Sati loved everything about Her Lord, especially His poetry. “Say something nice,” she would say, as they lay staring at the stars in a clear sky. Typically, He would laugh and say, “you are very nice,” then hold her close. She would struggle out of the clasp, saying, “That’s so silly!” One day, she implored, “No, say something really nice.” Shiva said, “is no such thing as the end of life, but, without you, my love, there is no life.”
Sati: What exactly does it mean?
Shiva: It means… we are eternal, yet incomplete if there’s no one to share the eternity with.
Sati: Ok, tell me something more… about life, something that rhymes.
Shiva: Ups and downs, round-n-rounds
Come and go in life.
To know your Self
In the middle of it all
Is the real thrill of the ride.
Sati: Up-n-down! Round-n-round! But what is ‘the middle of it all’?
Shiva: At one point, when we move towards the centre of knowing, Sati, we realize that the end and the beginning are indistinguishable.
Related reading: When Shiva lost Sati
Sati: So does this deep wisdom come to you in your Yoga abhyasa, your asanas?
Shiva: Yoga is not about your body. Yoga helps to discover the soul. Yogasana is only a seat for that great flight to the Self. All of Nature is like that. You need to be ‘One’ with it. Like I am with Nandi before I even mount the ride. Else you will be overthrown, which too is an important part of the learning.
Sati: Beautiful!
Shiva: The real beauty is that you are the sum of all that you have felt and energized in your cosmos. Take a ride again, or light up the Godfire in quiet harmony.
Sati: Godfire?
Shiva: Godfire! This burning desire to know the Oneness behind all the beauty of the Universe, the play, the purpose, the joy of being, all is Godfire.
Sati: I am God’s firewood. The wood of this soul started to prepare itself to burn for you from the very beginning. I always loved the Shivlinga, and now I love you.
Shiva: You, Sati, are maya. It is said of me that I do not incarnate. And yet your love can make even Shiva manifest, you enchanting sorceress!
Sati: Me, a sorceress! And what are you? You, who has hypnotized the universe?
Shiva: I am a yogi, immersed in tattva, the quintessence. And in love with tattva, which manifests as Sati!
Sati: Why do they call you a brahmachari then?
Shiva: Celibacy is only a seat for Brahmacharya, which means being ‘One’ with God.
Sati: But then why does my love for you feel even deeper than our spiritual connect?
Shiva: That is because of its electrifying attraction –love; it causes the Universe to Be. The spiritual attraction also bedazzles. You eventually realize that love and spirituality run on the same current.
The lessons with Shiva were endless. His talk was profound; so was His silence.
Sati: You seem to be talking to me even when you are silent.
Shiva: Few understand silence. Stillness gives wings.
Shiva embodied wisdom, even in his jokes.
“Tell me you love me,” Sati demanded again one day.
Shiva: Oh, I do love you. But when you specifically ask me to say it, I am tongue-tied; such are your charms and magic. Shiva laughed. Before I met you, I had no wants. Now it’s all different. You have ruined the poor yogi.
Sati: Ruined the yogi? I thought you, immersed in Yoga, didn’t have time for me. Sometimes you are so aloof…
Shiva: That’s only when I am deep in thought…Chintan. But then I see us together – and I want nothing else.
Sati: Want? Aren’t yogis supposed to be without desire?
Shiva: Desirelessness! Hmm… mine is a Shaivite creed: we desire only to see Shiva Shakti in limitless manifestation and play… that is ‘us – you and me’.
Sati: And yet you can go to the extreme opposite – renunciation?
Shiva: It has to be, Sati. The farthest ends of the spectrum come and rest in the one point from where they all began.
Sati: And that point is Aum!
Shiva: Yes! That point is Aum.
And that is the whole point.”
Sati and Shiva embraced. Yet another spiritual lesson had concluded.
Mandavi: “I Am Bharata’s Wife And The Loneliest Woman In The Kingdom”
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