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Articles: Festivals | Maha Sivaratri
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On Sivaratri, therefore, you are supposed to contemplate God as the creator of the world, as the Supreme Being unknown to the Creative Will, in that primordial condition of non-objectivity which is the darkness of Siva. In the Bhagavad Gita, we have a similar verse which has some sort of a resemblance to this situation. 'Ya nisa sarvabhutanam tasyam Jagarti samyami; yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato muneh.' 'That which is night to the ignorant, is day to the wise; and that which is day to the wise, is night to the ignorant.' The ignorant feel the world as day light and a brightly illumined objective something, and that does not exist for a wise person.
The wise see God in all His effulgence and that does not exist for the ignorant. While the wise see God, the ignorant does not see Him; and while the ignorant see the world, the wise do not see it. That is the meaning of this-verse in the second chapter of the Gita. When we see sunlight, the owl does not see it. That is the difference. The owl cannot see the sun, but we can. So, we are owls, because we do not see the self-effulgent Sun, the pure Consciousness. And he who sees this Sun, the pure Consciousness, God, is the sage, the illumined adept in Yoga.
So Sivaratri is a blessed occasion for all to practise self-restraint, self-control, contemplation, Svadhyaya, Japa and meditation, as much as possible within our capacity. We have a whole of the night at our disposal. We can do Japa or we can do the chanting of the Mantra, Om Namah Sivaya. You can also meditate. It is a period of Sadhana.
Functions like the Maha Sivaratri, Ramanavami, Janmashtami, Navaratri are not functions in the sense of festoons and celebrations for the satisfaction of the human mind; they are functions of the Spirit, they are celebrations of the Spirit. In as much as we are unable to think of God throughout the day, for all the 365 days of the year, such occasions are created, so that at least periodically we may recall to our memory our original destiny, our Divine Abode. The glory of God is displayed before us in the form of these spiritual occasions.
(Courtesy: President, TACO)
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