Misunderstood Shiva and Shiva nagari mentioned by Guru Nanak

Based on my personal experience during a meditation session, I believe that the Hindu God shiva is grossly misunderstood. I will first explain my experience and then with refrence to a website giving probable meanings associated with shiva and the items he carries, I will try to explain what the real meaning, as I now believe is.

My experience

I had the most impressive and confusing experience ever. I firmly believe in Guru Nanak and the Sikh religion that he started. I do not have the slightest doubt that he can ever lead me astray about anything. So in my meditation, when I was yearning to see the formless God, I prayed to Guru Nanak to show me what he saw. The next minute Ifirst saw Guru Nanak, a 65 year old Sikh man, with a white round turban and white robe looked like a kurta from the neck, on my right hand side. Then Guru Nanak moved in the background to show me what he saw. I saw someone sitting in meditation pose far away on a mountain. I noticed the hair tied up, resembled the perfect temple dome. Since I have seen Hindu calendars of Shiva in India, I associated this figure as Shiva. As I am not a Hindu, I questioned Guru Nanak, "I asked you to show me what you saw. This is not what I want to see. I am a sikh, I do not intend to change my religion". I probably was trying to spell it out just in case Guru Nanak has misunderstood me just because I am meditating. Guru Nanak stopped me right there and indicated to become quiet and said thats exactly what I am showing you, just see. I realised that I was arguing with Guru Nanak! How foolish of me. I became quiet to see whatever he was showing me without judging and analysing. I will have time for that later.

Then that far away shiva came closer and I saw a very beautiful big eye with pink shaded outline of the eye. It was truly beautiful. Then my mind said, "Hey, its not angry at me!"According to myth, when shiva opens his third eye during meditation, beacuse it was disturbed, he burns everything in his way. Then I realised that it is not angry, on the contrary, its very pleased with me. While I was admiring it, I saw two rays of light came out of the eye. I have mentioned the rest of experience in an earlier post.

Guru Nanak's shabad on page 901 of Guru Granth Sahib ji in Raag Ramkali reads, line 8, Shiva nagari meh asan audhu, alakh agam apari.

Guru Nanak made it very clear in the MoolMantra that the God he talks about and sang the praises of is a formless God. Then what does Shiva Nagari meh asan means? According to Hindu facts on the website http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Shiva#encyclopedia

Shiva is the god of the third eye. I was meditating on the third eye at that time after reading the first chapter of the book opening the third eye by Samuel Sagan. I recommend this book to everyone interested in meditation without any religious jargon or baggage.

All the symbols mentions in the website as linked to Shiva have a symbolic meaning like the snake, a symbol of kundalini energy which I felt rising and hissing like a snake upto my neck, in another session. Then I couldn't figure out where it should go afterwards. I sang all day that day. May be because it rested in the neck area. As is the nature of the energy, a couple of days later this energy went back in the base. The nine snakes that shiva is shown to wear is infact the energy points where the energy resides in everyone's body. Read some articles on meridians and pressure points and you will find out.

So shiva is basically the energy of the third eye. Once the third eye is opened, naturally it will help the throat chakra open as it is the one next to it. The colour of the throat chakra is Blue, hence the blue neck of the Shiva depicted in the paintings. So shiva bhaktas should really meditate on the third eye rather than do idol worship of a human figure shiva. The symbols have a deeper meaning than the physical objects. I am sure the serious bhaktas would know all this anyway. As much as I would love to paint what I saw, I think the paintings lead the ignorant ones astray. Without the personal spiritual experience, its very hard to tell in words the serenity and beauty of the formless.

So Guru Nanak has advised us to meditate on the third eye in his words "Shiva nagari meh asan audhu."

Another website mentioning the symbols worn by shiva http://www.hindujagruti.org/hinduism/festivals/mahashivratri/

My understanding again is very different of these symbol, based on my meditation experiences. The River ganga flowing from Shiva's head is a symbol of the Pranic energy that flows like a river, gushes from above into your body. If you had the experince of this energy, you will agree with what I am saying.

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23rd June, 2010

I discussed my experience of Guru Nanak showing me something with Baba Thakur Singh ji yesterday. I am so glad that he clarified to me that I misunderstood God's nirgun saroop with Shiva. Thakur Singh ji said that God wears a white turban. The moment he said that I recalled the image I was shown by Guru Nanak. His head was the same shape as the dome of a Sikh temple. I then tried to remember the other things that would ensure me that it was not Shiva. This prompted me to remember that I didn't see all those things that are shown on a Shiva's calendar - the snake around his neck, the three edged sword -trishool, or any other things that would indicate that he was Parvati's husband shiva, the father of the elephant head lord Ganesh.

May be Hindu mythology has degraded God's Nirgun Saroop and created this mythical God Shiva who has a wife and a son etc, which does not exist. If that is true then someone truly mislead the Hindu people, while whoever first invented those symbols of snake etc was trying to explain the stage when a person is ready to see God's Nirgun Saroop. To be ready to see that image a person's kundalini should have risen upto the neck, revealed by the symbol of snake around the neck.

Its clear to me that without the perfect Guru I wouldn't have been able to see God in his Nirgun Saroop. I now understand why Guru asked me to not argue, just see and said that he is showing me exactly what I asked him to show. I had asked him to show me the formless God. In that experience straight after the Nirgun Saroop, I then was able to see the third eye, one dot that turned into two rays and then developed in to one triangle and then another bigger triangle appeared followed by the light coming out of my temples onto my hands etc. The whole thing probably would have gone for nearly 40 days, if I wasn't disturbed by the family. What a pity, it didn't happen that way. I am sure its not family's fault but predestined as I hadn't done my share of meditation to be able to see the whole show. But the Guru took pity on me as I was desperate and showed me enough to help me believe in him and God. Now I must work on my meditation so I can have my 40 day experience.

Unlimited Gods energy resides within

Eh Dhan Sanch Rahiya Bharpuur
Manmukh Fireh, Janeh Duur !

Collect this energy, that resides equally within everyone
Those who try to use their brain to understand God,
instead of following guru's path, (path of love)
believe that God is far away and unreachable.

The way to collect the energy is to do Conscious Breathing (meditation)
Concentrate on the breathing, while being aware of the third eye (area in the forehead in the middle of two eyes.) You will start seeing colour purple. Then become aware of your third eye and your heart area at the same time.
Tip: The more bairag (feeling of meeting your beloved God) you feel, more colour purple you will see.
Now feel your heart expand with each breath, while being aware of 3rd eye.

Let go, let whatever happen while meditating. Play with the energy. Try to explore what it is doing. You will have some amazing experience.

I read somewhere that females do astral travel via the 3rd eye and men via the solar plexus.
While I was meditating today at the temple by myself, I started visualising that my astral body watching myself meditating from the front and felt a ball of sun illuminate in the head of my astral body. Then the light from that sun filled my body with its colour. It felt peaceful.I then tried to feel that sun ball in my solar plexus. Then I saw a red marble in my root chakra.

It was similar to, but much less satisfying and less real, than the experience I had with my third eye. In that I was not visualising anything. It simply happened when I prayed to Guru Nanak that I want to see what he saw. The line of gurbani "Neelkanth Narhar Narayan, Neel basan Banwari" kept coming in my head. The next second I saw a man sitting on a big mountain meditating. He had his hair done up and the head area resembled the dome shape. I misunderstood this man as Lord Shiva of Hindu mythology (Read my blog of June 23, 2010 for more accurate interpretation of this experience) I asked Guru Nanak that I want him to be my Guru, I want to follow his path. Higher conscious told me to relax and just enjoy the experience. Then this man opened his third eye. The myth goes that when Shiva opens his 3rd eye when he is disturbed from his mediation session, Shiva is so angry, that the 3rd eye destroys everything with its fire. But I was amazed that the third eye was not angry at me. It was peaceful. Then all I saw was a big beautiful 3rd eye, pink on the outside. It came closer to me, at one hand distance. Then a light came from that eye that formed two rays. These rays came upto the joints of my shoulders, exactly upto where the pink lotus of my heart had opened, a few minutes before. It formed a perfect triangle. Then slowly that 3rd eye disapeared and the purple light that filled the tip of the triangle started to come closer and eventually took the place of my 3rd eye spot where I had felt the purple colour several times, in other meditation sessions. This perfect triangle was now straight not tilted towards that 3rd eye outside my body.

Its amazing that it not difficult for me to see colour purple, After 10-20 mintutes of meditation, when the thoughts are eliminated and I am focused on my breath, its easy to see it without effort or visualisation. The green of the heart chakra feels like is always there, a green square, the size of a dice.

Why do I have difficulty seeing the yellow of the solar plexus? That is the chakra I am most interested in because I read somewhere that its the solar plexus that makes you hear the anhat naad, the numerous musical sounds. Guru describes it as 'Vaje anhad Vaja'. In this lifetime, I want to hear those precious sounds, more than any other experience while in meditation..