Bhringi looking adoringly at Shiva dancing. What distinguishes Bhringi
from the rest of the followers of Shiva is that he looks emaciated,
just a skeleton in fact. And he has three legs, not two.
The story goes that Bhringi was a devotee of Shiva. One day, he
came to Mount Kailas, the abode of Shiva, and expressed his desire to
go around Shiva. As he was going around, Shiva's consort, Shakti,
said, "You cannot just go around him. You have to go around me too. We
are two halves of the same truth."
Bhringi, however, was so focussed on Shiva that he had not desire
to go around Shakti. Seeing this, Shakti sat on Shiva's lap making it
difficult for Bhrigi to go around Shiva alone. Bhringi, determined to go
around Shiva took the form of a snake and tried to slip in between the
two.
Amused by this, Shiva made Shakti one half of his body — the famous
Ardhanareshwar form of Shiva. This was God whose one half is the
Goddess. But Bhringi was adamant. He would go around Shiva alone. So
he took the form of a rat, some say a bee, and tried to gnaw his way
between the two.
This annoyed the Goddess so much that she said, "May Bhringi lose
all parts of the body that come from the mother." In Tantra, the
Indian school of alchemy, it is believed that the tough and rigid
parts of the body such as nerves and bones come from the father while
the soft and fluid parts of the body such as flesh and blood come from
the mother. Instantly, Bhrigi lost all flesh and blood and he became a
bag of bones. He collapsed on the floor, unable to get up.
Bhringi realised his folly. Shiva and Shakti make up the whole.
They are not independent entities. One cannot exist without the other.
Without either there is neither. He apologised.
So the world never forgets this lesson, Bhrigi was denied flesh and
blood forever. To enable him to stand upright he was given a third
leg, so that his legs served as a tripod.
The idea of mutual inter-dependence is a consistent theme in Hindu
mythology. There is no one; one is a sum-total of two.
What is that we learn from it in our day-to-day life, in our
organisational life?
--
With Regards and Prayers
(D. Bhanudas)
9443150490
Visit: www.vkendra.org
See : http://dbhanudas.wordpress.com
See :The Dedicated
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