Siva Linga

[Guest guest]

The following is taken from 'May I Answer That' by Swami

Sivananda.

 

Omprem

 

QUESTION #173: The Hindus worship the phallus or the sex

organ. They are ignorant people. They have no philosophy.

 

ANSWER: This is the sarcastic statement of a curious,

passionate, impure foreigner of little understanding or

intelligence. When a foreigner tries to learn the Tamil or the

Hindustani language, he first tries to pick up some vulgar words.

This is his curiosity nature. Even so, the curious foreigner tries to

find out some defects in the worship of symbols. The Linga is

only the outward symbol of the formless being, Lord Siva.

Linga means 'mark' in Sanskrit. It is a symbol which points to an

inference. When you see a big flood in a river, you infer that there

must have been heavy rains the previous day. When you see

smoke, you infer that there must be fire. This vast world of

countless forms is a Linga of the omnipotent Lord. The Siva

Linga is a symbol of Lord Siva. When you look at the Linga, your

mind is at once elevated and you begin to think of the Lord.

There is a mysterious power or indescribable Sakti in the Linga

to induce concentration of the mind. Just as the mind is

focussed easily in crystal gazing, so also, it attains

one-pointedness when it looks at the Lingam. That is the reason

why the ancient Rishis of India have prescribed the Lingam for

being installed in the temples of Lord Siva.

 

To a sincere devotee, the Linga is not a block of stone. It is all

radiant Tejas or Chaitanya. The Linga talks to him, makes him

shed profuse tears, produces horripilation and melting of the

heart. It raises the devotee above body-consciousness and

helps him to commune with the Lord and attain Nirvikalpa

Samadhi. Lord Rama worshipped the Siva Linga at Rameswar.

Ravana, the learned scholar, worshipped the golden Linga.

What a lot of mystic Sakti there should be in the Linga!

The light of consciousness manifesting out of Sadasiva is, in

reality, the Siva Linga. From Him all the moving and unmoving

creations take their origin. He is the Linga or cause of everything.

In Him the whole world merges itself finally. The Siva Purana

says: "Pitham Ambamayam Sarvam Sivalingascha Chinmayam".

The support or Pitham of all is Prakriti or Parvati; and the Linga is

Chinmaya Purusha, the Effulgent Light which is self-luminous.

The union of Prakriti and Purusha, of Parvati and Siva Linga, is

the cause of the world.

 

The union of Linga with Yoni is a representation of the eternal

union between the static and the dynamic aspects of the

Absolute Reality. This represents the eternal spiritual

communion of the paternal and the maternal principles from

which all the phenomenal diversities have originated. This is an

eternal communion of the changeless Being and the dynamic

Power or Sakti from which all changes flow.

 

The lower sexual propensities in the aspirants are eradicated by

this sublime conception. The spiritualization and divinization of

Linga and Yoni help the aspirants to free themselves from

sexual thoughts. All base thoughts gradually vanish by

entertaining this lofty idea. All sexual relations in this world are

spiritualized as the manifestations of the ultimate Creative

Principle, of the eternal self-enjoyment and self-multiplication of

Lord Siva in and through His Power or Sakti.