Sivaratri Mahima 5 - Spiritual Significance

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conceive God as glory, as creativity and as austerity. Vishnu is glory and

magnificence; Brahma is creativity force; and Siva is austerity and

renunciation. You might have heard it said that God is the embodiment of six

attributes of which renunciation is one. You will be wondering how can God

renounce things. He is not a Sannyasin (renunciate). He is not an ascetic like

a Vairagin (a dispassionate person) or a Sadhu. What is he going to renounce?

How do you conceive Siva as an austere Yogin or a renunciate? What does He

renounce? The all-pervading Almighty, what has he to give up or abandon? Here

is the secret of what renunciation is! It is not renunciation of anything,

because there is nothing outside Him; renunciation does not mean abandonment of

an object. If that had been the definition of renunciation, that cannot apply

to God. God does not renounce or abandon any object, because all objects are a

part of His Cosmic Body. Then how do you represent God as an embodiment of

Vairagya (dispassion)? Bhagavan, who is endowed with 'Bhaga' or glories of a

sixfold nature, is also an embodiment of Vairagya. Do you identify Him with a

Sannyasin, possessing nothing? No, never. God is the possessor of all things.

Then, how can you call him a renunciate, a Sannyasin or a Vairagin? The secret

behind the concept or the consciousness of Vairagya, renunciation is here, in

the identification of this attribute with God. It is only when we interpret

things in terms of God that things become clear. Otherwise, we

get confused, we cannot know what goodness is, we cannot know what evil is, we

cannot know what virtue is, unless we refer all these values of life to the

concept of God in His Perfection. The only standard of reference for us in all

matters of life's value is the existence of God. So, the concept of

renunciation, which has been very much misused, also gets rectified, clarified

and purified when it is understood with reference to the existence of God-whose

special manifestation, in this context, is known as Lord Siva. God does not

renounce anything.

Then, in that case what is renunciation, in this context? It is the freedom from

the consciousness of externality. This is called Vairagya. How can you abandon

things? All things are there in front of you, like trees in a forest, stones in

the jungle. There is nothing like abandonment of things, because they are

internally related to you. Nobody can renounce anything, because everything in

this world is connected to everything else. Then what is Vairagya? Vairagya is

not renunciation of any object; it is impossible. Everything clings to you. But

the idea that things are outside you, makes you get attached to them. This false

attachment is Raga and its absence is Vi-raga. The condition of Viraga is

Vairagya. As God has no consciousness of externality, because everything is

embodied in Him, there cannot be a greater renunciate than God. And

in as much as this Consciousness of God is the highest form of Wisdom, He is the

repository of Jnana. In our religious tradition, Lord Siva is represented as

an aspect of God, the Almighty. He presents before us the ideal of supreme

renunciation born of Divine Realisation. Renunciation born of Divine

Realisation, not born of frustration, not born of an escapist attitude, not

born of defeatism, but born of an insight into the nature of things, a clear

understanding of the nature of life and the wisdom of existence in its

completeness. This is the source of Vairagya or renunciation. You do not want

anything, not because you cannot get things, but because you have realised the

interconnectedness of things, and the unity of all purpose in consciousness.

All desires get hushed, sublimated and boiled down to the divine Being only

when this realisation comes. God does not possess things. Possession is a

relationship of one thing with another thing. But, God is super-relative. That

is why we call Him as the Absolute; He is not relative. Anything that is

related to something else comes under the category of relative. God is not

related to anything else, because He is All-comprehensive. And, thus, in His

all-comprehensive Absoluteness, which is height of wisdom conceivable, there is

also the concomitant character of freedom from the consciousness of externality,

and therefore, as a corollary, freedom from attachment to anything.

Roman" color="#00007f">Thus Lord Siva is the height of austerity, Master Yogin,

portrayed as seated in a lotus-pose, as the king of all ascetics; not that He

has the desire for self-control but He is what is self-control itself. He does

not practise self-control. Self-control itself is symbolised in the personality

of Lord Siva. Such a wondrous concept of a glorious majestic picture of the

Almighty, as Lord Siva, is before us for adoration during the Maha Sivaratri.

We observe fast during the day and vigil during the night. The idea is that we

control the

senses, which represent the out-going tendency of our mind, symbolised in fast,

and we control also the Tamasic inert condition of sleep to which we are

subject everyday. When these two tendencies in us are overcome, we transcend

the conscious and the unconscious levels of our personality and reach the

superconscious level. While, the waking condition is the conscious level, sleep

is the unconscious level. Both are obstacles to God-realisation. We are shifted

from one condition to another. We are shunted, as it were, from waking to sleep

and from sleep to waking everyday. But the super-conscious is not known to us.

The symbology of fast and vigil on Sivaratri is significant of self-control;

Rajas and Tamas are subdued, and God is glorified. The glorification of God and

the control of the senses mean one and the same thing. Because, it is only in

God-Consciousness that all senses can be controlled. When

you see God, the senses melt, like butter melting before fire. They cannot exist

any more. All the ornaments become the solid mass of gold when they are heated

to the boiling point. Likewise, in the furnace of God-consciousness, the

sense-energies melt into a continuum of universality.

-----------Sri Swami Krishnananda Sivaya Namah

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