shaivism: She was always present in His presence

Sunday, December 15, 2019

She was always present in His presence

One sure mark of Shiva, is that He is bound to Parvati. It is said of Shiva that He does not incarnate. Of Parvati's bhakti (devotion), it is said She is one who can make even Shiva incarnate.
He is Timeless, and yet when Parvati manifests, it is time for Shiva to arrive. He is formless, but when She arrives, He manifests form. She is His eternal soulmate, and they always find each other, through the mists of cosmic time, even through lifetimes; such is the magic of their love! For it is said, Parvati is His wife even from Her previous birth, when She was called Sati.
And I realised that behind the innumerable tales about Him,
at the core of the myriad roles that He plays out, Shiva's story,
is essentially a love story, over and over again.

“Do you believe in Reincarnation?” He had asked one day. “Only if I get to be with you,” She had replied.

In a whole universe that had been projected by Him, She was the one being He loved immensely.
Parvati, His inseparable better-half.
Parvati, without whom, Shiva felt like ‘not Shiva’.
Parvati, without whom, Shiva didn’t feel anything at all.
Parvati, without whom, the Seers summarized, “He was Shava, a corpse.”
And without whom, as He Himself told Her once, ‘Nothing’, was actually possible.
And just as great an enigma as He was, so too was Parvati. It was She who was Sati, in a previous life. She it was, who was Shakti, the Goddess of power, in eternal wedlock with Shiva, making Him Shaktiman, the wielder of all the power there was in the Universe. She was always present in His presence. Even if that meant being reincarnated from one lifetime to another.