Showing posts with label kama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kama. Show all posts

3.26.2020

A Sweet Smile of Sublime Beauty

It was the first glimpse I caught of her, she appeared settled on the sacred seat within the sanctum of the Kanchi temple. Kamakshi Amman smiled back at me in quiet demeanor. My thoughts flew off my mind as my eyes rolled over every aspect of the sanctum, taking her form in. Her face smeared with sandal wood housed the most beautiful smile and her eyes gazed straight back at me.

My heart welled up with emotions, my mind rested blankly in a void, and I just gazed back at her. We have known each other for a while now, our relationship has evolved in quiet silence. She is everything to me and she had called me back to Kanchipuram again unexpectedly, as I drove down the geriatric folks of my family to her doorstep. I wasn’t going to miss this for anything. The corporate world could wait a day for me, for when she called, every body would wait. It was a crazy day, with a customer visit lined up in the afternoon, I had taken the chance. She had called and I found myself hitting the highway to Kanchipuram with an eye on the time to reach my workplace by lunch. It was a crazy schedule but the heart clearly ruled the mind as I sped up the road to reach her world.

I stared back at those divine eyes, they spoke to me in their silence. I observed her chamber, she was warm even in the distance that separated her from me. I was simply speechless feeling every moment of the void in my head. With emotions welling up in my heart I just took every bit of her into myself. I had been blessed to witness her “vishwaroopa darshanam”, a glorious view of her I had never seen before, a form she blesses us with once every year. She oozed with charm, beauty flowed through every part of her being as she stared back at me, I recollected the sweet verses of the Soundarya Lahari. Oh yes, she was every bit an ocean of beauty, of compassion, and of warmth and unconditional love.

The emotions I feel towards her, are those I would never be able to feel towards anybody else. There is so much love for her that wells up when I see her. I know she is there, welcoming in the warmth of the lamp light that brightens her face. She had called me, and I had dashed to her door step, quite literally to learn what it is to love her again, to feel the divine grace envelop me as I stood there mesmerized by her beauty. The chamber was different today for a cow stood at the ardha mandapa with her calf cozy at her feet. The cow stared back at me quite comfortable with strangers around her. There was no one in the chamber, just the divine mother and me, and we connected in silence, in emotions, in strange love that left me detached from the rest of the world. Nothing mattered, expect her. Nothing was important except her. Nothing existed except her. Nothing drove me to such a level of intense love except her. Nothing was more powerful than the void that hung inside my head. Was this what I felt, unconditional love, sweet surrender, a crazy sense of freedom from every aspect of my life. I felt freedom for those few minutes, when no one mattered, because no one existed, I was and she was and nothing else was.

I looked at her feeling a deep sense of bliss. The state of overpowering intense love and a blank mind was hard to come by, I was there at this moment, a tremendous sense of peace draped my being. This is what I called freedom, I belonged no where, I belonged to no one, and yet I was hers to own. I knew no time for she was all that stood. I felt no desire or attachment for she was all the truth I knew. Such depth of freedom and detachment from the bonded world around me made me realize just how much no one owned me. I was alone here, without rules, without any sense of connection to what I thought was the universe around me. I knew then that I am a potent drop of intense love in her ocean of beauty reflected in that divine smile on her sacred face, in pure sublime union with the Goddess.

I am her, she is me and that is the only truth I behold.

6.07.2017

The Secret World of the Green Parrot

Have you ever wondered why green parrots were chosen for being pet birds? In mythology, there has been a strong association of the damsel in love to carry a cage with a green parrot in it which has through ages been associated with the flavor of sensual love. In mystic poetry, green parrots hold the secret of her love mate, and have often spilled those beans when someone comes along and lets them free.


Kamadeva (Wikipedia)

In the world of ancient iconography green parrots have been associated with the Lord of Love - Kama, who holds a sugarcane bow with a string of honey bees. The form of Parvati, Kanchi Kameshwari, holds a Green Parrot and a sugarcane bow with a string of honey bees in her hand as she resides on her beloved the Great Lord Shiva, at the Kamakshi Amman temple in Kanchipuram. Green parrots are associated with this potent essence of mortal love that transforms into divine love while sugarcane and honey bees describe the sweetness of such love. Somewhere along the way we lost the main meaning and just blindly followed the rule of pet birds. Maybe that’s a reason why parrots and love birds made it as pet birds in cages…a hope to keep the love energy active within grihasta.

But here is the twist to this beautiful story. While Goddess Kamakshi holds the green parrot in her hand, it is her consort Lord Shiva who slays Kama, the green parrot who hold the 5 potent arrows of love. Is there something for us to look deeper and wake up to? Kama, the cupid, Lord of sensual mortal love, holds 5 potent arrows tipped in 5 sacred flowers that can mesmerize any human to fall prey to the power of mortal sexual love and stay captive within its sweetness. And with one hit there is practically no chance of revival. It is one such deadly mistake that the great Devas made when they approached Kama to strike these arrows into the Great Yogishwara Himself. But little did Kama know of his own fate when he did that.

The great Ravana (yes I admire this asura) has furiously written this sacred verse on the potency of the love of Lord Shiva, who is way beyond the small world of love that Kama promises us.

Karaala bhaala pattikaa dhagad dhagad dhagaj jwala-
Ddhananjayaa hutee kruta prachanda pancha sayakae
Dharaa dharendra nandinee kuchagra chitrapatraka-
Prakalpanaika shilpini, trilochane ratir mama. ||7||

He on whose intense forehead the great fire of enlightenment burns Dhahaga Dhaga
He who burnt the God of Love, the one with five arrows,
He who describes the essence of pure love by drawing beautiful lines
On the tip of the breasts of the daughter of the mountain
He is of deep interest to me


Why did Lord Shiva burn Kama with the great fire of enlightenment? Now this fire of enlightenment is not any old fire, it’s the divine fire of wisdom. Let’s get past mere mythology and dive into the sacred world of Tantra Shastra. The divine fire of wisdom can destroy the mere fire of sensual love and that decided the fate of Lord Kama. That also decides our fate, if we choose to have the lesser fire of carnal desire burn in the divine flame of spiritual wisdom.

Our problem is that we didn’t ever get past the mythology of why Lord Shiva killed Kama. The deeper meaning of this great mythology is the deep wisdom that somewhere in our race to live, we have lost our purpose or never dug hard enough to find it.

What a beautiful verse the Demon Ravana writes:

The intensity of spiritual wisdom is so high in the great Yogishwara, that the arrows of mere mortal love practically had no effect on him. He writes instead of the spiritual essence of Lord Shiva's love, who is a greater spiritual lover, who describes a higher form of love that is not mere sensual excitement. Clearly the great Yogishwara is not a mere mortal, and such minor flames don’t affect him, hence it was Kama who burned in the fire of wisdom. Did he kill him - No, did Kama die - No, but symbolically Kama, the God of lesser love was taught the art of greater consciousness in spiritual love.

What effect does this story have in our world?
We are capable of greater love, in our mere mortal existence to move ahead beyond sexual boundaries. Divine love, bhakti, and a sense of greater adoration brings compassion into our minds towards lesser beings and greater bliss towards divinity. We have just one trump card - abundance of love - we need to channelize it towards greater spiritual bliss and not waste it in lesser mortal pleasures. The mythological story has a deeper secret towards earning spiritual energy and the green parrot is a constant reminder of how far away we are from it.




9.19.2016

Love in Spiritualism - Unconditional or Sensual?

The term "love" has many depictions in the scriptures, from rapturous sensuality as a form of expression to divine intoxication. The celestial being in our scriptures have either risen to the pinnacle of devotion or they have plummeted into the abyss of sexual satiation. Either way this emotion in its many forms makes or breaks a sadhak's spiritual endeavor. 

Love stems out of chemistry in gross terms and that's possibly the most mundane animal tendency we can see in ourselves. So blinding is the emotion that we as humans, have practically failed to look beyond it. But if and when we do get the chance to transcend this state and move to the next level, the definition of love changes drastically for good. 

Some call it Neela Madhava Bhava, others call it Madhura bhava, I some how relate to Neela Madhava Bhava a lot more. This is a state when love becomes unconditional, where bhakti takes over and rules the emotions. This is when love is not equated with gross sensuality but its a different high, that works more in the mind of course fed by emotion. It has nothing to do with physical attraction but the effect is far more intense in the mind, and lasts longer... possibly for good. 

Neela madhava bhava can be expressed to a celestial being in abstraction, to an idol representing that abstraction within a temple or quite simple to another human being who expresses similar state of mind. This bhava is beyond relationship, beyond rules and so free is its nature that it culminates in unconditional love towards others. Ramprasad Sen, a great poet and tantrik practitioner of his time went through this emotion in great depth, so much so that he practically prayed to Ma Kali to help him seek others who related to her divinity the same way.  

Many misunderstand Kaula tantra as an art form of love. To the uninitiated it may look like a potential orgy, but to the seeker the experience is way beyond words. When one sadhak goes through divine intoxication and relates to another sadhak with a similar mindset, the interaction is potentially that of Shiva and Shakthi, Krishna and Radha, but with one difference - There is complete detachment and yet there is extreme love and there is no sensuality in the picture. Love is a strong emotion that takes both the aspirants through, the gross bodies don't unite but the minds are in union. What results from the interaction is a higher state of bliss, in the mind and in consciousness.

Spiritualism is potent and as much as it offers such fantastic experiences to the mind, and soul it asks the physical body to have self restraint. The earthly definitions of love fall flat in the spiritual space. Attachment, ownership, pride and low grade orgasms have no place in this world. This world is beyond known imagination of love that has been peddled as a great experience, of the gross kind. In the spiritual space, this emotion starts with surrender, deep and pure surrender with no doubts. And when the Gods act on it, they speak to us, through events, through thoughts and through Neela Madhava Bhava.

ललाटचत्वरज्वलद्धनञ्जयस्फुलिङ्गभा
निपीतपञ्चसायकं नमन्निलिम्पनायकम् |
सुधामयूखलेखया विराजमानशेखरं
महाकपालिसम्पदेशिरोजटालमस्तु नः ||६||



- Ravana Tandava Shlokam (Wikipedia)


May we get the wealth of Siddhis from Śiva's locks of hair, 
which devoured the God of Love with the sparks of the fire flaming in His forehead, 
who is bowed by all the celestial leaders, 
who is beautiful with a crescent moon

Its time we unleashed that lesser known emotion to get the best of its potential. We are truly capable of a lot more, we need to believe we are ready for this new wave of emotion, for once it engulfs us, its a flood gate to heaven... in a spiritual space. Remember, even Kama had to be burned in the fire of enlightenment, he didn't survive the intensity of the great Lord Shiva himself.