“जरा रंग सांची प्रेम की, और रंग हैं झूठ।”
(Jara rang saanchi prem ki, aur rang hain jhooth)The true colour is the colour of Divine Love, all other colours are false.
– Kabir das
This is a topic I have not written about before although it has been with me for some years now and is very close to my heart. It is the relation, interplay, connection and, once you understand, the love, between Shiva and Krishna; Hara and Hari; Shambho and Vasudeva.
This sharing is prompted by the occasion of Holi – a festival at once easily and ignorantly labelled as the most crass and yet, holding such a valuable subtle understanding that we usually miss. I have written before about the Yoga of Playfulness, how Holi is about burning the old and allowing our true Life to burst forth in all its colours and about Holi as Light and its colours. Here, I wanted to share about what Holi represents on the spiritual path through the deeper understandings of Shiva and Krishna.
From Mahashivratri to Holi
Mahashivratri is celebrated on the last or 14th day of the dark fortnight (Krishna paksha) of the month of Phalgun. The next day is the new moon of the Shukla paksha (waxing moon fortnight) and the culmination of that paksha is the festival of Holi – so the two dates are about 2 weeks/14 days apart within the same month of Phalgun, the last month of the Hindu calendar year. The number 14 also holds some significance such as representing the main secondary nadis or energy channels in the body as described in the extended chakra system (the main nadis of course are the Ida, Pingala and Sushumna). These 14 nadis are connected with the 7 chakras, regulating the energy flow through the body. 14 also represents the number of realms or lokas and the number of years that Sri Rama was in exile.
Mahashivratri is a day of transcendence and realization of our ultimate nature. The period leading up to this day, from Mauni Amavasya onwards, is observed by a spiritual seeker as a period of silence. A period when one withdraws into oneself to prepare for Mahashivratri where Shiva’s blessings would enable us to drop the false ego and awaken to the Reality.
Shiva is the lord of jnana. And jnana is all about viveka and vairagya. It is about using self-effort to pursue the line of neti-neti, ‘not this-not this’, rejecting all the phenomenal, changing world, to realise the unchanging and the Eternal. Upon realizing this, begins the process of integration into the Whole. The correct understanding realigns our body-mind and imparts a new vision where everything comes to be seen as an expression of the One Source. Even the body and mind that were earlier rejected and perhaps even fell into dangerous neglect, are accepted again with gratitude for having served as important tools in the realization. The practical world, once shunned, is seen as the play of God. The dark depths of Silence, reveal the infinite colours of Life. Mahashivratri leads up to Holi.
“शिवाय विष्णुरूपाय शिवरूपाय विष्णवे।
शिवस्य हृदयं विष्णुः विष्णोश्च हृदयं शिवः॥”(Shivāya Viṣṇurūpāya Śivarūpāya Viṣṇave |
Śivasya Hṛdayaṁ Viṣṇuḥ Viṣṇośca Hṛdayaṁ Śivaḥ ||)Shiva is the form/nature of Vishnu, Vishnu is of the form of Shiva
Vishnu resides in Shiva’s heart, Shiva resides in Vishnu’s heart
Hari-Hara
There is sometimes an ill-informed tussle between the jnanis and bhaktas or between devotees of Shiva and Krishna as to which or who is higher. Of course, truly, there is no such thing and that’s why it is said that Shiva is the greatest devotee of Vishnu and vice-versa. Shiva is in the heart of Vishnu and vice-versa. As it is mentioned in the Puranas, Shiva always comes to take the darshan of Vishnu whenever the latter incarnates on earth and as we know from Sri Rama’s example, Vishnu seeks the blessings of Shiva through worship of Shiva lingas.
The sages of Bharat have always understood that there is only one Reality that may take different forms: Ekam sat, viprah bahuda vadanti (Rig Veda); the Truth is One, the wise talk about It in many ways. In fact, we, each one, are an expression of that Reality, so in a way, each one is also God. Hence why we say ‘namaste’ – ‘I bow to you (as I would to God)’.
Yogeshwar and Gopeshwar
Thus, while Shiva is usually called Yogeshwar (lord of Yoga) and Krishna, Gopeshwar (lord of the gopis), we also have Yogeshwar Krishna and Gopeshwar Mahadev.
Yogeshwar Krishna is the great teacher speaking the Bhagavad Gita on the battlefield of Kurukshetra and Gopeshwar Mahadev is Shiva entering Vrindavan, dressed as a gopi, eager to participate in Krishna’s rasa lila.
While Shiva is the guru of the fiery yogis and jnanis, the Tamil Nayanmar saints showed how to break that stereotype with their love-filled devotion to Shiva. While Krishna is the Lord who fulfills the ultimate human longing through the medium of love and devotion, the great Vaishnava acharyas like Ramanujacharya, Vallabhacharya and others have shown that the bhaktas are fully across the jnana and Advaita teachings, (and if you ask them, they will say that bhakti truly begins after jnana has been deeply understood i.e. all materiality transcended).
So jnana and bhakti are really the two wings of one bird. And yet, it is true that each one of us will find our place on one side or the other, determined by individual temperament, soul calling or quite simply, Divine Will. But you will never find a true Vaishnava that does not acknowledge that his bhakti has been a gift from Shiva and that Shiva is the primary Vaishnav acharya. And you will not find a true Shaiva who does not acknowledge that their Realisation has been the gift of the Grace of ‘All that Is’ that the bhaktas cannot stop singing about.
A word on Holi
If jnana and bhakti exist to bring about a balance in spirituality, it is not a balance that any human being can determine. The understanding of Holi is itself the understanding that life needs to be viewed in its universal vision for it to appear like the rainbow of colours that it is. The festival has been immortalized as the exuberant celebration of the joy of life, through the play of water and colours by Krishna and Radha in Braj. That is why, colloquially, we always refer to Divine Love as being a colour that one gets coloured with (rang chad gaya).
With our human minds, we cannot find a place for everything we perceive – we include some things and exclude others. And so we fight, hate, object to, argue against and bring suffering to ourselves and others. Not being able to see the Source of all things behind the manifestation, we compete, criticize and judge. Hari is that Intelligence that shows us how to view all life as His play. That brings the right, higher discernment to our mind (what Krishna calls ‘buddhi yoga’ in the Bhagavad Gita) after we have dropped the lower, judging mind. Love is what colours all the world, for us, in the colour of our Beloved.
[On a side note, if there is a misunderstanding between the Buddhist and the Vedic views, it is this: that the Buddhists (I would clarify, those who did not fully understand the Buddha’s teachings) stopped after claiming ‘anatma’ (no self) to be the Reality while the Vedic view says, go further – after dropping the little self, the true Self takes over and brings the right understanding, vision and experience of unconditional Love.]
May we see the fabric of Life as the beautiful web of diverse brightly woven, colourful threads, that it truly is. And may we be steeped in the colour of Divine Love, which as the saint Kabir said, is the only true colour that makes all other colours appear false.
Happy Holi.
