The next level

Sadhguru: Devotion

"This is something I want everyone to understand: Your devotion is not doing anything to your deity – it is transforming you. If you do not know how to use your devotion to transform you, it becomes deceptive. If you look at things as high and low, superior and inferior, good and bad, you have not tasted the Divine. Don’t look up to anything – don’t look down on anything. If you pay absolute attention to everything, you will see something tremendous in everything. If I see an ant, that ant is my Ishta Devata at that moment..."

"Devotion is a tool to dissolve yourself into what you are doing. This is a way to access intelligence and insight well beyond your normal intellect. You will see things that others would never be able to see. Devotion is not only about going to the temple, breaking coconuts, or doing pooja. Devotion means involvement with no limits, prejudice, and conditions. Who you are dissolves in your activity, as if you are not there. That is when you are a true leader. That is when you are a true devotee."

isha.sadhguru.org/blog/sadhguru/spot/my-ishta-devata/

Your gaze

I see You. I see You behind everything.

Only those who seek the dark and crave all that is wild can see You. Only the chaste bride of all that is without and beyond can feel Your gaze.

I see You. I know You.

Your hair a plasma of dark flames, your garland of ashy skulls, Your only attire a living kindred of deadly snakes.

Your eyes were hidden. But now they are wild upon me.

My Lord. My Lord. Kala Bhairava. Namo namo.

Om Kala Bhairavaya Namo

Kala Bhairava

Shree Kala Bhairava

Significance of Kala Bhairava Worship

Adapted from Sringeri.net

Kala Bhairava represents the march of time. As the fierce aspect of Lord Shiva, Kala Bhairava is the destroyer of all through destroying Time (Maha Kala). He oversees the march of the mysterious time itself, through which he not only controls human life, but also countries and planets as well, ensuring the evanescence (impermanence) of all phenomena.

Hymns on Kala Bhairava highlight a truth; “Time is the most precious. Time lost is lost for ever. Wise people should use every moment of time effectively. Lord Kala Bhairava helps everyone to make one’s time useful.”

He is not only the protector of the sacred place but also the deity of liberation.

The worship of Shiva in the aspect of Kala Bhairava helps one realize the transitory nature of worldly existence and make the most of the rare human birth to realize Brahman, the supreme reality.

Kala Bhairavashtakam has been composed by Adi Shankara, and Jagadguru  Sri Shivabhinava Narasimha Bharati Swamigal the 33rd Acharya of Sringeri Math.

Devotees offer vadesara, abhisheka and even silver anklets to Kala Bhairava on ashtami tithi.

Kala Bhairava teaches you the highest truth that your life is going to depend on how you relate to time. If you insult time by idling it away, you will be cursed by Kala Bhairava. On the other hand if you worship time, even a millisecond will matter and bring you prosperity, victory and peace. As a human being you think that nothing is going to happen in one millisecond, but then the divine knows methods to change your life in a millisecond.

If you are endlessly waiting for things to happen and it never happens, this means you have offended time either in this life or previous life All that you need is a worshipful attitude towards time.  You can fix the problem by worshiping Kala Bhairava.

Spiritual topography

Kala Bhairava ~ the fierce aspect of Shiva

Significance of Kala Bhairava Worship

Adapted from Sringeri.net

Kala Bhairava represents the march of time. As the fierce aspect of Lord Shiva, Kala Bhairava is the destroyer of all through destroying Time (Maha Kala). He oversees the march of the mysterious time itself, through which he not only controls human life, but also countries and planets as well, ensuring the evanescence (impermanence) of all phenomena.

Hymns on Kala Bhairava highlights a truth; “Time is the most precious. Time lost is lost for ever. Wise people should use every moment of time effectively. Lord Kala Bhairava helps everyone to make one’s time useful.”

He is not only the protector of the sacred place but also the deity of liberation.

The worship of Shiva in the aspect of Kala Bhairava helps one realize the transitory nature of worldly existence and make the most of the rare human birth to realize Brahman, the supreme reality.

 
Kala Bhairavashtakam has been composed by Adi Shankara, and Jagadguru  Sri Shivabhinava Narasimha Bharati Swamigal the 33rd Acharya of Sringeri Math.

Devotees offer vadesara, abhisheka and even silver anklets to Kala Bhairava on ashtami tithi.

Kala Bhairava teaches you the highest truth that your life is going to depend on how you relate to time. If you insult time by idling it away, you will be cursed by Kala Bhairava. On the other hand if you worship time, even a millisecond will matter and bring you prosperity, victory and peace. As a human being you think that nothing is going to happen in one millisecond, but then the divine knows methods to change your life in a millisecond.

If you are endlessly waiting for things to happen and it never happens, this means you have offended time either in this life or previous life All that you need is a worshipful attitude towards time.  You can fix the problem by worshiping Kala Bhairava.

Who I am

Om Shree Kala Bhairavaya Namo

At last, I understand.

Om Shree Kala Bhairavaya Namo.

The reason I like the night, the dark, the quiet, the eerie, the wistful.

Om Namo Namo.

My sadhana is solitary. Who I am is solitary.

Om. 

My Lord is here, the One who is outside of the circle of life, fierce, dark, the Lord of outermost cold and the innermost flame.

Others run. I open my arms to You, elemental and inexorable, guardian of the temple of my heart—I know you at last. I recognize my Lord, my true Self, my Ishta Devata.

Om Shree Kala Bhairavaya.

Pranam. Namo.

You are the hidden places,
wild and unknown by any but your own

Om. Salutations to You, Kalabhairava, Shiva. I bow to You.

Om namo namo.

I bow again and again.

Om.

At your feet forever.

Om Shree Kala Bhairava Namo

Veil of ash

A Coign of Vantage by Alma-Tadema

I've been hiding from You. I hide from everyone.

I'm afraid of You. You can see right through to where I am hiding. Your gaze is stern, You are stern. You mirror my crisis of worth. My ego filled with full panic, with nowhere to hide.

You burned me for years. You were just about to look at me. Panic. Over and over, you turned your body to face mine, but never your head. Never your gaze. Each time, I was singed, a curl of smoke rising from my veil of ash.

Just enough fire to weaken my fortress. How shall I be released?

Every moment, a crisis of worth. I offer this crisis of worth.

I offer this, my weary ego, my tiny prison of historic battlements, a coign of vantage, my impassable moat disguised as a lazy pool of leisure. I stand at this muddy shore and breathe the wider world, imagine myself roaming there, and try... Again and again. No. No shakti there for me. I cannot. At last I am defeated.

You are my world.

Then, at age twelve, I was encapsulated in the moment when all was lost. The world. My parents. My worth. Only hope survived. I have tended to it all these years, my sanity.

Svaha. I offer the belief that any of this happened to me.

Svaha. I offer ego, I need it no longer. I am here, at your feet.

Svaha. I offer all that I am, to You.

I welcome your gaze, I pray for it. Please gaze into my eyes, into my soul.

Break open the prison.

Svaha.

The scenery moves

I am not moving. My body and the scenery moves.

The quality of Nandi

Nandi Temple in Khajuraho

From an interview with Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Nandi is a symbolism of eternal waiting, because waiting is considered the greatest virtue in Indian culture. One who knows how to simply sit and wait is naturally meditative. Nandi is not expecting Shiva to come out tomorrow.* He is not anticipating or expecting anything. He is just waiting. He will wait forever. That quality is the essence of receptivity. Before you go into a temple, you must have the quality of Nandi – to simply sit. 


You are not trying to go to heaven, you are not trying to get this or that – you simply sit.

Some Nandis have one leg ready as they wait

People have always misunderstood meditation as some kind of activity. No – it is a quality. That is the fundamental difference. Prayer means you are trying to talk to God. Meditation means you are willing to listen to God. You are willing to just listen to existence, to the ultimate nature of creation. You have nothing to say, you simply listen. That is the quality of Nandi – he just sits, alert.

This is very important – he is alert, not sleepy. He is not sitting in a passive way. He is sitting, very active, full of alertness, full of life, but just sitting – that is meditation.

Brihadiswar Temple Tamil Nadu 

Meditation essentially means the individual person is not doing his own thing. He is just there. Once you are simply there, you become aware of the larger dimension of the existence that is always in action. You become aware that you are a part of it.

Even now you are a part of it but becoming aware that “I’m a part of it” is meditativeness. Nandi is the symbolism of that. He just sits and reminds everyone, “You must sit like me.”

___________

*NOTE from Jana: Nandi is Shiva's "vehicle," and is traditionally found at Shiva temples. His qualities are related to the qualities of Shiva, who is often portrayed as the master yogi sitting in meditation. Nandi is also considered a deity in his own right.

Made for this

I return to the mantra after socializing for a few hours.

A feeling of relief in mind and body, and the sweetness like a fragrance in my mind.

I no longer fear I have lost my way, or that I am incapable of real progress.

The mantra makes my being sing. I am made for this.