THE WHOLE OF THE ALL
Shiva as Lord of the Dance offers metaphor for consciousness expressing existence. The universe lies within all of existence. It materializes from the activity of Shiva’s dance. This materialization is the marvel of Shiva expressing. Within the mystery of movement, existence emerges as Shiva lets the idea of dance emanate as expression. Shiva is the dance. The dance is Shiva. The dance is Shiva expressing. From Shiva’s expressing flows the universe. The universe is your experience of existence. Your world is consciousness expressing the thought of separation as the universe. This is existence as you experience it in body. The me of the body that experiences existence perceives separation where there is only the whole of the all.
Shiva is one god in the history of gods being answers to existential cosmic questions. But there is no god required for answers within the construct of consciousness expressing existence. There is no god because all is one in consciousness. There is no separation of creator and creation. Consciousness and existence are not two. They are a singular unity of oneness, like water and wetness. Within the history of gods, people may perceive themselves as created like a pot on a shelf, or sourced from divine essence like maple sap, or extended in unity with a creator like the wave of an ocean, but as consciousness-expressing you are the dancing that is the dance. You are consciousness expressing thought. Nothing exists separate from you, not even a god. You are not a separation or an extension. You are the whole of the all, and the whole of the all is its own emanation. There is no god, creator, or other source separate from the emanation.
Shiva dancing symbolizes the whole of the all. Think of yourself as Shiva-dancing. The statue represents a single moment of consciousness expressing existence. That expressing is aware. You are aware. Awareness is the energy of consciousness-expressing. This energy is I AM. I AM is the awareness that is consciousness. I AM is Shiva being the universe. I AM is consciousness being existence. I AM is consciousness-expressing. I AM is energy drawing thought from the eternal field of infinite possibility to manifest existence. This is consciousness-expressing. You are consciousness-expressing. You are awareness. You are I AM. You are the energy of movement that is existence. I AM is Shiva drawing from the idea of dance, or from an infinite number of dance steps, to dance eternally. It is reality never beginning, never ending, with nothing added or taken away. It is consciousness being what it is: whole, complete, perfect, eternal. I AM is eternal oneness. This is the whole of the all. There is no other than I AM. You are consciousness-expressing. You are the whole of the all. There is no separation in the reality that is consciousness. There is no other.
"I am not my body, nor do I need it. I am the witness only. I have no shape of my own. You are so accustomed to think of yourself as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether." NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ (1897-1981)