In this event, Dr. Svoboda tells the stories of Lord Shiva. This live event took place on Mahasivaratri in 2021.

And greetings to you on this auspicious day of Maha Shivaratri Maha Shivaratri Namah Shivaya I have just posted in the chat function the live link to the I think yes there it is the live link to the the live feed of the Vishwanath temple in in Kashi in banaras and since it is. Now 11 o’clock in India probably very soon they will be starting their midnight puja So with any luck you’ll be able to tune in I have to say that personally speaking Vishwanath is my is not my personal favorite Shiva temple in Banaras I have several other several other temples that I like better.

But even better than that as Vimalananda used to say what is the Use of going to Shiva temple in banaras when you can go to the real temple of Shiva which is the shmashan the cremation grounds and that verse. That I just recited was from the Shiva Mahimna Stotra the hymn to the greatness of Shiva verse 24 And here is the translation of it oh destroyer of lust the world considers you inauspicious you who play in the shmashan at the cremation grounds smeared with ash from funeral pyres wearing a necklace of human skulls with ghosts And vampires for comrades.

But for those who remember you with devotion oh you who bestow boons you were supremely auspicious and the Shiva Mahimna Stotra is one of those very excellent very and not particularly easy to Recite it’s in difficult Sanskrit very excellent hymns to Shiva Vimalananda asked me to memorize it. Which I did often spending a lot of time back I was back at that time when I visited Mumbai I would stay in gorigan and I would often and I would have to take the Suburban train into into Bombay vt every day to meet Vimalananda.

And that takes about an hour depending on what train you get and what’s going on on the tracks and you’d be surprised even standing up being jostled by a bunch of people how much you can memorize when all you can do being surrounded by a bunch of people. Is continue to recite verses to yourself and so even though I was not in a shmashan per say a cremation ground Vimalananda like to point out that the entire world is a giant cremation ground everybody is already dead they just don’t know it yet everyone is already that as soon as you’re born.

You have a trajectory in your life and inevitably you’re going to die and that’s what Shiva is all about and this and that’s why Shiva is is a deity who has this eternal dichotomy to him brahma the creator we know that all he’s going to do is create. Vishnu the preserver we know that occasionally he will slaughter demons but everybody who has faith in him he’s going to take care of he will make them miserable he will make their lives difficult so they will remember him more but he will never let go of his devotees he lives for his devotees Shiva has always been.

A lot less easy to categorize because he has these two very separate sides to his nature he is both the universal force of destruction but if there is no destruction then there is no new creation so he has always been not. Only Shiva who is auspicious that’s what that word means he is also rudra and rudra means which means to cry to weep and to flow so the flow of tears. The misery of being separated from those you love the misery of of living through old age and disease and the misery of com of contemplating your own death all of these miseries are part of the reality of Shiva.

But also the fact that when you trans when you when you die To the limitations that you have as an individual then you are reborn to the less limited life that is the life of of of reality and that is Shiva also creation preservation. And destruction brahma Vishnu and mahesh or Shiva rajas is creation satwa is preservation and Shiva is very much thomas and of course as thomas when you when you look at him as rudra rudra is a ver is a storm god and if you’re an agriculturalist if you are growing crops storms.

Are not your friend rain is your friend a storm is not your friend because you can have your grain ready to reap in the field nice and ripe and it will feed you for the next year and if a hail storm comes through that will be the end of that entire crop potentially. So a storm can be extremely destructive but rain is extremely creative and without rain there is not going to be if you’re a farmer there is not going to be any new crop so there is this these two sides to Shiva and this is reflected in his various names so he is called.

Shadow that is he who who damages he who creates pain he who steals he who takes away who takes away your life bhairava the terrifier all and many bhairavas including of course kala bhairava and mahakala And agora. Because gore is the reflective of that great terribleness of of all the things that are terrible in life and agora is the Shiva side of things he who negates those terrible things and brings us and brings us in to to places where is Where we can feel.

That auspicious reality again and even in the veda rudra was associated with indra who is is the god of of rain and the god of lightning and not of storms per se rudra it goes a little further. But naturally they have to be associated with one another And also associated with the moon and we’ll come back to the moon in a moment so Shiva is is isn’t is the classical incarnation of this force rudra was the Vedic version and as and rudra has sort of morphed into Shiva people do still recite the rudra daya from either the Krishna.

Yajurveda or the shukloya javed but people now a days are reciting it when they do abhishek when they when they pour water or milk or yogurt or other items or a fruit juice onto the linga so rudra in the modern world has pretty much been. Has been transformed into Shiva who can still be very violent but is much more on the auspicious side than is rudra in the vedas rudra was only given the utsta the leftover of the sacrifices and then there was a transformation.

And Shiva started to be given a special place right at the Table instead of having to simply be off to the side getting the leftovers that story we will come to in just a few moments. But first since we’re this this all telling these stories is a way of worshiping Shiva we should consider some of his good names because one way to worship Shiva or any other devata is to list their names. The 108 names of Shiva the one thousand names of Shiva and aside from Shiva there is shambhu or shankara which can mean both of those words mean both causing prosperity and giving peace and honestly only where there is peace is there going to be prosperity.

Really prosperity is implies where their things are nice and calm so the Shiva creates calm he’s also called bola or bolinat means he’s extremely innocent he’s he doesn’t suspect bad of anyone he simply he he he relates to people in Always in a in a positive way unless they try to be clever in. Which case he does not be feel at all amused about that he’s called nataraja or natasha because he’s the lord of dance because he he always he has a two-headed drum In his hand a drum made from two human skulls covered with human skin and he is that drum represents the beating of the heart and.

So as long as that drum is sounding the heart is beating there is life Shiva is maintaining that life he’s called ardhan narishwara because in one form. He is half and his shakti padavathi is half in the same body vishwanatha like the chief linga and banaras it’s called vishwanatha lord of the universe he is called triambaka or trilochana which means he has three eyes but triembaka can also mean three. Mothers not that he has three mothers because he is neither born or will he ever die but he is associated with the three mother goddesses or the goddess in her triune aspect of creation preservation and destruction he’s also known as Nila kanta.

Because his throat is blue that’s a story we’ll get to in a moment shulapani or trishula dari he’s holding a trident a three shul in his hand soma sundara or chandra shekara or chandra Which means he has a moon a crescent moon on his forehead and that story in fact we’re going to get to right. Now and this is as are of course so many of the stories in indian reality this is A story involving family dynamics so there was once a patriarch and this patriarch was in charge of creating things in the universe he was sort of like the assistant of brahma the creator and his name was daksha and daksha means mr.

Adept mr clever guy mr is able to do things in an effective and talented way and he had an opinion of himself that was higher than probably was good for him higher than it certainly should have been as became obvious as time went on Dexa had many many many many children including at least 30 daughters I think probably more. But not everybody agrees on the exact number 27 of them however were the 27 nakshatras of the zodiac the Western zodiac has 12 constellations or signs aries taurus gemini et cetera and in India there are 27 or 28 nakshatras ashwini bharani kritigarone margarita etc and these 27 nakshatras.

All got married to the moon now all got married to the moon why because the moon travels through the entire zodiac in the space of one month one month and so the moon traveled through and the idea was the moon should be that’s why they were his wives. Because he was going from one the house of one wife to the House of the next wife etc but it transpires that chandra was showing favoritism which is always a bad idea whether to your children or to any other family members.

But especially if you have 27 wives you should treat them all equally he however loved rohini the month the Most so the story is that in the distant past the moon was always full and was stationary in the sky in the nakshatra of rohini and naturally of course the other 26 nakshatras the moon’s. Other 26 wives were not very happy about this state of affairs they complained to their husband who said oh yes yes and did nothing they complained to their father who warned his son-in- law repeatedly repeatedly that there was a problem And the moon ignored him.

Because he was infatuated with rohini until one day one unfortunate day daksa lost his temper and cursed the moon that he would wane and fade away now a curse. Is a creation of a big karma because it has a lot of energy on behind it and this was of course a big mistake because that didn’t please any of the moon’s 27 wives even the ones who were being ignored they didn’t want To get rid of their husband they just wanted them to pay more attention.

So they started making the life of their father miserable because they said what have you done now you’re going to turn us all into widows and the moon his luminescence day by day diminished was diminishing he was waning And he was getting scared. And he asked everybody what to do and everybody said the only the only thing that you can possibly do is that you can pray to Shiva because as it turns out Shiva was his brother-in-law Shiva was married to another one of daksha’s daughters whose name was satyi her story will come to you in a Minute.

So here was chandra the moon and he went to his brother-in-law and said bro in law this is a terrible situation I’ve got myself into what exactly am I gonna do and Shiva said go down and do some penance continue doing the penance you’ve been. Doing and at an appropriate moment when you’ve done enough penance I will make sure that the problem is solved so the moon went down and did penance and at an appropriate moment Shiva appeared and said now I am modifying the curse of daksha.

You will only wane during one fortnight two weeks out of the month and once you have waned completely until you have no light left whatsoever then you will start to wax again until you become full then you’ll have to wane again. But then you’ll wax again and then you’ll want again and then you’ll wax again and that will continue and to make sure that this happened Shiva put the crescent moon on his head. Now this is a good story it’s also a a partial explanation Of why Shiva has a crescent moon on his head so this is one one reason for it but another reason for it another reason for Shiva having a crescent moon on his head is.

Because of today today is mahashivaratri but every month has a shivaratri every month every lunar month has a shivaratri And that is the chaturdashi the 14th day of the lunar month of the dark fortnight the dark chaturdushi. So the night before the new moon on the new moon the sun and moon are at the same longitude in the sky you can’t see the moon at all on mahashi veracity you can at the very. Beginning of it barely see the moon then you can’t see the moon and so the moon represents the mind and Shiva because he is so generous and because he is so compassionate he has agreed to possess a tiny sliver of mind.

So that he can pay attention to Those of us who are trying to catch his attention like the moon for example and if he did not have that sliver of of moon of mind he would be in samadhi all the time and he would ignore everybody. But he is so compassionate that he does not do that omnimashiva so Shiva has now saved. The moon you have to imagine that dexa probably didn’t like that idea because once he had cursed the moon he probably was feeling kind of egoistic about it I have cursed the moon who are you o Shiva to be altering and Modifying my curse.

But he didn’t say anything about it at the time possibly because he was thinking I will wait until an appropriate time and then I will teach Shiva a lesson or at least that’s what he was thinking. So Shiva was married to sati one of the sisters Of the 27 nakshatras sati had always wanted to marry Shiva daksha never liked the idea because Shiva lives in a cremation ground himself with the ash of incinerated bodies lives with ghosts and other horrible things And he he doesn’t fit into polite society very well.

So dexter was thinking omg omg how am I going to show him to all the fancy people in my society they’re going to be shocked that he’s married to my daughter anyway they will get married and they will go live off in this michonne and I’ll never have to see them that was the thought at least. However That didn’t quite work out that way because one day undoubtedly it was because of the law of karma Shiva and sethi were sitting and sati got an ethereal invitation that indicated that her father was going to hold a giant.

Mahayaga a giant sacrifice for the benefit of the entire cosmos and it was an invitation sent out to all of the members of the family except sati so sathy thought to herself how is it possible that everybody is getting an invitation but I specifically am not invited so she. Concluded it must have just been some kind of bizarre oversight so I’m gonna go anyway so she mentioned to her husband Shiva that she was planning to go and her husband said I don’t think that’s such a good idea and said he said why and Shiva said well I think that probably you didn’t get an invitation.

Because your dad doesn’t like me and sethi said oh of course he likes you and Shiva said come on you’re well aware that he doesn’t like me and said he said okay he doesn’t like me but but. But I’m part of the family how can he not invite me and she was said well technically speaking you were part of the family but now that you’ve married me you’re part of my family you’re not part of that family anymore so he doesn’t really have to invite.

You and then saty said well but he invited the 27 nakshatras and he invited the moon and he invited the son he invited everybody else and he just hasn’t invited you and me and Shiva said davey darling let’s just drop this. And why don’t we meditate some more and then we can have some romance and then everything will pass along and they. Can do their thing and we’ll do our thing no said sethi I am going to get to the bottom of this this had there something is wrong I’m I I this is this is just not right Shiva said please please just drop it you everything is fine here everything is fine there.

Let’s not create a problem where there is no problem no said sati I’m going to go and I’m going to go get to the bottom of this. So Shiva said very well may all go well I look forward to seeing you back again here very soon while she was gone Shiva sat down in front of his dooney his fire and he decided to keep an eye On her just in case. So saty goes and she has she appears at the place where the giant sacrificial experience is taking place and when she gets there nobody says hello nobody a officer any hospital hospitality.

Nobody is nice to her and this is puzzling and also disturbing finally she catches sight of her father who of course is very busy he’s ordering this and directing that and generally being the center of attention and she goes up to her and says father. Pranam touches his feet does everything you’re supposed to do if you’re a dutiful child and the father looks at her like omg what has the cat drug in and sethi says aren’t aren’t you happy to see me somehow I didn’t get an invitation.

But I decided that was just an oversight so I have come anyway And then dexa again should have kept his held his tongue he should have kept quiet if he knew what was good for him but his ego prevented that from happening so his ego caused him to speak and he spoke and he said what are you doing here you. Married you wanted to marry Shiva you married Shiva you’re now part of his family but he’s not welcome here he’s not fit for our society who is he he is not a higher up in the Vedic society he is not getting he.

He is only getting the leftovers of the sacrifices he is not getting he doesn’t have a special portion for the sacrifice like. All these other good-looking well-dressed handsome gods and goddesses over here and that’s why he wasn’t invited and you’re part of his family now and you just don’t belong here so I didn’t invite you so it would not be embarrassing but but now it’s embarrassing and for a moment saty. Looked down she looked at her hands she looked at her body and then she looked up and she said to her father well I was completely mistaken in so many ways.

I’ve been so wrong for so long about a lot of things but the most important thing is I was wrong about you first of all I thought you were a real father. But you’re not you’re just a progenitor you’re just out turning things out like some sort of machine and second you don’t seem to understand That my husband may be a storm god. But he also happens to be the supreme reality of the entire cosmos which means you’re a complete ignoramus an idiot an imbecile and you have insulted him and I am half of him he is half of me that means you have insulted me.

And I am living in this body that was created from you which I am not going to do even for one nanosecond longer so she sat down she awakened her kundalini immediately and totally incinerated herself from within and a giant flame spurted out of her head And she was dead and of course this was an inauspicious thing to happen. Because even though dexa had taken her aside and was whispering to her so none of the other guests would be disturbed if you come to the party and somebody commits suicide with a giant flame coming out of their head this is going to cause.

Some talk so now everybody has turned and looked at daksha and at the corpse of sati that is sitting there still smoking slightly Shiva meanwhile of course is watching in the flames of his dooney of his fire and he sees that his beloved wife. Sati has just committed suicide and he is an irritable character so he plucks out one hair some sources say he plucks out two hairs some sources say he takes one hair and cuts it and Breaks it into two.

And throws one or both pieces on the ground and either a giant ex all-powerful being named veerabhadra mr auspicious hero springs up either he springs up on his own or possibly badrakali blood drinking goddess springs up along with him and Shiva says. Go destroy the sacrifice kill daksa bring me his head and veerabhadra possibly with brother kali grabs an entire army of ghouls goblins vampires and other nerdy will ethereal beings who receive his devotees.

And they rush off they destroy the Sacrifice they they cause the Vedic gods to flee they kick pushon in the teeth and break his teeth they damage some other ones in different ways they grab hold of dexa vieta buddha does this personally grabs hold of daksa and chops his head off and daksa is. Now dead and the sacrifice is now destroyed this Does not bring sethi back to life but it does provide great satisfaction to Shiva this is a story that had provides lots of different meth opportunities for interpretation in Ayurveda we use it as an explanation For why certain terrible diseases have appeared in the world.

Because those diseases were created when the various deities were fleeing and what changes happened in their bodies seven of the eight very difficult to treat diseases were generated at the destruction of daksha’s yadnya the eighth one. Consumption was created in the world by that curse of daksa against his son-in-law the moon and we can argue that it was because daksa did that karma of cursing the moon that daksa had to have his head chopped off because karma you have to pay for all the karmas you.

Perform in any event the sacrifice dexter was one of the progenitors of the cosmos and because the sacrifice was interrupted the cosmos started to fall into pieces so brahma and Vishnu came and said to Shiva please. Resuscitate dexa so he can finish the sacrifice and you’ve killed him you should be happy now so Shiva said okay and resuscitated him with the head of a goat and once dexter was alive again Shiva said I hope you will enjoy your new head finish the sacrifice and then don’t let me see you again if you value your new head.

So dexter said something like and then went off and finished the sacrifice the myth goes on we’re not going to go along with it except to say that Shiva is still completely distraught by the loss of his beautiful and talented wife. Her name was sati sutt means true real she was the the she was real she was she was the the most up until that moment perfect embodiment of shakti who and when was Shiva’s appropriate mate now she is dead and Shiva Who makes everybody else cry is.

Now crying himself he’s wandering around the cosmos with her corpse on his back and he is lamenting he is grieving grief is pouring out of him but this is causing the cosmos to be very much disturbed and damaged and And disorganized and. So Vishnu the preserver of the cosmos takes his discus the su-darshana the good sight takes his discus and chops the body of sati into several pieces different sources will tell you different number of pieces. But 51 is a common number that’s the number of Aksharas the number of units in the Sanskrit alphabet and they fall to earth in different places each body part falls to earth at a different place.

And they 51 ish major temples of the goddesses of the goddess In India are where the different body parts of sati fell at this time and after this Shiva finally calmed down and he said fine I’ll just go back and sit in samadhi. Now and there I will be and he might still be in samadhi today Except for the fact that those same gods who the same the same deities the devas who were at daksha’s yaga and who had to flee they eventually after a while needed to have Shiva.

Give birth to or sire become the father of a son because that son would have to become the leader of the army of the gods the generalissimo of the gods for the purpose of killing a demon. Named taraka asura tarakasura and so thanks to the devas sati who has been without a body all this time we don’t know how long but a while she’s been without a body. But they arranged for her to be born Into the world again and this time her father is and that means the himalaya the mountains of the himalaya embodied personified and his wife my navity.

And All of these myths can be read on many different levels it’s good to remember as vimel ananda said that one way of reading this myth is that himalaya that chain of mountains is the chain of mountains that is the vertebra that make up the spine and parvati is the daughter of the spine that means. Not just the spinal cord but the spinal energy and that means the kundalini energy so she’s the kundalini energy she’s the energy of sati that now has been placed into the spine for safekeeping she’s born and She.

Now is growing up and she hears about Shiva and automatically wants to marry him and the parents of course feel kind of like dexa did is like okay we naturally we would like for you to have a better husband who has a nice job In the universe. And is getting nice he he has nice attendance and he’s getting nice being fed by nice humans who are giving him nice stuff and that’s what we really like and parvati says I don’t care about any of that stuff I want to marry Shiva and after a while the parents say okay because after all they know that she.

Is powerful since no one has forgotten what happened to daksa so they think all right and but Shiva meanwhile is sitting in samadhi so parvati wants to marry him Shiva’s sitting in samadhi he is ignoring everybody what to do so indra. King of the gods who is getting desperate because this demon tarakasura is afflicting all the gods in that it says don’t worry I will send kamadeva and kamadeva is the is eros he is the love god and he has a bow made out of sugar cane and he hit the the string on the bow.

Is made out of line of bees and his his his arrow is a flower blossom some people say a mango blossom some people say something else and he naturally appears in the spring when all kinds of animals are interested in getting together with one another. So in that thinks ha what I will do is I will make Shiva become interested in romance and then parvati will show up and then he will be interested so Shiva’s sitting in samadhi and in the calm medeva shows up and all of a sudden.

Spring appears and there’s birds singing and there’s flowers on the trees and Shiva is notices that something is going on bizarre outside parvati is off to one side over here waiting for her moment waiting for her cue to come on stage. And kamadeva sends an arrow that hits Shiva directly in the heart And Shiva thinks huh something is going wrong here and he opens his eyes and he sees kamadeva who he knows perfectly well and he thinks I’m sitting in samadhi you’re disturbing me this is a bad career choice on your point on your part and.

So he opens his third eye and a beam of giant fire comes out And kamadeva is completely incinerated boom and parvati has to go back and she is feeling quite hopeless also helpless and Shiva goes back into samadhi and then parvati says all right. This is not the way to Connect to Shiva I am going to have to do some penance myself and her mother says oh my goodness oh no no no she says uma do not oh don’t uma don’t.

So that became one of the names of parvati uma and then poverty goes off into the jungle Into the forest and she starts doing penance and she cuts down her food she goes from eating standard food to only eating leaves unleading dry leaves. And then she gives up leaves all together and then that crea then she is known by a new name parana parana means leaf oh parana means she’s.

Not even gonna take leaves and Shiva starts to notice that some penance is going on over here and he starts to pay attention to who’s doing the penance and he sees that as parvati he looks into her karmas and notices that it is sati who has been reborn and then he thinks this is great. But I must test her carefully and make sure that this is really what. She wants to do so then they meet and Shiva’s in disguise and then he tries to explain she that she he asks her what are you doing and aparna says I want to marry Shiva.

And Shiva disguise says oh that’s a bad idea he’s a no good character he rides around on a moth-eaten bowl and he has all kinds of bad companions and Don’t do it there’s much better people no I’m marrying Shiva go away I don’t want to hear the I I can’t hear you I’m not going to pay any attention to you. Because you are insulting my beloved fiance to be very soon and so then Shiva displays himself and says hi it’s actually me let’s get married And then they get married and then they enter into a Hanuman that lasts for 100 million years.

But the gods are still waiting still waiting for the child to be born and so finally what they do is they send in the god of fire to disturb. The attention of Shiva and parvati and then as a result that child is born he’s the older child of the two sons that Shiva and parvati have his name is kartikeya or murugan or skanda or subramanya and because the fire god disturbed. The Hanuman poverty cursed fire always to be enveloped in smoke so but the gods are now happy because of course there is little muragan who is going to grow up to be the the gen the gods.

Warrior and eventually Ganesha is also born and Ganesha is you possibly have heard his story one day parvati Shiva Shiva even after they were married Shiva periodically would still go off and sit in samadhi. Because that’s what he does and he would leave parvati to manage the house and the The bull and the shmashan and everything that had to be managed so one day parvati Shiva was off in samadhi and parvati thought I believe I’ll take a bath and.

So she created a child out of the dirt from her skin and she said you were my child I want you to protect the bathroom here while I’m taking a Bath no one can come in this also has an esoteric meaning that. Because parvati is the kundalini shakti and Ganesha represents the earth element and kundalini is sleeping in the earth element and he’s protecting it and so Ganesha says absolutely have a nice bath don’t worry. Meanwhile Shiva shows up And it’s never clear why Shiva cannot figure out when he can figure out everything else in the world why he can’t figure out that Ganesha is parvati’s child but for some reason maybe he doesn’t figure it out.

So anyway he shows up and says get out of the way whoever you are you little pipsqueak I have come to meet my wife And Ganesha says I don’t know who you are either but she told me not to let anybody in. So go away and Shiva said oh yeah who are you and Ganesha said yeah who are you and Shiva said oh yeah and then I said yeah and she said yeah Ganesha yeah and Shiva then stopped talking and grabbed his trishul and started to attack Ganesha and Ganesha.

Started to attack Shiva and Shiva got amused with this for a while but he is after all the god of destruction and Ganesha was a small boy like six years old and it wasn’t long before Ganesha had no head poverty comes out. Because she notices what’s going on and says you just killed my son and she said what do you mean your son we only have one son and private said no. We have two cents and she said when did this happen and private said well you were often somebody ignoring me and she said and parvati said well.

Now my second son is dead and I’m really upset and I’m gonna destroy the cosmos and she would say okay hold on stop don’t do that just yet and then they do something and they figure out we need to get a new. Head why they could not put the same head back on the body that’s not too clear to me either but anyway they go to find a head and they find the head of an elephant who is conveniently lying somewhere waiting to have his head chopped off chop off the head bring it back put it on Ganesha’s body.

Now Ganesha has head Shiva does this kind of thing if you’ve noticed he replaced dexa’s head with a goat he replaces his own son’s head with an Elephant so he’s very much in the head transplantation business Ganesha then becomes the well- beloved second child of Shiva and parvati and this of course is also related to kundalini shakti because if you. Try to force kundalini to get awakened you may destroy the body don’t do that work with Ganesha he will assist in the whole process and then everything can happen without obstacles because that’s his job vigna vinayako Ganesha so now we have.

The happy family Shiva and parvati and kartikeya and Ganesha and they have two houses they live on kailash during the summer and they live in benares during the winter very convenient and various other things now start to happen and probably of all the other various things that start to happen. Two are most important so those are the two that we’re going to focus on right now number one is the samudra manthanam and that also has a relation to kundalini shakti it happens when the ocean of milk is churned and why was this necessary.

Because indira the king of the gods who is Always getting into trouble somehow meets the very irritable rishi dervasa duravasa who is the brother of the moon and also of data so that dorvasa is incredibly irritable and dervasa offers indra a special garland. A mala and indar places it on the trunk of his celestial elephant airavata and everything is good except that the flowers attract bees and elephants hate bees and airavata is annoyed and throws the garland to the ground and dervasa sees this and he is incredibly irritable And he curses indra and all of the devas not just indra.

Because he’s incredibly irritable this dervasas he curses all of the devas to be bereft of all their strength energy and fortune they will also become they will wane so that now waning is occurring for all of the devas not just the moon. All of the davis are waning now and when the devas wayne the asuras become strong so the asuras conquer the universe and their king king bully who is going to be he’s going to have the entire universe begged from him during the time of the vamana avatara That king bully gains control of the universe.

Now the devas again don’t know what to do so they go to Vishnu what do we do and Vishnu says make an alliance with the asuras and churn the ocean of milk and out will come the nectar And tell the asuras that they you will share the nectar with them. But I will make sure that they don’t get any nectar don’t worry so the davis say okay so they do there’s a whole big process and there’s an avatar of Vishnu the kuruma avatara who is necessary.

Because here’s the tortoise he’s a tortoise a Turtle and then on top of that is the mount mandara and on top of that is the snake vasuki and this also has to do with the turtle that’s at the navel and the kundalini. And the churning and the first thing that comes out is hello And hala halal literally means holla means to shake or to cause to tremble oh hola means it is unshakable so hala means the kind of venom the kind of poison that can shake even the unshakable. So that’s some pretty strong poison some people say that it came out of the mouth of the snake.

Some people say that it came from the ocean of milk etc from the internal point of view it’s the same thing whatever it was there was this terrific poison that was so poisonous that it was going to destroy the entire universe and how’s that going to work out. So Shiva volunteers he says don’t worry all the rest of you gods can enjoy all the good stuff that comes out I. I’m interested in poisons because I am always taking intoxicants all the time so I’m going to take this poison and I will protect the entire cosmos and I shall keep it at my throat some versions of the story say it was parvati who stopped.

And kept the poison from going any further some people say it was Shiva himself in any event the poison was so strong That it caused his throat to turn blue and that’s why he’s called nilakanta once the nectar came out. And there’s a whole story behind that then Vishnu took on the form of mohini beautiful woman and she passed out all of the nectar to All the gods but not to the asuras except to one named rahu who got a drop of it.

But had his head chopped off and is in two pieces and is in the sky as a graha now Shiva meanwhile was not watching this happen because he was trying to deal with the alaaha poison that was making him very very it was a strong intoxication. And he was having to sit still And manage it and when he finally came to everything was over and then he said to Vishnu gosh I wasn’t able to see the mohini form and Vishnu said are you sure you want to see the mohini swarupa and Shiva said yes. So there are many versions of the story but anyway mohini reappeared Shiva and mohini.

Had a thing going on and as a result they had a son and that son is in kettlebell they call him ayappa in tamil nadu they call him ayanna it there’s a bunch of stories about him too so that’s a whole mythic cycle that samudra and there’s another important very important. Myth related to Shiva and why he is so connected to the river ganga and that’s called the ganga tarana the bringing down of the ganga from the celestial regions down to the earth.

So there was a a great sage a great moonie whose name was kapila and he was meditating and There was a king named sagara and this king was performing a special sacrifice that only kings performed called an ashwameda a horse sacrifice and. When you do this you let the horse wander for a year and then you make the you make sure the horse comes back to where it started And that shows wherever it is wandered if you’re a king.

That all becomes your territory unless somebody decides to fight in which case you fight and then you decide by trial by combat who actually wins but otherwise you normally do this when you’re pretty sure nobody’s going to fight so off went the horse and indra that same India who’s causing trouble. Stole the horse left it at kapila’s ashram the sixty thousand sons of kapila and this also sixty thousand this relates to the number of nadis in the body so this again is a external but also internal kind of thing also kundalini related 60 60 000.

Boys just fi discover the horse at kapila’s ashram and they all think that they that he had stolen it and they decide to attack him and as soon as they decide this even before they can attack him kapila thinks this is really tedious so he opens his eyes and immediately all sixty thousand are incinerated completely and then he. Takes the ashes and sends them down into hell into the netherworld and there they are in an unfortunate condition and he says where somebody says only the waters of the celestial ganga who up in heaven the only way.

That these 60 000 young whippersnappers are ever going to Be uplifted again as if the water of the celestial ganga comes down and washes them because he’s thinking that’s not going to happen anytime soon let them enjoy their time down there thinking about what they did. So this is an unhappy moment for the whole family of King sagara sagara eventually becomes a word that means ocean possibly because of this anyway the great nephew of these 60 000 boys is named bhagiratha and he becomes the king eventually and he thinks I should do something nice for my 60 000.

Great uncles and so he undertakes rigorous penance and makes the celestial gunga happy and he says please I want you to come down to earth and then go down to the nether world and take care of my ancestors and she says that’s a great idea but if I come down from heaven onto the earth so again remember. Internally also this is the kundalini thing happening then I will destroy the entire earth and if that happens that won’t be so good so I don’t know what do you think and bhagavad-gita says I don’t know what do you think and ganga says I’m pretty sure that Shiva is the only Being who can withstand me.

So bhagavad-gita says okay and then he starts doing severe penance for Shiva Namah Shivaya omni shivaya omni shivaya and finally Shiva says what is it and bhagiratha says I need you to break the force of the fall of the ganga. So that the earth will not be destroyed So Shiva says okay so the ganga comes down and it lands in Shiva’s jacha jata means dreadlocks Shiva’s matted matted locks matted hair and she descends there he takes all of the force of. That descent that descent from the celestial world down into the Human world and then she flows down and the ganga in the body flows down through the right nostril flows down through the planes to.

And in the in the world she flows flows down from the himalaya into haradawa to prayaga where she meets the Yamana then takashi and then to ganga sagara where she meets the ocean and then when she met the ocean she went down to the netherworld. And she flew fl flowed over the six ashes of the sixty thousand boys and they were saved and everybody was happy including of course everybody who bathes In the ganga and has a good result from doing that and all those people who visit and live on the ganga and.

Therefore in honor of everything that bhagiratha did to cause ganga to come down the source of the ganga Which is used to be 18 kilometers now it’s further ahead up from the town of gangotri that river is called the bhagirathi. And it only becomes the ganga after it meets the alakananda at the city of devaprayaga the last story well I shouldn’t say that The second to the last story that I am going to re mention is of the linga of light because that is an indication of how the linga came to be worshipped as the symbol of Shiva the word linga.

Actually just means symbol or sign so this is a sign of Shiva and it’s a sign it’s it’s in many ways it is a male sign it’s the male organ. But it’s also just a sign and it’s a sign of reality and it is it is anything that can act as a sign Of that supreme reality so one day brahma and Vishnu were quarreling brahma said I created the world. So I must be god and Vishnu said you created the world but I am preserving the world and if you’re saying that you must be god that means you’re not really god And then.

Now they’re quarreling about who really is god and all of a sudden a giant pillar of light blazed up through the sky as far as they could see up above and as far as they could see down below and it was extraordinarily brilliant and it was over overpowering an Infinite and. So they decided to figure out where it was coming from and what its limitation was so Vishnu became the boar varaha and he went down into the netherworld because when Vishnu.

Is in the boer incarnation he goes down under the surface of the ocean to bring up the earth where it has been stolen by the asura hiranyaksa and brahma whose vehicle whose vahana is a goose or a swan depending on who you talk to Brahma got onto his vehicle. And flew up as high as he could go and after thousands of years neither one could find the bottom or the top so they came back to the starting place and then Shiva emerged and told them actually it is me and this is my sign this is my linga and.

So ever since this the linga Which acts as the axis mundi the connection of the sky and the earth to one another has been the sign of Shiva. Now there is a further variant to this story some people say that when brahma came back he as he was As he was flying he saw a kataki a pandanus or screw pine flower falling and brahma said to the flower what’s what’s the origin of. This and the pine flower said I’ve been falling for thousands of years I have no idea and brahma said I want you to I’m I’m I’m going to claim that I saw the Top and I want you to testify that that’s true and.

So the scrupine flower for some reason we don’t know why said okay so then they came down and then they told Vishnu that actually we did see the top and so it’s not an infinite and then Shiva appeared and said you’re. Lying and with one fingernail chopped off the head of brahma who had lied now there’s another story that vish Shiva chopped off the head of brahma when he tried when he was trying to attack his daughter set us with thee but anyway we.

Agree that Shiva did chop off the head of brahma and when he did the head of brahma got connected to his hand and he had to walk around for thousands of years as a kapalan kapalan means. He who has a skull who always carries a skull and he became known as biksha atana the beggar version of Shiva wandered through all the three worlds until he got to Kashi to banaras and he released he reached the tirth he he reached the pond. Known as kapalamochana and there the skull fell from his hand and he was freed he was purified and then he became baidava or so that story says anyway there’s so many stories of Shiva.

So many many stories of Shiva And the story that I would like to end with is one that I learned very early on almost well 46 years ago in september or maybe maybe it was in fact a little later than. That actually it was a little later than that probably possibly even shivarati I don’t remember 45 years ago let’s say shivarati ish in a small village near the city of arlandi which is 21 kilometers outside pune there are two allendes in maharashtra al-andi devaci alandi of the gods and goddesses.

The devas and arlandi soraci the alandi of the thieves this is arlandi devatsi so near arlandi is a small village and it’s supposed to be one of those places where cubed the god of wealth lives and there’s supposed to be a fantastic treasure nearby. This is a story that I tell an agora to and there’s supposedly an inscription a sheila lake carved in stone which is submerged in the river that tells you how to perform a human sacrifice in order to get.

This wealth many people have tried nothing has ever happened once upon a time there was a king who heard about this inscription And decided to perform a sacrifice and the only person that he could find who was an appropriate victim was the son of the temple priest. Because the priest and his wife were more interested in gold than that boy probably they had more than one and they thought we need money we don’t need one extra mouth to feed in any event at the time of the sacrifice the boy threw his arms around the linga.

Just like Markandeya did and said I haven’t done anything to deserve to be sacrificed like this and Shiva was very upset he showed up in a terrifying form and he was so terrifying that the priest and the mother and father of the boy. All fell dead on the spot thud and then Shiva asked the boy what can I do for you now I prevented you from being sacrificed I have killed the king and your parents because they are wicked what can I do.

Now and the boy said please bring them all back to life and Shiva said they were just going to Kill you a few minutes ago it’s better they just should be spirits I will make them I will teach them a good lesson and the boy said no it’s. Because of them that I had darshan that I had a vision of you and I am very thankful to them because otherwise who knows I might never have had a vision of you. So please bring them back to life I definitely don’t want to have anything To do with them anymore I’m going to focus on you now that I’ve had vision of you.

But I I don’t want to have any any I don’t want me to be the cause of them not staying alive anymore and Shiva was very pleased. Because the boy was very clever and this is Of course a good attitude to have the attitude of being thankful the attitude of not being revengeful and the attitude of always taking shelter grabbing hold of the linga especially when things are at their worst especially when things seem to be the most hopeless. Grab hold of the shava linga and hold on to it for dear life and refuse this is what markandeya did his father was given the option you can have a son who will be lived to be very old.

And will be an idiot or you can have a son that will be the best in the all possible ways and will die at age 16. so marcondia’s father said I’d rather have the Clever son. Because he said well yeah 16 years we’ll think about it when the time comes so when the time came here nearer Markandeya’s father said to him look the god of death is coming from you at age 16. you’re going to have to try to avoid that grab hold of the Shiva linga don’t let go.

So when the god of death came yama Markandeya grabbed hold that Shiva linga didn’t let go And after a while Shiva who is yama but is a higher form of yama came to yama and said I am a higher form of you I know you’re supposed to take him. But I’m sorry you can’t so yama said but it’s written right here I’m supposed to take him Shiva said I’m your boss even though we’re the same thing so don’t try To tell me my job I know my job I know your job too go away.

So you almost said yes boss and Markandeya then became immortal so you may not be immortal or you might but in any event grab hold of Shiva linga don’t let go always have faith Om Namah Shivaya.