eka ca me tisrasca me .... ŚRĪ RUDRAM
Śiva is the God of death. So, why worship Śiva? Why say "mṛtyave svāhā", this offer is to death?
There are three powers and three pleasures that go with them. These are, the power to think, the power to express the thought, and the power to do. Thinking is consummated in talking, talking is consummated in doing. And doing is consummated in what? In a loss of the original desire which animated all these three powers: of thinking (iccha), talking (jnana), and doing (kriya). Śiva is the God of losing desire. This sequence: think, talk, and do is what brings the future into the present and present into the past. The movement of time is the power of Śiva, called KALI.
There is pleasure in thinking. That is why we think in the first instance. There is an undeniable pleasure in talking, else we won't be such great talkers. But a greater pleasure awaits us in doing. The greatest of all pleasures, the acme of pleasure, however, lies not in doing, not in talking, not even in thinking but in just doing nothing at all; that is right, in just being lazy. But that is death, and it is difficult to do absolutely nothing.
But to some people like me, and I suspect to some of you too, it comes naturally sort of. Just being lazy - not thinking anything, not talking either to someone else or to one's own self, not even thinking or being emotional (emotion is also one way of thinking) - that is perfect bliss.
I can't imagine for the life of me why people find it difficult to be lazy. Why? Conditioning, probably. The value you have attached to the obsession of work has prevented you from just being yourself, even once in a way. This is an action society. Be up and do something, be a man! Otherwise, you may be just a-well, let me say it at the risk of being irreverent - mere woman! Damn these male chauvinist pigs!
The whole world revolves around these three. Think about the future, plan for it. Then put it, the (parallel) picture in serial words. Then get down to the business of putting the blueprint into action. And finally, AAAAHH! the bliss of accomplishment. We can relax, take it easy, dhire dhire, aahista, aahista, we can bask in the sunshine of our own glory, illumining ourselves. This is fine.
The trouble is, more often, we think about wrong things. Such as: causing hurt to ourselves, or to others. Then we put these ideas into words, express it, and finally, we act out the hurt, the pain. The moment this is done, the release from the animating desire has happened, we could be lazy and blissful in our accomplishment. Yet the bliss escapes us. For, we have not learned the fine art of not generating a fresh desire from the experience. We wish to repeat it. So, we are caught once more in the web of thinking, speaking, and acting.
DESIRE for anything, be it pleasure or pain, is a wave, a movement in awareness, a disturbance in the still laziness. This is a habit. We form the habit of forming a desire. Once a desire is born, it has to run its course, trying to find an expression in thought, word, and deed. Somehow, it has got to be satisfied, through reality or simulation.
Every time a desire is satisfied, there is an experience of pleasure, an orgasm. The intensity of pleasure depends upon the amount of tension released. More tension released more pleasure. Pleasure increases by holding the tension, not allowing it to be released without sufficient build-up.
We weep because we release pain in weeping. It is good to weep, to shed tears, to feel the pain, and LET IT PASS. Do not suppress it. Do not become a stoic, denying yourself the pleasure of expressing your pain. This is precisely the point, the sharp pain of pleasure, and the pleasure of pain. Don't you weep and laugh at the same time? Don't you ever wish to die in your most intense moment of pleasure? When you see such moments in a movie, you celebrate it as great acting
Cessation of desire is an orgasmic release from desire and its modifications in thought, word, and deed. Death is a great cessation of pleasure and pain, the ultimate unending orgasm, the final release. That is ŚIVA, the lord of death, the greatest of all yogis. Unperturbed awareness, intensely alive through death, basking in its own glory of self-illumination. We are born with an erection through an orgasm into this world, we will die with an erection into the orgasmic release.
All religious fervor has to do with the initiation, an enactment of dying to this world and taking a new birth of undiluted pleasure, it is obtained by a commitment to your own and other's happiness: not by a commitment to your own and other's pain.
Guruji Amritananda
