June 12, 2020

As the constraint of Act Four ties us up with the suffering of forgetting who and what we truly are, Act Five is the sword edge that cuts through the bonds of our distress. In the image of the Shiva as the cosmic dancer, the arm of concealment across his heart points toward the source of liberation, the upraised foot. This foot symbolizes anugraha which translates as grace. In the Indian tradition, the foot is the most auspicious part of the teacher and is associated with the flow of grace from the heavens through the teacher to the earthy realm and the receiving student.

Act Four shows us that the concealment of true nature is the source of all suffering. The suffering is the result of settling into the misunderstanding of ourselves as individuals waves disconnected from the ocean that is our source. Grace, then, is the revelation of who and what we essentially are - the ocean! It is the mystery which is the source of moments of contact with Truth. This Truth transcends doctrine, philosophy, individuality and is universal in application. As we remember what which we already are, our suffering dissolves and we reconcile our sense of separateness with a sudden insight into our place in the pattern of the whole. We become unified - wave and ocean perspectives seamlessly integrated as one.

This grace of remembering, non-dualists postulate, is not dependent on merit. It is not earned by being “good” and or taken away by being “bad.” Instead, it is available to each of us whenever there is a spontaneous moment of opening. When we dissolve a remnant of our in-held and often unconscious tension, grace effortlessly flows in to fill the space created. So, while spiritual practice cannot “cause” the descent of grace, we can open to receive Her when She appears. This softening invites the feeling of Love at the heart of the remembering of Truth. We realize that, as St. Francis of Assisi said, “The one you are looking for is the one who is looking.”

It is significant to note that this description of grace underlines aspects of the Divine that can be easily overlooked or misunderstood. Non-dual Tantra affirms that the Divine is completely free and independent. Such autonomy means She is not governed by our human acts and efforts. She flows forth with unlimited creativity, uncontrolled and yet without chaos. At the heart of her movement is a pure desire to know Herself in Her from as many perspectives and through as many experiences as possible. Her appearance in the unpredictable moments that shine light on our misunderstanding are completely without our control. The most we can do is orient toward the possibility of Her presence and to open up fully to that in each moment of our daily life.

The desire, on the part of the Divine, to know Herself through the myriad array of forms that we see in the world around us is at the heart of Shiva’s wild dance. This deep desire prods Shiva from his meditation seat in a cave in the Himalayas and issues the drum beat that compels him into movement. Held in Her wide embrace, represented by

the ring of fire around the image, Shiva can abandon himself to the joy of movement. His movement creates, sustains and dissolves everything that exists on all levels from the macrocosm to the microcosm, the seen and the unseen. The base on which Shiva dances is a small imp that represents our ignorances, misunderstandings and misperceptions. Shiva keeps him in check with his foot firmly planted while he freely moves to the beat of the dance. And while careening about in the ecstasy of movement, Shiva’s face is calm and serene representing the still point at the heart of movement. Stillness and movement, silence and energy, are held at the heart of the dance and it is our practice to attune to and be present with the rhythm of the universe that calls us forth to dance our unique sequence of movement, emerging, sustaining, dissolving, concealing and revealing the truth at our essence.