Shiva: The Inconscient Creator
“A face on the cold dire mountain peaks
Grand and still; its lines white and austere
Match with the unmeasured snowy streaks
Cutting heaven, implacable and sheer.
Above it a mountain of matted hair
Aeon-coiled on that deathless and lone head
In its solitude huge of lifeless air
Round, above illimitably spread.
A moon-ray on the forehead, blue and pale,
Stretched afar its finger of still light
Illumining emptiness. Stern and male
Mask of peace indifferent in might!
But out from some Infinite born now came
Over giant snows and the still face
A quiver and colour of crimson flame,
Fire-point in immensities of space.
Light-spear-tips revealed the mighty shape,
Tore the secret veil of the heart’s hold;
In that diamond heart the fires undrape,
Living core, a brazier of gold.
This was the closed mute and burning source
Whence were formed the worlds and their star-dance;
Life sprang a self-rapt inconscient Force,
Love, a blazing seed, from that flame-trance.”
Page 548 – 549, Collected Poems, Sri Aurobindo
INSIGHT
“The Inconscient as the source and author of all material creation is one of the main discoveries of modern psychology, but it agrees with the idea of a famous Vedic hymn. In the Upanishads, Prajna, the Master of Sushupti, is the Ishwara and therefore the original Creator out of a superconscient sleep. The idea of the poem is that this creative Inconscient also is Shiva creating here life in matter out of an apparently inconscient material trance as from above he creates all the worlds (not the material only) from a superconscient trance. The reality is a supreme Consciousness — but that is veiled by the appearance on one side of the superconscient sleep, on the other of the material Inconscience. Here the emphasis is on the latter; the superconscient is only hinted at, not indicated, — it is the Infinity out of which comes the revealing Flame.”
Page 555, Collected Poems, Sri Aurobindo
INNER PRACTICE
Connecting to the inconscient:
We can connect to the domain of consciousness present beneath our feet. We can start from our feet or from our pelvic region and take our awareness deep down. Some do it like entering within the earth and going down to its core and beyond. The true journey we are doing is that we are learning to take our awareness within the subconscient and below within the inconscient. As we enter this region with our awareness, we may experience the darkness, the dark night or even some fluid stuff or some images. We need to pass through this collective untransformed. There is also huge vastness here, the domain of silence ever present. And this is also the abode of Shiva, the potent ‘seed’ unmanifest, lying dormant in a state of calmness and light, waiting for the touch of Divine Shakti.
The inconscient is also present right within all the cells of our body as the hardened crust of our habits, mental, vital and physical patterns.
Practicing Chanting:
Keeping your awareness right below your feet into the vast and deep depths you can offer any chant of Maha Shiva there. Or keeping your awareness within the depth of your cells intuitively in the hardened crust of habits, you can offer the chant of Maha Shiva across your cells.
Based on your own tradition and learnings you can choose the chant. Some simple suggestions are offered here:
1) AUM – The primordial sound of creation
2) AUM Shivoham – I am Shiva, In our true nature we are all The One True Pure Consciousness
3) AUM Namah Shivaya – A deep adoration of Lord Shiva, rising across ages
There are many more Shiva stotras and mantras. Whatever you have learnt or practicing you can also practice them as offering Lord Shiva vibrations within the inconscient. This offers all our subconscious and also our inconscient into the feet of the Divine Lord and Mother, for Their manifestation and play.