Consciousness. It is. It is the presence of the Lord. Just to feel that presence can be profoundly soothing.
Shiva temples are similar. You can walk in and feel the presence, the solidity, the unshakeableness, the solidness of the Transcendent.
