16/02/2026
Tonight is Shivaratri, the celebration of Shiva
It represents the triumph of light over ignorance, and devotees believe that worshipping Lord Shiva and observing a night-long vigil on this auspicious occasion helps attain awareness and spiritual enlightenment. It is also believed that Lord Shiva performed the Tandav, the cosmic dance of creation and destruction, on this sacred night.
Who is Shiva? Who are you?
Isvara is the special Self, Purusha, untouched by any afflictions, actions, fruits of actions or by any inner impressions of desires. – Kriya Yoga Sutra I.24
The Lord, the Supreme Self, is the Self of all selves. Unlike the individual soul which is involved in Nature or "Prakriti" (as described in verse 17), it is not affected by desires and karmic effects of desires. To realize this special Self we must let go of false identification with personality and desires. We must go beyond passing manifestations, action, desires and the afflictions of the mind. The Lord has never been under the delusion that he is in bo***ge to the limiting forms of nature
Or (samadhi is attained) by surrender to the Lord – I.23
Here Patanjali tells us that we may also have Self Realization, or samadhi, by surrendering our limited ego-consciousness to the Lord, or Supreme Being. He reiterates this in verse II.45. But who is the Lord? Patanjali uses the term "Isvara". "Svara" means "own being" (literally "sva": own; and "ara": being. "Isa" is another name for "Siva". In Thirumandiram verse 105, Siva is described:
"Beyond the Two Karmas is Isa seated,
The seed of this world, the mighty God become;
"This" and "That" is "Isa" - so the thougthless contend,
The dross but know the basest sediment low."
For the Tamil Siddhas, Siva was the Supreme Being, not the limited deity with the same name in the Vedas, not one third of the trinity referred to by early Western indologists. He defies limitation or description. Therefore, "Isvara" means "Siva, one's own Being”, the Supreme Being who is immanent and transcendent in relation to all manifestation. Self-realization may come when we surrender the perspective of being apart from the Supreme Being, and recognize "Isa" as our own being. "Jiva becoming Siva" summarizes the approach of the Tamil Yoga Siddhas. This surrender must be complete and not include any sense of some special status. It requires keen discrimination about our motivations. In devotion, we feel "not my will but Thine". This perspective makes transcendence easy. If we feel that it is we who is doing something by our own will, we are stuck in the egoistic perspective: "I can. I will. I can't." etc. But when we completely surrender that "I" to "Thou" one rises above nature and are free in the pure Self.
T.N. Ganapathy in his book "The Philosophy of the Tamil Siddhas" has given us a useful criterion: "the differentia to distinguish whether one is a Siddha or not is to find out whether he or she has sung in praise of any local god or Deity. In the Thirumandiram there is no specific reference to any local God or Deity as we find in the poems of the Alwars and the Nayanars. The work is completely free from the lover-beloved conception of God which is the characteristic feature of the lyrical poetry of the bhakti schools". (1) The same may be said of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. In this connection it is interesting to note that among the causes of yogic powers enumerated by Patanjali, deities do not occur (see verse IV.1)
Kailasapathy has made the relevant point that "the Siddhas were not devotees in the sense of idol-worshippers...They believed in a supreme Abstraction. The recurrent use by the Siddhas of the word "civam" (an abstract noun meaning "goodness", "auspiciousness" and the highest state of God, in which He exists as pure intelligence) in preference to the common term "civan" (meaning Siva), makes this point very clear. In other words, they believed in an abstract idea of Godhead rather than a personal God." (2)
However, it is easier to focus our mind upon a form than upon something formless. Behind the countless personal forms of God worshipped in various religions and sects lies the Supreme Being. The form of God we choose and the way we choose to express our devotion is a matter of personal choice.
According to Patanjali, devotion to the Lord is not an alternative to practice and detachment in yoga. (as described in verse I.12) Patanjali shows the relationship between practice, detachment and devotion in verse II.1
Patanjali himself worshipped Siva at Chidambaram according to Thirumoolar. In Thirumandiram verses 67 and 2790 it is stated that Patanjali worshipped Siva at Chidambaram
"In the Splendorous Temple (of Chidambaram)
He danced,
For the two Rishis (Patanjali and Vyaghrapada) to witness
He danced, Form, Formless and as Cosmic Form,
Within the Divine Grace of Sakti.
He danced,
He the Siddha, the Ananda;
As Form of Grace
He stood and danced." (TM 2790)
He also worshipped Siva at Rameswaram, where Rama worshipped Shiva after defeating the demon Ravanna in Lanka. There are granite statues of Patanjali at both Saivite shrines.
Thus, Self-realization is a Divine Grace which descends upon the devotee who surrenders to the Lord. The concept of grace "prasada", is found throughout Thirumandiram and the writings of the other Siddhars. How to obtain this grace? Babaji has said that winning the Grace of the Lord depends upon how much we manifest love for the Lord, how much we manifest this love for the Lord in others, and how much sadhana we do. By devotion we learn what is pure love. The lover and the beloved become one. Such love brings us from duality to non-duality. By sadhana, all of forms of yoga practice to remember our Self, the subconscious is purified and duality is dissolved: we become aware of the Presence everywhere. By service we forget our little ego-based self and our petty problems, and we develop the universal vision of love.
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