Symbolism Behind Shiva Depicted as Sitting in the Smashana or Cremation Ground
Let us explore some fundamental aspects of life and death.
The moment of death or the possibility of death is the most intense experience in most of our lives.
Shiva is seen at times sitting in the cremation ground or kayanta, waiting. Kaya means “body,” anta means “ending.” Kayanta means “where the body ends”, not “where life ends.”
It is a kayanta, not a jeevanta. All illusions are left behind by you as you leave the planet. If you have lived in such a way that your body is all you know, then the moment when you have to shed it becomes the most intense moment of your life.
If you know something beyond the body, it is not of great significance. For one who has realized the nature of who he is and what he is, kayanta is not such a great moment. It is just one more moment, that’s all. But for those who lived just as a physical body, when the time to part with all that you know as yourself comes, bodily death is going to be a very intense moment.
Immortality is a natural state for everybody. Mortality is a mistake that you have made. It is a wrong perception of life. As for the physical body, kayanta, the end of the body, is inevitable. But if instead of being just a kaya, you become a jeeva, if you are not just a living body but a living being, then immortality is a natural state for you. Whether you are mortal or immortal is only a question of perception – no existential change is required.
Shiva sits at the smashan, bored with you and your play, bored because the whole drama all over town is absolutely futile. The only real moment happens at the cremation ground.
That is why enlightenment is referred to as realization, not as an accomplishment or achievement. If you see it, it is there for you. If you do not see it, it is not there for you. It is only a question of perception – no fundamental, existential change. If you are equipped, not with the senses, but with your pragna or wisdom, then you are aware of not only the kaya but the jeeva, and you are naturally immortal. You do not have to work towards your immortality. You just have to realize that this is the way it is.
So, Shiva shifted his residence to kayanta or smashan. Shma refers to shava or corpse, shan refers to shanyaor bed. Where the dead bodies lie, that is where he resides, because he realized working with living people is a waste of time. You cannot get them to the pitch of intensity that is crucial in awakening. You have to do so many tricks to make people a little intense.
Intensity does not arise because you have made the instinct of survival the biggest goal within you. There are two fundamental forces in this living body. One is the instinct of survival – another is the longing to expand limitlessly. If you empower the instinct of survival, it always tries to play low, because survival means playing safe. If you empower the longing to become limitless, if you are seeking limitless expansion, if that is what all your energy is focused on, then there will be full intensity of life.
Shiva is sitting at a place where life makes utmost sense.
He is referred to as the destroyer not because he wants to destroy you. He is waiting at the cremation ground so that the body is destroyed, because until the body is destroyed, people do not realize what death is. The soul always goes on, it is indestructible. He sits to remind you of your real nature and not to get attached to material things of life, to know your real nature and higher consciousness. He is supreme consciousness. He is our home, in him we are found.
This is not a question of right and wrong but of limited sense versus ultimate sense.
Creation means intelligence. The Creator means ultimate intelligence.
By K.Nagori
