Parvati
El Señor Shiva es la encarnación del Espíritu Santo, el Señor del Amor cuya danza cósmica giratoria disipa la ignorancia y las fuerzas del anti-Amor. La acción de Shiva se cristaliza en el mundo de la forma a través de su Shakti, o contraparte femenina, que aparece en varias formas.
Como Parvati («Hija de la montaña»), hija del dios Himalaya, es la madre y esposa benévola y gentil.Su unión con Shiva es un prototipo del matrimonio ideal. Como mujer hermosa y elegante, con frecuencia se la representa con Shiva en escenas domésticas o sentada a su lado en conversación. Shiva y Parvati algunas veces son representados con su hijo Skandha. Skandha también es conocido como Karttikeya, el dios de la guerra, y se lo identifica en un Upanishad como el dios-sabio a quien nosotros llamamos Sanat Kumara.
La mitología hindú cuenta que cuando la bella Parvati se vio incapaz de conseguir el amor de Shiva, apartó sus joyas, se vistió de ermitaño y se retiró a una montaña a meditar en Shiva y a practicar austeridades. Tras haber adoptado la vida de un renunciante durante algún tiempo, Shiva finalmente la aceptó como esposa.
Hindus believe that Shiva lives on the summit of Mount Kailas. He is pictured there both as a solitary ascetic and with his Shakti, Parvati. John Snelling, in his book The Sacred Mountain, recounts how Parvati contributed to the origin of Shiva’s third eye:
Legend describes [Parvati] playfully covering her Lord’s eyes as he sat in meditation on a peak of Himalaya. Instantly all light and life were extinguished in the universe until, out of compassion for all beings, the god opened his third eye, which blazed like a new sun. So intense was its blazing that it scorched the mountains and forests of [the Himalayas] to oblivion. Only when he saw that the daughter of the mountain was properly contrite did he relent and restore her father [who is the mountain] to his former estate.[1]
This legend shows Shiva as the Destroyer. The opening of his third eye represents the opening of the eye of knowledge that destroys ignorance. Swami Karapatri explains:
The frontal eye, the eye of fire, is the eye of higher perception. It looks mainly inward. When directed outward, it burns all that appears before it. It is from a glance of this third eye that ... the gods and all created beings are destroyed at each of the periodical destructions of the universe.[2]
Algunas representaciones artísticas de Shiva lo muestran siendo mitad hombre y mitad mujer. Según la leyenda, Shiva estaba decidido a que no existiera ninguna separación entre él y su shakti, y así decretó que su lado derecho fuera Shiva y el izquierdo, Parvati.
Shiva says:
Unto Parvati, then, I commend you, for she, my consort, has much to teach you. And when you have learned from her, go then to Durga! Go then to Kali! Go then to each and every manifestation of the Divine Mother, for you cannot learn too much from these incarnations of the Divine Mother and others, beloved.
For it is the Divine Mother who bears the sword, who places it in your hand, and it is the Divine Mother who teaches you how to triumph in all things in the Matter cosmos, over every detail of life and of the larger concerns of solar systems and lifewaves abiding on this earth.[3]
Véase también
Notas
Perlas de Sabiduría, vol. 34, núm. 62, 1 de diciembre de 1991.
Mark L. Prophet y Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Los Maestros y sus Retiros, Volumen 2, "Shiva, Parvati, Durga y Kali".
- ↑ John Snelling, The Sacred Mountain, rev. and enl. ed. (London: East-West Publications, 1990), p. 11.
- ↑ Swami Karapatri, “Sri Siva tattva,” Siddhanta, II, 1941–42, 116, quoted in Alain Danielou, The Gods of India: Hindu Polytheism (New York: Inner Traditions International, 1985), p. 214.
- ↑ Shiva and Parvati, “I AM Shiva Everywhere,” Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 36, no. 39, September 12, 1993.