Shivaratri

ByShiva Shakti Yoga

Shivaratri falls this year on Friday 21/2. This is an important tantric feast. 

Shivaratri means Shiva’s night. It occurs when the moon is only visible as a thin glow in the sky. It is the darkest of the moon’s 16 phases. 

The moon symbolizes the mind and the mind is said to move inwards along with the decreasing lunar phase from full moon to new moon. What then becomes possible to discover is the divine within or beyond form. 

There is a story about the origin of Maha Shivaratri. The story is as follows:

It was once a long time ago a hunter who failed to make a prey all day. When evening came, he climbed a tree by a lake. Eventually a hind came to drink. She prayed that he would not kill her until she handed over the kid to their father. The hunter eventually agreed to this. While he waited, he threw down leaves from the tree. These met a Shiva Lingam under the tree. In the end, Hind came with his whole family and she said that they decided that if he wanted to kill her, he could kill them all. He could not do this in his heart. Then Shiva appeared and blessed him.

One should understand this story as that Shiva is the aspect of the divinity that is about giving up. The part of divinity that is about the importance of being able to give up.

Prayer and Kirtan are two ways to celebrate Shivaratri. 

Music: Shiva Ratri, Playlist.


Similar Posts

  • Living your dharma

    Psychoanalysis talks about sublimating traumas. This means allowing our lives to take the direction of working with our traumas. We often choose jobs and engagements that are linked to our traumas. If this is done unconsciously, it is called repetition compulsion, and leads to actions that forces us to repeat our original trauma time and…

  • Compassion

    True healing can only be given by the one who has healed him/herself. This truth is found in all healing traditions, such as the shamanic or the yogic.  Bird Phoenix can be seen as a symbol of this truth. The Phoenix is said to burn up and then be reborn from its ashes. In the…

  • Being with truth

    One student asked me after the last post, this appropriate question: So if you want to go through the process of Yoga, of facing truth more and more, how do you do it? Last time, we talked about Yoga as a truth-seeking tradition, and about unveiling layers of untruth and faulty knowledge. We also talked…

  • To be worthy

    A legend from the 12th-14th century described in the text Matsyendra Samhita describes how the fisherman Mena is swallowed by a whale. The story tells how Mena is devoured by a choice and thereby hears secret teaching from Shiva when, at Shakti’s request, he teaches her the ultimate being of everything, at the bottom of…

  • Ma!

    The Navaratri of spring is approaching. The 9 nights of Navaratri are sometimes divided into three parts. Three nights for the invocation of Durga, three for the invocation of Lakshmi and three for the invocation of Saraswati.  Durga is the aspect of the Goddess in its entirety; Mahadevi, who is summoned to fight Mahishasura in…

  • Yoga as a truth-seeking

    Tantra speaks of the actions of “the All”, which are also the individual’s 5 powers. These are: Srsti-creation Stihiti-stasis Samhara-dissolving Tirodhana-forgetting, veiling Anugraha-unveiling, remembrance These actions are the acts of consciousness. Consciousness can create a thought, hold on to a thought, let a thought dissolve, and can forget something by dropping the focus on it….