His third eye represents omniscience, insight, and enlightenment. The sacred text, the Bhagavad Gita, interprets that the three basic gunas - satvic, tamasic and rajasic — that combine with each other to create life forms in the universe. The divine entity is divided into nine; but only eight of them are perceived by human intellect — earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and pride. The ninth part of the divine entity is eternally shrouded in the mystery of creation.
The overall temper of the image is paradoxical, uniting the inner tranquility, and outside activity of Shiva. He says that "every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction…without end…For the modern physicists, then Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter.
As in Hindu mythology, it is a continual dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos; the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomena. A special plaque next to the Shiva statue explains the significance of the metaphor of Shiva's cosmic dance with quotations from Capra: "Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes.
In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art, and modern physics. To sum up, here's an excerpt from a beautiful poem by Ruth Peel:. He dances in evil places, In sacred, He creates and preserves, Destroys and releases. We are part of this dance This eternal rhythm, And woe to us if, blinded By illusions, We detach ourselves From the dancing cosmos, This universal harmony…".
Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Browse the Collection. Shiva as Lord of Dance Nataraja ca. Listen Play or pause. Shiva as Lord of Dance Nataraja. Play or pause. Kids: Shiva as Lord of Dance Nataraja. Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies. We're sorry, the transcript for this audio track is not available at this time. We are working to make it available as soon as possible.
Public Domain. Open Access. New York. Fifty years ago, the full swing of the counter-culture movement gave an entire generation in the West a new high, helped by a heady concoction of eastern mysticism and psychedelic drugs.
Many experienced epiphanous moments; for some, even life-changing ones. Fritjof Capra, the Austrian-born American physicist , 80 years old now, was among them. In the Summer of …one late afternoon, I was sitting by the ocean in California …when I suddenly became aware of my whole environment as being engaged in a gigantic cosmic dance. More such experiences followed. Six years later, he summarised his findings in The Tao of Physics, published first in The book was received enthusiastically in the US and Europe and, at least for some, revolutionised both their spiritual and scientific planes.
Before Albert Einstein propounded his theory of relativity in the early 20th century, it was assumed that matter could ultimately be broken down into indivisible indestructible parts.
Instead, they merely re-arranged themselves to form new particles using kinetic energy or the energy of motion: subatomic dynamism. Modern physics shows us that every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction. This idea of the eternal universal dancer has so deeply caught on among physicists and cosmologists that in , an abstract sculpture called Cosmic Dancer , was launched to the Russian Mir space station.
Asked about how his artwork, its designer Arthur Woods said:. Thus my sculpture, which is also very angular could be viewed as a symbolic abstraction of this figure as it dances in the cosmic weightlessness of space…its form is always in a transient state of change…This and the fact that it is free of terrestrial gravity, imparts a supranatural quality normally reserved for gods. Thus this qualitative relationship to the god Shiva can be made.
It has prompted enough curiosity that the CERN website addresses its presence :. A few days after I first met Rajkumar, I got a call from him, inviting me to accompany him. The group had been called to a Chennai neighbourhood where a young woman had tragically lost her battle to leukemia and Rajkumar and his team were hired to lead the Saavukoothu procession. After the exhausting session, during which around 10 adults and a few children danced for a few hours, we settled down for a cup of tea.
Sometimes it is the elderly, sometimes little ones. Is he too inured by now? As we bid farewell in the afternoon heat, a last question occurred to me: By any chance, was there anyone named Shiva in his team?
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