Worship in Rarh

What is the underlying spirit or essence of dharma?

The essence of dharma is that it carries a person in the direction of greater and greater expansion.

• It finally establishes that person in the supreme pervasiveness.

A mango has in it skin, pulp, fibres, seed and juice.

When pure mango juice is collected and thoroughly dried in the sun, we get a sheet of mango essence.

This sheet of mango essence is not the same thing as the mango.

The real essence of dharma is like the sheet of condensed mango essence.

This essence of dharma is known as the essence of the essence.

The Guru has also been defined in scriptures as the essence of the essence:

Vandaná kariba ámi Gurure ámár Yini púrńa, yini nitya, yini sárátsára.

[I shall worship my Guru Who is absolute, eternal and the supreme essence of all.]

The essence of Shaeva Dharma [Shaivism] is all-round expansion.

• It takes an individual from the lokáyata [objective] to the lokottara [noumenal] life.

Shaivism is that which takes the individual to the supreme fulfilment along a sweet and more and more resplendent path.

Shaeva Tantra [Shiva Tantra] is not a cult based on the sayings of the munis and rśis.

Rather it is concerned with the hopes and aspirations of the masses. It is something which deals with the subtler mystic aspect of human life.

What is the subtle difference between the objective and the noumenal worlds?

Assume that a bird in a cage is eating little morsels of food.

• That food is like lokáyata [objective] sádhaná.
• The restless, intense psychic urge of the bird to soar freely into the sky is lokottara [noumenal] sádhaná.

Shaeva Dharma in Ráŕh is Tantra-oriented.

Tantra means all-round expansion.

The inhabitants of Ráŕh accepted this Tantra from the core of their hearts, even in the distant prehistoric past.

And so they made multidimensional progress:

• in art and literature
• in dance and music
• in architecture and sculpture.

The inhabitants of Ráŕh made unimaginable progress in all spheres of human life.

There should be:

• a harmonious adjustment between movement in the psychic sphere and movement in the external sphere.
• a healthy social structure as well.

All the necessary materials for that structure are fully present in Shaeva Dharma and in Shaeva Tantra.

The women throughout Ráŕh enjoyed great independence.

Women were highly respected in society.

Even divorced women of higher caste were permitted to remarry if they wanted.(1)

hese were direct contributions of Shaeva Tantra.

Later, the nirváńatattva and arhattattva [doctrine of renunciation] of Buddhism and Jainism entered the heart of Ráŕh.

This tattva [theory] was based completely on a negative outlook towards the mundane world and towards life.

Karma sannyása and sthiti sannyása became the guiding principle of life.

This:

• saw the universe as full of suffering and affliction and was nothing but a realm of staticity created out of Avidyá(3))
• cheated the physical world – that is, in a way, cheated oneself.

Discarding rhythmic expansion in life, people began to feel that there was nothing in life except the gloom of staticity all around them.

This is to extinguish that vigorous burning lamp which illuminates and glorifies humanity.

Once the lamp is completely burnt out, its flame cannot be revitalized, even if a burning stick is brought to it a thousand times.

This is an emphatic kind of negativism.

This negative Jainism created fissures in the well-formed structure of Ráŕh.

Both Buddhist and Jain philosophy can be summed up as a science that, as a result of inaction, as a result of karma sannyása, extinguishes the lamp of life.

Mokśa and nirváńa are not synonymous.

Tantra is based on mokśa.

This is the sádhaná [spiritual practice] of absolute expansion.

It is the sádhaná of moving at lightning speed from the darkness of staticity to divine effulgence.

One’s lamp of life is one’s most precious treasure.

The pursuit of nirváńa is the sádhaná of knowingly extinguishing this lamp.

It is to lose oneself in the deepest abyss of darkness by denying one’s existence under the impact of utter ignorance.

The sádhaná of extinction, the sádhaná of being lost in darkness, can never be the dharma or nature of human beings.

So Jain and Buddhist philosophy brought incalculable harm to Shaivite Ráŕh.

Ráŕh was awakened by Shaivite philosophy into vigorous activity and tireless sádhaná and struggle.

It later on, under the evil negative sentiment of Buddhism and Jainism, entered a useless attempt to establish a repulsive tortoise-like withdrawal.

This paused the all-round development of the social life of Ráŕh.