Worshiping Siva Nataraja
April 27, 2020
Aum Namah Sivaya!
Today is Ardra Nakshatra, so the monks performed their monthly abhishekam to Lord Nataraja in Kadavul Temple. We hope you enjoyed an inner day as well, worshiping and celebrating this dancing universe. Aum
Nataraja, “King of Dance,” is a depiction of God as the Cosmic Dancer. Perhaps Hinduism’s richest and most eloquent symbol, Nataraja represents the Primal Soul and the power, energy and life of all that exists. This is God’s intricate state of Being in Manifestation. The dance is the dance of the entire cosmos. Nataraja is chosen to depict the Divine because, in dance, that which is created is inseparable from its creator, just as the universe and soul cannot be separated from God. Dance and dancer are one. Nataraja is also stillness and motion wrought together. The stillness speaks of the peace and poise that lies deep within us all. The intense motion, depicted by His hair flying wildly in all directions, is an intimation of the fury and ferocity, the violent vigor, which fills this universe wherein we dwell. The implication of these opposites is that God contains and allows them both, that there is divine purpose at work in our life, whether we find ourselves engaged in its beauty or its “madness.”
Nataraja’s Dance, or all that happens, is composed of an ever-flowing combination of five foundational actions: 1) creation, or emanation, represented by His upper right hand and the drum, from which the Primal Sound issues forth, promulgating the rhythms and cycles of creation; 2) preservation, represented by His lower right hand in a gesture of blessing, abhaya mudra, saying “fear not;” 3) destruction, dissolution or absorption, represented by the fire in His upper left hand; 4) obscuring grace, the power which hides the truth, thereby permitting experience, growth and eventual fulfillment of destiny, represented by His right foot upon the prostrate figure Apasmarapurusha—the principle of ignorance, or ego; 5) revealing grace—which grants knowledge and severs the soul’s bonds—represented by Siva’s raised left foot, and by His lower left hand, held in gajahasta (“elephant trunk”) mudra, inviting approach. These five cosmic activities are sometimes personalized respectively as Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Maheshvara and Sadasiva—or as Sadyojata (creation), Vamadeva (preservation), Aghora (reabsorption), Tatpurusha (obscuration) and Ishana (revealing grace).
The ring of fire in which Nataraja dances is the hall of consciousness, chitsabha; in other words, the light-filled heart of man, the central chamber of the manifest cosmos. God dances the universe into and out of existence, veiling Ultimate Reality for most, unveiling it for devotees who draw near and recognize Ultimate Reality in the chamber of their own inner being.