‘Shivalingam – Trigger of Conciousness’

‘Shivalingam – Trigger of Conciousness’

An important point is that a ‘Shivalingam’ is not a God. It has nothing to do with ritualistic worship. It is a very ancient replica of an event which triggered man’s consciousness and brought him from the state of ape-man to human. In the depth of human consciousness, in the center of the brain, there is an unseen force, an invisible power or substance, without which you are not a man. You know that you are. You know that you know you are. You know that you know that you know you are. A dog does not know it. A peacock does not know it. The little birds do not know it. A kangaroo does not know it. You know it, right?

Millions of years ago, however, you existed but you did not know it. Your forefathers lived in caves like any animal. What happened to him that, unlike any of the other animals, he just jumped over the fence and began to remember what happened yesterday, and know what is going to happen tomorrow and what relation the present has with the past and with the future? How did he jump over the fence? The scientists say it is all due to process of natural evolution. No! Up to the human body, everything is moving within the domain of natural evolution, but awareness is not a subject matter of natural evolution.

The Sphatik Lingam:

In ‘Shiavism’ they say that the real ‘Shivalingam’ is crystal, but this crystal ‘Shivalingam’ is not available to anybody. In India we have the ‘Crystal Shivalingam’, which is called ‘Sphatik Lingam’ in Sanskrit. We are very fortunate to keep the ‘Sphatik Lingams’ in India. When the invaders came to India, they took away everything of value, but they did not remove the ‘Shivalingam’ because they thought it was a dirty Hindu God. They took away the jewelled crown, they took away the peacock and it flew to Iran, but they did not take the crystal lingam and it was the most precious thing.

When you expose yourself before a ‘Sphatik Lingam’, then something begins to happen in your brain and consciousness. That is exactly what happened millions and millions of years ago. When our ancestors confronted the large rock of crystal, their consciousness began to explode. That great explosion or awakening which took place in them happened on account of the psychic images that they began to see within themselves.

Many people who take LSD see these images. With open eye you can see them sometimes, with eyes closed you can see them, in meditation you can see them, in dreams you can see them and when you are under the sway of a drug, you can see them. Those images which you see, relate to the movement of an inner consciousness. They don’t relate to your brain. Dreams definitely do not relate to your day to day life. Dreams do not come through the experience which you have gained. Dreams come from some other source. Please remember it.

Of course, many times when you dream, you see almost the same things which happen during the day. I’m not talking about these dreams. The source of the dream is something which you have not experienced. It is somewhere you have never been. The source is in your unconscious. It is beyond the conscious and the subconscious mind. It is in the unconscious, ‘Anandmaya Kosha’, the casual body, as it is called.

In ‘Samakhya’ philosophy and in Vedanta, the casual body is known as ‘Linga Sharira’, the linga body, which is there, but you can’t see it. When you see the ‘Sphatik Lingam’, it explodes the images from the casual body or the unconscious, which is in you, and which was in your ancestors also. That is how, when your ancestors somewhere in the north and South Pole, or in America, Africa or India, confronted the ‘Crystal Shivalingam’, they jumped over the fence.

With that leap the human evolution started. With that leap, you began to know that you are existing.

That is why concentration and meditation on ‘Shivalingam’ are considered very important, because it can explode the inner source of awareness where infinite knowledge is hidden and where the possibility of the great evolution of man is stored.

Man is not at the final stage of evolution. What man is experiencing today is not the beginning of an end. It is not the end of the beginning, but the beginning of the beginning. You have started, you have now begun and gradually the consciousness will evolve to a point where every man will become a superman. So this, in short, is the philosophy of ‘Shivalingam’.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati