Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-2. Part - 22.

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


Part-22.




Let us come back to the subject of Sivaratri, the night of Siva. When you perceive an object, you call it waking. When you do not perceive it, it is darkness. Now in the waking condition – the so-called waking world – you see present before you a world of objects, as you are intelligent. In dream also there is a sort of intelligence.

But in deep sleep there is no intelligence. What happens? The senses and the intellect withdraw themselves into their source. There is no perceptional activity, and so the absence of perception is equated to the presence of darkness. The cosmic Primeval condition of the creative will of God, before creation – a state appearing like darkness, or night – is what we call the condition of Siva.

It is very important to remember that the state of Siva is the primordial condition of the creative will of God, where there is no externality of perception, there being nothing outside God; and so, for us, it is like darkness or night. It is Siva's night – Sivaratri. For Him it is not night. It is all Light. Siva is not sitting in darkness.

The Creative Will of God is Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence – all combined. Sometimes we designate this condition as Isvaran.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...