embodiment of it – one that does not just teach us to
meditate the Divine, but allows us to directly experience
and identify with it in its most tangible, bodily and
sensuous immediacy. Like Shiva, each of us can learn to
wordlessly know and say – in and through every atom and
cell of our body, every aspect of our self, and every element
of our experience, that ‘Shiva am I’ (Shivoham) and that
every ‘thing’ around us is a mere outward ‘mark’ or
‘symbol’ of Shiva - his Lingam.
Lingam means ‘mark’ or ‘symbol’. The Lingam of Shiva is
the absolute symbol of that absolutely pure and symbol-free
awareness that is the Divine Universal Consciousness, and
beyond which there is ‘nothing higher’ (A-nuttara). Only a
new and invigorated Tantric Hinduism – and not any
copycat form of narrow Indian religious nationalism and
Hindu ‘fundamentalism’ – can bring human beings to the
threshold of a higher awareness out of which alone the world
can be transformed. We stand therefore at the dawn of a
glorious new religious drama rooted in Hinduism – one that
has the power to transform our world through awareness
rather than war, and in doing so also undo the untold
damage wrought by wars present and past. For before its
occupation by Muslim invaders, even the land of
Afghanistan, now but a ravaged site of global strife
between Islamism and US Imperialism, was replete with
temples celebrating Shiva and Shakti – in peace.