Shiva
Shiva, even when you take the name, you feel so satisfied and secured. Shiva. Shiva. I am talking about the Hindu God Shiva. Yes, there are many Gods in Hinduism but the core of it is not the physical appearance of God, the core is the concept. There is a definite difference between what pleases the eyes and what pleases your vision. So, rather than going for the appearance of God, I feel humbled to try to understand the concept behind it. Well, I have never seen Shiva, but I feel immense truth in the words of a Saint, Adi Guru Shankaracharya who wrote amazing lines about Shiva, "I am nothing at all but the eternal bliss, the eternal joy. I am Shiva." It is about total liberation, total freedom, total joy, eternal joy and bliss. We don't even have the concept of freedom and here we are trying to analyze eternal freedom and eternal bliss.
We are born to be free, free of what? You might have heard the saying, "You should teach the person to fish but not give the fish." That is freedom, and when the person enjoys the fishing, it is joyful freedom and when he understands that he is not fishing at all, then maybe, that is when we start talking about eternal freedom. When you do something and understand that it is being done and yet you are doing it.
Physics is amazing, it is just a name given to understand our nature. We can never think above physics, because we cannot think above matter and energy. That's why literature and art comes to the rescue many times and many times art at its best is physics at its best and physics at its best is art at its best. But there is even more. There is infinity, the symbol of total freedom, eternity. When you become infinite, you have eternal freedom or when you become zero.
One word that defines Shiva for me is infinity. When you are infinite, everything become so tiny, even the trillions of universes become so tiny. I can say that it is a wonderful human achievement even to coin the word Infinity, because that is Shiva for me. And it would be amazing to think that the infinity is so joyous, the joyous infinity. There is Shiva in joy, there is Shiva in infinity. So whenever you'll see pure joy, you'll see Shiva, performing his eternal dance.
