I wake before dawn with a clearer relationship to Shiva. The light outside is soft and alluring as the veils between night and day part and the unconscious mind transits into conscious awareness. The cool air outside helps me collect the threads of my dream-state before they are lost: [indent] The cumulative experiences over the past two days helped me during dreamtime to map the intersections of truth between the cosmology of the Andes, which I subscribe, and Shivism. |
Consequently, an understanding is emerging from where the deep devotion to Shiva arises, pilgrimages are made to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s samadhis and temples such as Natraja. Each serve as organizing principles that inform, re-enforce and build context that allows one to move from a personal (dualistic) worldview to a transpersonal one. For me, I liken Shiva to Jesus in the Christian worldview, and the organizing principle of yanantin/masintin (complementary opposites) in the Andean cosmology. Each tradition points to a third way of being — taqé — where competition and individualism give way to cooperation and collaboration; and the illusions of scarcity and separateness are obliterated by the full opening of our heart centers so unconditionality informs all of our relationships and engagements. In this way, too, our thoughts and actions are mediated by our heart center through unconditional love and compassion for ourselves, each other, and all life. This is the dance of Shiva as Nataraja. It is also the Tiwantinesuyu cosmology. It is to this dance that my life is in service.
Babe is playing beautiful Indian music when I return. She reads aloud from Shankaracharya: The Six Stanzas of Salvation. A truly magical start for this day!
After breakfast, we walk a short distance to a small Shiva temple — Vanamegannathar Temple — adjacent to the hotel property and situated on the bank of a river. Barefoot, we walk past a jet black goat and her kids basking in the sun and peaceful energy, up the steps into the temple’s courtyard where a woman sitting on the ground pulls a rope attached to a clanging bell. We are greeted by the temple priest beside a statue of Nandi, wrapped in cloth and adorned with flowers, that faces into the main temple. The temple itself is small, and thankfully, photographs are permitted. There are two niches. The larger one contains the shrine to Shiva as well as the temple’s lingam. The priest blesses each of us with prayers and a bindi before commencing his daily rites and rituals. Afterwards, we follow the priest outside and around the main temple to various smaller shrines where he also performs brief blessing ceremonies.
Back at the hotel, we board our bus for this morning’s return to Chidambaram and another visit to Natraja Temple. It is much different in light, and I’m grateful that we are able to experience it at both times of day. The temple complex occupies 50 acres of land in the heart of the city, and was designed in the Dravidian architectural style.
Again, we are led the stall outside of the temple where we left our shoes last night to do the same. In daylight it is much easier to see the carvings on the massive pillars in the inner portion of the temple.
Again, we are led the stall outside of the temple where we left our shoes last night to do the same. In daylight it is much easier to see the carvings on the massive pillars in the inner portion of the temple.
Like last night, we make our way to the Urdhava Tandava, the holiest part of the temple complex to watch the priests pray over and adorn the akasha linga with flowers and incense. Afterwards we head to the Kanaka Sabha or “Golden Hall,” where Shiva is suppose to have performed his cosmic dance, and where now priests are enacting ceremony, and then wander around sneaking a photograph here and there.
Lunch today is also a repeat of last night’s dinner — at the same yummy restaurant! Then back to the hotel for quiet time and a short nap before we gather at dusk for a walk through the village . . .
. . . and another visit to Vanamegannathar Temple.
After dinner at the hotel, Andrew reads to us from a manuscript he is working on of a translation of Indian mystic. The poems are passionate, intense and hold so much truth. It was a full day in the broadest sense. Much to process in dreamtime and beyond.