Thought of the Month
Just as Om is the sound symbol of God, the linga is the form symbol or the visible symbol of God, the most meaningful, simplest and the least endowed with the appendages of attributes. Lingam means, that in which this jagat (changing world) attains laya (mergence or dissolution), leeyate. All forms merge in the formless at last. Shiva is the principle of the destruction of all names and forms, of all entities and individuals. So, the linga is the simplest sign of emergence and mergence.
Every form conceived in the shastras and scriptures has a deep significance. Shiva does not ride an animal called in human language, a bull. The bull is the symbol of stability standing on four legs, satya, dharma, shanti, and prema (truth, righteousness, peace, and love). Shiva is described as having three eyes; they see the past, the present, and the future. The elephant skin that forms His cloak, is a symbol of the bestial primitive traits that His grace destroys…
His four faces symbolize shantam (equanimity), roudram (frightening facade), mangalam (grace), and utsaham (elevating energy). While adoring the lingam on this Lingodbhava [emergence] day, you must contemplate on these truths of Shiva that the linga represents.
It is not this night alone that you should spend in the thought of Shiva; your whole life must be lived in the constant presence of the Lord. Endeavour—that is the main exercise that is the inescapable consummation for all mortals.
Even those who deny God will have to tread the pilgrim road, melting their hearts out in tears of travail. If you make the slightest effort to move along the path of your own liberation, the Lord will help you a hundred-fold. That is the hope that Mahashivaratri conveys to you. Man is called so, because he has the skill to do manana, which means ‘inner meditation’ on the meaning and significance of what one has heard.
You have given up even the little sadhana (spiritual practice) that Shivaratri demands. In olden times, people would not put even a drop of water on their tongues on this day. Now, that rigor is gone. They used to keep vigil the entire night, without a wink of sleep, repeating ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ without intermission. Now, the name Shiva is on no one’s tongue.
Resolve, on this Holy Shivaratri, to visualize the Shiva as the inner power of all. With each breath, you are even now asserting Soham (“I am He”); not only you, but every being that breathes, lives, and exists does this. It is a fact that you have ignored so long. Believe it from now on.
When you watch your breath and meditate on that magnificent truth, slowly, the ‘I’ and the ‘He’ (the Sah and the Aham) will draw nearer and closer, until the feeling of separateness fades away and the Soham transforms into OM, the pranava, the primal sound, the fundamental formula for God. That OM is the Swaswarupa—the reality behind this “relative reality.”
~Divine Discourse
Shivaratri Day, February 1969
