Tag Archives: Chakra

Why We Pray to Shiva Linga?

Image February 3, 2014 jcisnowjs 6 Comments

Disclaimer: This article is based on my understanding made through reading various religious and spiritual books. Being a science student I have always looked for reasons behind everything, even when I know that some things can not be explained. Still, I have tried. Fool me. In no way my intentions are to hurt feelings or beliefs of anyone. In fact I am not strong enough to hurt your beliefs. So, try to read the below article with an open mind, otherwise you always have the choice of not reading it.

Why We Pray to Shiva Linga — Shiva Linga

Every time we bring Lord Shiva to our thoughts, there are generally two images that come to our mind. One that has form of a male human God wearing animal skin, having a drum (dumroo) in the hand, Ganga flowing throw hairs and snakes curled around the blue colored neck. Another image is that of a Shiva Linga, to be precise, denoting male phallus and female sexual organ (yoni) at the base.

But, why these two representation of Lord Shiva?

First lets discuss that why we are praying to what looks like the sexual organs of male and female body. So, while I was reading about the Kundalini, the Seven Chakras, and spiritual course of universe coming into existence from a single energy source. It struck me that what I have read in various religious books like Vedas, Shuk-Sagar and Shiv Puraan about Devas location and their role in universe creation, is actually so much related to our body, the Chakras inside and the sleeping Kundalini residing in the body.

Kundalini which dwells in the base of our spine in the Muladhaar Chakra, sleeps there in the coiled form. It rests in coiled form and thus sometimes expressed as a serpent, also named Bhujungi. This Kundalini when awakened is The Shakti, the ultimate energy form in its full power. Shakti which as per Indian Vedas and Puraans is the AadiShakti and companion of AadiShiva. Shiva who is static, used his Shakti the kinetic energy, to create the universe and everything in the universe. It is The Shakti, who has created everything as per the intention of Shiva, and she is thus the Mother of all. Sometimes also, referred as Mother Nature (Prakriti), and Maya the illusion.

Shakti and Shiva both complement and complete each other. Without his Shakti, Shiva is nothing, and without Shiva, Shakti is of no use. This can be stated in simple terms as, if Shakti is power, than Shiva is the Power Holder. If the power holder is not able enough or deserving to hold the power, then the power can not be put into any use. Same way, if a deserving power holder do not have enough power in his hands, he can not do anything useful. Thus, a union of Shiva and Shakti can be the only one powerful enough to create and hold everything in the union as one. That’s why when Shiva created this universe (Srishti), with the help of his Shakti, he took the form of Ardhnarishvar, God represented as half male and half female form.

Coming to how Kundalini is related to the universe creation and Shiva Shakti. Not going into much details here, (maybe in some another post), When Shakti was creating the Universe, one form that she took was, of Prakrti. As Prakrti she evolves Mind (Sixth Chakra), senses and matter of five forms namely Ether (fifth Chakra), Air (Fourth), Fire (Third), Water (Second), and Earth (last Muladhaar Chakra). When Shakti entered the last Chakra, her last creation of universe, she then went to rest there in her coiled sleeping form. This sleeping coiled Shakti is termed as Kundalini. This coiled Shakti, in her lowest form is represented as a serpent (Shakti) clinging to Linga (Shiva),or a yoni (Shakti) making a base for Linga (Shiva). Thus, when we are praying to a Shiva Linga we are also praying for the awakening of the Shiva’s Shakti.

In her true or active form, this Shakti travels through all the six Chakras upwards and move to the seventh Chakra, Shashrara lotus Chakra or Crown Chakra, the Chakra of Shiva. Shiva is said to reside in the Crown Chakra, the highest point. Shakti or Kundalini when awakened to her highest state moves to the Crown Chakra to unite with her Shiva. Here, with the union of Shiva and her Shakti, Moksha is achieved, as this is the stage of God. Here, Shiva and Shakti in union are represented as a point (Bindu), which is in reality the point of creation and also destruction of universe.

Now, to mention why Shiva is represented as two forms, one as Shiva Linga and other as a God in human form. My rendition is that, Shiva when represented as Shiva Linga is shown in his true formless nature, the Aadideva Shiva, in union with his Shakti. But, Shiva when represented as human god, is Mahadev (not Aadideva), along with Parvati by his side (but, not in union). This is the place which Mahadev or Rudra has taken along with other MahaDevs like, Vishnu and Brahma to take care of the Srashti (Universe), created by the Aadidevas Shiva-Shakti.

Hope my interpretation is helpful in explaining what can not be explained.

Let Shakti be with you and you be the Shiva.

Books, Spiritual

Meditation For The Love Of It : Book Review

Image January 29, 2014 jcisnowjs 3 Comments

Meditation For The Love Of It

(Book Review)

When you are interested in knowing something, you will find so many ways to achieve it. That is what happening with me. Since I have started doing Chakra Meditation, I am picking books, articles and every possible opportunity which is increasing my thirst more and more on learning about it. This book “Meditation for the Love of it” by “Sally Kempton” has also enhances my learning experience.

Coming to the review of book, this book is very good for the ones who wants to start their Meditative journey. Author has provided a detailed description of her experience in meditation and her Kundalini awakening episodes. Sally Kempton has spent her 40 years of life in immersing herself in meditation. She has learned the meditation techniques by her Indian spiritual Guru. Their teachings and guidelines are also mentioned in the book in very descriptive format.

If we talk of what does not clicked with me while reading this book, then there is only one point which makes it somewhat less interesting. The point being, it is less of self help book and more of Sally’s meditation journey. It’s actually good for those who are not sure if Meditation is meant for them, and they should proceed with it in their regular life or not. It could be a good inspiration to start Meditation. For those who are just looking for more techniques and exercises for meditation, this book has the information scattered around in a vague way. So you have to kinda dig in to all the Sally’s experiences to find out real stuff.

To mention an example, Chakras are mentioned in the book but nearly in the end, that too very vaguely. Another book is mentioned there for reading about Chakras which should be actually the base of Meditation, in case you want to awaken your Kundalini.

Kundalini is also mentioned at the end and not much has been given about it. I was expecting more. Kind of disappointing to me, but no sad face. Whatever you read and learn, is never sufficient. I need more and thus I have ordered some more books. So, just keep watching this space till I get my hold on those books.

Live and Learn. 🙂

Books, Health, Spiritual

Chakra Balancing by Michael Hadfield

Image January 2, 2014 jcisnowjs 6 Comments

Chakra Balancing

We spent so much money and time in medicines and all alternative healing methods that sometimes we forget to treat the basic underlying problem. What we are really doing is actually just treating the symptoms. When we take medicines for fever or cough or constipation, we are actually trying to cure these symptoms, while the problem which actually causes this problem in the first hand remains untouched and unexplored. Chakra Balancing is one such method which focuses not on the problem but on root of problem and tries to make our body and soul in balance.

We have seven major Chakras in our body governing our emotional, physical and as well spiritual self. Out of these seven Chakras, six are placed in six locations of our body, seventh one the crown Chakra is placed at the crown, just above our head. Each Chakra is represented by seven different colors and seven lotuses of different numbered petals.

Coming to the book, Chakra Balancing, this book started on a great note, exploring on the idea of why western medical science can not treat the illness and other psychological diseases. Why do we need Chakra Balancing science? This book gives a brief description of all these seven Chakras, their location, their color. It also tells you how you can balance an unbalanced Chakra. But, everything this book tells you is nothing new. Any person who knows a little bit about Chakras, knows this much. All this information is readily available on internet.

This book tells you nothing new that you didn’t new before. Only new thing that this book has is where you can purchase every item listed here. It annoys you when you are reading a book and in between you are getting links to buy a particular DVD or a healing mantra audio or a pendulum. This could have been part of a different section in the book.

Nevertheless, keeping these little things aside, I think the idea behind Chakras could have been explored more in the book. Like what are the foods that can boost up the energy of a particular Chakra or a specific Mantra healing of a Chakra. These are not covered in the book. Still, if you are a beginner and do not know about Chakras than you can pick up this read.

Go Read and Get Healed. Happy New Year.

Life, Spiritual

The Color of Love

Image December 22, 2013 jcisnowjs 10 Comments

Have you ever wondered why Red is considered as color of love?

Every time we think of love, we think of our soul-mate, our loved ones, we think of good things in our life, we think of flowers, nature, beauty…. and If just now you would think of a color, I bet it would be Red.

I am not talking about love between two lovers only, precisely speaking not a romantic love, but love in general. Love in its selfless form. Love which is between a parent and a child, two siblings, two friends and more specifically between any two souls.

Love can be categorized into any of the above category but if you have to choose a color for depicting your love, that color would be Red.

Now, coming to the underlying foundation behind this color categorization, I hope all of you are aware of the Human Aura. Aura is the energy field, Prana as called in Hindi, the life essence. Aura or this vital energy force is what we all have, maybe some of you have also felt it. This energy force is the one which remains with us throughout our life, and will leave with the soul it is attached to. Most astonishing fact is that whatever we go through in our life, our Aura reflects that in it’s energy.

Have you, meting a person for the first time, felt a total repulsion, what we call sometimes as a negative vibe, or a strong attraction, called positive vibe? Have you ever felt, a strong distrust to someone, who has in fact not given any reason for you to doing so? Why do we sometimes make very strong first impressions, even when we didn’t get enough time to explore the other person? It’s just our energy field reacting to the other person’s energy field. Positive and negative vibes.

Every feeling and emotion that we go through, is got reflected in our Aura too. When we are feeling love, it gets reflected in our Aura, when we are feeling anger, this got reflected too. No matter how good an actor you are, when you are in presence of someone you hate, your whole body, your whole persona shows that anger (It’s totally a different thing, if the victim of your hate is smart enough to notice that). Same is for love, respect, greed, lust and every other emotion.

When our Aura shows these emotions, it does the differentiation via colors. Yes, you have guessed it right, Love is shown as color Red in our Aura. Not only our Aura, the Chakra system also shows Red as a vital color of our physical self.

A selfless and pure love is denoted by bright Red, same as the color of blood of healthy person. A love of companionship, friendship and care is bright crimson red. Love with that higher power, the one you truly believe in, is same as a bright rose tint. But add lust, anger, passion and hate, this red will get maligned and takes the various shades of dull and darker red, brownish and blackish red. Ever heard of the term, “Red in anger” or “blushing red with Love”. Try to picture both in your head, the picture of anger will be a dull and darker shade of love, while a girl blushing with love will have a soft but bright red on her cheeks.

There are many more colors shown by our Aura like Yellow for Intellect, like a Guru, teacher, saint wearing yellow or a shade of yellow(orange). Blue denoting religion, Green denoting greed and nature love, Purple showing religion with authority and many more such emotions. Black and White, which are totally opposite but complementing colors. It will be too much if I will write about each one of them here. Maybe in some other post . Today it is just for love, love for Red.

In case you are thinking, how do I know all of this?