We live in a country where life is celebrated everyday by
means of various festivals arriving at our doorsteps in one or the other form. One such festivals is Mahashivratri were
people worship Lord Shiva by bathing the Shivalinga, fasting and chanting mantras
of “Om Namah Shivay”.
Twenty years
ago, it was one such rainy night of late winters where everyone was fasting. The
curious kid in me asked my grandmother “Why do we celebrate Mahashivratri?”. And
She replied, “Though there are many stories and beliefs that relate to Shivratri,
I want to share the one that will always hold significance in everyone’s life. That
is the story of love, devotion and most importantly “patience”. They say
that on this day Lord Shiva married Goddess Parvathi. And it’s a celebration of
their union and the love they possess for each other.”
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| Ardhnarishwar |
She started
narrating “Lord Shiva was a strong man living a rough life at the top of
mountains and always being absorbed in his eternal trance. It is being said
that his wardrobe used to be the skin of tiger and necklace made of skeletons
with a snake surrounding his neck. And Goddess Parvathi was just another normal
girl, being born as a princess. Since her childhood days, Parvathi was
attracted to Lord Shiva. As the girl turned into a lady, she decided to marry Lord
Shiva. But Lord Shiva was in meditative consciousness and never paid attention
to the girl. After few years, her parents got furious and started counselling
Parvathi that “Lord Shiva is insulting you from so long and you should not
waste your time and energy on him”. Undeterred, she wanted to impress Lord
Shiva and prove her worth to him. And just like any other Indian love story,
there were compatibility issues where Lord Shiva was possessing superpowers and
Parvathi was in a human being form. Therefore, she did “tapasya”
(austerity) chanting Lord Shiva’s name for thousands of years as penance. This spiritual
discipline of Parvathi made Lord Shiva empathize her and he decided to see
Parvathi once. Even after all those years of sufferings by Goddess
Parvathi during austerity, he still decided to test her devotion one
last time. He took a form of an old man
and bad mouthed about Lord Shiva to Parvathi. Parvathi after being annoyed, asked
him to leave and said, “I know who Lord Shiva is, either I will accept Lord
Shiva as my husband or will die unmarried”. Thus, the love, patience and devotion
shown of Goddess Parvathi ultimately melted Lord Shiva’s heart. He took his
real form and got married to her.”
And to me, Love felt like worshiping. Just like when you worship God, you don’t know whether he is listening, you don’t get the answers of your prayers the very moment but still you do it every day because of the faith you have in him. Love is faith.
But then I tried to relate this with our modern-day busy
lives. I tried to question,
” In this self-reliable era, will anyone think of giving their
complete self to someone for the sake of love?”
Every now and then we put our ego’s first in many ways “who should
call first and who should text first?”. And when we don’t succeed in love
relationships, very easily we blame each other. We call them untrustworthy,
someone who can’t keep the commitments. But have we ever realized “If love
depends on commitment to stay together or is it something that no matter what
two souls can’t stay separated from each other? “. Goddess Parvathi stayed
devoted to Lord Shiva even when he never paid any attention to her. How many
times did we try to question ourselves “have we tried to be their Parvathi?”
“Will anyone wait for their love for years or even months
in a life which is being taught to us as precious? Will anyone stay devoted to
one person where we always have another option available just a click away?”
Love has lost its meaning in this world of constant comparison,
were the people are compared on dating apps just like clothes and shoes on
shopping apps. When we love someone, we see them everywhere in everyone. Just
like when you worship God and you see God in everything and everyone. When
there is love there can’t be any existence of comparison. Goddess Parvathi’s
parents and other circumstances couldn’t deter her, because She was focused and
was determined to get what she wants. But we in this fast-paced world move to
the next best option available, we don’t have patience to give love the time it
requires. We forget that everything happens at its own pace.
I hope this generation discovers the lost meaning of Love
and devotion!! I hope we all can learn to love like Parvathi!!
P.S: - In a country where “Love is called Worship”,
show the required devotion and patience that it deserves. Love is faith!!
Love is Hope!!
