New Post: "Maha Sivaratri - February 23rd 2009"

[swamig...@sivananda.org]

“The night of Shiva”, falling on the 13th or 14th day of the dark half
of Phalgun (February – March), this festival honours Lord Shiva on the
day he was married to Parvati. It is said by Swami Sivananda, that “He
who utters the Names of Shiva during Shivaratri, with perfect devotion
and concentration, is freed from all sins. He reaches the abode of
Shiva and lives there happily. He is liberated from the wheel of
births and deaths.”

Chanting the mantra OM Namah Shivya is a Kavacha, said by Swami
Krishnananda in an address (full transcript available to read here
http://www.dlshq.org/saints/krishnananda.htm) to be like armour to
protect you, your family, your country, the whole world! “It can cease
wars and tensions of every kind, provided you offer the prayers
wholeheartedly from the bottom of your heart.”

Worshipping the Shiva Lingam by washing it every 3 hours with milk,
curd, honey, rose water, etc; worshippers fast during the day and
night to focus the mind and control the senses. Swami Krishnananda
explains why:
“The idea is that we control the senses, which represent the out-going
tendency of our mind, symbolised in fast, and we control also the
Tamasic inert condition of sleep to which we are subject everyday.
When these two tendencies in us are overcome, we transcend the
conscious and the unconscious levels of our personality and reach the
superconscious level. While, the waking condition is the conscious
level, sleep is the unconscious level. Both are obstacles to God-
realisation. We are shifted from one condition to another. We are
shunted, as it were, from waking to sleep and from sleep to waking
everyday. But the super-conscious is not known to us. The symbology of
fast and vigil on Sivaratri is significant of self-control; Rajas and
Tamas are subdued, and God is glorified. The glorification of God and
the control of the senses mean one and the same thing. Because, it is
only in God-Consciousness that all senses can be controlled. When you
see God, the senses melt, like butter melting before fire. They cannot
exist any more. All the ornaments become the solid mass of gold when
they are heated to the boiling point. Likewise, in the furnace of God-
consciousness, the sense-energies melt into a continuum of
universality. On Sivaratri, we can “contemplate God as the creator of
the world, as the Supreme Being unknown to the Creative Will, in that
primordial condition of non-objectivity which is the darkness of
Siva.”

As an opportunity to practice self-restraint, self-control,
contemplation, Japa and meditation, it is a period of Sadhana,
recalling to our memory “our original destiny, our Divine Abode”.

Swami Sivananda recites the Story of King Chitrabhanu on the night of
Sivaratri and gives a commentary from the scriptures to explain it
allegorically, click here to read in full http://www.dlshq.org/religions/shivaratri.htm

http://swamigovindananda.blogspot.com/