Aum Namahshiváya: Salutations to Shiva! Traditional prayer.
All that is born dies. Creatures from microbes and insects to mammals and mammoths perish sooner or later. Inanimate things created by humans, such as tables and chairs, homes and art-works eventually decay. So it is with mountains, rivers, planets, stars and galaxies. Not just the short-lived bloom of flowers and fruits and the steady heartbeat of healthy humans, but everything ultimately comes to a final halt. From the frail whisper of the gentle breeze to the sturdiest of rocks, from the mute interactions of leptons and hadrons to the seemingly endless existence of spectacular galaxies, everything is destined ultimately to end.
Philosophers have reflected on this ultimate terminus to all that exists, poets have reflected on it, and religions have articulated doctrinal perspectives on the inevitable cessation of all that is. Mictlantecuhtli, Yama, Pluto, Hel, Shinigami, and Ankou are the names associated with some of the death-deities in various religions.
Beyond names and forms, transcending metaphysics and stories of the lore, there is an abstract principle that brings to naught all that has emerged from an unfathomable source. The cause of this ultimate dissolution of everything in the universe, and of the universe itself is the Mystery called Shiva that is painted on the canvass of Hindu vision.
Shiva is the dot that completes every sentence of existence, the last breath that lulls the lungs, the invisible rope that closes the curtain on the cosmic show, the final puff of the physical world, the ultimate sigh of the grand cosmos itself. The Shiva Principle is one of the three primordial forces that Create, Sustain, and Erase the universe in recurring cycles.
Inevitably, this grand and abstract concept has been elaborated with poetic imagery in multitudinous ways and associated with a hundred fascinating episodes in Hindu sacred history. To the outsider these would seem little more than fanciful legends: Religious truths are not like stories from Aesop, but cultural certitudes that only the initiated can experience. So, to the devout practitioner, not just the abstract Shiva Principle, but the associated attributes, are sublime Reality. There is no religion without the poetry of symbols and the metaphor of legends to add color and meaning to the abstract resonance of revealed truths.
So Shiva has been called by a thousand names, represented with a blue neck, a coiled cobra and matted hair whence flows the sacred River Ganga. His body is smeared with ash. He is shown as seated on tiger skin, on the slopes of Kailásh in the Himalayan range. Each of these has a sacred story.
Since time immemorial, the practitioners of the Hindu tradition have been marking a day in their religious calendar to meditate upon this abstract principle that stands for the unseen switch that lets all the lights go off. This auspicious day of observance is known as Mahá Shivarátri. In 2016 this that day fell on March 7. In 2025 it is on February 25.
Meditation On Shiva
Oh Majestic Shiva majestic, auspicious Your name.
The Vedas call you Rudra, among Hindus you have fame.
As third of the Triune, dissolution You bring
But as Pashupati, You protect every living thing.
Source of conscious Self is a vision we have of You.
In our sacred history: Your neck is seen as blue
With coiled cobra round your neck, body smeared in gray,
Seated on tiger skin, is how we invoke You today.
You turned lustful Káma to dust one distant day
Your name touches us all in a truly awesome way.
We picture You on Kailásh Mount.
Of the sacred Ganga your tuft is source and fount.
You are ticking the Time that has no start or end,
As Shankara, the Beneficent, You are a trusted friend.
You are Mahádeva, the Great Deva too,
By a Thousand different names we all worship You.
Your occult powers are much more
Than names and forms in lore. (X)
You’re the One that brings to naught
All that comes as thing or thought.
Not just the bloom of flower, and the beat of human heart,
But each and everything that ever had a start:
From the whisper frail of the gentle breeze
To sturdy rocks and age-old trees,
From every thing, from the very small
To shining stars and galaxies all,
Whatever is born, whatever evolves
Sooner or later sure dissolves.
From here below to up on high,
You’re indeed the final sigh.
Whenever on You we meditate
We feel how fleeting is our earthly state.
Spurts of Thought 