Shiva Darshan                                             SHIVA03.TXT
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       When Shiva holds the center of the stage, the role of the personalized
       Brahman is colored with death and destruction. Shiva's stern asceticism
       casts a blight over the fields of rebirth. His presence negates and
       transcends the kaleidoscope of sufferings and joys. Nevertheless, he
       bestows wisdom and peace and is not only terrible but profoundly
       benign.Shiva's nature at once transcends and includes all the 
       polarities of the living world. 
       "AUM" - the mystical utterance stemming from the sacred language of 
       Vedic praise and incantation, is understood as an expression and 
       affirmation of the totality of creation. 
       A - is the state of waking consciousness, together with its world of 
       gross experience. 

       U - is the state of dreaming consciousness, together with its 
       experience of the subtle shapes of dream. 

       M - is the state off dreamless sleep, the natural condition of 
       quiescent undifferentiated consciousness, wherein every experience 
       is dissolved into a blissful non-experience, a mass of potential 
       consciousness.

       The plentitude of Shiva's mutually antagonistic functions and aspects
       is made evident by the fact that his worshippers invoke him by a
       hundred names. Occasionally we find the multitude of aspects reduced to
       five.

      1. The Beneficent Manifestation (anugrahamurti),

      2. The Destructive Manifestation (samaharamurti),

      3. The Vagrant Medicant (bhiksatanamurti),

      4. The Lord of Dancers (nrttamurti),

      5. The Great Lord (mahesamurti).