Recently I was talking to a friend about Maha Shivaratri, the Hindu festivals that honors Lord Shiva. Our conversation eventually moved to the origins of the festival and I decided to share a little story I knew on the topic. It goes something like this:
Now, before going further, I have to say that I’ve never actually been to India and have no affiliation with Hinduism. I’m just fascinated with history, mythology and spirituality. Moving on…
Many ages ago earth was a harsh, rocky planet. Life could not start under those circumstances. But before making the environment suitable for life, the creator had to establish Shiva. Obviously without Shiva life cannot exist. So she brought the earth very close to the moon. All the surface of the earth was covered with ice. Everything was frozen. Then she moved the earth very close to the sun and all the ice melted except in one place: the peak of Mount Kailash. That was to become the abode of lord Shiva. He was established on the earth and afterwards earth was brought to a balanced point between the sun and the moon where life could flourish. Maha Shivaratri celebrates the day when Shiva was fist established on the earth.
My friend had obviously heard a different version of the story where Maha Shivaratri celebrated the marriage of Shiva and Parvati.
We were somewhat confused because the two versions had almost nothing to do with each other. Which one’s the legitimate origin story of the festival? How can it be verified? From a religious point of view, these stories are historical facts and yet, they are so far away from the reality that we are familiar with. We started to wonder, did these stories actually happen in our world or are they from a divine realm that we cannot see? Or perhaps they are just stories, meant to teach us a lesson… Yes and no. Consider this:
Imagine group of a people that have always lived in a cave, they’ve never seen the sky. You can show them beautiful paintings of the sky, you can describe it to them but as long as they are in a cave, they can never “experience” it. Some may believe the story of your paintings without question, that’s blind faith. How can they believe in something without the experience? How can they verify that you are being honest? Blind faith leads to fundamentalism. One group starts believing that the night painting is the one true depiction of the sky, fighting against those who worship the day sky. Others may rationalize it and argue that looking up, they only see rocks therefore, sky doesn’t exist, that’s ignorant. How can they assume that just because they cannot see something, it doesn’t exist? Arguments, talks and back and forth continues because no one can actually see the sky, until one day, they come out of their cave. Only then they’ll understand that the paintings of the sky are all true and yet, sky is so much more than all of them. Paintings are just some chemicals on a canvas, they are not the sky. They tell a true story but the nature of sky cannot be understood by analyzing the paintings.
In many religions and spiritual traditions, there are some stories, legends and myths that don’t exactly follow our rationality but that doesn’t mean that we should dismiss them completely. If God is the infinite, we simply cannot comprehend it with our limited mental and emotional capacity. Our attention, consciousness and awareness is not at a level to understand the nature of Divinity. Until our awareness is evolved to a higher state, these stories and legends are our only way of getting a glimpse of the nature of God.
It is the power of evolution that has brought us from the darkness of animal awareness to twilight of human awareness, and it is the same power that will raise our awareness to the light of Divinity. Only then we will be able “experience“ the nature of Divinity. Only then we can understand the true meaning of our stories, legends and myths.