Dance of Nataraj

I feel that Nataraj embodies true Rebirth of the Age and destruction of the old……… on the Deepest levels and his image alone signifies Regeneration. This cosmic dance of Shiva is called ‘Anandatandava,’ meaning the Dance of Bliss, and symbolizes the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction, as well as the daily rhythm of birth and death. The dance is a pictorial allegory of the five principle manifestations of eternal energy — creation, destruction, preservation, salvation, and illusion.

This is a picture of “Nataraja” a manifestation of Shiva, a Hindu God assumed as the Lord of Dance

1. His body is the sky.
2. His hands entreats the eight directions.
3. His three eyes symbolise the sun, moon and the eight directions.
4. His smile acts as the distraction of evil.
5. His hair embodies wisdom.
6. His crescent moon shows enlightenment.
7. His sacred thread indicates philosophy.
8. His garments are the Vedas.
9. His damaru is the creation of sound.
10.His Abhayam (blessing hand literally without fear) signifies protection.
11.His varada is for liberation.
12.His tiger skin acts to control anger.
13.His anklets direct to a good path.
14.His serpent controls jealousy.
15.The deer signifies compassion.
16.The body of dwarf apasmara-purusha (the man of forgetfulness) who embodies indifference, ignorance and laziness

Shiva’s unending Dance of Creation, Preservation and Destruction is art, science and religion merged as one. He represents the constant biodance of life- creation, maintenance and transformation and indicates the perfect balance between life and death.

The symbolism of Shiva Nataraja is re-creation, regeneration and renewal. In God’s endless dance of creation, preservation, destruction and paired graces is hidden a deep understanding of our universe, which is the only True Wisdom we need to know.

Biodance- Nataraj
The Dance of Shiva
We renew our physical body just as we regrow hair and nails. We are on the move. Five years ago we didn’t exist, all our atoms having been replaced in the interval. Here today, completely gone in five years, renewed down to the last single atom, we endure only in the shape, form and pattern that are assured by our genetic blueprint.

Our replacement parts come in constant flow from the earth itself. The carbon atoms in my body were once of the earth and shall be again, only to be exchanged for more of the same. After leaving my body they may re-enter me at a later time. Or they may be fixed for a while in the body of someone else- or something else- in this unending round of “biodance,” this dance of life.
This is the same dance on a micro level happening on a marco level, as above so below..this is the time of the New Era, the old is removing as the new is coming forth…we are the Dance of Nataraj~
A myth, obviously a subsequent addition, it is nonetheless key to Tantra’s root and basic structure. Nataraj’s stage is still the same universe, carved out the Great Void, the axis of which Shiva’s consort Shakti enshrines, and where the act of copulation – union of male and female principles which the metaphysician perceives as the union of ‘Prakriti’ and ‘Purusha’ – matter and spirit, Tantrika, as of Shiva and Shakti, and the devotee, as of ‘Linga’ and ‘Yoni’, is incessant.

Shakti who enshrines universe’s axis and is the source of joy and creation is Tantra’s presiding deity.

It is, however, Shiva’s bliss and desire to create that the act of copulation and thereby explosion of energy and creation takes place.

Shakti substantiates Shiva’s bliss, Tantra’s principal objective; hence, Tantrika resorts to Shiva for his procreative desire which is the source of joy, but to Shakti for all other potentials, even aspects of Shiva as Parabrahma – creation, preservation and dissolution. The Tantrika perceives her as multi-aspected, representing, besides female energy, abundance, multiplicity and power to create and destroy. Except in Buddhist tradition, in almost all schools of Tantra Shakti has a superior status. As
Shakti manifested in ‘Yoni’, the worship of ‘Yoni’ is the foremost to the Tantrika.

In Tantrika way the ‘sadhaka’, a product of Shiva’s desire to procreate and multiply, and hence, his microcosmic part, believes to attain the same state of bliss and joy as the Proto- Shiva, if he is able to magnify his mind and intellect with same enormity as did Shiva-Shakti in the myth. He begins by copulating as his first step. He believes that he is the cosmic male, his female counterpart, the cosmic female, and in their ultimate magnification, they are Shiva and Shakti; and, thus, their act of
copulation represents the divine union of Shiva and Shakti on human level. He takes ‘yoni’ as the manifest form of Shakti, and ‘linga’, as Shiva’s, and discovers in the union of the two his means of attaining the ultimate bliss which revealed in the union of Shiva and Shakti.