Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-2. Part - 27.

Ch-2.  Siva – The Mystic Night ( Sivaratri)


Part-27.


On Maha Sivaratri, therefore, you are supposed to contemplate God as the creator of the world, as the Supreme Being unknown to the Creative Will, in that primordial condition of non-objectivity which is the darkness of Siva.

In the Bhagavadgita there is a similar slokam which has some sort of a resemblance to this situation.

"Ya nisa sarvabhutanam tasyam jagarti samyami; yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato muneh"  :-

meaning : That which is night to the ignorant, is day to the wise; and that which is day to the wise, is night to the ignorant.

The ignorant feel the world as daylight and a brightly illumined objective something; and that does not exist for a wise person.

The wise see God in all His effulgence; and that does not exist for the ignorant.

While the wise see God, the ignorant do not see Him; and while the ignorant see the world, the wise do not see it. "

That is the meaning of this slokam in the second chapter of the Gita.

When we see sunlight, the owl does not see it.

That is the difference.

The owl cannot see the sun, but we can.

So, we are owls, because we do not see the self-effulgent sun – the Pure Consciousness.

And he who sees this sun – the Pure Consciousness, God – is the sage, the illumined adept in Yogam.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...