By Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Shiva is your very Self, the purest Self, your innermost core. Shiva is one who is good or benevolent. The word ratri in Sanskrit means that which relieves you from three types of agony – ethereal, mental and material. It means that which gives rest, takes you into its lap and comforts you. At night everything becomes quiet and peaceful. The body gets tired and goes to sleep.
Shivaratri is a deep rest. When the mind rests in the lap of the Divine that is the only real rest. This brings rest to the three instruments: the body, mind and speech. ‘Shivratri’ literally means that night which infuses the Shiva tatva, or the transcendental principle, into the three instruments.
Samadhi is often referred to as Shiva Sayujya, the presence of Shiva, a concept that’s difficult to explain. Kabir Das calls it koti kalpa vishram – a billion years of rest consolidated in a moment. It is a state of deepest rest with alertness which brings freedom from all identities.
Like the mind, memory and intellect, Shiva is also a tatva (principle) in us. Shivaratri is when the Shiva tatva and the shakti (energy) become one. Shiva tatva is omnipresent. Realisation is to be conscious of it in its depth, yet to be awake to its non-dual glory in one’s awareness, in the depth of Samadhi. It is as if a wave is being skillfully conscious of the vastness of the ocean. The jagran in Shivratri is not just forcing oneself to be awake or singing bhajans aloud. It is about keeping awake and being inward and being consciously aware of the inner rest that sleep anyway brings every day. When you surpass a certain layer of sleep, the rest of samadhi or Shiva Sayujya happens. When you come out of it, you experience a certain pleasantness and reduced entropy, which brings an unusual freshness to the mind and senses.
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In Shiva temples, Shiva is symbolically represented by the linga. The Divine is beyond these three genders, so the Divine is called Ekalinga, or one gender. What is that one gender? The Self, the Atma. Beyond the body, mind, intellect, and beyond likes and dislikes, that Self is only one. Linga means identification or sign. Only because of a certain sign, you identify something as male, female or neutral. Divinity is beyond the peripheral differences of gender.
Ekalinga is the Lord of the Self. On Shivaratri, it is the total energy which seeps into the whole universe. Shiv Shakti (the energy of Shiva) comes from all the lingas and merges on Shivaratri. Shiva has been associated with destruction; but transformation, change for the better, can only happen when something is destroyed. Shiva is the factor of transformation. ‘Shankara’ means one who gives peace and does good. ‘Sham’ means peace and good and ‘kara’ means one who does that.
The whole creation is the dance or play of Shiva (Shiva tandav), the dance of one consciousness, one seed, which manifested into a million species in the world. The whole world moving in an auspicious rhythm of innocence and intelligence, is Shiva. Shiva is the permanent and eternal source of energy – the one and only eternal state of Being. Shivaratri is auspicious because the environment is more alive. We chant Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti praying for three types of peace: peace to the body, mind and soul (adhyatmik, adhibhoutik and adidaivik). Only in the presence of all three can there be complete peace.
There is a story related to Shivratri, about the union of Shiva and Shakti. The primordial and dynamic energy is wedded to the transcendental. Shiva is the silent witness, the chidakasha and Shakti is chitti or chidvilasa, the energy that plays and displays in the infinite space. Shiva is the formless Being; Shakti is the manifestation in the field. This is the recognition of the dual aspect of matter and energy, prakriti and purusha, the dravya and guna – substance and its qualities. And, recognising the underlying non-dual nature of Brahman is Shivratri.
It is only wakefulness that brings out this knowledge in the consciousness and Shivratri is the night to celebrate the wakefulness of one universal consciousness without falling into the unconscious sleep state. Breaking the pattern of unconscious sleep gives you a glimpse that you are not a mechanical apparatus but a legend in the creation. To recognise the Shiva tatva, you have to be awake.
