The poison kalakuta is one of the strongest metaphors for all greed, desire, anguish
and anger which we erringly choose at the cost of destroying divinity within us.
The poison kalakuta is one of the strongest metaphors for all greed, desire, anguish and anger which we erringly choose at the cost of destroying divinity within us.
What does Har Har Mahadev mean? We all know it is like a mantra to invoke Shivaji—one of the three principal deities of the Hindu pantheon. While as Lokeshwara he is compassion personified; he is wrathful and strident too, invoking rajas. ‘Har’ means to destroy, annihilate and overcome’ foes through the power of “Maha’ or supreme, great, omnipotent or all powering ‘deva’ or God.
Since our world is unceasingly tempting and provoking us with our thoughts and feelings and we face troubles in many circumstances we find ourselves invoking ‘call to action’ chants. Shivaji is a truly brave spiritual foe-destroyer, but he does not seek to destroy other people, or their religion, their beliefs, or way of living. He combats the negative forces we leash out from our own attachments, success and failures which lead to arrogance, greed, anger and other lethal and unhealthy feelings.
Lord Visnu in
his wisdom advised devas and asuras that the only person who could help in this predicament
Let me take you back to a mythological time. When devas and asuras teamed up to churn the ocean to extract nectar that gave magical powers and immortality, they pulled and heaved on the shesnaga (serpent king) Vasukhi using it as the churning string and Mandara the celestial mountain as the churning stick on top of which lay the divine sustainer lord Visnu.
The experiment of obtaining the nectar and other ratnas or treasures was successful. However what the devas and the asuras were unprepared for and which even Brahma the creator of the universe and the sustainer Visnu could not handle was the by-product from the Samudra Manthan or churning of the ocean kalakuta (also called halahala ). Kalakuta was so deadly and it would destroy the entire creation in the universe.
All the devas and asuras were in a tizzy and trembled at the apocalypse soon to be unleashed from this poison entering the mainstream of life instigating unhealthy and selfish desires. However, lord Visnu in his wisdom advised devas and asuras that the only person who could help in this predicament was Shivaji since he was the only one who could contain and control the effects of kalakuta.
The protector
So what did Lord Shiva do? He drank up the foul poison and as the poison entered his mouth and travelled to his throat he held it there. Without allowing the effects of the poison to either travel to his head or to heart he held the poison at his throat chakra—the centre of feelings and desires.
As a result of this Shivji’s throat turned blue and therefore he is also known as Neelkantha or the blue-throated one. And because he did not allow the poison to contaminate either the qualities of his head or heart he is known in the three times and ten directions as Bhaavesh or lord of feelings.
Again, what is important to understand is that the poison which is capable of destroying the whole of creation is essentially of our own making and doing and these poisons are the poisons of our own defilement-obscurations or klesh-avaranas in our mind. Beginning with avidya or ignorance with respect to the true nature of who we are and resulting in generating acute fear lest we lose our worldly and material status, position and wealth we are constantly buffeted with waves of uncontrolled and insatiable cravings and greed, unproved anger and conceit.
Thus the wise among us understand and recognize that the poison kalakuta is one of the strongest metaphors for all the greed, desire, anguish and anger which we sometimes erringly choose at the cost of destroying the divinity within us.
If we look around today’s political spectrum how many politicians actually come across genuinely in words and deeds? How many of them have control over their over ambitious feeling and feel the pain of others? Are any of them really a Bhaavesh or Neelkantha in a spiritual sense? No.
We find it difficult to identify a noble spirit like Shivaji considering their intensely aggressive and ruthless behavior in running roughshod over their opposition and their own colleagues and in their hurried quest to climb the gaddi (apex) of power. As of now wherever we look all the political parties in the arena are hued in a heinous blue all over. In our world today we are disturbed and saddened by the visions of ‘Lord of the Flies’ impaled on the stake dancing before my eyes.
The author is a master trainer of NLP and faculty at Srishti Institute of Design, Bangalore.
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