Spark of Divinity
Everywhere we go here in the foothills of the Himalayas, we see images and symbols of Shiva. Of the principal Hindu deities, Shiva is the yogi, the ascetic, the rebel who does not conform to society’s mores. His home is in the Himalayas, on Mt. Kailash, where he sits in meditation. The foothills of the Himalayas, source of the sacred Ganges river, are locks of Shiva’s matted hair.
We took a helicopter onto one of the snow-capped Himalayas above Manali. We landed at about 14,500 feet, a little above Bhirgu Lake and just below a ridgeline. The heavy snowfall doesn’t come until January and February, so we were able, by choosing our steps carefully, to make our way up to the ridge though knee-deep (and occasionally waist-deep) snow.
At that height, one understands why Shiva would choose the Himalayas as his place of meditation. There was a preternatural quiet in that white, sculptured landscape. Ours were the only tracks in the snow. The only other creature in sight was a Himalayan vulture soaring effortlessly high above us. We sat in the snow and immediately felt a sense of tranquility.
Shiva is part of the Trimurti, the trinity of principal Gods. As in the Christian trinity, the three Gods are distinct entities and are simultaneously three aspects of the one God, Brahman. The three Gods of the Trimurti are Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma (not to be confused with Brahman, the one God, or with Brahmin, a member of the priest caste). In its simplest formulation, Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver, and Shiva is the destroyer of the world. The reality is much more complicated, as there is not a single Hindu tradition or canonical set of beliefs, and there are many texts and stories. In some traditions, Shiva is the supreme God and creator of the world; in some, Vishnu is; in others, the supreme God and creator of the world is Adi Parashakti, the divine feminine.
Brahma creates the world from his own mind, demonstrating the creative nature of the divine, but he is immediately seduced by his creation. Upon creating the first female, Saraswati, he pursues her lustfully. She tries to hide from him, but he sprouts extra heads so he can see in all directions. She changes her form to various animals, but each time she does he changes his form to match hers. In this way, the great variety of animals is created. Finally Shiva intervenes, chopping off the fifth head of Brahma and placing a curse on him.
Vishnu and Shiva offer two different paths for avoiding the spiritual dangers inherent in the created world. Vishnu offers the path of duty: by adhering to strict moral, social, and spiritual codes, we can be “in the world but not of the world,” fulfill our destinies, and come into our true, divine selves. Shiva offers the path of renunciation: by withdrawing from the world, practicing austerities, yoga, and meditation, we can come to directly perceive the true nature of reality and our own divine form. Shiva is the destroyer because he turns his mind away from the created world, and, in doing so, it ceases to exist.
Despite the fate of Brahma, I am very interested in the creative nature of the divine. Our true inner self is dynamic, creative, and original. But when we allow ourselves to be ruled by fear, when we narrow ourselves to fit into someone else’s vision of what we ought to be, our inner creative fire is diminished. When we open ourselves up and live according to our own inner vision, our inner creativity is expressed in whatever we are doing.
John O’Donohue talks about nature as a mirror of the creativity of the divine imagination, about the wild differentiation of the many and varied forms that nature takes. Himachal Pradesh is known as “the fruit basket of India.” Apples, plums, peaches, apricots, pears, cherries, kiwis, pomegranates, olives, oranges, and other citrus fruits are all important crops. Our village is full of orchards, and we have fresh lemons and persimmons from trees in the backyard of our homestay.
At home a persimmon is a rare treat; here it is something we eat every day. And what other thing is like a persimmon? or a kiwi? or a pomegranate? The variety and absolute wonder of the natural world is endless and amazing. In Pune we ate a fruit called custard apple. From the outside it looks like a lumpy mass of green-gray scales; inside, it contains smooth black seeds surrounded by creamy, sweet, and delectable white flesh. It is one of the most delicious fruits I have ever tasted, and I have never tasted anything even remotely like it.
We celebrated the recent winter solstice by practicing yoga, reading poems by O’Donohue, reciting a prayer from the Upanishads, writing down things from last year we wanted to leave behind and casting them into the fire, and writing down our intentions for the year ahead. The things I wanted to leave behind were fear and doubt and narrowness. My intentions were to be courageous, to trust, to open myself up to my true divine nature: ultimately, to be creative.
O’Donohue refers to this kind of fearlessness and creativity as our inner wildness. When we living this wildness, there is no cause for fear or shame or self-consciousness. He recites a poem, “The Rose,” by Angelus Silesius, a 17th-century German physician, priest, poet, and mystic:
The rose is without ‘why’;
it blooms simply because it blooms.
It pays no attention to itself,
nor does it ask whether anyone sees it.
We visited Bijli Mahadev, the lightning temple, a Shiva temple situated on a hill high above the village of Kullu, with commanding views of the Kullu and Paravarti valleys. Next to the temple, a 60-foot-tall staff protrudes into the sky from the naked hilltop. According to legend, each year lightning strikes this staff and shatters the temple’s Shiva lingam. The lingam is an aniconic representation of Shiva as a phallus, typically made of stone, and symbolizing divine, masculine creative energy. It is typically found on a yoni representing the divine feminine, and together they represent the non-dual, masculine and feminine totality of God and the universe.
The temple priests collect the pieces of the lingam and reassemble it, holding the pieces together with butter. After some time, the lingam miraculously regenerates itself and becomes whole again. I like to think of the lightning striking the temple as a spark of divinity, eternally renewing the divine creative energy. Entering into the new year, I am asking, without shame, for help opening up to my inner wildness, for a divine spark to ignite my inner creativity. In the words of Rainer Maria Rilke:
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
This is one of a series of posts written during our travels. You can find the first post here, and you can find the next post here. You can sign up for email alerts about future posts here.
