This year, I spent my Mahashivratri in Silence.
This is not common for me. Every year since 2006, I spend it watching the SJV / Isha program via TV or web-streaming or live at the venue.
Here’s how it happened,
I was on my 2 month cycle tour in Thailand.
This was during the Mahashivratri season. I call it a ‘season’ because since last couple of years I have been doing the Mahashivratri sadhana given by Sadhguru JV which spans 40 or so days. So it had become for me ‘a season’. But now I was in Thailand and cycling at that. No way I could do this sadhana.
Moreover, where would I do my jagran on the Mahashivratri night?
I had kept 3 days of the festival free. And I would be around Pattaya at that time.
One option was to take a condo apartment, maybe facing the sea (swanky), and have some good home cooked food while watching the program as usual (which includes SJV’s meditations). But I had also been passing so many ashrams (called ‘assom’ in Thailand) and meditation centers that I was tempted to stay at one.
So, in Pattaya I finally stayed at a meditation center.
It was a unique one. I got an individual cottage. And we had to remain in silence. I could only talk to the teacher, an Australian monk called Mark.
They would provide vegetarian food. Every meal time the tiffin would be hung outside my cottage, I had to take it and eat and hang it back again for the staff.
It was very traditional and yet contemporary.
So, this is how it happened that I was in Silence for my Mahashivratri this year.
There was one more choice to make,
I could spend the night watching the usual program with headphones (the retreat is strictly no noise especially after evening).
Instead I decided this was an ideal opportunity to explore one matter that had been niggling at the back of my mind.
When yoga and Isha Foundation is non-religious, is Mahashivratri NECESSARILY about Shiva? Anyway, Sadhguru says it is a night of wakefulness due to a natural upsurge in the system at that time.
Moreover, when Shiva means the Dark One and Silent too – do I have to spend it with the lighted screens, and loud activity?
So, I chose to spend it in Silence and mostly darkness.
This is over 8 hours of silence and darkness.
There have been times in my life when I have meditated for straight 8 hours or even more time with small breaks. But they have been specific occasions. Either my internal situation demanded it. Or the external situation like a deep meditation program/place led to it.
On this Mahashivratri night, it was neither.
So, I was a little agitated, fiddling with my mobile sometimes.
But I have always loved and benefited from Silent spells.
And at the end of the night this whole niggling thing about non-religious and yet Shiva matter was solved.
The solution is the Guru.
Mahashivratri would have been non-consequential or meaningless for me if not for Sadhguru.
And the most basic Indic tenet is that Guru bigger than even God.
For sure, he is also bigger than my current religion or social standing or whateverry…
If he pushes for a Mahashivratri in a certain way. I can support it (in my heart or with actual activity). That’s all. And I can see that Shiva works. Having him there helps focus and generate devotion. So it is a very valuable tool. (worth the religious conflict)
After that, whether I spend it in silence or in full activity or in dancing.. it is all fine.
There is no conflict for me anymore.
If one lets Life take its course, with some trust in our hearts, it usually solves matters for us. And this is how this matter got solved for me.