Shiva-the fountainhead where paradoxes reconcile.

• What is truly amazing about Shiva is his consistency in reconciling paradoxes.He's called the destroyer, yet His symbol ,the shivlinga denotes creation. He is a yogi par excellence, yet the doting householder, He is King of dance, yet His meditations are perfect stillness, He is lord of power, bestowing boons, yet owns hardly any personal possessions,
  He is the auspicious one, yet attended on by the most terrible elementals (Bhutas ), He is Adi the timeless one, yet Sadavasantam, the evergreen.....

• is Shiva yet another name for consciousness? or is there a yogi who goes by that name?
  

  or .....
  both?
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  What personally attracts me to Shiva's manner is the inclusiveness, nothing is apart from Him...music,dance,
  buddies, mysticism,
  family, ascetisism,
  frolic, intoxication,
  serenity, rejuvenation,
  and so on, Shiva seems to me to be the perfect pointer to the oneness that we all really are..! Shiva is  comparable to  Yoga, and Kundalini, which are inherent in all and not limited to the domain of this or that dogma, actually transcending even religion..
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  And then,there's His beautiful wife, Parvati
  who is also
  Sati
  who is also Durga
  who is also Shakti
  and many other vidyas rolled in one,
  is she , again, actually a woman,
  or the power of Consciousness ?
  or both?
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  He is also Shaktiman
  the beholder of Shakti,
  Shakti's man!
  She is also Shivpriye
  beloved of Shiva.
• 
  
  

  do Shakti and Shaktiman
  also go by the names
  yin and yang
  tao and tei
  being, and becoming?
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  These
  and many other querries
  the Devi herself puts across to Shiva
  in a reflective state of musing,'NIGAMA'
  it is prayer.
  Shiva 's reply,AGAMA, is the beginning of Sastra,
  it is revelatory,it is meditation,
  it is shiva's rocket science,
  the Vijnanbhairava.
• 
  
  

  All becoming is from being, and will find all its answers there,
  Shiva expounds 112 different ways to the same centre,
  the centre of SELF, where nothing is apart,
  and Oneness reigns.
  Shiva knows there is nothing to renounce
  except the notion, that you are other than him.
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  Why, if all is Shiva to begin with,dont we know this?
  For this we will have to rewind to the time, when,
  Shiva is all,
  When "God alone is".
  At this time, even time does not exist, because , as said before, only God is, in His absolute purity.
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  Now He wants to play out with what is possible to do..He is God, so He wants to know what all can be done with His Godhood.
  The Upanishads say,"In the beginning was the ONE, he thought, may i be two, may i be many"
  In Shaivism, this is called the "Pratham spanda", first stirring..
  God knowing Himself, and then wanting to pour out...
  this outpour is not like a logician, more like an artist....
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  Here comes the interesting part, When God is all, all is God,and God wants to create out of Himself, well, then everything will be known to everything..
  so, He FIRST creates forgetfullness, he ensures that he forgets who he is..
  Now, you see, he is ready to play out hide and seek with himself..
  this is akin to a king surveying his kingdom in the garb of an ordinary person..
  except here, the King actually forget's who's The King, and looks for the King with intensity..
  
  he becomes the seeker,being actually, the sought.
  that He is the worshipper, is but a thought.