Mahakatha's Meditation Mantras

The next time you look at an image of Lord Shiva,

notice that stream of water that appears to

flow down from his hair. Some of us

know that that stream of water is the

divine river, Ganga. And once we know the

symbolism behind why Shiva

has a river tied up in his hair, We will learn

something new about our emotions, our

aggressions, and the best way to deal with them.

Let's talk about that in today's episode, dear listener.

Welcome back to the Mahakatha Meditation Mantras

podcast. I'm your host, Preeti. And in today's

episode, we are visualizing the stream of

the river Ganga that is always depicted to

flow from the tied-up knot of Shiva's hair.

Now the river Ganga is one that has beautiful

legends surrounding it. And while there are many

versions to the story of Ganga and lord

Shiva, the simplest one that I'd like to share

with you today is that Ganga was the most ferocious,

most mighty, most powerful force

of water that existed and when it was

destined for Ganga to flow onto the earth,

Lord Shiva knew that the earth would

perish under her intensity, her

force, her aggression. Lord

Shiva knew that such was the flow of river Ganga that

it would cut through mountains and forests and it would destroy

every little and giant thing that

stood in her way. And Lord Shiva, the

protector of the earth, the protector of this magnificent

planet that enables life, couldn't

let earth perish in this way. So

while he wanted the earth to be blessed by the divinity

of the river Ganga, who is also considered to be a

goddess, he knew there had to be some way in

which her intensity could be softened and

could be moulded into something that enables life

instead of harming it. It is believed

that that is why lord Shiva tied up

The intense and powerful river

Ganga in his hair, he has her tightly

entangled in his dreadlocks and

securely tied up so that by the time the river

drips from his hair and flows down

to the Himalayas and down to the rest of India,

it becomes a life-giver. It

becomes spiritual nectar. It becomes the

source and the flourisher of life.

That intense aggression, that unstoppable energy

that could destroy worlds needed to be wound up, and

tied up in something, entangled in something. It needed to

go through a medium that would soften that

energy So that on the other end of it,

it would come out as something that is precious,

that is useful and that is full of

life. Now I know on some level, you and

I are just energy Residing within

our body and beyond our body, we are

energy. And sometimes, The things we

go through in this physical life, things like

pain, things like grief, things like

betrayal or trauma. These things can

spark off very strong, very deeply rooted

emotions. Something that happened in the past

might have caused us to hold on to this vicious

stream of anger, this vicious stream of Hurt

and pain and resentment within us.

This storm of sadness that we

That we struggle to deal with and whatever the

strong emotion is, it seems to destroy a lot

of things that stand in its path. Your anger from the

past seems to destroy a moment of happiness

that stands ahead of you. It seems to destroy The

enthusiasm or the excitement that you have towards your

future, it seems to destroy the goodness of your

memories and you start seeing only the bad things that happened in

your past, it becomes this rising and

falling volatile and wild River

that has been flowing from that past moment and

continues to flow and continues to Cut through so

many moments of joy, so many moments of peace, so many moments

of promise and potential and opportunity

and we find ourselves unable to control

it. We find ourselves unable to change it no matter

how much we Force ourselves to. There

may be some things in the past, my dear listener that you feel

like you may never be able to forgive, You may never be

able to forget, you may never be able to get

over. You feel like this intense stream of

that emotion, That pain, that energy,

that anger will forever continue to gush

through you for the rest of your life

And all we're looking for and all we need

is a channel to put that energy through So that

it comes out at the other end in a changed way.

It comes out as energy that is calmer, Energy that is

gentler, an energy that is more constructive and

useful to us rather than destructive in our own

lives. I know we want a way to soften and

tame our emotions so that they don't get in

the way of our happiness but they facilitate our

happiness. What if we could put the

weight and the force of all those emotions

through that knot on Shiva's head.

What if we could surrender all our emotions

to lord Shiva Just so that he can securely

and safely hold all that unbearable

emotion, so that when it flows out of his hair,

Our emotions become pure energy. Our

anger becomes energy. Our grief becomes

energy. Our resentment, our sorrow, our

disappointment becomes pure

energy that we can use once again

in the pursuit of our happiness in this lifetime.

While we may not be Ganga that had the

good fortune of flowing through Shiva's hair,

we still have One beautiful medium

that can help us achieve a similar effect.

There is still one thing, The greatest thing that

lord Shiva has gifted to humanity.

The medium that you and I can use today.

Just surrender all our negative emotion and

when we put it through that medium, we come out of

it Feeling energized, we come out of it

feeling lighter, calmer and little

by little, We are healed.

That beautiful medium my dear listener,

that greatest gift of Lord Shiva To the

world is meditation.

Think of meditation in this new way. Think of

meditation As that knot in Shiva's hair,

think of meditation as the act of surrendering

Yourself and your emotions and your highs and

lows and your volatility and your impulses,

Visualize it as that stream that is now settled

on the top of lord Shiva's Head,

and then when you meditate and you simply observe your

breathing, you do nothing more than wait for

all your thoughts To end and for the

brief moments of complete silence and

complete peace that come after that. Once

you do this for a few minutes every single

day, dear listener, then everything that

felt Like a burden on your heart, will

feel transformed, will feel softened, will

feel lighter. Let this new

visualization of meditation, this beautiful

symbolism of the stream that runs down lord

Shiva's hair, inspire you to start

using meditation As a daily habit

of filtering and purifying and

moulding your energy, Let it become the

daily activity of surrender and the daily

ritual of transformation. Cultivate

that meditative mind. If you could cultivate

that ritual of meditation That would be

one of the best ways to celebrate

and honor and please lord Shiva.

Speaking of pleasing Shiva, dear listener, I bring

you a mantra today that you can use In

your meditation sessions, to envision Lord

Shiva to visualize him and to deepen your

meditation experience. That mantra is

the Shiva Prataha mantra. Prataha

translates to morning or dawn. So this Mantras

is typically to be used for meditation in the morning

and I truly believe that the best time

to meditate is first thing in the morning when your

mind is open and activated

and receptive. When it has just left

the dream state and entered the waking stage,

try to listen to this Mantras for a few minutes

As soon as you wake up and do nothing apart

from simply observing your breath and

observing your thoughts slowing down

one after the other. You will eventually

reach that Beautiful space of thoughtlessness

even if it is for just a few seconds.

And once you come out of that state of thoughtlessness,

once you leave your meditation session you will come

out Restoring the natural balance of

your emotions, you will come out feeling calmer,

more energetic, more eager towards your day.

Now if you do not have the Shiva Prataha mantra, you can avail

the mantra at a 30% discount by using the code

mentioned in the description of this episode. Go ahead and avail

this mantra, try this mantra out for a couple of

mornings this week and let me know Your

experience. Let me know if you were able to

visualize Lord Shiva with Ganga

knotted up in his hair And let me know how you

felt after your meditation session. With

that my dear listener, We've come to the end of this

episode. I really hope you enjoyed this

new picture that I painted for you. This

reimagination of what meditation is and what meditation

can be for you and me. Thank you dear listener for being here

today. Thank you for all the continued love and support

that you share towards Mahakatha. And if

you haven't already, Please leave us a review about this

podcast. Please let us know what you are liking about it

and which episodes you've enjoyed the most so far. I

would love to hear from you. Keep meditating,

keep transforming and stay blessed.