Dancing with Śiva

HE HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS DEBATE IN INDIA HAS NO EQUAL IN THE WORLD. THROUGH THE CENTURIES, DEFENDERS OF OPPOSING PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWPOINTS HONED THEIR POSITIONS AND ARGUMENTS TO A STEELY, RAZOR EDGE. FROM TIME TO TIME, ENTIRE populations were convinced or even compelled to change their faith, as when King Asoka, born into the Brahmanical tradition, converted to Buddhism around 258 BCE and zealously promoted it from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka. Obviously, religious debate can have far-reaching effects, and such disputes are not merely the stuff of history, they are quite alive today. This resource chronicles a controversial exchange which took place in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, U.K. and the United States in the mid-1980s between two schools of Śaiva Siddhānta, the world’s largest Śaivite denom­ination. On one side were the monistic theists, who stress the ultimate oneness of man and God, and on the other stood the pluralistic theists, who hold that God, soul and world are eternally separate. Herein are the positions of two subtly but crucially different views of the cosmos and man’s relationship with God. The debate is a living expression of the classical discussion about the Divine, one that is common to every religious tradition, and one that every seeker will benefit from exploring.§

Just as there are three orthodox schools of thought within Vedānta philosophy (non­dualism, qualified nondualism and dual­ism), there are two within Śaiva Siddhānta (mon­ism and pluralism). The purpose of this resource section is to present the monistic Śaiva Siddhānta philosophy—sometimes known as Advaita Siddhānta or Advaita Īśvaravāda—and to juxtapose it briefly with ­pluralistic Śaiva Siddhānta or Dvaita Siddhānta. This comparison is important because the pluralistic teachings are widespread, so much so that many authoritative texts proclaim Śaiva Siddhānta to be wholly pluralistic and completely overlook the monistic school, which is actually far older, though less well known. Between these two schools there continues a philosophical debate that has persisted for twenty centuries and more about whether God and soul are ultimately one or two. I first became aware of this perennial debate in 1948 while living and performing sādhana, living in little mud huts with cow dung floors, in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, prior to my initiation from my satguru, Siva Yoga­swami. I learned that various pluralist adherents in the area were not pleased with this modern mystic’s monistic statements and conclusions. In my life, the issue again came into prominence in the early ’80s after my recognition by the world community of Śai­vites as Guru Mahāsannidhānam of Kauai Aadheenam and Jagadāchārya of the Nātha Sampradāya’s Kailāsa Par­amparā. By that time, our small but dynamic Śaivite Hindu church had distributed thousands of copies of our Hindu Catechism, Dancing with Śiva, boldly proclaiming the mon­istic truths of the Kailāsa Paramparā and bravely claiming the term Śaiva Siddhānta as our own. This did not go unnoticed by pluralist scholars and pandits who for generations had faced little opposition to their claim that Śaiva Siddhānta is pluralistic by definition.§

Letters poured into our temple at Kauai Aadheenam in Hawaii, objecting to our philosophical position and urging us to give up the appellation Śaiva Siddhānta, or to convert to the pluralistic view. We did not budge, arguing that, indeed, Śaiva Siddhānta is the fitting and perfect name for our teachings. In response to these objections, we reiterated our philosophical position clearly and compared it with the pluralist views, citing scriptural sources in a formal document called “Monism and Pluralism in Śaiva Siddhānta.” And, in an inspired talk distributed through­out the world, I asserted, “There can be only one final conclusion, and that is mo­nistic theism.” To the pluralists, it appeared we had thrown down the gauntlet. The debate was on.§

Once a relatively muted village affair, this age-old feud quickly escalated into a heated international debate among eight great monasteries in South India and Sri Lanka, of saṅgas in South Africa, Mauritius, Malaysia and England, and of philosophers, pandits, attorneys, judges and politicians from nearly every continent of the world. But for the first time, perhaps, the issue was faced with the goal of reaching a final resolution. Follow this debate, not as an exercise but as a way to deepen your own understanding of the ultimate things of life, of your own relationship with the universe around you, your own path toward merging in Śiva.§

Appreciating Religious Differences

Religion may be simply defined as man’s knowledge of himself, of the world in which he finds himself and of the Truth or Reality or God which transcends both. When properly understood, religion does not divide man from man, making this one a faithless sinner and that one a worthy recipient of Divine Grace. Purely known and practiced, religion is lead­ing man, all men, to enlightenment and liberation. But religion is not always purely known—and even less often purely practiced—which gives rise to differences. Differences in religion, arising as they do out of a var­iety of racial, cultural and individual experience, are to be expected and appreciated. They provide a fortress against phil­osophical monotony and spiritual stagnation. Though there are many who seek to convert the rest of the world to their own creed, the wise are tolerant of the beliefs of others and refuse to promote universal uniformity in cultural, intellectual or spiritual spheres. §

Though their numbers are dwindling, there are still those who, in an effort to reconcile the differences between religions, claim that all religions are one. We commend the effort and all efforts which bring people into mutual understanding, which soften religious tensions, conflict and animosity. However, to simply say that they are all one and the same is simplistic. It is not true. All religions are not the same. To pretend that their differences are insignificant or nonexistent will not resolve those differences. Understand­ing, which brings mutual appreciation, is the on­ly permanent resolution, and that comes through an open-minded and courageous study of the unique strengths and weaknesses inherent in each. This is the spirit in which we undertake this assessment of two philosophical schools that worship a one God, Śiva, and together comprise the religious tradition known as Śaiva Siddhānta.§

The Two Schools Share a Vast Common Ground

Śaivism is the world’s most ancient religion, and its most comprehensive exposition is found in Śaiva Siddhānta, which can be roughly translated as the “Final Conclusions of the Śaiva Dharma.” Śaivism—and most especially the traditions and philosophy expressed in Śaiva Siddhānta—is, we are convinced, the religion of the future, more suited than any other to a technological age, fully in harmony with science and more able to provide for mankind’s resurgent demands for direct spiritual awakening and enlightened living than any other religion on the planet. The oldest faith has survived an age of reason, with its prophets of agnosticism, to become the newest faith in an age where mystical values are again appreciated.§

For the most part, monists and pluralists within Śaiva Siddhānta are of one mind. These are not diametrically opposing philosophies. They share more in common than they disagree about. In fact, between these two schools there is 95 percent agreement and only 5 percent dissidence. Both value the Nayanars and their Tirumurai. Both revere as scriptures the Vedas and the Śaiva Āgamas. Both follow the Tamil traditions. Both are committed to the importance of temple worship, urging the importance of temple worship and ritual for the benefit of the individual soul and of humanity at large. Both emphasize love of God Śiva, who is both immanent and transcendent, and of the Gods, Gaṇeśa and Murugan. They share the same scriptures and saints, a deep devotion to the saṅga of fellow Siva­thondars, a belief in karma and reincarnation, a firm faith in the need to live a virtuous life and to perform sādhana and yoga, a venera­tion of the satguru and his necessary role in the spiritual illumination of the soul, which, they concur, moves progressively through the stages of charyā, kriyā, yoga and jñāna. Both reject the Vaishṇavite concept that God incarnates as a man. They both argue vehemently against the Advai­ta Vedānta view of māyā as mere illusion, insisting that this world has a divine purpose—the evolution of the soul—and that, even though it is only relatively real, it is certainly not unreal. They do not agree with the Advaita Vedānta conception of the ultimate unreality of the soul, or of the Vedāntin’s relegation of the mystical science of temple worship to a kindergarten for young souls. Again and again on a hundred issues they find themselves in harmony. Clearly, pluralists and monists agree ninety-five percent as to what constitutes Śaiva Siddhānta. We can never for­get that. Tiru A.P.C. Veera­bha­gu, an eminent South Indian Sid­dhāntin, a pluralist, called for our working together and lucidly summarized our essential points of agreement as “guru, liṅga, saṅgam and valipadu (temple worship).” This, he said, is the essence of Śaiva Siddhānta as found in ancient Tamil literature, the common ground of the two schools.§

Definitions of Monism and Pluralism

Webster’s Dictionary defines monism as “the doctrine that there is only one ultimate substance or principle, that reality is an organic whole without independent parts.” This is the opposite of dualism: “the theory that the world is ultimately composed of, or explicable in terms of, two basic entities, …the doctrine that there are two mutually antagonistic prin­ciples in the universe, good and evil.” Pluralism is defined as “the theory that reality is composed of a multiplicity of ultimate beings, principles or substances.”§

Philosophical Differences between Monism and Pluralism

Stated most simply, the monistic school holds that, by emanation from Himself, God Śiva created everything—the world, all things in the world and all souls—and that each soul is destined to ultimately merge in advaitic union with Him, just as a river merges into the sea. The pluralistic school postulates that God Śiva did not create the world or souls, but that they have existed eternally, just as He has, and that the ultimate destiny of the soul is not advaitic union in God Śiva but nondual association with Him in eternal blessedness or bliss, a union compared to salt dissolved in water. In one view, there is manifestation from Śiva in the beginning and merging back into Śiva in the end, and only the Supreme God, Śiva, is eternal and uncreated. In the second view, there is no beginning for the soul, but eternal coexistence of the soul with Śiva from the kevala state, which goes back to the absolutely primordial time, to the śuddha state, which extends forever into the future. In the monistic view, God Śiva is ev­erything; even this physical universe is a part of Him, though He transcends it as well. In the pluralistic view, God Śiva animates and guides the universe, but it is not a part of Him. The crux of the difference, then, is whether there is one eternal reality in the universe or three, whether the soul is eternally separate or is, in essence, one with Śiva.§

The Importance of Such Subtle Issues

Of course, these are subtle distinctions which may not seem to relate to one’s daily religious experience. Thus, we may be inclined to dismiss such matters as of concern only to theologians, satgurus, swāmīs, yogīs and philosophers. Yet, they are the very core of religion and cannot be re­garded as trivial. They affect every Śaivite, for they define two distinct perceptions of the nature of the soul (and therefore of ourselves), of the world and of God Śiva. They offer two different spiritual goals: either to merge fully and forever in Him (a state which transcends even states of bliss) or to remain eternally separated from God (though such separa­tion is seen positively as endless bliss, which cannot be derogated). One view is unity in identity in which the embodied soul, jīva, actually is and becomes Śiva; the other is unity in duality, two in one (two because the third entity, the world, or pāśa, does not ever, even partly, merge with God), in which the soul enjoys proximity with God Śiva but remains forever an individual soul.§

A Summary of Monistic Siddhānta

God Śiva created and is constantly creating, preserving and reabsorb­ing all things, emanating from Himself the individual soul of man, all the worlds and their contents. He is the Beginning and the End, the Author of Existence. He is both material and efficient cause, and thus His act of manifestation may be likened to sparks issuing forth from a fire or fruits emerging from a tree [for definition of cause, see page 543].§

The individual soul—which is an effulgent being, a body of light, ān­an­damaya kośa—is created, evolves as a seemingly separate being and ul­timately merges in undifferentiated union and oneness with God Śiva, which oneness may be called identity. The essence of the soul, Satchidānanda and Paraśiva, is eternal and uncreated. It does not evolve, for it is forever perfect. This essence of the soul is not different from Śiva. §

But monistic Siddhanta also teaches that the soul is, in a tempor­ary way, different from God. This difference exists with respect to the soul’s in­dividuality, not its essence. The body of the soul, ānandamaya kośa, com­posed of pure light, is created, and it is limited. It is not Omnipotent or Omnipresent at its inception. Rather, it is limited and individual, but not imperfect. That is what makes for evolution. That is the whole purpose behind saṁsāra, behind the cycles of birth and death, to lead this individual soul body into maturity. Of course, the various faculties of mind, perception, discrimination, which are not the soul but which “surround” the soul, are even more limited, and it would be, as stated above, folly to equate these with God Śiva, to say they were the same as He. Ultimately, after many births and further evolution which follows earthly existence, this soul body does merge in God Śiva. This merger is called viśvagrāsa. Then, of course, the soul cannot even say, “I am Śiva,” for there is no “I” to make the claim. There is only Śiva.§

The world and the soul are, in truth, but various forms of Śiva Himself, yet He also transcends His creation and is not limited by it. Also, the world and the soul cannot stand independent of God, a fact which makes it clear that they are evolutes and not eternal entities. When world and soul are absorbed in His Divine Form at the time of mahā­pralaya—the end of a cosmic creational cycle—all three malas (āṇava, karma and māyā) are removed through His grace, and the soul ceases to exist as an in­dividual, losing its separateness through union and fulfillment in Śiva. After mahāpralaya, Śiva alone exists, until creation issues forth from Him in yet another cosmic cycle.§

A Summary of Pluralistic Siddhānta

Pluralistic Siddhānta holds that there are three eternal and coexistent entities—God, soul and world. When we speak of Siva’s creation of the world and all things in the world, we must understand that the primordial material of creation always existed and that God Śiva merely fashions it into its myriad forms, just as a potter shapes a multitude of pots from pre-existing clay, but does not also create the clay. Thus, God Śiva is the efficient cause of the universe, but He is not the material cause. The material cause is māyā, which is eternal and uncreated. The soul, too, exists from eternity, and God Śiva fashions the various bodies needed for its evolution and provides the faculties of perception, discrimination, and so forth. The ultimate destiny of the soul is to reach the feet of God Śiva and enjoy nondual (but not advaitic in the sense of oneness or identity) union in Him, which may be thought of as eternally blissful beatitude and nearness. The soul rests in union with Him, as salt dissolved in water, while yet retaining its individuality. At the time of mahāpralaya, it is not only God Śiva which exists; rather, the world and an infinity of souls are drawn near God Śiva. Souls retain their individual and separate existence, whether real or potential, awaiting another cycle of cosmic creation.§

Purport

Dancing with Śiva is based on the first of the above conclusions as the pure, original and highest conclusion of Śaiva Siddhānta. This monistic Śaiva Siddhānta interpretation is the conclusion of our Paramaguru Siva Yogaswami, of my own personal realizations and of every single one of my sannyāsins of the Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order. It is the view of creation and union described in the Vedas and Śaiva Āgamas. It is the postulation of the Nayanars of Śaiva Samayam, as expounded in their 18,400 Tirumurai hymns. And it is the clear teaching of the peerless Rishi Tiru­mular in his Tirumantiram, the first and foremost scripture on Śaiva Siddhānta. Furthermore, it coincides with the teachings of hundreds of sages, saints and satgurus throughout the history of the Śaiva Neri, including Vasu­gupta, founder of Kashmīr Śaivism; Srikantha, founder of Śiva Advaita; and Basavanna, founder of Vīra Śaivism.§

Four Arguments Regarding Monism and Creation

We present now four arguments which proponents of the Meykandar school have put forth for hundreds of years to support their doctrine, known as Pluralistic Realism, followed by a monistic response and elucidation for each. Each discussion pertains to the doctrine of creation, disproving which is central to the integrity of any philosophy that propounds ultimate dualism. From these four arguments one can gain a concise overview of the differences between the two schools. §

1 PLURALISM: THERE IS NO REASON THAT A PERFECT GOD WOULD CREATE THE WORLD AND SOULS

If you speak of a creation, then we must ask, “Why did God create?” There can be no reason that a perfect God would create either the soul or the world. All reasons for creation—whether it be some divine desire to enjoy creation, a demonstration of His glory, a necessity to create or merely a playful sport—make the Creator less than complete, less than self-sufficient, less than perfect. There­fore, there could not have been a creation, and it follows that the world and the soul must have always existed. §

MONISM, RESPONSE 1: THERE IS NO NEED TO DISCERN A REASON FOR THE CREATION

The question “Why did God create” arises from the second-chakra consciousness of logic, but the answer exists in the sixth-chakra consciousness of divine sight. We can never find an entirely adequate reason for crea­tion, any more than a firefly can comprehend the incredible effulgence of a supernova. It is simply God Śiva’s nature to create; it is one of His five powers, or expressions, along with preservation, dissolution, concealing grace and revealing grace. There really is no reason. He creates worlds as nat­urally as we create thoughts. Is there a reason that we create our thoughts and feelings? Not really. It is simply how we are. It is our nature to do so. We require no reason, and no reason can be found, for it is a fact that lies beyond reason. Similarly, God’s nature is to create, and no reason can explain or limit His actions. The power of creation is, in fact, part of His Perfection. To find no reason for the creation and then to conclude that it never happens is like a firefly, unable to understand the stars above, concluding that stars do not exist. The argument that creation somehow limits God is unfounded, for the opposite is more limiting, denying Him the powers of creation and ultimate dissolution. §

2 PLURALISM: OUR IMPERFECT WORLD COULD NOT HAVE BEEN CREATED BY A PERFECT GOD

The world is full of sorrow, injustice, evil, disease, death and all manner of imperfection. The soul, too, is tainted with the imperfections of ignorance and limitation. Neither the world nor the soul could possibly be the creation of a perfect God, for imperfection cannot arise from perfection. If God had created the world or the soul, surely He would have made them perfect, and there would be no evil. To say that the world, with its obvious faults, is manifested from God is to malign Him. The only satis­factory explanation to this problem of evil is to assume that the world always existed and that the soul has been immersed in darkness and bondage beginninglessly. Furthermore, if God had created souls, they would all be equal, all alike, for He would not have shown preferences, denying to some what He granted to others. But we observe that souls are different. Therefore, God did not create the world or the soul.§

MONISM, RESPONSE 2: THE WORLD IS LORD ŚIVA’S DIVINE AND PERFECT CREATION

Of course, it cannot be said that Perfection, if It were so inclined, could not give rise to something less than perfect. A Perfect Being could create an imperfect world. Regarding souls, the argument is flawed in that it disregards the Vedic view that Śiva created the cosmic law of karma, and each soul, not God, is responsible for its actions and thus its differences and inequalities. And, of course, such inequity is a natural feature of the ongoing creation and unfoldment of a cosmos in which some souls are young and inexperienced, others old, mature and nearing their merger. §

The deeper monistic response to the argument is that this world is, in fact, perfect, not imperfect. The world and the soul are God Śiva’s divine and flawless creation. It is superficial to say that sorrow and death are evil, that only joy and life are good. That is an incomplete view of the pairs of opposites which, taken together, comprise a perfect whole. Life is precious, indeed possible, because of death. Light depends for its ex­istence on darkness, and joy depends on sorrow.§

The Abrahamic theologians saw a world in which there was good and bad, and were unwilling to make their God responsible for both. They therefore posited the ultimate dualism in which all that is good, true and beautiful is created by a benevolent God, and all that is evil, false and ugly is the handiwork of a malevolent Satan. Siddhānta pluralism, likewise perceiving an imperfect world, instead of postulating a malevolent being to account for the ostensible defects, proposes that the world and the soul have always existed, without creation.§

The argument that God could not create as He wills is also flawed in that it limits the unlimited. It compromises the omnipotence of our great God Śiva, implying that He is not everything, that He did not create ev­erything, that there are other and independent entities, separate realities, over which He has dominion but which have their own eternal indivi­duality, too. §

The view of Śuddha Śaiva Siddhānta as expressed by Saint Tirumular, the Śaiva Nayanars and Siva Yogaswami is that this world is, when viewed from superconsciousness, perfect and that God Śiva has purposefully created each thing and its opposite: good and bad, beauty and deformity, light and darkness, joy and sorrow, life and death. Jnanaguru Yogaswa­mi taught us, “There is not even one evil thing in the world.” He urged us to “See God everywhere,” not just in the obviously good. “Sarvam Śiva­may­­am,” the satguru observed. From our ordinary consciousness, this may be difficult to understand, especially when we personally are confronted with disease, death, violence, poverty and all forms of misery. But in fact, it is these sets of opposites, of joys and sorrows, that provide the means for the growth and maturation of the soul, that make us seek beyond the world of duality, that purify and evolve each soul and bring it to Śiva’s holy feet. From the enlightened summit reached by the siddhas, all is seen as necessary and good, all is seen as God Himself. If it is true that the world is divinely perfect, as our scriptures and siddhas say, then a perfect world has issued from a perfect Creator, and the argument is answered perfectly. Saint Tayumanavar wrote of creation as emanation, and a few verses from his sacred hymns are cited below.§

In the final dissolution all that was visible vanished, and what resulted was mukti of blemishless bliss; and so the functions of creation andpreservation, along with māyā, ceased to exist; but who was it that stood with the garland of radiant-eyed white skulls stretching along His Hands and Feet? (15.3. HT)§

§

Alone, by Thyself, Thou arose in the Vast Expanse
and danced in the arena of the Void.
Thou created the sky and the other elements,
Thou preserves them and dissolves them. (20.6 & 8. HT)§

What Do the Nayanars Teach? The 63 Nayanars, Śaivite saints, represent a fundamental source of spiritual inspiration for South Indian Śaivites. Eight of these saints left a legacy of philosophical-devotional literature (Tirumurai) that provides insight, knowledge and authority for Śaiva Sid­dhānta. No Siddhāntin will gainsay their teachings, and thus it is important to know their views on the subject at hand. Here are three among thousands of testimonies in the Tirumurai that Lord Śiva is everything, that He became everything. §

Thou became the flesh! Thou became the life! Thou became
the awareness within it! Thou became everything else.
He is Himself He. He also becomes me. (Saint Appar)§

§

He is the fruit, the juice and even the taster thereof;
the “Thou” and the “I.” (Appar’s Nindra Tiruttandakam 6.94.5)§

§

He is the knower; He is the revealer;
He is the knowledge; He is even the known;
He is also this vast world, the sky and so on. (Karaikkalammaiyar 20)§

Views of Satguru Yogaswami: In recent times, Sri Lanka’s greatest siddha was Siva Yogaswami (1872-1964) of Columbuthurai. He was a yogī and mystic who awakened inner knowledge, who realized Śiva through great sādhana and tapas. Considered among the greatest of modern sages, a true jīv­anmukta of the highest order, he was the spiritual guide for Śaiv­ites throughout Sri Lanka and South India for many decades. He taught again and again, in person and in his published Natchintanai, that Śiva is both Creator and creation. Here are a few relevant quotes from his teachings. (The numbers following the verses denote page numbers in the English edition of Natchintanai.)§

Can you not perceive that it is That
which has become both heaven and Earth?
There is nothing else but That! (382, 34)§

§

He has become the sun and moon. He has become the constellations of the stars. Mantra and tantra has He become. He has become the medicine and those who swallow it. He has become the Gods, Indra and all the rest. He has Himself become the universe entire. The soul and body, too, has He become. (144; 219)§

§

All is the work of Śiva. All is the form of Śiva. He is everything. (127)
You and I, he and it, fire and ether, ghosts and devils, other beings
and Gods—upon examination will all appear as He. (123)§

§

Before the body falls, revere the God who
both the One and many has become. (202)§

§

All is Śiva. Father and mother are Śiva.
All the Gods are Śiva. The whole universe is Śiva. (237)§

Jnanaguru Yogaswami taught us, “When the Vedas and Āgamas all proclaim that the whole world is filled with God, and that there is nothing else, how can we say that the world exists and the body exists? Is there any­thing more worthy of reproach than to attribute an independent reality to them? Sages, too, have declared: ‘Those who have become Your own are not other than You.’ Thus, for several reasons of this kind, there is nothing other than God.” Thus resound the Natchintanai verses of my satguru, affirming the monism of Rishi Tirumular.§

3 PLURALISM: “CREATION” CANNOT BE, SINCE IT IMPLIES SOMETHING ARISING FROM NOTHING

If there is a beginning, then there must be an end. But modern laws of physics tell us that energy and matter are neither created nor destroyed, they simply change form. Creation implies that something arises from nothing; and destruction implies that something becomes nothing. But this is absurd and irrational. To think of the immortal soul as undergoing a birth and death is absurd. Why would a benevolent God bring a soul into existence only to lead it, ultimately, to destruction, to nonexistence? Obviously, He would not. We must, therefore, conclude that the soul always existed, that it is eternal and uncreated.§

MONISM, RESPONSE 3: SOULS ARE EMANATED BY ŚIVA AND ULTIMATELY MERGE BACK INTO HIM

The use of the word creation might well make one conclude that Śiva is “making or bringing into existence something out of nothing.” That, to be sure, is the Judaic-Christian Wes­tern notion of God’s creative act. But in the Vedas, their Upani­shads, the Tirumurai and the Āgamas, we find creation to be from and of God Himself. The English term for this is emanation, defined in The Oxford Dictionary as: “The pro­cess of flowing forth, issuing or proceeding from anything as a source. Often applied to the origination of created beings from God; chiefly with reference to the theories that regard either the universe as a whole, or the spiritual part of it, as deriving its existence from the essence of God, and not from an act of creation out of nothing.” In his Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion: Eastern and Western Thought, Dr. William L. Reese defines emanation as: “From the Latin e (‘from’) and mano (‘flow’). Emanation is the doctrine of the production of the world as due to the overflowing superabundance of the Divine. An alternative to the doctrine of creation.… A similar idea is present in Hindu philosophy as well.” §

This pluralist argument assumes a form of creation analogous to a potter’s fashioning a pot: God Śiva fashions already existing matter in­to various forms. God is the potter (called the efficient cause, from the word effect, to make). By means of a wheel (called the instrumental cause, thought of as God’s power, or śakti), He molds from eternally existing clay (called the material cause and thought of as primordial matter, or māyā) a pot (the effect or creation of these three causes). If we hold such a view of the creative act as described in this analogy, then naturally the destructive act seems abhorrent, for it means the ruination of the pot or its return to formless clay. Every Śaiva Siddhāntin is taught that the soul never dies, is never destroyed, so we are almost lured into accepting this argument to preserve our very existence.§

But there is another understanding, of God Śiva’s creation: the creation of the soul is like a wave arising from the ocean. In this traditional Hindu analogy, the wave has a beginning, an evolution and an end. Does something arise out of nothing? No, water arises out of water. Does that water cease to exist when it returns to the vast ocean? No, it merges back into the ocean. It merely ceases to be a distinct wave and becomes one with the ocean. That merging is fulfillment, not destruction. So, while pluralists argue that destruction cannot apply to the soul, because that leads to nothing, to nonexistence, monistic theists answer that union in God is the ultimate blessing, the finite returning to the Infinite, the most glorious goal imaginable, the consummate condition called viśvagrāsa. The soul arises from Śiva, evolves through many births and ultimately merges back in Him. Is it destroyed in that merging? No, it is made complete and perfect. It becomes Śiva. “Jīva becomes Śiva.” §

Finally, the doctrine that the soul, as an individual and independent entity, or being, has a beginning and an end should not be understood to mean that it is ultimately destroyed or eliminated. Such an annihilative concept is alien to Śaivism. Rather, the soul is fulfilled, made perfect and brought into supernal grace when it merges ultimately in Śiva. When the soul merges in Śiva, when āṇava mala, which separates it and gives it limited and separate identity, is completely removed, there is no ruination or loss, except the loss of separateness and beclouding malas. Quite the opposite: there is grace and union, there is return to Śiva’s Perfect Being. The ego could construe this end of individual existence as something terrible, but that would be to misapprehend the greatest reward there is—perfect union in Śiva from which the soul was issued forth.§

But the question of the creation of the soul is not the real issue. The fundamental issue may be described as follows: Is God Śiva everything? Is this universe, including all souls, in Him and of Him, or is it distinct from Him? Is there more than one eternal Reality? Monism or, more precisely, monistic theism, holds that God Śiva is everything, the one and only eternal Reality. The universe and the soul are also Śiva. Monistic theists contend, then, that the soul’s individuality is Śiva, but it is only a part of His Wholeness (which part, being of the nature of manifest creation, relates to His perfection in form—Maheśvara), while its essence is identical with His two innermost perfections—Satchidānanda and Para­śiva. It is this essential identity which the mature yogī realizes in his contemplative, superconscious states. Clearly, Satchidānanda and Paraśiva are not created and do not perish, as all created things must. What is created is the individuality of the soul, which we term the soul body. That individualness—which is a subtle, conscious, unique entity endowed with the powers of içchā, kriyā and jñāna: desire-love, action-will and awareness-wisdom—is created, and does perish, does merge in Śiva, in the state called viśvagrāsa, when āṇava mala is removed through His Grace. If āṇava mala is re­moved, then separateness no longer exists and the soul merges in Śiva wholly and irrevocably. Here are a few verses from the Upanishads and other Śaivite scriptures on emanational creation, which is Śaivism’s traditional philosophical view:§

He (the supreme soul) desired, “Let me become many; let me be born.” He performed austerity. Having performed austerity, He create all this, whatever is here. Having created it, into it, indeed, he entered. Having
entered it, he became both the actual and the beyond, the defined and
the undefined, both the founded and the nonfounded, the intelligent
and the nonintelligent, the true and the untrue.
(Taittirīya Upanishad 2.6.1 UPR)§

§

He is the one God, the Creator. He enters into all wombs. The One Absolute, impersonal Existence, together with His inscrutable māyā, appears as the Divine Lord, endowed with manifold glories. With His Divine power He holds dominion over all the worlds. At the periods of creation and dissolution of the universe He alone exists. Those who realize Him become immortal. The Lord is One without a second.
Within man He dwells, and within all other beings. He projects the universe, maintains it, and withdraws it into Himself.
(Śvetāśvatara Upanishad 3.1-2 UPP)§

§

Brahman is that from which all beings are born, that by
which they live, that into which, when departing, they enter.
(Taittirīya Upanishad 3.1.1-6 UPH)§

§

As the sea issues forth foam, waves and bubbles which
subside into it, the Absolute Spirit is the substratum
whence arises the world animate and inanimate,
and thither it ends. (Mapadian 151)§

§

It is likened to the sparks which issue from a fire.
(Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad 2.1.20 UPR)§

§

As a spider sends forth and withdraws its web, as hair grows
from the body of a living person, so from the Imperishable
arises this universe. (Muṇḍaka Upanishad 1.1.7 UPR)§

§

The Raurava Āgama describes creation as a spark of fire
or light issuing forth from the third eye of the Creator.§

Rishi Tirumular on Creation: Rishi Tirumular states unequivocally time and again in his Tirumantiram that God Śiva has created everything from Himself in a process of emanation. The Sanskrit word for creation is sṛishṭi, meaning “to emit,” “to let loose,” which corresponds closely to the definition of creation as found in the Tirumantiram. Tirumular employs the Tamil word padai. Here are a number of the relevant verses from the Tiru­mantiram.§

Of yore He created worlds seven.
Of yore He created celestials countless.
Of yore He created souls without number.
Of yore He created all—Himself, as Primal Param, uncreated. (446) §

§

In the Primal Play of the Lord were souls (jīvas) created;
enveloped in mighty malas were they. Discarding them,
they realized the Self, and sought the feet of their ancient Lord.
Thus they Śiva became, with no more births to be. (2369)§

§

All worlds by vast oceans He girt, my Lord, filled pervasively,
in omniscience, overseeing all. Of yore He created all, entirely,
and stood diffusing His golden hue in worlds everywhere. (3007)§

§

Sadāśiva, the He-She, creates universes all.
He has five sons, the Holy One who creates universes all,
Himself as the lotus-seated Brahmā, the Creator, became. (386)§

§

Out of içchā, of the three śaktis, arose māyā; and māyā in union with
bindu yielded the rest of the three māyās (śuddha, aśuddha and prakṛiti).
And nāda was of Para born; and all this is the creative play of Paraśiva,
the Ultimate. (399)§

§

The One alone created the worlds seven. The One alone spanned
the worlds seven. The One alone survived the worlds seven.
The One alone pervaded body and life. (404)§

§

One clay, many the receptacles; one God pervades all species. (440)§

§

In union that knows no separateness, verily,
God is the Beginning and End of All. (1570)§

The Paraparam that is the End and the Beginning, Immanent,
He expanded thus. As Cause and Effect, too, He is. (1927)§

§

Vaikharī and the rest of sounds, māyā and the rest of impurities,
purusha and the rest of tattvas illusory—all these, acting on śaktis
jñāna and kriyā, the Lord true from time immemorial made. (2007)§

§

If the cardinal directions are all Śiva, why speak of
someone else, O you men? All smoke emanates from fire.
All creation arises from our Primal Lord. (3010)§

Tirumular’s importance in Śaiva Siddhānta is unshakable. Kalai­­pu­lavar K. Navaratnam wrote, “Saint Tirumular may be said to be the father of Āgamic Śaivism in South India” (Studies in Hinduism, p. 166). Tiru A.V. Subramania Aiyar affirmed, “Saint Tirumular is regarded as the foremost Teacher and Guru in the Tamil land, and Saint Tayumanavar, who styles him as Thava Raja Yogi, traces his spiritual descent from him.” Rishi Tirumular’s message resounds again and again: God Śiva created, or emanated, everything from Himself, and everything includes the soul, māyā that is the substratum of this universe, the tattvas which constitute all forms, even the celestial Gods. And He Himself is His creation, both material and efficient cause, as Tirumular states in the following verses:§

He is the tattvas and their Lord. (2795) §

§

He is the First Being, the effort and the end of effort, too. (11)§

§

The ancient scriptures say the expanding space is His body. (2463)§

§

Holding the worlds apart, as the heavens high He spreads,
Himself the scorching fire, the sun and moon. (10)§

§

He is the master mahout of all jīvas;
He is jīvas themselves, too. (3039)§

§

Water, earth, sky, fire and wind, the spark of light within the body—
all these He is. He is Paraparam, He is Śiva, our Lord.
He is the walking jīva here below. Deathless He is. (3045) §

4 PLURALISM: SOULS CAN NEVER ATTAIN TO GOD’S GREATNESS. SOUL AND GOD ARE ONE, YET NOT ONE

Śiva pervades the soul, yet the soul is different from God Śiva. Being different, it does not wholly merge in Him at the end of its evolution. Rather, it reaches His holy feet and becomes one with Him in every way except in the performance of the five powers, which are reserved for God alone. The individual soul never attains to the powers of creation, preservation, destruction, concealing and revealing. To say that the soul is God is an impertinent presumption. Look at this helpless creature, unable to control his own mind and body, ignorant of what will happen even an hour from now, powerlessly caught in the tides of fate, limited in a thousand ways, yet here he is claiming that he is God, the Supreme Being! What folly to claim that the soul is equal to Śiva! It is God Śiva who, by His limitless will, power and knowledge, does everything. The ultimate destiny of the soul, therefore, is to attain God’s grace and live in perfect love and blessedness forever at His feet. We call this union advaita, but that does not mean oneness; it means not twoness. It is one and yet not one, like salt dissolved in water, like a flower and its fragrance. This is the true mean­ing of advaita. To us, advaita means that the soul and God are not separate; they are, inseparably united, even as salt is contained in the sea and fragrance is imbued in a flower. The salt cannot be the sea. The fragrance cannot become the flower. They have their individual existence, and yet they are one in proximity. Even so, the purified soul is embraced by the love of Śiva, and in that embrace, God and soul become one. Nevertheless, the soul remains soul, and God remains God. This is the true meaning of advaita.§

MONISM, RESPONSE 4: SOULS ATTAIN FULLY TO ŚIVA’S MAJESTY BY BECOMING ONE WITH HIM

The ultimate end of the soul is, of course, determined in the beginning. If the soul is a spark from Śiva, as the Raurava Āgama says, then it is natural that it returns to Śiva, like a drop emerging from the ocean and then once again merging into that ocean. If the soul is separate at the outset, then it must remain separate in the end. So here again we confront the issue of whether or not Śiva is the material cause of the world and the soul. §

As to the five powers, Rishi Tirumular states that the soul attains them in its ultimate evolution, not as an individual separate from God, but by wholly merging in God. The pluralist school assumes that attainment of these five powers somehow threatens, or imposes on, the sovereignty of God Śiva. This would, of course, be true if there were still two entities, God and soul, in which case there would arise two Supreme Beings, then three and so on. But Rishi Tirumular makes it clear that the soul attains the five powers by becoming one with Śiva, as a drop returned to the ocean shares in the ocean’s majesty, not by becoming another competing ocean, but by the fact of its union. Here are a few verses from the Tirumantiram which remind us of the original monistic Śaiva Siddhānta doctrine: §

The tiny atom, swimming in the vast universe,
merges in the Vast—no separate existence knows.
So also the spirit’s plastic stress, sweeping through all bodies,
at the sight of His holy feet, discovers its ancient home. (137)§

§

None know where the Lord resides.
To them who seek Him, He resides eternally within.
When you see the Lord, He and you become one. (766)§

§

They tarry not in the pure māyā spheres of Śiva tattvas.
There they but attain the status of the Gods. But, that
as a springboard, their soul reaches farther out into
Śiva Himself and merging in His union,
Self effacing, they become Immaculate Śiva,
they, forsooth, as Śuddha Śaivas. (1440)§

§

When body and Śiva, as unbroken, unite in yoga,
then shall the grace of Śiva-Śakti be.
Then does jīva become Param.
Jīva that leaves this body then becomes all-pervasive.
Without beginning or end, it merges forever in Śiva. (2588)§

Verses from the Āgamas: If we accept that the 28 Śaiva Āgamas are a primary scriptural basis of Śaiva Siddhānta, then we must inquire as to what they have to tell us. Quoting from The Collected Works of Rāmaṇa Mahar­shi, edited by Arthur Osborne: “The Āgamas are traditional Hindu scrip­tures regarded as no less authoritative and authentic than the Vedas. They are regarded as divinely revealed teachings, and no human authorship is ascribed to them. Temple worship is mainly founded upon them. There are twenty-eight Āgamas that are accepted as authorities. From among them, Sarvajñānottara and Devīkālottara are outstanding as expressing the standpoint of pure Advaita or nonduality…. Both are instructions in the Path of Knowledge given by Lord Śiva” (p. 105). Mr. Osborne then quotes from the Āgamas, from which we offer the following excerpts:§

I will tell you, O Guha, another method by means of which even
the unqualified, impalpable, subtle and immanent Absolute can be
clearly realized, by which realization the wise become themselves Śiva.
This has not hitherto been expounded to any other. Now listen!§

§

I permeate all this—visible and invisible, mobile and immobile;
I am surely the Lord of all and from me all shine forth.§

§

Giving up the separate identity of yourself as distinct from Śiva,
meditate constantly on the nondual unity: “I am He who is known
as Śiva.” One who is established in the contemplation of nondual
unity will abide in the Self of everyone and realize the immanent,
all-pervading One. There is no doubt of this.§

§

When a pot is moved from place to place, the space inside it
appears to move, too, but the movement pertains to the pot and
not to the space within. So it is with the soul, which corresponds
to the space in the pot. When the pot is broken, its inner space
merges in the outer expanse; similarly, with the death of the gross
body, the spirit merges in the Absolute.§

The Wisdom of Satguru Yogaswami: How does Satguru Siva Yoga­swami view the unity or nonunity of the soul and God? He proclaimed: §

By what does the eye see? That is the ātma (soul) or God.
You are the sole emperor of the universe. (18)§

§

What is my real nature? I am the Immortal One. (20)§

§

“Jīva is Śiva,” Chellappan declared.
(See also: 30, 45, 77, 93, 107, 125, 166, 181, 187, 218, etc.)§

§

“Aham Brahmasmi (I am God, Brahman)”—
make this your daily practice. (38, 133, 185)§

§

“I am He,” you must affirm and meditate each day. (106)§

§

The whole world has evolved from One.
The whole world is sustained by One.
The whole world will merge into One.
That One is my support—O Śiva! (163)§

The Tirumantiram and the Meykandar Śāstras

To fully appreciate the doctrines of the two schools of Śaiva Siddhānta, we must consider briefly the contents of two important texts: the Tiruman­tiram and the Meykandar Śāstras. The Tirumantiram is the work of Rishi Tirumular, a siddha, a realized master and perfect yogī who composed over 3,000 mystic verses to delineate the path of enlightenment and the nature of the reality he had himself realized. These profound, esoteric and sometimes cryptic and abstruse verses com­prise the tenth book of the Tirumurai, one of the primary scriptures of Śaiva Siddhānta. It is, in fact, the oldest (ca 200 BCE), most mystical and most comprehensive of the Tirumurai and the first instance in history where the term Śaiva Siddhān­ta is recorded. §

The Meykandar Śāstras are fourteen Tamil treatises written over a long period during the Middle Ages by six authors. They are scholarly texts presenting in detail the metaphysics of pluralism and refutations of other systems of thought. The fourth of these is Śivajñānabo­dham, composed by Saint Mey­kandar around 1200 CE, fourteen centuries after the Tirumantiram. Śivajñānabo­dham means “Knowledge of Śiva Realization” or “Compendium of Śiva Knowledge.” It is considered by most Siddhān­tins as the authoritative summation of pluralistic Śaiva Siddhānta philo­sophy, containing in forty lines all that is amplified in the larger commentaries and texts that comprise the balance of the Meykandar Śāstras. In its aphoristic brevity, this digest may be likened to the philosophical equivalent of Einstein’s cryptic equation, E=MC2. This text, which may well be the shortest scripture ever written, is considered by many to be his only work, though others contend that he also composed the commentaries on the verses. §

Whereas Tirumular spoke from his own direct, inner knowing of Absolute Reality, attained through sādhana and yoga, writers of the Mey­kan­dar Śāstras took another approach, working through inference and reason, assembling, collating and synthesizing the existing tenets of Śaiva Siddhānta of their day. Whereas Tirumular lived before the dawn of the Common Era, authors of the Meykandar Śāstras lived fourteen centuries later, during the Middle Ages. Whereas the Tirumantiram is a primary scripture (the tenth of the twelve Tirumurai), the Meykandar Śāstras are a secondary scripture, not included in the Tirumurai. Whereas Tirumular is one of the 63 canonized Śaiva Saints, called Nayanars, Meykandar and his commentators are not. Thus, we have two forces: one spiritual and the other theological or philosophical; one intuitive, the other intellectual and political; one founded on enlightenment and the other based on exceptional mentality. §

While the verses of Śivajñānabodham are arguably in consonance with Tirumantiram, the commentaries, being the balance of the Meykandar Śāstras, are not. Commentators and scholars who followed Meykandar interpreted his work (and the Tirumantiram) as pluralistic, setting into motion roughly 800 years ago the present-day pluralistic school, a school that has played a dominant part in the modern history of Śaiva Siddhānta. Pluralists place the beginning of their school at the time of the Mey­kandar Śāstras. Historically, it arose out of a broader field of Śaiva Siddhānta, monistic in character, which existed long before. §

An analysis of the history of the times suggests that the founding fathers of pluralistic Śaiva Siddhānta were—as so often happens in par­tic­ular historic circumstances—responding to powerful and compelling move­ments then in the ascendency. These included an aggressive Christian theology, the potent Vedāntic teachings of Adi Sankara, and Madh­va’s dualistic Vaishṇavite school—which were dominant forces in India during those formative centuries. This may be why the final conclusions found in the Meykandar Śāstras are philosophically close to the dualistic theism found in the Judaic-Christian-Islamic faiths, and in Vaishṇavism. We might surmise that adoption of the pluralist stance in India was influenced by the desire to show that the same postulations offered by Cath­olic and Protestant missionaries already exist within Hinduism. §

Apart from the Śivāchāryas who study Śivajñānabodham as part of their priest training, few Śaivites have deeply studied it, and fewer still are familiar with the contents of Tirumantiram. So, it is not surprising that they have assumed—wrongly—that the conclusions of the Meykandar Śās­­tras are in agreement with the Tirumantiram. A few know of the mon­­is­tic school, which defends God’s role in creation and postulates an ultimate and complete merger of the soul in God, called viśvagrāsa, but they often do not know that this is the original Śaiva Siddhānta of Rishi Tirumular and before. Rather, they think of it, as they have been taught, as a renegade philosophy so similar to the postulations of Advaita Vedānta that it probably had its source in that tradition. This, of course, is not so. §

Perhaps the Meykandar Sūtras Are Not Literally Pluralistic

What did Meykandar himself have to say about monism and creation? A careful analysis has convinced us that he did not disagree with Tirumular. We adduce here Meykandar’s famous twelve sūtras as translated by Kavi Yogi Shuddhananda Bharati, The Revelations of Saint Meykandar.§

The doctrine of Pluralistic Realism is said to derive from Saint Mey­kan­dar’s Śivajñānabo­dham. However, a careful reading reveals no overtly pluralistic teaching in these twelve respected verses. That, we surmise, came later, from commentaries made on Śivajñānabo­dham. In fact, in the first verse Meykandar states that all things—which he calls “he, she and it”—undergo the three processes (creation, preservation and dissolution). He also states that Śiva is Himself the end and the source of existence. These twelve terse verses are the whole of Saint Mey­kandar’s teachings as written by him. §

Meykandar speaks of God, the Creator, as Beginning and End. No­where does he tell us that souls coexist from eternity with God, that there were three things in the beginning and will be three in the end. Rather, he clearly states that there is one Beginning, God; there is one End, God. Nor does he speak of an eternal, uncreated world. He assures that God created in the beginning and will reabsorb in the end. §

Concerns about Vedānta, Siddhānta and Māyā

One concern that may arise in discussing monism in Śaiva Siddhānta is that to accept an ultimate identity between God and soul (monism) would be tantamount to adopting Adi Sankara’s (788-820) Advaita Vedān­ta philosophy. In fact, the pluralistic arguments above were orig­inally formulated as a refutation of his Vedānta. This concern can easily be allayed. Saiva Sid­dhānta and the Vedānta expressed in the Vedas are not two ir­rec­oncilable views. Tayumanavar sang, “Vedānta is the fruit on the tree of Siddhānta.” Satguru Siva Yogaswami taught us that “Śiva is the God of Vedānta and of illustrious Siddhānta,” and “Vedānta and Siddhānta we do not see as different” (NT. 166, 41, 64, 87). Monistic Śaiva Siddhānta embodies both Siddhānta and Vedānta. More precisely, Vedān­ta is the sum­mit of the vast mountain of Siddhānta; monistic Siddhānta is the whole, and Vedānta is the part, the highest part of that whole. Here we speak of Vedānta not as the denial of all but the Absolute, as in Sankara’s view, which regards māya, meaning the entire manifest creation, including the soul and its evolution, as an illusion. Rather, we speak of the original and pristine Vedānta of the Upanishads, a perspective that accepts māyā as Śiva’s grace in form rather than deluding appearance. To the Siddhāntin, the world is Śivamaya (“made of Śiva”), God’s gift to mankind. While Advaita Vedāntins hold that the world is nothing but māyā (by which is meant illusion) and the greatest obstacle to Brahmavidyā, “knowledge of God,” Siddhāntins see this world as Śiva’s gracious way of leading us to union with Him. §

Let me elaborate for a moment on these two perspectives on māyā. One is that māyā is illusion, that this world is merely an appearance and not ultimately real at all. The other is that māyā is God’s loving creation, real and important for our spiritual progress. Devotees ask, “Which is correct? Can it be both?” In every aspect of the path there is the highest and the lowest and the in-between look at things, depending on where you are: on the mountainside, on the top or at the bottom. From Ab­solute Consciousness, māyā is illusion, this is true—an illusion to be disre­gard­ed, a barrier perpetuating the all-pervasiveness of consciousness which, from an even higher realization, is also an illusion. We are speaking of the contest between Paraśiva being the Absolute and Satchidānanda being the Absolute. So, the dual, dual/nondual and the nondual are the yogī’s frustration in these higher states of mind. Once timeless, causeless, spacelessness is realized, all of this falls naturally into place. One sees form, time and causation as an illusion, a relative reality, and within it the mechan­ism of its own perpetuation of creation, preservation and destruction every microsecond, every second, every hour of every day of every year in the great cycles of time. This is māyā. Its complexities are even greater than mathematical equations of all kinds. §

So, you have a true/true and you have a true. True/true is seen by the Paramātman, the soul that has realized Paraśiva. And the true is seen by the ātman who has realized the all-pervasiveness of God. One is on the brink of the Absolute, and the other is the Absolute. Being on the brink of the Absolute is true, but being the Absolute and breaking the seal is the true/true. There you see all of the acts of Śiva’s play, in all of its many manifestations. Then there is the false/true. The false/true is understanding the true/true and the true, and being able to explain them intel­lectually but being devoid of experience. The true/true and the true are both of experience. §

§

God Śiva has endowed all creation of form with three of His powers, creation, preservation and destruction, and all life, as it is known, maintains itself. A flower creates, preserves and destroys. Microscopic organisms create, preserve and destroy. Because everything is not creating, preserving and destroying at the same time—the process creates various densities of form, which we Śaiva Siddhāntins call relative reality. Those who don’t understand the creative processes of Śiva and the yoga pro­cesses of seeing through the ājñā chakra, may consider the external world as illusory and a hindrance, or a temptation, to their desire for moksha. Therefore, they emphasize the concept of giving up desire, which is the desire to enter the illusory world and become part of the illusion, there­by giving up advaita; whereas monistic Śaiva Siddhāntins identify closely to Śiva and, as an extension of His will, knowledgeably create, preserve and destroy, and understand themselves. Other organisms do likewise, but without being totally aware of these three functions.§

I see māyā both as creation, preservation and destruction—and as illusion. The mechanism and the fact form the perspective of Paraśiva. You have to realize that when the seal at the crown chakra is broken, the whole perspective changes and you see everything from the inside out, and you, to yourself, are the center of the universe. There is no doubt about it. And every manifestation of māyā, which itself is manifestation, and the intricacies of āṇava and the complexities of karma can be and are seen through. §

The Extinction of Separateness, or Āṇava Mala

Any discussion of monism and pluralism in Śaiva Siddhānta must eventually confront the issue of āṇava. Āṇava may be simply defined as “ignorance, the sense of separateness and ego,” or more technically as the individuating veil of duality that enshrouds the soul. It is often thought of as darkness. In Śaiva Siddhānta, āṇava plays an important philosophical role as the root mala, the first and foremost shroud which covers the soul and conceals God. It is also the last veil to be removed from the soul in its evolutionary progress.§

For the monist, the removal of āṇava mala occurs at the point of merger in Śiva. In his Tirumantiram, Rishi Tirumular is clear that at the conclusion of the soul’s evolution, at the point of final merger called viśva­grāsa, all three malas are totally absorbed by the grace of Sadāśiva. §

Ridding themselves entirely of āṇava,
and losing all consciousness of jīva memory,
they become bindu and nāda, the highest
heavenly goal of oneness with Śiva tattva. (500) §

§

Even as a shadow disappears with the body,
even as a bubble returns into water,
even as a flame of camphor leaves no trace,
so it is when jīva into Param unites. (2587)§

Pluralists agree that karma and māyā are destroyed fully, but assert that āṇava is merely nullified or subdued, when the soul attains to the feet of Śiva. In explaining this condition, they offer the analogy of seeds that have been fried. Such seeds exist but no longer have the power of germination. By this view, God is able to destroy the lesser malas of karma and māyā, but He does not have the power to extirpate āṇava. The monist counters that āṇava mala is indeed ultimately destroyed by Śiva’s grace, for that is essential for the soul to merge fully in God and attain to its true identity. [from below] With the destruction of āṇava comes the total loss of separateness. When separateness is lost, then there is oneness.§

For the pluralist, it is absolutely imperative that āṇava be somehow preserved, for that is by definition the preservation of the separateness of God and soul. What Rishi Tirumular, the Nayanar saints and our Śaiva Siddhānta scriptures tell us is this: even the most tenacious of the malas, āṇava, is completely annihilated when the soul merges in God Śiva. With the destruction of āṇava comes the total loss of separateness. When separateness is lost, then there is oneness, not “not-twoness.” The conclu­sion is compelling and clear: āṇava mala does not shroud the soul forever; rather, it is removed by Śiva’s grace, as are the other two malas. With its removal comes one incontrovertible fact: monism. Saint Manik­ka­va­sagar sings:§

Having lost our identity, we merge in Him
and become Śiva ourselves. Purifying my soul,
He took control of me by making me Śiva.
Having destroyed all my three malas,
He made me Śiva and took lordship over me.§

A Vital Question: What Happens at Cosmic Dissolution?

According to Hindu scripture, notably the Purāṇas and the Āgamas, Śiva’s creation—the three-fold cosmos of physical, subtle and causal planes—undergoes three kinds of dissolution. The first is called laya, the dissolution of the Bhūloka or physical world, which occurs every 306.72 million years, according to the Purāṇas. The second is pralaya, the dissolution of both the Bhūloka and the Antarloka, the subtle and causal worlds, which occurs every 4.32 billion years. The third is mahāpralaya, the dissolution of all three worlds, which occurs every 154.569 trillion years. Whereas creation, śrishṭi, is Śiva’s outbreath, absorption, saṁhāra, is His inbreath in the natural cosmic cycle of creation, preservation and dissolution. §

The Śaiva Āgamas refer to pralaya (intermediate dissolution) and describe it as pāśam and paśu, the world and soul, being drawn to Śiva’s feet and remaining there until the next cycle of cosmic creation, at which time they issue forth again. In other words, world and soul are reduced to their causal form. They are extremely close to Śiva, so close that, for all practical purposes and appearances, only Śiva seems to exist, but actually all three entities (God, soul and world) are there, retaining their separate existence. Thus individual souls survive the dissolution called pralaya. Both schools agree on this description of pralaya, except that monists would contend that during every cycle ending in pralaya, advanced souls will have merged fully in Siva, without separation. It is in the description of mahāpralaya that the two schools totally differ. There seems to be no official doctrine on this issue expressed by the Mey­kandar commentators, but contemporary pluralists have described mahāpralaya in exactly the same way they describe pralaya. Monists, however, contend that at ma­hā­pralaya all three worlds, including time and space, dissolve in Śiva. This is His Ultimate Grace; the evolution of all souls is perfect and complete as they lose individuality and return to Him. Then God Śiva exists alone in His three perfections until He again issues forth creation.§

Certainly, mahāpralaya is a long way off, and there is much time for speculation. In our discussions, we learned that some pluralists will theorize that all souls must, at the end of their evolution, form a one enlightened soul which lives in communion with Śiva throughout eternity—thus losing their personal identity. Nevertheless, the doctrine that the soul is forever separate from Śiva is ultimately dashed upon the rocks of mahāpralaya. Even Arulnandi, the most respected of Meykandar’s commentators, admitted to the completeness of mahāpralaya and thereby transcended pluralism when he wrote in Śivajñāna Siddhiar:§

Only One remains at the end of time.
If two others (paśu-souls and pāśam-fetters) also
remained at their posts, then it cannot be.§

A Crucial Verse from the Tirumantiram

In our debates on Śaiva Siddhānta, verse 115 from the Tirumantiram was brought forward as Tirumular’s definitive statement on the ultimate nature of God, soul and world. The following translation was offered for discussion.§

Of the three entities, Pati, paśu and pāśam (God, soul and bondage), just as Pati (is beginningless), so are paśu and pāśam also beginningless. If Pati gets near paśu and pāśam, which are not capable of affecting Pati, the paśu (or paśutvam) and the pāśam (bonds—āṇava, karma, māyā) will disappear.§

While pluralistic Śaiva Siddhānta takes strength in lines one and two, monistic theism is ratified by lines three and four, where Tirumular says that ultimately there is but one Reality, not three. We find Tirumular tell­ing mankind he has discovered that the soul and the world are beginningless, but that they end when they come into contact or proximity with Śiva. They disappear or merge in Him. Monists find that this verse coordinates perfectly with the monistic view that the essence of soul and world are as beginningless and eternal as Śiva Himself, while the individual soul body has both a beginning and an end.§

Alas, as in all things, there are at least two views. In this case, pluralists argue that Tirumular indeed meant the fettered soul when he used the word paśu in the first half of verse 115, but, we were told, “here in the latter half of this verse it is used in the sense of the fettered state. It is not the soul itself that disappears, but its fettered state.” If Tirumular had meant that it is not the soul that disappears, he would have said so. But he did not in this verse nor in any other verse in his treatise of 3,047 verses. Instead, he said the soul and the world both disappear when they near Śiva. He alone exists. Let Tirumular’s own words be the final guide:§

Out of the Void, a soul it sprang. To the Void it returns.
Yet it shall not be Void again. In that Void, exhausted,
it shall die. That is the fate of Hari and Brahmā, too,
who do not survive the holocaust of saṁhāra. (429) §

§

Of yore He created the worlds seven.
Of yore He created celestials countless.
Of yore He created souls (jīva) without number.
Of yore He created all—Himself, as Primal Param, uncreated. (446) §

Jīva Is Śiva. Tat Tvam Asī. Ahaṁ Brahmāsmi. Sarvam Śivamayam.

Again and again in Śaiva scripture and from the mouths of our satgurus we hear that “Jīva is Śiva,” “I am That.” It is a clear statement of advaita, of monism, of the identity of the soul with God. Not only have all Śaivite sects accepted this view, it is the conclusion of Sankara, Vallabhacharya, Ramakrishna, of Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi, Swami Sivananda, Siva Yogaswami, Anandamayi Ma, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan and others. Are we to assume that all great souls in Hindu religious history were wrong? Were they deluded? Did they stray from the path and fall short of the goal? Each and every one of them? Certainly not! Their monistic realizations were in fact the revelation of Truth in Śivajñāna. And it is that same revelation that is propounded today by my Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order as an essential and unquestionable facet of the monistic theism of Śaiva Siddhānta. §

Many South Indian pluralistic Siddhāntins deny the great Upani­shadic sayings, the mahāvākya, by basically ignoring all but the Meykandar Śāstras, which they take to be the most important and authoritative scriptures. Some will go so far as to say that all other references in scripture which do not accord with the Meykandar Śāstras are to be discarded or disregarded. In Tiru M. Aruna­chalam’s book, The Śaiva Āgamas, he discusses and later condemns this kind of posturing, quoting a typical pluralistic Śaiva Siddhāntin writer’s posture on the Vedas: “The Śaiva Siddhāntin has to ignore… the part in the Jñānakāṇḍa dealing with the ab­solute identification of the jīvātma and the Paramātman. The other parts of the Vedas are to be fully adopted by the Śaiva Siddhāntin, just like the Āgamas.” §

Why Yoga Is Needed in Śaiva Siddhānta

It is sad but true that when a fine soul, raised in the pluralis­tic school of Śaiva Siddhānta, reaches toward the greater heights of spiritual sādhana and personal experience of Truth or God through yoga and meditation, he cannot find within his native Siddhānta a sufficiently profound pathway that satisfies and fulfills his spiritual yearnings, and he is therefore not infrequently inclined to leave the South and find spiritual solace and direction in the North of India. There, more often than not, he eventually adopts a school of Vedānta whose view of God and man unfortunately denies Siddhanta. Why? Because in Vedānta he finds the deepest of all human philosophical conclusions—monism. By this process, South Indian Śaiva Siddhānta has been losing swāmīs to the Vedānta schools, and suffering from a spiritual “brain drain.”§

This is unnecessary, for Siddhānta has always provided a monistic path which embraces Vedānta. Śaiva Siddhāntins everywhere can be proud that the highest teachings of mon­ism were propounded by Ṛishi Tirumular eight hundred years before Adi Sankara was even born. The monistic truths found in the school of Advaita Vedānta were expounded by our own siddhas and Nayanars long ago. They taught this, and more. In fact, Ti­rumular, in order to distinguish his monistic theism from the pluralistic theism of others, coined the term Śuddha (pure) Śaiva Siddhānta to describe the teachings of his Tirumantiram.§

In my experience, in many cases, pluralist practitioners, heavy with the weight of book knowledge, refuse to listen to the inquiring minds of their youth, who then feel, quite naturally, that their religion is bigoted, intolerant, suffocating, unreceptive to their bright and eager desire to perform yogic sādhanas to know about God and His greatness. They are hushed and stifled and even beaten if they offer any “unorthodox” ideas or challenge the accepted creed, and soon they learn simply not to ask, for it just gets them in trouble. Or worse, when answers are offered, they are couched in arcane terminology which does not clarify but further confounds and confuses them. No wonder suicide is highly rated as a form of escape by youth. §

The fear of parents’ thrashing makes young ones fear God, as parents are the first guru. Naturally, swāmīs are to be feared next, as are the Cath­olic priests and nuns who beat them as a form of discipline with little mercy in schools. This is totally Abrahamic in context—the fear of God, the beating of children, the denial of questioning. It is certainly not the free-flowing, inquiring, examinating, self-effacing monistic Śaiva approach taught in traditional gurukulas in ancient times. So explained Swami Gautamananda, president of the the Ramakrishna Mission in Chennai, where ahiṁsā, nonhurtfulness of any kind, mentally, emotionally or physically, was the protocol in his maṭha and schools. §

Youth are often told, “You just can’t understand Śaiva Siddhānta unless you know classical Tamil.” Imagine if a young Christian were told he couldn’t comprehend his religion unless he studied Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, or the ancient Hebrew and Greek in which their Bible was originally written! Christianity would soon wither and perish from the Earth. The fundamentals of Śaiva Siddhānta should be easily taught to the youth in any language to give them a foundation for living, to be practiced in confidence and without intimidation.§

Not a single one of our Nayanars was a Tamil pandit or scholar, but will anyone claim they did not understand Siddhānta? No, religion is not learned in libraries or universities, but in transforming personal expe­ri­ence, in temples and caves and satsaṅga. It is learned in the silence of med­itation and contemplation, in the rigors of sādhana and yoga, practices which are universal, transcending all cultural and linguistic barriers. Tens of millions of Śaiva Siddhāntins have a direct and simple approach to their religion. They love Śiva Peruman. They worship Śiva Peruman. They serve and meditate upon and speak sweetly of Śiva Peruman and of His devotees. They know that Śiva is found in the heart, not in books, and they seek Him there. That is the vigorous and living faith of Śaiva Siddhānta, the San Mārga, the true path to God Śiva’s Feet. §

Vedānta captured the respect and imagination of the world and became immensely popular by offering its own positive, intelligent, well-crafted and pragmatic approach for seekers in the East and the West. Mon­istic Śaiva Siddhānta is, we are convinced, more enlightened, more positive, more intelligent, more practical. It has a great future. But to live in the future, it must come out of the past. That is one reason we have work­ed so hard for over half a century to give Siddhānta a fresh, new, bright, attractive modern-English thrust, availing ourselves of technol­ogical means of propagation. Most have applauded the effort; many have requested that we continue introducing Śaiva Siddhānta to the international community. §

Summation: Visions of Truth, Dualism and Nondualism

Śaiva Siddhānta, the final conclusions of the awakened soul who soars in superconsciousness above the mountaintop, diffuses through our minds as the distilled essence of the Vedas, the Śaiva Āgamas, and the Tirumurai, most especially the great Tirumantiram. Śaiva Siddhānta is thickly rooted in these scriptures and surges forth as a giant banyan of their expression. These are our scriptures, and within our scriptures are found both the essential oneness of monism and the evolutionary two-ness of theism. Therefore the ṛishis of the Upanishads, the siddhas of the Āgamas, our Śai­vite Saints and our Siva Yogaswami Paramparā of the Nandinātha Sampradāya have always taught monistic theism so that you, too, can awaken the natural perceptions of your own soul. §

From this mountain­top perspective, we can observe, appreciate, understand and be lovingly tolerant of all theological paths to God Śiva. This is because we are seeing the outer and inner worlds from our soul’s perspective. However, when people see the outer and inner worlds from intellectual states of mind, perceiving a concrete reality of you and I and God and world eternally separate, with no union of being, there is a tendency to be rigid and intolerant, quite the opposite of the soul’s natural state of mind. There is no need for seekers to participate in these kinds of battles. What is important is for each of you to follow the path of our Śaivite saints and siddhas. It is a path more of love than of learning, more of tolerance than of entanglement. Our sages and seers have made themselves sufficiently clear. They need no interpolations.§

Let us stand together, united in the knowledge of monistic theism as taught by our Nayanar saints and the enlightened savants of the Vedas and Āgamas. Let us remain high-minded in our thoughts and actions. People, who are always at one stage or another on the great San Mārga, will at some point lash out and attack you. This is predictable and natural. Set a fine example of tolerance and understanding in your community. Always hold the mountaintop perspective.§

Remember, from the very beginning of man’s encounter with reality, in both the East and the West, discussions have persisted between those who see the world as one and those who see it as made up of two or more. Asked by sincere devotees about how to understand the two schools, I once answered: Both are right. However, one is more advanced, more enlightened. But that does not make the other wrong. It all depends on whether you are on the top looking down or on the bottom looking up. One view is for the intellectual, the other is for the ṛishi. The intellectual will see it only one way; he will then discard the other view as wrong. The ṛishi can see it both ways, yet he knows that the monistic view is the higher realization. It all depends on where you are in your spiritual unfoldment. This is the merger of Vedānta and Siddhānta. §

We recently heard a physicist say that his mentor, Werner Heisen­berg, observed that there are two kinds of truth—shallow truth and deep truth. Shallow truth is one whose opposite is false. Deep truth is truth whose opposite may be perceived as an integral part of its own validity. That wise observation of the physical universe also applies to our spiritual knowledge. The deeper mystics do not draw a square to exclude, deny and condemn views which oppose their own. Instead, they draw a wide circle that embraces the entirety of the vast mystery of Śiva’s creation.§

You see, there are stages of realization, and the world and God and soul look a little different from each stage. It really all depends on the window we are looking out of, the chakra in which we are functioning. Thus, in exploring monism and dualism one must keep an open mind. This will bring the realization that the view called monistic theism is the summation of them both and is the highest realization, the ancient philosophy that is indigenous to man, preceding even the Vedic era. What, then, is monistic theism? It is the belief in God, but God not separate from man. It is external worship of Śiva which is then internalized into realization of one’s own Śivaness. It is a bhakti, experiential, yogically transforming philosophy. §

The dualistic or pluralistic conception appears true from one perspective, but it is only a slice of the whole. It is not the whole. Regarded most simply, pluralism came as the philosophical conclusion or realization of saints within the charyā and kriyā pādas, while monism joined with theism is the overwhelming vision within the yoga and jñāna pādas. §

Here is another way to explain the same thing. Visualize a mountain and the path leading to its icy summit. As the climber traverses the lower ranges, he sees the meadows, the passes, the giant boulders. This we can liken to theism, the natural dual state where God and man are different. §

Reaching the summit, the climber sees that the many parts are actually a one mountain. This is likened to pure monism. Unfortunately, many pure monists, reaching the summit, teach a denial of the foothills they themselves climbed on the way to their monistic platform. However, by going a little higher, lifting the consciousness into the space above the topmost peak of the mountain, the entire truth is known. The bottom and the top are viewed as a one whole, just as theism and monism are understood and accepted by the awakened soul. The knower and the known become one.§

Pluralistic Śaiva Siddhānta makes the part into the whole, tending to deny, limit, redefine and modify the monism taught by the Śaiva saints and proclaimed in the Vedas and Āgamas. To know the final conclusions, to comprehend the monistic theism of Śaiva Siddhānta, one must go a little farther, do more sādhana, in order to see these truths from a higher plane of consciousness. As Rishi Tirumular admonishes, “Siddhānta with­­out Vedānta is the common Śaiva’s lot.” By Vēdanta, he meant the ad­­vai­tic, monistic, final conclusion of the Vedas, which really, esoterically, are the results of the realization of thousands of seekers. When yogic realiz­ation, and transformation because of it, is not present, Vedānta is said to become “the path of words.’’ However, the basic understanding of Vedānta naturally leads into Siddhānta, once understanding matures into directing the force of desire into realization of the Self. Here we have the happy and necessary blend of Vedānta and Siddhānta as a way of life and spiritual practice. The acceptance of both schools gives strength; the rejection of one or the other drains energies through intolerance and limits the full com­prehension of God, world and soul. If you understand this, it will make you strong. It will make your religion strong. §

My satguru, Siva Yogaswami, asked me which of these schools of thought was the right one. I told him that both were right in their own way. It all depends on whether you are on top of the mountain looking down or at the bottom of it looking up. He smiled and nodded. Jnana­­­guru Yogaswami taught that monistic theism is the highest vision of truth. For pluralists to deny the Vedas is to deny Vedānta, and that is to deny Truth itself. For Vedāntists to deny the reality of God and creation is to deny Siddhānta, and that also is a denial of Eternal Truth. We cannot find a more shallow course of action than to declare the enlightened postulations of the illumined saints as superficial affirma­tions or as mad ravings, which a pluralist pandit once told me they were. §

It is argued—as an issue involving Tamil nationalism within their state, Tamil Nadu, in India—that embracing monism may divide the Tamil people. This is indefensible. Monistic theism is the soul of Śaivism, and therefore it is the soul of the Tamil people. It is monistic theism that will unite all the Tamils the world over in a one unanimity of belief, worship and understanding. §

It is also contended that by preserving pluralism as a unique feature of Tamil Śaivism, the Tamil identity is being preserved. This is a very narrow view. It only preserves a partial understanding of Truth and denies the Tamil people their rightful heritage of the fullness and richness of Sanātana Dharma. Dravidian history reveals that a united people are those who all worship the same Supreme God in the same way, pledging their allegiance to the fullness of the eternal truths discovered by their saints and sages. Thus, each one is strong in his or her dharma, with developed qualities of leadership, compassion, insight, cooperation and fortitude. Thus, each one awakens the burning zeal of sādhana to personally expe­rience these inner Truths. The results of this unity are great civilizations like the Indus Valley, the Chola Empire and the Vijayanagara Empire. But today we find the Tamils a people fractioned among themselves, di­vided into a multiplicity of “­-isms.” The more religious have escaped into the heights of Siddhānta-Vedānta. The more intellectual or Western-educated are ensnared in arguments and Western rationales or have wandered off into Buddhism and Christianity. §

Monistic theism, that all-embracing and ancient path which is common among all Śaivite sects, is the solution to international unity among the Tamil people in the twenty-first century as it was 5,000 years ago, for its theology closes the door to conversion and puts the heart and mind at peace. Furthermore, it is this mountaintop view of reality which alone can free the soul from the cycles of birth and death, joy and sorrow. In this age of enlightenment, religion and the knowledge of Truth that it holds must be unquestionably easy to understand and universally available to all who seek refuge at Lord Śiva’s holy feet. §

Resolution

The monism/pluralism debate, rekindled by our statement that there can be only one final conclusion, was resolved in the understanding that within Śaiva Siddhānta there is one final conclusion for pluralists and one final conclusion for monistic theists. This occurred in February of 1984 at the South Indian monastery of Sri-la-sri Shanmuga Desika Gnana­sam­ban­dha Param­a­charya Swamigal, 26th Guru Mahāsan­nidhānam of the Dhar­mapura Aadheenam, at a meeting of professors, advocates, theologians, academicians and pandits on the issue. The resolution came when His Holiness, presiding over the meeting, effectively declared that all who follow the Meykandar philosophy are indeed pluralists when he had prepared for publication two booklets written by the late Śaiva Siddhānta scholar, V. K. Palasuntharam: 1) Souls Are Beginningless, and 2) There Has Always Been Only a Pluralistic Śaiva Siddhānta Philosophy. §

Heretofore, the Meykandar exponents had been equivocal in this area, considering themselves sort of dvaitic and sort of advaitic, and redefining the word advaita (which means “not dual”) to allow for two things to exist in the state of oneness. Through His Holiness, the followers of the Mey­kandar lineage had formally and publicly declared themselves plur­alists, and thus acknowledged their difference with the monistic school of Śaiva Siddhānta as expounded by Kauai Aadheenam’s 162nd Guru Mahā­sannidhānam and the Śaiva Swāmī Sa˜gam.§

At the same time, as a result of two sometimes heated debates at national and international levels and numerous formal papers, now the plur­alistic school, which had been the popular view for centuries, heartfully and in loving trust accepted what had been the ever-present monistic Śaiva Siddhānta position. Thus the spirit of Sanātana Dharma that is mod­ern Hinduism bound the monistic school and the pluralistic school into a productive partnership for the good of all, working together in the great Hindu renaissance, which is surging forward as a result of the global Hindu diaspora, and spawning an indomitable Hindu front.§

We are happy to say that peace, tolerance, forbearance and mutual respect now exist between these two schools. We feel that the foundation for this coexistence of love and trust was made on January 30, 1981, when we met with His Holiness for the first time. I was on a holy pilgrimage to Śaivism’s most sacred sites with my entourage of forty Eastern and Western devotees when messengers from His Holiness invited us to visit his ancient Dharmapura Aadheenam. Together we sat in the inner chambers of his palatial spiritual refuge, built by mahārājas in the sixteenth century. It was quite a spectacle—Eastern pandits with their guru, and Western mystics with theirs, discussing the philosophical enigmas that have perplexed the mind of man from the dawn of history. Through our translators, we spoke of God, of the soul and the world, and of the dire need for Śaivite schools in South India, and around the world, to pass this great knowledge on to the next generation. §

After our lively discussion, a special lunch was served. Later, one of our swāmīs casually inquired of His Holiness about his large golden earrings, wondering where such a pair might be obtained for myself. Without hesitation, the guru summoned an aide and whispered some instructions. Moments later, a pair of earrings identical to those he was wearing were placed in his hands. His Holiness indicated that these were for me. Joyfully shrugging off our objections that he was being too generous, he immediately set about placing them in my ears with his own hands, enlarging the existing holes to accept these massive gold rings which are the traditional insignia of a paramāchārya guru mahāsannidhānam aadhee­nakarthar. Then he presented new orange kavi cloth to me and to my accompanying swāmīs. §

We gratefully accepted the Sannidhānam’s unexpected and generous gift as a gesture of goodwill to help us on our way of spreading the message of Śaiva Siddhānta. Perhaps even more importantly, it was to us a sign of cooperative efforts between two great monasteries, one firmly teaching pluralistic Śaiva Siddhānta in the East, and the other boldly promulgating monistic Śaiva Siddhānta in the West. We thought to ourself that all that transpired after this would be for the best. To the onlooking pandits, this presentation of the āchārya earrings meant that all knowledgeable Hindus would know that the Guru Mahāsannidhānam of Dhar­ma­pura Aadheenam and the Guru Mahāsannidhānam of Kauai Aadhee­nam would work together for the future of Śaiva Siddhānta. Later the same day, Mahāsannidhānam asked me to address several thousand people who were seated in the giant inner hall overlooking the large temple tank. I spoke of the greatness of Śaivism and Śaiva Siddhānta and the effects of its spreading into the Western world. The day culminated when His Holiness handed me an ornate silver casket in which was kept a precious scroll honoring our work in spreading Śaiva Siddhānta. §

Later, after being engraved with words of acknowledgement, the casket was officially presented to me at the 1,000-pillared hall in Chidam­ba­ram Temple just before the sacred bharata natyam performance by premier dancer Kumari Swarnamukhi, a state treasure of Tamil Nadu, which we arranged as part of our Innersearch Travel-Study Program. This was the first dance performance within the temple’s precincts in over fifty years, since the Anglican British outlawed the dancing of devadāsīs in tem­ples. More than 15,000 devotees were packed into the viewing area while 300,000 more, we were told, filled the 65-acre temple complex. The entire city of Chidam­ba­ram came forward, as well as neighboring villages, for this historic presentation of all 108 tāṇḍava poses, a magnificent event held on the temple’s most popular evening, establishing once and for all that, yes, dance could again be held in Chidambaram. This tradition, once banned, now continues at Śiva’s most hallowed sanctuary. So, dancing with Śiva began again on that historic day—a dance that never ends. We look forward to the day when dance in each and every Śaiva temple in South India and around the world is a vital part of worship. That day is not far off, for temple congregations in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States already take great joy when their girls and boys dance for God and the Gods. That dance is the perfect metaphor of Śiva’s gracious presence in the world He created!§