B
The Athi Rudra Maha Yagnam
THE PROFOUND SIGNIFICANCE
BEHIND THE POWERFUL SACRIFICE
We reproduce
below, the text of a special Musings talk by Prof G. Venkataraman on
the subject of Ati Rudra Maha Yajna,
broadcast earlier over Radio Sai.
Loving Sai Ram, and greetings from
Prashanti Nilayam. The Ati Rudra Maha Yajna is now in full
swing here, and it is only appropriate that I devote this special talk
to that subject. Before I say anything on the Yajna proper, I
must first offer the disclaimer that I am no Vedic scholar. Whatever I
say on the technical aspects is based on material I have gathered from
various sources, including scholars behind the event here. It is likely
that there could be errors due to the incompleteness of my
understanding, for which I make my apologies in advance.
The Ati Rudra Maha Yajna is
addressed specifically to Lord Siva; as such, my remarks would be
structured as follows:
I shall begin by saying something about
this particular Yajna, the chanting aspects that is.
- Next, considering that this Yajna
is addressed to Lord Siva, I shall say something about Siva, how He is
represented, and what that representation means.
- This would then lead me on to some
more comments about the chants that characterise this particular
Yajna.
- After this, I shall say something
about what really lies behind ritualistic worship, etc.
- I shall then wind up with a few
general remarks on the broader significance of this Yajna and
why it is important.
The Chants of the Rudram
With this preamble, let me get down to
business and start with Rudram. The word Rudram
usually refers to a special chant, a celebrated one actually, that
occurs in the Yajur Veda. The Rudram is heard almost
everyday here in Prashanti. I should point out that what is commonly
referred to as the Rudram, has two parts; the first of these is
called Namakam while the second one is called Chamakam.
Most of the hymns of Namakam end with the words namo
or namaha. Similarly, the ending of many of the hymns of
Chamakam is cha me. The hymns are organised into portions
called Anuvakams.
Normally, one chant of the
Namakam followed by one chant of the Chamakam
constitutes one Rudram. There is a long-standing
traditional belief that chanting the Rudram confers
benefits of various kinds. For example, chanting it a few times
grants freedom from disease, worldly difficulties, etc. As the
number of the repetition increases, one is supposed to get
progressively more and more benefits but at some stage, the
benefits switch from being worldly to spiritual, the culmination
being becoming one with God.
In functions like the one going on
here, the word Rudram representing the basic unit of
chant is defined slightly differently. Glossing slightly over the
details, the basic unit consists of the chanting of the
Namakam 11 times followed by one chant of the Chamakam.
If eleven persons do this simultaneously, we have essentially
11x11 or 121 collective chants, which is called Ekadasa Rudram.
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Mellifluous mantras
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When the basic module is chanted 11x11x11
or 1,331 times, we have a Maha Rudram, and when it is chanted
11x11x11x11 or 14,641 times, we have an Ati Rudram. In the
present Yajna, this total score of 14,641 repetitive chants of
the Rudram would be achieved by 121 priests doing the chants
over 11 days. That roughly is the bookkeeping as far as the chants are
concerned. For the record I should mention that this total score of
14,641 could be achieved by one individual, of course, spreading the
chant over many, many days; on the other hand, with a large enough team,
it could all be done in one day itself. I should also mention that while
this is the first time the Ati Rudra Maha Yajna is being
performed in Prashanti Nilayam, the Maha Rudram version has
been performed once, way back in 1955.
Ritualistic worship does not consist
merely of Vedic chants, though chants form the backbone. Often they are
accompanied by procedures of various kinds, the most important of which
in this case are 1) Abhishekam and 2) offerings made to the
sacred fire, or Homam as it is called. In the current Yajna,
the Abhishekam would be offered to a special Lingam, everyday.
The Yajna also features eleven sacred fires, to which offerings
are made, once again to the accompaniment of chants based on the
Rudram. Maybe you have not understood all that I have said but let
that not bother you. Soon we shall be bringing out a video documentary
that would enable you to actually see all that I am now describing with
words.
Worshipping The Form of
God
Let me now turn to Lord Siva, to whom
this Yajna is specifically addressed. Who exactly is this Siva? Folklore
is of course full of details about who Siva is, but I would like to view
the matter in a slightly larger perspective than usual.
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In the ultimate
analysis, Siva is one of the many names by which the Supreme Creator
is known. Now all who believe in God agree without exception that
the Universe exists because a Creator willed it into existence.
Whether this Universe came into existence via the Big Bang, as
scientists including myself believe or as described in various
theologies, is a different matter; despite these differences, all
theists believe that God created the Universe of which we are a
part.
Most religions not
only agree about the existence of a Supreme Creator but also declare
that God is abstract, formless, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent and
omniscient. However, different religions choose to call this God by
different names but that detail need not bother us. Now the human
Mind, as Krishna declares in the Gita, is infinitely
capable; yet, ordinary people do not experience the infinity that
the Mind represents. Thus, for ordinary people, the concept of an
abstract, formless and infinite God is not easy to grasp. Different
religions try to deal with this problem in other own different ways,
via the intermediary of convenient symbolism. In this respect,
Hinduism is perhaps the most liberal, leaving it entirely to the
individual to adopt whatever form the individual wants, and thus
conceptualise God with Form in many different ways. At the same
time, while encouraging the worship of God with Form in order to
develop Love for God, ancient Indian scriptures always viewed
rituals etc., as a stepping stone to the ultimate realisation that
individual is not the body but the Real Self or God. |
One depiction of the Cosmic Shiva
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In other words, worship of God was a
graded process, which took one from regarding God as a great provider to
something indescribable, beyond attributes, eternal, and beyond Space
and Time itself, and who was the Self within.
As Swami has pointed out, Bhakti
is first developed via rituals because they help one to relate
personally to God. However, rituals are like floatation aids that people
learning to swim first use; once they know how to swim, they throw away
the aids. In the same way once the spirit of devotion is established
firmly in the heart of the devotee, he or she should move to the higher
realm of relating to God directly on a Heart to Heart basis.
Understanding The
Significance of the Form
Let us now look at all this in some
detail, with specific reference to Lord Siva and the procedures that are
being followed in the Ati Rudra Maha Yajna now in progress
here. As I mentioned earlier, the human Mind ascribes to the Formless
God a specific Form so as to be able to easily relate to the Almighty.
Where Siva is concerned, the
traditional description, together with the significance of the
attributes is as follows:
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Siva has three eyes. Many meanings have been
given to the significance of the three eyes of which the one due
to Swami is the most fitting. Bhagavan Baba says that one eye
tells us that God knows the past; the second eye means that God
knows the present. Humans have two eyes and therefore they too
can claim they know the past and the present, though of course
they cannot know the past relating to earlier births. As for the
third eye, it signifies that God alone knows the future.
- Siva has matted hair, and
apparently matted hair represents God as the Lord of breath,
which is present in all living beings.
- A crescent moon adorns the head
of Siva. This crescent moon has many interpretations, the most
important of which is that the moon represents the progression
of time. In that sense, the message that Siva’s moon sends to us
is that God is beyond Time and the absolute master of it as
well.
- The drum in the hand of Siva is
a symbol of sound, the basis for language.
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The 'Attributes' of the Lord
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- Siva wears the skins of the tiger, the
elephant and the deer. The tiger represents power that pervades the
universe; thus, the tiger skin symbolises mastery over every force.
The elephant represents pride and wearing the elephant skin, Siva
sends the message that to become one with God, one must first conquer
pride. Similarly the deer, which makes big leaps, represents a fickle
Mind; and wearing the deerskin, the message sent is that Mind must
first be stilled, if one wants liberation.
And so on the list goes. I am not saying
that my description is the only way of understanding the symbolism. The
point is somewhat different. Once one gives a Form to God, one also
starts assigning attributes. However,
the assignment of attributes is done in such a manner as
to remind the devotee that God is beyond the attributes associated with
the phenomenal world.
Getting back to the specific form of Siva
in which devotees visualise Him, is this form of God unique? By no means
- God has endless Forms. Then in what Form does He grant a clear vision
to the devotee? The answer is that He manifests in the Form the devotee
yearns for, the Form that would grant the devotee the highest
satisfaction. Speaking humorously, Swami once said that if a buffalo
were to become very devout, it would quite likely think of God as a
Super Buffalo and when God grants it a Vision it would in fact be as a
Super Buffalo.
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The famous Indian novelist R. K.
Narayan wrote a humorous story about the efforts of a tiger to
become spiritual, by seeking enlightenment from a Guru. One day, the
Guru asks the tiger to describe God, and the tiger replies:
God must be an
enormous tiger, spanning the earth and sky, with a tail capable of
encircling the globe, claws that could hook the clouds, and teeth
that could grind mountains, and possessing of course, immeasurable
strength to match.
Hearing this, the Guru bursts
into laughter and replies, “You may be perfectly right in thinking
of your God as a super tiger. Also, it may be true. In the
Bhagavad Gita, God reveals Himself in a mighty terrifying form,
which pervades the whole universe in every form of life and action.
Remember also that He is within every one of us and we derive
strength from Him.” |
Sri R. K. Narayan
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So we arrive at the conclusion that
while the name Siva and the specific form attributed to Him are useful
in their own way, we must really look beyond the form to the Formless
aspect of God. I shall return to that shortly. But for the moment, I
would now like to turn to the rituals.
How Rituals Bind Devotee
To The Lord
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A ritual is basically
a form of worship in which chants are accompanied by certain
procedures. This is best illustrated by the simple worship of Lord
Ganesha that precedes practically every ritual here. In this there
is a small idol of Lord Ganesha, and after the preliminaries are
over, the devotee first welcomes Ganesha. And how does he do it? By
seating Ganesha on a plank and making the gesture of washing the
feet. This symbolism has a specific meaning.
In the olden days,
whenever an elder or a revered guest came to a house, the first
thing that the host did was to seat the guest and wash the feet of
the guest. Next, Ganesha is given a bath, after that He is given
clothes, followed by the offering of the sacred thread, sandalwood
paste, etc. etc. Full hospitality is extended. Ganesha is then
worshipped with flowers, after which He is offered food, fruits
etc., topping it all off with Aarathi, as a gesture of
reverence and worship.
These days, hardly
anyone goes through this routine in the spirit implied in the
procedure but that does not take away the spirit. The devotee
relates very intensely on a one to one basis with the Lord, even as
he would with say his Guru, dropping in for a visit. There
is love and respect in every word and every gesture associated with
the welcome. Sometime ago, we did a feature in H2H on Saint
Tyagaraja, a life-long devotee of Lord Rama. [Click
here to read again]. |
Worshipping Ganesha
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Tyagaraja had a set of idols representing
Rama, Lakshmana and Sita. For him, however, they were not idols but God
personified. Tyagaraja related to them in an intensely personal way, and
when, for example, the idols were seized by his brother in an act of
jealousy and thrown into the river, Tyagaraja became extremely
distraught. And when he discovered the idols, by Divine Grace of course,
how happy he became and how joyously he welcomed the Lord back into his
home!
Bhakti
or the intense worship of the personal God, even if it were via rituals,
enables the devotee to have an intense, personal and mystical
relationship with God and offer Love to God easily. That is why in the
Gita, Krishna recommends the worship of the personal God, that
is, God with Form, as compared to the worship of the Formless God.
Let me at this stage briefly recap what I
have said thus far. I started off with some bookkeeping details about
how many times the Rudram is chanted during the Ati Rudram
Maha Yajna. I then talked about visualising God in the form of
Siva, with all the attributes that are ascribed to Him. That was
followed by some remarks about how worship of God with Form is very
helpful in the spiritual path, and how Krishna Himself recommends it
over the worship of the Abstract, Formless God, which can easily derail
the ordinary person. I also described, especially via a brief reference
to the Puja done to Lord Ganesha routinely, how ritualistic
worship enables one to relate in a personal way to God. This sets the
stage for me to make now a few remarks about some of the procedures
followed in the Ati Rudra Maha Yajna.
The Rituals of the
Athi Rudra Maha Yajna
Leaving aside the many satellite
rituals, the three basic rituals are 1) chants accompanied by
Abhishekam done to a Lingam, 2) the stand-alone chants of the
Rudram, and 3) chants accompanied by offerings to the
sacred fire, that is, Homam. Let me start with the
Abhishekam done to the Lingam. What really is a Lingam? As
Swami has pointed out in many of His Sivarathri Discourses, Lingam
is basically a representation of Creation. When the Lingam is
worshipped, one is symbolically thanking God for all the bounties
Creation is filled with, like air, water, land etc., the Sun that
gives us energy, and so on. For example, one of the hymns in the
Namakam goes in part like this:
Prostrations to the Lord of
all bodies, the destroyer who protects with His stringed bow.
Prostrations to the
charioteer, the indestructible one, the Lord of the Forests,
Prostrations to the crimson one, the Lord of trees who, existing
in all, protects.
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The Lingam Adorned by Bhagavan with a Red 'Eye'
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Clearly, a person immersed in the world
has desires. Swami says if you have to beg, better to beg from God than
humans. In that spirit, some of the hymns unabashedly seek favours like
this one that I quote in part:
May I be provided material
comforts in abundance in my life’s journey and the capacity to put
them to the best use.
Here is another sample:
May I be granted movable and
immovable property and plentiful gold and silver.
But there are also hymns that seek higher
knowledge, the ability to sacrifice, the realisation of the ultimate
purpose of life and so on.
If we take all this together, we see an
interesting progression. First, the devotee adores the Lord as the
Supreme Creator and seeks from the Lord the blessings of material
prosperity etc., all of which are related to Creation. But slowly the
devotee’s focus shifts to things more spiritual, that is, to things that
go beyond the mere material.
Life As A Pilgrimage
Let me now try and put all this in a
larger perspective. Basically, one can visualise the rituals as a
symbolic representation of life as a pilgrimage. Initially, one does not
understand that God is the Indweller who resides within us. Thanks to
this ignorance, one seeks God outside, in manmade temples, in so-called
holy places, etc. One also tries to do one’s duty but the Mind is
agitated by the consequences of the past, one’s karma that is.
As a result, one prays to God for protection, freedom from troubles and
so on. If this part of life is handled properly, the Mind slowly
develops some maturity and helps the individual to focus more on
fulfilling his or her Dharma. As the focus on Dharma
increases, the individual seeks to become united with God because that
grants true Peace and Bliss. And this process is facilitated by the
individual seeking God within rather than outside.
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In passing, I should
perhaps mention the following. These days when one has a bath, one
takes a shower, at least in the advanced countries. In India in the
olden days, people used to bathe in the river or when they took a
bath at home, they would pour water over themselves using a metallic
mug. And while bathing, many would chant the Rudram. The
idea was that bathing of the physical body, was symbolic of
performing Abhishekam to the Lord inside.
To put it all
differently, worship symbolises a three-step process as it were. In
the first step, we come to grips with our karma, that is,
the consequences of our past lives, often painful. That pain compels
us to seek God and pray to Him for favours. As we work out our
karmas and acquire some spiritual refinement, we slowly become
focussed on Dharma. This propels us forward on the
spiritual path, helping us to discriminate the false from the true.
In particular, we progressively move away from material objects and
sensual pleasures to things more eternal and permanent, that is,
values that transcend Creation. That takes us on a beautiful inward
journey that culminates with coming face to face with Supreme
Consciousness and finally becoming one with it. |
Performing
Abhishekam to the Lingam
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Thus far, I have talked about the
spiritual progress of an individual. Indeed, most Gurus have in
the past, been mainly preoccupied with helping individuals to go from
the finite to the Infinite, from the transient to the Eternal, from
untruth to Truth etc., etc. In this sense, the spiritual journey was
essentially seen as a lonely trek by an individual. In a radical
departure from this traditional approach, Aurobindo in his rather difficult to read Integral Yoga,
ventured to suggest that mankind has reached a stage where a whole body
of people could and must collectively evolve. Even more interesting is
the fact that our beloved Swami has been quietly translating Aurobindo’s
rather fuzzy theoretical concepts into practical reality, with what I
would call a truly revolutionary approach.
Sai’s Mission to Uplift
Humanity
Take, for example, Swami’s Institute. On
the face of it, it is a University that like its counterparts elsewhere,
offers courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc., besides other
courses on Business Administration, Financial Management, Computer
Science and so on. That is what one sees on the surface; but look below
and you would find that Bhagavan Baba’s University is a spiritual
cauldron of a unique kind that produces every year in a coherent and
structured manner, hundreds and hundreds of young men and women who are
ready to serve humanity and uplift it in many different ways.
Look next at the Seva Organisation
founded by Swami. As Bhagavan once remarked, the basic aim of the
Organisation is to spirituality elevate the individual engaged in Seva,
but when thousands and thousands do selfless seva round the world
throughout the year, it has its own collective impact in uplifting a
large number of people.
The same is true of Swami’s
Hospitals. On the face of it, the Hospitals help the poor by
offering them free medical service, including at the advanced
level. But look deeper and what do you find? These Hospitals
provide a wonderful chance to so many doctors and nurses to do
real service. Then there are the large number of Swami’s students
who are serving as Technical Officers for a modest salary, even
though they can command much bigger pay outside, given their
highly specialised skills. And let us not forget the many others
who are serving in the Hospitals in various capacities, purely on
a voluntary basis. Finally, there are the huge Seva Dal brigades
that come week after week, from all over the country, to engage in
a variety of support services that range from security duty to
laundry work, carrying food to the patients, pushing wheel chairs,
and so on.
In every one of the institutions
created by Swami, groups of people working coherently together and
for a common noble cause, get collectively elevated, spiritually
that is. And the beauty is that people involved get uplifted
without being conscious of it. Superficially it seems to sort of
just happen; not really, because Swami is there behind, silently
orchestrating it all. That is what is unique about this Avatar; He
has come not merely to give a helping hand to individuals here and
there but to large sections of humanity.
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Working as
Worship...Sevadals at the hospital
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In physics, we have a phenomenon called
self-organisation where a collective system, under some special
conditions, exhibits extra-ordinary properties. Superconductivity is a
classic example. A wire made of lead can conduct electricity, but when
the electrons flow in the wire to carry current, they normally
experience resistance. If the resistance is high, the wire in fact gets
hot. But take a wire made of lead and cool it to a temperature close to
absolute zero; and you know what happens? Miraculously, the electrical
resistance vanishes completely and the electrons can flow without facing
the slightest impedance. This is an example of self-organisation; when
the conditions are right, the entire system goes over to a very
different state and the behaviour of the system changes dramatically.
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The laser is another great example.
A laser is basically a system the atoms of which emit light. A
fluorescent tube also emits light; so what is the difference
between the light emitted by fluorescent tube and that emitted by
a laser? The atoms in a discharge tube emit light in all
directions and with a range of frequencies. The atoms in a laser
behave differently. Firstly, the light emitted comes out in one
direction; secondly the frequency range is very narrow and
thirdly, the atoms all emit light in step as it were.
That is what makes the laser light
very powerful, so powerful that in suitable cases it can even
drill through thick steel plates. Here too, once the conditions
are right, the system just fires and starts lasing, as scientists
say; this also is a case of self-organisation.
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Laser Light
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Swami is telling us that when individuals
in Society all are in perfect step with Dharma, then
automatically that Society would become self-organised and transform
into Utopia. This is how the so-called Golden Age would dawn, when
mankind becomes self-organised by resonating to Dharma, and not
through the wave of a magic wand as many seem to imagine.
In passing, I might add that unknown to
us, Swami is nudging us forward with some incredible but hardly noticed
steps. I shall mention just two. I don’t know how many of you were born
at the time of the famous Cuban missile crisis in the early sixties,
when Kennedy was the President of America and Khrushchev was the boss of
the erstwhile Soviet Union. I remember those days vividly. There was an
eye-ball-to-eye-ball confrontation between the two great super powers
and it seemed for a few days that the whole world might go up in a
nuclear holocaust. Tough messages were being exchanged between the two
world leaders, and at a crucial moment Kennedy had the option to send
almost an ultimatum or to send a slightly conciliatory message that
would enable Khrushchev to back off without losing face. Kennedy chose
the latter option and dramatically the crisis eased off.
Historians might
praise the statesman-like approach taken by Kennedy but we must
realise that ultimately our actions are determined by inner
promptings. If the promptings are good then so are the resulting
actions. Narrating the story of Dhruva, Swami once said that when
young Dhruva, a mere five-year old, was on his way to the forest to
do tapas, Sage Narada asked the young lad where he was
headed. Dhruva replied that he was going to the forest to do
tapas. Narada then asked, “And how exactly do you plan to do
the tapas?”
Dhruva calmly
replied, “He who put the idea in my head about going to the forest
would also guide me how to perform the tapas!”
Yes, God often works
that way, without making Himself very evident. As Swami once
declared, “Coincidence is a miracle where I hide Myself!” This
reminds me of another great historical event, the meeting between
Ronald Regan and Gorbachev that resulted in a remarkable détente and
led to the drastic reduction of the nuclear arsenals held by America
and Russia. Subsequently there was a dramatic change in Russia to
the point where we now actually have so many Russians coming to
Prashanti Nilayam, something we simply could not have dreamt of, say
even as late as 1985. |
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Perhaps I have been rambling somewhat in
this talk but I just could not help it because this is a subject of such
vast proportions. To help you, let me briefly recap the main points I
have made thus far.
I started off with a few remarks about
what exactly is meant by the Athi Rudra Maha Yajnam.
- I then said something about Lord Siva,
the attributes He is supposed to have and what they mean.
- After this I moved on to the utility
of worshipping God with Form.
- This took me then to some of the
specifics of the procedures followed in the current Yajnam.
- I then described briefly how, starting
with the ritualistic worship of the God with Form, one slowly evolves
to the adoration of the Formless Abstract God who is nothing but Pure
Consciousness.
- I also took the opportunity to point
out how Swami is helping us not only at the individual level to become
better spiritually but is in fact lifting us all together at the same
time, so that humanity as whole would see better days.
The Yagnam is a Call to
Wake Up!
I guess it is now time to wind up. I
believe that this Yajnam is a wakeup call for all of us to
pause and reflect on who we really are. Resonating with the sacred
vibrations generated by the Vedic chants here, we must see ourselves in
a larger and Cosmic setting and what our real purpose of existence as
humans is. According to me, human destiny is determined by two critical
factors – where we came from and where we are headed. As far as the
first is concerned, there is no question that humans have evolved from
lower species. In turn, this means that inevitably humans would have
traces, sometimes strong, of the basic instincts and tendencies common
to animals. However, this does not mean humans have to yield to these
instincts and not rise to higher levels.
The question now is to what level they
must rise. This is where the question of the final destiny of humans
comes in. If the individual believes that he must revel in the primitive
instincts but in a sophisticated way that technology enables him to,
then he would be nothing more than a clever animal or even a clever
devil perhaps.
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But is that what human birth is
gifted for? If we believe that there is a higher and nobler
destiny that beckons us, then we must seek it and reach that goal.
That goal is to realise our latent Divinity and become one with
God.
The Yajnam that I have
talked about is a powerful reminder of that truth. While people in
India can instinctively recognise this truth thanks to an ancient
and rich tradition, I must not omit to mention that great
scientists in the West have also independently come to the same
conclusion. Einstein, for example, declared that he pursued
Science because it enabled him to have, at least fleetingly, the
mystical experience of Cosmic Infinity.
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Albert Einstein
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Young Werner Heisenberg too
experienced this Cosmic feeling of religiosity when, at the age of
twenty two or so, he discovered a key principle of quantum
mechanics. As he later wrote to his sister, he felt at the moment
of his great discovery as if he was looking over the shoulders of
God while the Creator wrote the symphony of Creation.
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Werner Heisenberg
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Erwin Schrodinger, another of
the founders of quantum mechanics declared that at the end of the
day, he had no choice but to recognise the profundity of the Vedic
declaration Aham Brahmasmi – I am Brahman. By the way,
both Heisenberg and Schrodinger won the Nobel Prize. Max Planck
who in a sense ushered in the era of quantum physics declared that
Consciousness is primary and that matter is secondary, being a
material manifestation of Consciousness. For the record, I must
mention that Planck too was a Nobelist.
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Erwin Schrodinger
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Eugene Wigner, another Nobel
Prize winner declared that information is complete only when it is
registered in Consciousness. Then there is the Harvard biologist
George Wald, needless to say another Nobelist, who said that
though as a scientist he did not like accepting the idea of
Consciousness, he had no choice but to accept that Consciousness
existed first and from it came all Creation, the human being the
finest flower of this Supreme Consciousness.
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George Wald
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Is it any wonder then that more and
more scientists are being drawn to the idea of Primary Consciousness
from which everything came and that Siva who represents Consciousness,
symbolises the Cosmic rhythm of the Universe through His thandavam
or dance?
Yes, Siva is the root and
support of this universe, and the rhythm of His Cosmic dance is
reflected in the atoms and in the galaxies of the universe. As
physicist Fritjof Capra says,
“Modern physics has shown
that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest
in the turn of the season and in the birth and death of all
living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic
matter. For modern physics then, Siva’s dance is the dance of
subatomic matter.”
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Fritjof Capra
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Capra concludes, “Hundreds of years ago,
Indian artists created visual images of dancing Sivas in a beautiful
series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced
technology to portray the patterns of that cosmic dance. The metaphor of
the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and
modern physics.”
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In appreciation of
the feelings of modern physicists for Siva’s dance, the Government
of India presented in June 2004 to the world’s leading laboratory in
particle physics, a two metre tall statue of Nataraja, representing
Siva engaged in His Cosmic Dance. This statute stands in the
premises of CERN, an international laboratory located in Geneva,
where many outstanding discoveries relating to the microcosm and its
relationship to the macrocosm have been made.
As this great
Yajna in Prashanti winds its way to conclusion, we devotees,
wherever we are, must, taking help from the rituals and the chants,
try to look far beyond so that we see ourselves not in the limited
setting of daily life as father, mother, teacher, CEO or whatever,
but with respect to where we came from and where we ought to go. As
Swami reminds us, from Consciousness we all came and in
Consciousness we must finally merge.
And Siva is one of
the representations of that Supreme Consciousness. The worship of
the Lingam, Abhishekams done to it, and the offerings made
to the fire while chanting the name of Siva must all help us to
focus on our true destiny and not the false destiny that the
ephemeral world tempts us with. |
The Dancing Nataraja at CERN,Geneva
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– Heart2Heart team
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