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Excerpts from the book:
Guru and Disciple
 by Swami Abishiktananda

Europeans often sneer at the supposedly phallic character of the 'sacred linga'. The word linga does indeed have this sense, both in Tamil and in Sanskrit, but it is only one of many other meanings, all related to its fundamental sense as sign. Modem Shaivite writers generally object to this interpretation, and explain the crudely phallic forms of the linga which are found here and there as due to the degeneracy of certain sects. In any case we have no right to think that the Shivalinga, even if it was originally a phallic symbol, ever had the obscene connotation ascribed to it by those who disparage it-except of course in deviant examples. At all events, to its true worshippers it does not suggest anything indecent either in feeling, or imagination.

After all, the origin of life is essentially 'sacred' - however much it may have been profaned by mankind, especially in the so-called civilised world. Therefore, in a religious context, is there any reason why the sign of procreation should not also be that of rebirth, and besides that, a reminder to us of the high dignity of our flesh-which God not only created, but also assumed.

So Vanya remained for a long time, standing quietly all alone. in the gloom, beside the symbol of stone. The darkness and silence of the evening made that inner chamber even more numinous. It was a powerful reminder of the 'cave' of the heart, the guha which is so dear to the Indian mystical tradition, the true place (if it can rightly be called a 'place') of the unseen divine rebirth,of which the stone symbol is a sign and for which the symbol of worship is an appeal. Under the influence of an almost magical enchantment, it seemed to Vanya as if he was being led continually a little further into his inner sanctum as each moment passed. Here everything seemed most wonderfully to express and release the archetypes that are hidden in the depth of the human heart. Indeed India's religious genius is such that, through its worship and the very structure of its temples, through its myths and equally through every aspect of human life, it constantly recalls you to what is essential, and ceaselessly- invites you to discover in the depth of your being the ultimate mystery of your own self. As the minutes passed peacefully, happily, Vanya's mind was unable to grasp or think about what was going on in its hidden depths, he simply allowed himself to be carried along, letting everything go, only longing for that death which brings new birth.

All that night Vanya remained in the temple, alone - alone, but enveloped in the mystery of the presence. As Kailasanadar had said to him, it may not be fitting for a worldly person to eat or sleep in the temple, Ishwara's abode-, but on the other hand it is surely the true home of those who, while still living in the body, have already passed over from this world to God.

Stretched out between the pillars of the mandapa, throughout the night Vanya was at the same time sleeping and yet awake. What he afterwards remembered, what came to the surface of his mind, seemed to him to come from a very deep experience. Was it a dream? Was it conscious meditation Who could say? He was as if possessed by an intense awareness of the Presence. Everything appeared to him as a murti. manifestation, aspect of God- all the forms which being assumes, and also all the forms, rites, hymns and sacred formulas by which mankind tries as it were to reach and tie down the mystery of the divine Presence, all were coming together and converging, in the Hindu myth, on the supreme symbol of the Shivalinga.

Everything on earth is indeed the sign, the linga of the Lord, of the One who fills all and yet is always infinitely beyond alI. 'As in the first I am myself!' thought Vanya. The hymns of the Veda, that is the Shivalinga; everything that is said, seen, thought or heard, is simply the sign of the One who is beyond all signs.

But is it possible to separate the Lord, from what is his sign? No one will ever be able to make a clear and certain distinction within creation between what is God in himself and what is purely a manifestation of God. The least grain of sand contains in its very definition the eternity and self-originate nature of God. It would not exist, if God were not in the first place the Eternal and Unique One. The linga is a sign, and this is its very essence. There is no sign apart from the giver of the sign and that which is signified. There is no son, unless there is someone to have been his father. There is nothing material which does not proclaim the presence of spirit; it is in fact its sign, that which gradually prepares for its awakening and is thereafter its support, remaining inseparable, from it. Shiva is everywhere present in his linga, wholly present in each point of the linga.

At the level of thought, nothing can divide Shiva from the linga in which he manifests himself For this, advaita, non-duality, is the only appropriate word. Not monism, not dualism; but that sheer mystery in which man, without understanding it at all, rediscovers himself in the depth of the heart of God.

Shiva is wholly present in the Shivalinga, in the linga that stands in the temple, in the linga constituted by the universe, in the linga which every living creature is. He is there at its heart, he is its heart, but a 'heart' which is not one particular part of his linga, either spatially, dialectically or ontologically ... a heart which is totally 'beyond', and at the same time and for that very reason most profoundly 'within', being at once absolutely transcendent and absolutely immanent.

When once you have reached the heart of the sign, you realise that everything is essentially an epiphany.-a manifestation of the Lord. Thereafter what is important are not the differences and disparities between the manifold manifestations, but the quality common to all of them - and to each of them in a unique manner -of being a sign of God. This extends from yourself to every conscious being that ever has existed or will exist from the atom or the smallest living creature to the galaxies. In everything now the heart has been discovered-the heart in which all is discovered, all is seen, all is known. There is nowhere anything but God in himself.

Only then can the taste of Being be appreciated. And thereafter that taste-that, and no other-is recognised in every being.

The Shivalinga is a symbol of God's having passed into his creation, and equally, of the creature's having passed, passed away, into God...The ShivaIinga stands at the frontier between form and formlessness, rupa-arupa, between what is manifested and what can never be manifested.

God is at once the object of vision and the mystery of non-vision. But in reality, he, is not attained either by our seeing or by our not seeing, either by our acting or by our ceasing to act God is the beyond.

God is also the Infinitely Near -
further than all,
nearer than all,
within all,
outside all.
And everywhere God is Fullness and infinity:
Fullness here, Fullness there:
from Fullness Fullness proceeds
Take Fullness from Fullness,
Fullness ever remains. (Isa Upanishad)

It is Precisely in the vision of this Fullness that anyone attains to it, and at the same time attains to his own self. This is the essential mystery of the world, of all that my senses experience of all that my mind conceives- my own mystery, in that which in me is most inward and most personal, that which is un-manifested and cannot be manifested of myself and of all things that which is beyond the reach of my awareness, and yet which is awareness itself at its very source.

What then does it mean - to go beyond the world of signs, the world of the linga, of the linga which however is entirely Shiva, and in which Shiva is all? For one who has entered this solitude there is no more any 'without' or 'within', but only Being. For one who has crossed to the further shore, as said Buddha, the Awakened One, there is no more a shore that has been left behind or a shore that has been reached, no ford that has been crossed or raft that has made the crossing, or anyone who might have passed over.. only the eternal mystery of Being, unattainable by what comes into being, and yet wholly present in what comes into being, in which it is manifested. No one has understood the secret of the Shivalinga, so long as he has not entered into Shiva himself, who is the heart, the beyond and also the whole of the Shivalinga-indeed, into that same mystery which everyone bears in the depth of his being and which torments him so long as it cannot reveal its secret. In the Shivalinga, Shiva is at the same time a-sparsa and a-khanda, at once 'not touchable', absolutely apart, and 'not divisible'. He fills all, he is everywhere, yet everywhere he is a-dvaita, a-khanda, having no division or parts within himself, and not divided from anything whatever that reason tries to imagine as outside him. At the same time he is a-sparsa; he touches nothing and nothing can touch him. He is entirely apart totally incommunicable and yet communicating himself totally. Shiva is completely present in himself and completely present in his linga, his sign, his manifestation. He is not distinct from his sign, and yet remains sovereignly free- the mystery of creation, which resides in God, but in which God does not reside. As for me, in my essential being I am completely apart and yet completely radiant, self-communicating. Everything in me exists in separateness, and yet everything in me is given, poured out - mind, senses and body- and through their means is extended to the cosmic boundaries of space and time….

 
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