Shivaratri is the most important festival for the entire humanity because it signifies the incarnation of incorporeal God Shiva for re-establishing heaven on earth, On Shivaratri devout people in India observe fast which is symbolic of the purification of body and soul. People also keep awake the whole night, and this signifies the vigil against looting by dacoits who have looted human soul of its innate qualities of peace, purity, power, truth, love, happiness and bliss. People visit Shiva temples where they pour milk and water over the Shivlinga, the oval stone representing incorporeal God, Shiva. This offering is poured into a vessel suspended above the Linga, on which the fluid falls drop by drop, symbolizes the deep contemplation on Godly versions, one by one, by His children. Through this contemplation the souls not only get clarity on points of spiritual knowledge, but also the souls get purified. Such purification is very important for ensuring one's presence in the Golden Age which God re-establishes during the Auspicious Confluence Age that starts with the incarnation of God Shiva and lasts until the establishment of the Golden Age, whereby starting a new cycle of the 'Eternal World Drama'. Some people consume potions of Bhang, an intoxicating herb, and this practice signifies the spiritual intoxication of human souls during the Confluence Age. It is paradoxical that those who practice these rituals are usually unaware of the spiritual significance stated above, and hence are deprived of the full reward, I.e. Deity-hood in the Golden Age.
Let us now try to understand the correct spiritual significance of Shivaratri so that we can benefit fully from Godly knowledge that is available only during the Auspicious Confluence Age. First of all we have to understand that a human being is a combination of material body and nonmaterial soul, spirit, Atma, Rooh or psyche. The non-material soul does not belong to the material world where we live. It originally belongs to the soul-world called Brahmalok, Shanti Dham, Nirvan Dham or Mool Vatan in Hindi. It is also called incorporeal world because it is devoid of any matter that constitute corporeal forms. This realm is the farthest from the corporeal world, and is filled with Brahm, the golden red light which is sometimes called the sixth element. In this silence world dwells God Shiva, the Supreme Father along with His children - the human souls. The souls in Paramdham are devoid of the faculties of mind, intellect, and body, and hence there is no vibration of thought, speech or deed. That is why Supreme silence prevails here. Silence is the original attribute of the soul and hence every soul longs for peace. All great achievements of the human beings are attained through contemplation in silence.
Souls are made up of seven basic attributes - knowledge, peace, love, joy, purity, power and bliss. In fact these attributes are metaphysical energies and these come into play through the faculties of mind, intellect and personality traits, called Sanskaras in Hindi, when the soul is embodied in the corporeal world. The cosmic egg (Brahmand) is constituted by three worlds - the incorporeal world of souls and the Supreme Soul is the outer most and is referred to as the silence-world, the corporeal world of matter, sound and action- at the level of thought , speech and deed-is the inner most realm which is referred to as the 'movie-talky-world. In between these two is the subtle world where there is no matter and no sound and it is the realm of subtle deities - Brahma, Vishnu and Shankar who communicate through thought vibrations. The soul is metaphorically compared to an actor who plays his varied roles by getting embodied in the corporeal world. The body is his costume, planet earth is a revolving drama stage, the sun, moon and stars provide lighting for the stage, plants, flowers, animals and birds provide stage decoration. As this drama is eternal, the events in this drama have to repeat exactly after a period, which God has revealed to be only 5000 years.
That means, every 5000 years you will be reading the same article at the same time, date, month and year. In order to sustain such a huge drama eternally, enormous amount of energy is required, and as per the second law of thermodynamics, this energy source is bound to dwindle and come to a halt. The implication is that some external agency would be required in order to sustain the cycle of the world drama eternally, and this agency should be outside the physical world, where the 'Law of Entropy' is not operative. Hence it stands to reason that God only can be that agency who functions as the eternal source of energy. How is God able to do this? In order to understand the answer to the above question, we have to view the whole creation as an eternal interplay of three point-sources of energy, both physical and metaphysical.
God is the eternal generator of metaphysical energy, while souls are like batteries or point-sources of meta-physical energy, and atom is the point-source of physical energy. The eternal drama is an eternal interplay between these three energy sources. There is a general consensus among scientists and philosophers that when human consciousness (soul) gets localized in a body which is made of five gross elements of nature - earth, water, fire. air and space, former rules over the latter through its subtle energies of mind and intellect. Metaphorically, we may consider the body as a car and the soul as its driver. The soul localizes in the center of the brain, in between three endocrine glands - pituitary, pineal and hypothalamus. Sitting over here soul controls the body through the nervous and endocrine systems. For this the spiritual energy has to reach every cell of the body. Thus the embodied soul is bound to the 100 trillion cells of the body. Although the somatic cells are endowed with the faculty of life, by which they are able to multiply independent of the soul, when suitable biological environment is provided, they cannot function as an organ system in the absence of the regulatory role of the soul.
In fact God interferes directly with the world drama, only when the souls and atoms, through their interactions, deplete the 'available energy' and when the replenishment is urgently required, this critical situation is currently on since there is maximum entropy and consequent disorder and chaos in the world now. God, being the Creator, Director and Principal Actor of the eternal drama, appears on the drama stage by incarnating into the body of an aged person, and starts speaking Godly knowledge, revealing the secrets about soul, Supreme Soul, eternal world drama, law of Karma, and teach Rajyoga, the technology for recharging the soul by linking the self with the Supreme Soul, the eternal generator of spiritual powers. Once the required number of human souls gets transformed, from profane to divine, the transformation of the physical world takes place automatically. When the human beings become divine beings, the world of deities, the paradise on earth becomes a reality.
The celebration of Shivaratri is in remembrance of this benevolent act of God Shiva in each cycle (Kalpa) of the eternal world drama. The human medium used for this act of God has been renamed by Him as Prajapita Brahma, and he has been instrumental for establishing the Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya which now has over 9000 branches in 132 countries in all the five continents. Godly knowledge and Rajyoga are taught in these institutions free of charge. From a humble beginning of a personal Satsang in 1937, at Hyderabad, Sindh Province (now in Pakistan), it has grown into a non-governmental organization (NGO) having consultative status with U.N. affiliates - UNICEF and ECOSOC. This institution is celebrating Shivaratri as 75th Shivajayanti this year by conducting various public functions for disseminating Godly knowledge to the public without any discrimination on the basis of caste, faith, age, gender, educational or social status. Let us all make use of their services for personal and universal transformation, and become partners in God's enterprise and thus ensure your presence in the forthcoming new world of spiritual and human values.
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