Thread: Lord Shiva ,The embodiment of supreme consciousness

significance of snake on body of Shiva

Sarpam(Snake) is the Jiva or the individual soul which rests upon Siva, the Paramatman or the Supreme Soul. The five hoods mean the five senses or the five Tattvas, viz., earth, water, fire, air and ether. They also represent the five Pranas, which hiss in the body like the serpent. The inhalation and exhalation are like the hissing of the serpent. Lord Siva Himself became the five Tanmatras, the five Jnanendriyas, the five Karmendriyas and other groups of five. The individual soul enjoys the worldly objects through these Tattvas. When the individual attains knowledge through control of the senses and the mind, he finds his eternal resting abode in Lord Siva, the Supreme Soul. This is the esoteric significance of Lord Siva wearing the snake on His body.
Lord Siva is absolutely fearless. Srutis declare, “This Brahman is fearless (Abhayam), Immortal (Amritam).” Worldly people are afraid even at the very sight of a snake but Lord Siva is wearing snakes as ornaments on His body. This indicates that Lord Siva is absolutely fearless and immortal.
Generally serpents live for hundreds of years. Wearing of serpents by Lord Siva signifies that He is Eternal.

significance of Vibhuti , Nandi

Namassivaya is the Mantra of Lord Siva. ‘Na’ represents earth and Brahma; ‘Ma’ represents water and Vishnu; ‘Si’ fire and Rudra; ‘Va’ Vayu and Mahesvara; ‘Ya’ Akasa and Sadasiva and also the Jiva.
Lord Siva has white complexion. What is the significance of white colour?a colour which reflect all light falling on it. He teaches silently that people should have pure heart and entertain pure thoughts and should be free from crookedness, diplomacy, cunningness, jealousy, hatred, etc.
He wears three white-lined Bhasma or Vibhuti on His forehead. What is the significance of this? He teaches silently that people should destroy the three impurities, viz., Anava (egoism), Karma (action with expectation of fruits), and Maya (illusion), and the three desires or Eshanas, viz., desire for landed property, desire for woman, desire for gold, and the three Vasanas, viz., Lokavasana, Dehavasana and Sastravasana, and then attain Him with a pure heart.

Another school of thought of smearing bhasm on any part of the body is to recall the Vedic teaching of "Bhasmantaka Goum Shariram" – this body is going to become (a heap of) ash one day. That means, this body might either get mixed in the soil or water or fly like the dust particles with the wind. This physical body of ours, which we are so proud of and are so much attached to, is going to be crushed (with the soil) beneath others’ feet one day.



What does the Balipitha or altar which stands in front of the sanctum sanctorum of the Siva’s temple represent? People should destroy their egoism and mineness (Ahamta and Mamata) before they attain the Lord. This is the significance.

What does Nandi or the bull which is in front of Sivalinga represent? Nandi is the attendant or doorkeeper of Siva. He is the vehicle of Lord Siva. He represents Satsanga. If you make association with the sages, you are sure to attain God-realisation. Sages will show you the way to reach Him. They will remove pitfalls or snares that lie on your path. They will clear your doubts and instil in your heart dispassion, discrimination and knowledge. There is no other safe boat than Satsanga to reach the other shore of fearlessness and immortality. Even a moment’s Satsanga or association with the sages, is a great blessing to the aspirants and the worldly-minded persons. They get firm conviction in the existence of God through Satsanga. The sages remove the worldly Samskaras. The company of sages is a formidable fortress to protect oneself from the temptations of Maya.
Lord Siva represents the destructive aspect of the Godhead. He is seen absorbed on the mountain peak of Kailas. He is an embodiment of serenity, renunciation and indifference to the world. Nandi is His favourite. He is the door-Keeper. He is seen hushing all nature, so that the Lord may not be disturbed in His Samadhi. The Lord has five faces, ten hands, ten eyes, two feet.
He has sword in one of His hands. This signifies that He is the destroyer of births and deaths. The fire in one of His hands shows that He protects the Jivas by burning all fetters.

I bow with folded hands crores of times at the lotus-feet of that Lord Siva who is non-dual, who is the Adhishthana, or support for the world and all minds, who is Sat-Chit-Ananda, who is the Ruler, the Antaryamin, the Sakshi (silent witness) for everything, who is self-effulgent, self-existent and self-contained (Pari-purna), who is the remover of the primitive Avidya and who is the Adi-Guru or Parama-Guru or Jagad-Guru.

That Lord Siva I am in essence. Sivoham, Sivoham, Sivoham.

Dear iyyerram,
nice posts.
I have also read before that Nandi represents Jeevaatma.
That is the gaze of Jeevaatma should always be directed inwards towards Paramaatma.

Also regarding serpents.. that even the deadliest of poisons are rendered harmless under the sway of the Lord.

Sri.Iyyer Ram,

I was planning to open a thread about Siva and Daksha. After I saw your posts, I decided against it. May be some other time!

Cheers!

Dear Iyerram

I just want to share some more regarding this.

"You all might have read a story in the holy Ramayana or in some other shastric scripture which mentions of Kamadeva being burnt into ashes due to the opening of Shiva’s third eye. Kamadeva the Lord of amour had once tried to sinfully entice and influence Lord Shiva. Then, Lord Shiva just opened His third eye. The divine radiations emanating therefrom instantly burnt the gross body of Kamadeva. Have you ever thought about the truth behind this mythological anecdote? It conveys the fact that the insidious force of erotic thoughts and sexual excitation can be instantly checked and eliminated if our discerning prudence is awakened. The opening of the third eye means awakening of our sagacity and creative activation of our inner wisdom."

In this deed, Kamadeva is totally out of control. He did this just for the unification of uma-shiva. Also, he did the deed on compulsion of brahma. But the problem is he approached shiva with overconfidence and he thought that shiva will surely gets lusted coz of arrows. Since shiva has ashed him, mother paarvathi gave him new birth and also provided him a boon that noone can conquer him and also noone can see him except his wife radhi. (which means even shiva can't touch him even with his third eye as he is totally inivisible). Why am saying these things is most of our fellow members think that manmadan as a great sinner. It is not the certain truth.

Like the job of yama is to get the souls of beings, the job of manmada is unification of beings (just an opposite of yama's task).

Even the great shiva, who ashed manmada, fell in love with parvathi, married her, even got unified with her and meantime, kumara born. So, its very clear that even shiva is not against the love and lust. Only thing is the approach.

The incident also shows approaching swami without the grace of devi will end in unwanted results. Later with the blessing of lalithamba this very same manmadan threw his arrows to shiva and made him "Kalyanasundaran".

Also just to compensate this deed, sakthi paarvathi hided all her powers in a deep-hole and asked all the devas to provide their own powers to manmada. And finally she herself takes the bow and arrows as symbolification and residing in kanchipuram.

Manmada- A great upasaka and guru for shri vidhya upasakas. He himself has found a separate vidhya "Kadhividhya". I just want to convey the stand of manmada for our members.

Pranams

Dear All,
Just to add

Jata(matted locks)----the concentrated universal nourishment in a potential state

Ganga---- the eternal uninterrupted flow of a part of the universal nourishment for the body, mind and soul.

Crescent moom--- this denotes the cyclic motions of time is but an ornament in the timeless eternity that is Shiva

Third eye--- the all pervasive all seeing vision of Shiva

Ashes all
over body--- He absorbs the whole universe unto Himself and gets established in his own Swarupa.

Yoga Danda--- the mystic staff which converts the outflow of life currents into inflow of Divine currents.

Snakes-- all that is earthly,material, gross and base in everything--thse affect only the Jeeva, but not Shiva on whom they are but ornaments.

Trishul-- The power of Shiva to destroy the triple negative forces of the body, mind and spirit operating in man and the universe.

Damaru--Universal Energy in resonance, thereby producing the manifested universe out of the unmanifested Reality.

Tiger Skin--- symbolises the conquest of pride and arrogance


taken from book Hindu Gods: Shiva by Swami Shantanand

Iyyerram, Durga and Renuka,

Good going

Please keep it up

All the best

popular story

The world's balance soon crumbled in his absence and Sati took rebirth as Goddess Parvati to try and win Lord Shiva's heart and wake him up from his trance. She tried all ways to get the attention of Shiva. When she had exhausted all her feminine ways, she invoked the help of Kamadava, the Indian cupid-god, who agreed to help her in the cause of the world despite the risks involved. He shot his love-arrow on Shiva's heart. Disturbed in his trance, Lord Shiva opened his third eye that fired anger and instantly incinerated Kamadeva. It is said that it was on the day of Holi that Kamadeva had sacrificed himself for the good of all beings. Later, when Lord Shiva realized his mistake, he granted Kamadeva immortality in invisible form. To this day, people offer sandalwood paste to Kamadeva to relieve from his stinging burns and mango blossoms that he loved on Holi.

Dear Iyerram

The story is much new to me. In what I studied, both Parvathi and Shiva were in immense penance. Ofcourse parvathi tried in her ways to attract shiva. But she never insisted Kama to throw arrows over shiva. The devas who were unable to bear the threats of Tharakasura went to brahma and vishnu and requested them to disturb shiva. Finally brahma ordered Kama to do the job. Initially kama worried to do so, since disturbing a penance will end-up in serious illeffects. But brahma threatens kama that he will curse him. So, he accepted the task and did so. He entered into Kailash with the permission of nandhideva. Infact nandhi showed him the way to reach shiva. Parvathi was totally out of the scene. Since, shiva was doing penance in Himalayas, Himavan appointed parvathi as his attender. She too never disturbed his penance, she tried to attract him through her own penance and also by making his surrounding environment to think pleasent of her. So the inclusion of parvathi into this is totally new for me.

Pranams