The Hare and the Tortoise

It was a realization this morning that the story of the hare and the tortoise can be interpreted in more ways than one. While the common sought after and understood symbolism tickles our aspirations for success and ambition, there is a completely different revelation that invokes our spiritual side. It made me dwell deeper into the possible nature of both these creatures and it was extremely insightful. 

Before I move on to the actual story, lets just skim through their respective natures. 

Hares are short lived with a life span of a maximum of 12 years, they are extremely fast and sure footed and it is their defense mechanism when they sense danger. Now, hares run super fast, but not necessarily in a straight line, not necessarily on a given path, there is no logic to their running, except to run fast and hide. Hares are restless creatures, and far from calm. This very simple description of the hare makes me wonder - are we not all hares? 

In our mundane world, we are restless and distracted and surely far from calm. Our consciousness is limited to what attracts our senses immediately and we take the beaten track based on what we have been taught as the essence of living. And like a hare, we don't sit and think hard enough. 

Lets look at the tortoise. Calm, purposeful, slow but focused and they are there to stay. Tortoise have the longest life span, and they are resilient by nature as well as self sufficient. Give the tortoise a path and it will keep walking, not looking anywhere with no distractions. There is nothing in the way of the tortoise and they are extremely focused in their approach, they therefore tend to last longer and sustain themselves. 

Now when we look at the story, I see the attitude of the hare being my current lifestyle. Distracted, moody, agile, fast paced, restless and aimless. My only purpose is to run and run fast so as to out do the next hare. Is that all my purpose is? I would never win the race because I am just running with no sign of the goal. I am running in defense with no focus on the long term goal am trying to achieve. How, with this nature, do I even believe I am going to be successful and calm at the same time?! And then we have the desires, symbolized by the deep sleep that the hare has. Temptations that are scattered all over our path, and a hare stops to experience all of them. 

The nature of the tortoise is to be slow but it knows where it is headed and it is in no rush to get there and there are little temptations to fall for. The tortoise doesn't fall for desire, it just moves on purposefully. The tortoise is therefore calmer, silent, resilient, and strong. Its the focus of the tortoise that really intrigues me, the lack of distraction, the single point consciousness and the vigor to go through with it slowly despite all the noise around it. And when the din gets too loud, it just needs to go under its shell and block the noise out. A tortoise moves without a sense of doubt, it may be slow but that's OK, it is super purposeful and it knows, when it gets there, it has certainly arrived. 

Hare: "I Run and therefore I Am"
Tortoise: "I Am and soon I Am Not".

I need to move away from being a hare and I need to move towards wanting to be a tortoise. Slow, deep longer breaths, slower heart beats, fewer desires, and focus, single point consciousness towards reaching my goal. 

Because when I arrive, I know, there is no going back. Its the state of complete consciousness and there are no more races to run. 

The Shiva Path

The Shiva Path is a state of mind that raises me from the dead...

||Om Namo Bhagavate Rudraya||

To live the state of Shiva
Is to give up the luxury of life
Is to dive deep into the basics of my existence
Is to dive into the reason for living
Is to dive deep away from this maya
From this noise

To live the state of Shiva
Is to question every rule in the rule book
Is to discover myself
Not as an extension of society 
But as the defiant one
Who has the vigor to look the truth in the face

To live the state of Shiva
Is to give up all attachment, 
And accept my inherent nature
Not as "I am"
But to get beyond it 
Focus on the "I will be"

To live the state of Shiva
Is to seek the grace of the supreme Lord
Divine grace, that which keeps me alive
Divine grace, that will guide me out of this maya
Teaches me mystical secrets
Awaken this inner soul

To live the state of Shiva,
One can't be frivolous
One can't be weak
One can't seek convenience
One can't let go of austerity
One expresses self restraint. 

To live the state of Shiva
Is to take life seriously
Is to evolve to silence
Is to evolve to single pointedness
Is to let go
Is to leave

To live the state of Shiva
Is to live Ekaggata
One pointedness
Non-scattering
Non-distraction
The Single focus on Om Shivam

I am a piece of log burnt to ashes 
Lifeless and reduced to dust. 
Seeking a drop of divine ambrosia 
Like sacred ghee 
To revive the sacred fires of grace
Of enlightenment within me.


||Om Namo Bhagavate Rudraya|| 

A Spark of Potent Divine Love

I have been spending a good amount of mind time trying to understand what led up to the transformation of Karaikkal Ammaiyar - from a devoted house wife to a demon devotee.

This is not just a social transformation, this is a transformation at many levels which simply baffles me ... on what really happened. The recorded story and its dilutions just talks about her ability to muster up the power to acquire a mango from the Lord himself, (which is a super wow factor) but in reality it would have been quite something else to witness it.

We are talking about the period of 6th Century AD, a time when the Pallavas were the rising rulers in the South, and invasion from the Chalukyas was a regular feature. We are also talking about a period when Tantricism was on the rise, more as a chosen spiritual path than a ground for black magic (you have got to view this differently). Added to this is the social structure of not allowing the woman too much liberty. Belonging to a merchant class she was a devoted house wife and recorded history doesn’t talk about her being blessed with children. This is her broad external landscape.

Her internal landscape talks a completely different tale. An ardent devotee of Shiva, so powerful that she could request for anything and He would bless her with it. She clearly didn’t wish for much, had no inclination to wealth or materialism and from what circumstances have in store for her, her husband clearly didn’t match up. It is evident from recorded history that he left her and went, not because he fell for someone else but more because he got spooked out when she gave him a mango, out of nowhere. She couldn't help herself. He ruled the house and she was the obedient wife; he asked for a mango and she produced one out of nowhere. It triggered the start of change in her life as a house holder. It would have taken the next 5-7 years for her to realize that he had left her for good as we get to know he went to another town, got married and had a kid. And she waited this whole time, still devoted, hoping he would come back. The turmoil in her mind is unthinkable, given the simplicity of her life, sprinkled with spiritual overtones.

When she found him at last, she was in for one of the rudest shocks of her life. He didn't just cheat her, he was in a marriage with a child to boot. To see one's husband, whom she loved a lot (we assume), with another woman and a child still is a great shock to most people (time doesn’t count here, its emotion). What would she have gone through?

There were only two in her reality who received her devoted love - Her husband and Lord Shiva. Her world was complete between them when the jolt of letting go one of them came up. The most powerful abilities of a woman is to unconditionally and intensely love someone and endure any amount of pain for them. But that intense devotion also comes with a caveat. Should a woman be wronged, she gets what she wishes for and that can be a life changer, not just for her but for everyone around her. We see the most bewildering transformation in her case.

In her anger or her disappointment, or her sheer superior maturity and wisdom, she gave up what she held on to all her life. She had remained sensuously dress for the period her husband left her and she gave it up, probably in sheer disgust. The beaten track of marriage was taken away from her, not by the Lord but by the man who married her. He simply acknowledged he was not good enough for her and beat a hasty retreat. In sheer determination she gave up Grihasta, family, society, order, materialism, beauty, sensuousness - the world we call "normal living" - and opted for everything outside of it. The familiar world had no meaning left in her life.

Karaikkal Ammaiyar, transformed into an emaciated demon and inhabited the cremation ground. She chose a world where no human would bother her easily and devoted her world to Lord Shiva, the only one who really really stood by her. Devotion has a different meaning here, far more potent, far more intense and Karaikkal Ammaiyar proves to us that we can reach that pinnacle of love. Here is the twist in her story though. Her poetry describes her love for her Lord, love even among ghosts and ghouls. Love that is as intense and doesn't have to be sensuous alone. Love that knows no relationship, love that works magic.

She describes a cremation ground where creatures roam, creatures who have demonic attributes, feed on melting brains from bodies burning in the pyre... yes she is very graphic. She writes about a world that you and I don't have the courage to see. She talks about another realm, a parallel universe in the same relative space and time where other beings also inhabit the same planet we live in. What power did she possess that made her live with as much ease in a deadly dark world of ghosts as she lived in a marriage? Karaikkal Ammaiyar went through a transformation neither you nor I can stomach. It was her sheer determination that either transported her to that world, or transformed her while blessing her with the divine vision (divya dristi) to sit in a regular cremation ground and still view all the different realms at play at the same time.

Temple walls depict her playing the cymbals as Ma Kali dances with Lord Shiva Nataraja in Urdhva Nataraja pose. Karaikkal Ammaiyar's poetry talks extensively about the world of ghosts in the middle of whom the great Lord dances. And yet, our version of Karaikkal  Ammaiyar's life appears so simple and naive! Why did recorded history not give us the actual facts, explicitly for us to realize that Karaikkal Ammaiyar's life speaks of human transformation, and the sheer ability of a woman to do so?

Why are we so incapable that we cannot look through all this to understand that spiritualism works best outside of social order? Why are we so scared that we cannot take a step away from safe haven? Why are we so useless that we happily settle for a million lives of suffering than take up one life to have the determination to look at the truth in the face and transform. She did it, we can! We just don't want to! Seriously, we need to get those grey cells working.

Photo courtesy:
Shaivam.org
c1.staticflickr.com