The Dichotomy of Everything

 Yet another mytho-religio-philosophical blog on yet another auspicious day.

It is no coincidence that the blogs here are posted mostly on religiously significant days. Days as such fascinate me, to dig deeper, into the significance of these events, the tales, and mythologies behind them, how it differs from our perception of it today, how it has shaped us, and such a huge part of our lives that is religion. I find myself on a meta-bipolarity when it comes to religion. The first being, with agnostic on one pole and on another a bipolarity of my religiosity. But, there is a sort of realization, that it is the theological and mythological aspect of religion and its development, as well as the anthropological aspect associated with it that makes this all so interesting to me.

So, with no further ado, as the title says, Dichotomies revolve all around us. For every Good we have a Bad, for every Yin, a Yang, for every On, there is an Off, and for every zero there is a One. I am here to write about my interpretation of the Dichotomy there is responsible for the existence of everything. Scientific hypotheses have various claims about the pre-Big Bang period. Some claim there to be the existence of an infinite material stretched everywhere through time and space which got distorted, broken and reshaped through the big bang and the universe came into being. While some claim that since time-space came into existence only after the big bang, there is no question of existence in terms of space and time before the big bang and hence it can be said that there was nothing before the big bang.

Cutting it short for interpretation of the simple mind as ours (or mine at least), there was infinity or there was nothing, which then, had a "tryst with energy of unimaginable magnitude" and everything there ever is or was came into existence. Now we are talking, right? No? Ok, at least we are closer to our root. Let me repeat.

Everything came into existence when Infinity or Zero (Or both at the same time) collided with Energy. The birth of the cosmos, the universe. Now coming to Mythology, taking the balanced amount of Shaivism and Shaktism and the mixed mythology of popular Hinduism today, the creation of the universe is credited to Shiva & Shakti. Shiva - who represents the co-existing Nothingness and Infinity, and Shakti - The primordial cosmic energy. The universe came into being with their union.

Another point of view to see the dichotomy is through the gender lens, with Shiva being the Male deity and Shakti being the Female deity. Their union need not be perceived as crisp as seen in popular images, it can be a male extreme slowly and gradually blending to a female extreme. In Brihadaranyak Upnishad - Atma (Soul) exists in the form of the Androgynous (Both male and female in one ambiguously) cosmic being, which splits itself into two parts male and female, copulates and produces all life. Also in Shvetashvatar Upnishad, declares Rudra (pre-existing Shiva) as the root of Purush (the male principle) and Prakriti (the female principle). The concept of Purush and Prakriti is quite similar to what found in Abrahamic religions as Adam and Eve, but not much coincidence, in my opinion, perhaps it is because both streams, Dharmic and Abrahamic do agree, that life is given birth with a male and a female.

Let's have a look at the Dichotomy of Shiva and Shakti, through our Philosophical glasses. While Shiva is often the state of Consciousness, Shakti is synonymous with Energy. A balance between the two results in everything there is. Consciousness and Energy, Knowledge and Action, Awareness and Behaviour, it can be expressed and interpreted in various terms and tones. Whatever there is today, is a result of decisions made at every stage, every moment of mankind, or even before, since the inception of life. A decision made by some microscopic creature, at some point in time, is responsible for the World Wars. Crazy enough to think, yet it is true. We are living in a chain reaction of decisions. Where our consciousness and our energies are constantly coordinating with each other and shaping the next moments and compounding into the next hours, days, years, and centuries of the universe. For life to sustain or universe in general to sustain, the co-existence of both consciousness and energy is necessary, hence it is often preached that the "ardha-nari-eshvara (Androgynous form of Shiva Shakti)" shall be seen as one, inseparable, and interchangeable being. Interchangeable, as in, Consciousness can transcend into Energy, and Energy can, into Consciousness as well. This interchangeability is something really interesting as it corresponds to one similar interchangeable scientific dichotomy, i.e. of Matter and Energy, Einstein OP.

Well, that was all the brainstorming there was. STORYTIME. (TL;DR - Daksha Yajna.)

Much later in the mythological period after the creation of the universe and in a mythological space, there exists the trinity of Lord Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, quite possibly eons after the Param-Brahm "Supreme Being" has embodied the Shiva part into Shiva the Yogi and the Shakti part is yet to be personified.

Lord Brahma - in his role as the creator - had created 16 sons and 1 daughter -all, only from his mind. One of the sons was Daksh. Daksh who is described as an able King and Prajapati, prays to Adi-shakti (Energy form of Param Brahm) to be born as his daughter. The Goddess grants his wish on the condition that if she is not mistreated as his daughter, she will abandon that body.

Daksh fathers somewhere between 16-60 daughters from his two wives. The Youngest and the most ideal of them is the re-incarnation of Adi-Shakti, born, Sati. Sati all through her growing up is fascinated with the tales of Shiva, and when she comes of age, the idea to marry anyone of her father's wish seems impossible to her. Daksh being a father, trying to provide the best for his children and having married his other daughters to wealthy deities and kings, does not want his most lovingly brought up daughter to marry an ascetic Shiv.

But Sati was the other half of the Param-Brahm as Shiva and was destined to unite with him, in this reincarnation. To fulfill her destiny, she went to meditate and appease the hermit Shiva in the Himalayas. Pleased with Sati's devotion, Shiva agreed to marry Sati at once. Daksh detested Shiva and reluctantly married off Sati to Shiva. Shiva and Sati's wedding was blessed by the presence of all gods, sages, deities, and divine beings. Hence this makes Maha Shivratri an auspicious occasion. Shiva and Sati start leading a happy married life, at their abode in Mount Kailash. But even after the wedding, Daksh could not accept the fact that his daughter is married to a hermit. To avenge his hurt pride, Daksh conducts a sacrifice or Yajna (pronounced Yagya) where he invites all the Gods, deities, and divine beings, except Shiva.

When Sati comes to know about the Yajna and the intended insult towards her husband, she decides to confront her father. Shiva tries to stop her, knowing that, Daksh would not be happy upon her arrival. When she arrives at Daksh, he receives her coldly and insults and mocks Shiv in front of her.

Enraged with her father's behavior, and as her condition, while granting the wish to Daksh in form of Adi Shakti, she invokes a sacrificial fire and self-immolates her body. Upon receiving the news of the death of his beloved wife, Shiva gets furious and performs the Tandav. During which he plucks a lock of his hair, from which Veerbhadra and Bhadrakali take birth. They are destructive avatars of Shiva and Shakti. They slay everyone at the Sacrificial place, including Daksh.

Watching the mayhem, Lord Brahma pleads Shiva for mercy and forgiveness for his son. After calming down, the all-forgiving Shiva forgives Daksha, and replaces his slain head with that of a Goat. Another account tells that devastated Shiva carries Shakti's destroyed body on his shoulder, on his way to abandoning the universe. Seeing a threat to the universal balance, gods plead Lord Vishnu to stop Shiva from doing so. As a response, Vishnu uses his Sudarshan Chakra, which cuts Shakti's body into 52 parts that fall in various places on earth, which came to be known as the 52 shakti peeths. This incident gave birth to two major sects of Hinduism, viz. Shaivism, and Shaktism.

Lord Shiva returns to mount Kailash to mourn Sati's demise through meditation. Later, Adi Shakti will again reincarnate as Parvati and marry Shiv, living in Kailash forever.

There is no separation of Shiva and Shakti, even though they exist in Dichotomy. And it is their co-existence, everything survives on.

Om Namah Shivay.