May 20, 2020

Sages, mystics and contemplatives from all spiritual traditions have wrestled with the questions of how are we created and what happens when we die? Various traditions developed models to answer these questions, and here is a paradigm from the non-dual Tantrik worldview. 

Picture a dishevelled, mostly naked, four-armed man with long dreadlocks dancing wildly on top of a small imp. Freeze-frame a moment on the dance where the man is balanced on his right foot, knee-bent, with his left leg crossed in front of him, toes extended. One of his right hands holds a small drum, the daamaru, his second right hand is positioned in a gesture of fearlessness (Abhaya mudra), his left hand holds fire and his second left hand is crossed in front of his heart with the fingers pointing down to the left foot. The dreadlocks are extending out from his head, being tossed to and fro from the intensity of the dance. His face is serene and his gaze is steady and focused. Encircling him is a ring of fire. He is Shiva Nataraja, dancing the tandava, the five-part performance encapsulating the Tantrik model of existence.

In the Indian tradition, it is only relatively recently that the Universal Force governing birth and death has been personified as a male figure. Specific Goddess-worshipping Tantrik sects recognized the Divine energy (ultimately beyond gender) as being more appropriately garbed in a female form, acknowledging the ability of the female to bring forth new life. Shiva, as described here, then is the Goddess assuming a male persona perhaps for the purpose of hiding her true identity from an unwelcome, partriarchial culture.

The first act of Shiva’s dance is srsti, translated from Sanskrit as meaning creation, emission, the flowing forth of Self-expression. In the Shiva-Nataraja, creation is represented by the daamaru drum held in his upper right hand. The drum connotes constant pulsation between expansion and contraction that is the eternal heartbeat moving the breath. In other words, the drumbeat is the rhythm of the universe to which we dance. 

To further illustrate the principle of creation conceptualized here, consider the ocean. The ocean is a vast expanse of relative uniformity out of which waves emerge and subside. This dynamic movement does not take away from the mass of the ocean and we recognize each wave as flowing from this source. This is precisely how Tantrik philosophy describes the creation process. Out of the vast universe, one form emerges. That form, even though having unique characteristics is inherently constructed out of the same material as the universe.

Creation is the impulse then that moves a wave up out of the ocean; it is the process of  bringing something into being. That impulse is free, spontaneous and mysterious. 

What longing creates this impulse for creation? Non-dual philosophy says that the driving desire is the wish to know oneself at our deepest level. The intention is to know the very fabric of which we are formed; to know our essence-nature. 

We see this same creative impulse on the largest level where galaxies are created out of space as well as happening in the creation of the world around us where new forms are constantly emerging. We also see it inside each of us, for example, when new thoughts arise in our mind seemingly out of nowhere. 

Inside each of us, we have unlimited creative potential. We constantly create as thoughts arise and subside in the ocean of our mind. Our mind, along with our senses, creates labels, stories, categorizes to bring the world outside into concepts that can be shared, forging a connection with those around us through this labelling process. We call a tree a tree because we have agreed to use that language to describe the image of a form we have created in our mind, even though we can never know if what we see is exactly what someone else sees. This creative process continues in how we build a narrative around life. We create a storyline that is built around our unique perception and experience. It is not necessarily universal as siblings often have vastly different stories of the same experience.

Our mind creates what it wants us to see. This is illustrated by the image of the young woman - old woman. Each of us initially see only one aspect of the image, the old woman or the young one. Convinced that is what the image is showing, we settle into our perspective. Once it is pointed out that another image exists, hidden within the first, we can no longer only create one image. So, while our tendency is to limit what we see to one perspective, we have the inherent power to create multiple realities at all times. Practice telling major events in your life as dramas, tragedies and comedies. Notice how all options are true to some extent. 

Because our innate creative power is so strong and can limit our ability to fully see, many meditation techniques deliberately harness the mind’s creative power and direct it toward specific modes of creation. We are asked to imagine or visualize aspects of our inner world, until they become real to us. As we direct our creativity into the specific modes of engagement, we give purpose and intention to the energy - shaping chaos into form.

As a result, we come to understand the creative urge that moved us out of the ocean from which we arise. We come to know our true identity; we are the ocean molded into a wave.