[Shivani Devi]

Qualified Monism in Shaivite Philosophy

It is time I stopped goofing off and getting serious here; as serious as a Hindu Scholar and great devotee of Lord Shiva can be.

Maybe this will go way over the top, maybe some of it will stick, but I totally understand the whole deal with Advaita Vedanta - from the rather 'biased' view of a Bhakti Yogi, of course.
I've just spent the past week revisiting the Shiva, Linga and Skanda Puranas, all the Shaiva Agamas, Sutras and the whole Trinetra (Trika) school of Shaivite Thought in comparison with the Pashupati, Kaula and Siddhanta versions of the basic question; "does this 'thing' called Shiva/Mahadeva, exist outside of Brahman which encompasses all and is full 'purna' of its own effulgence (vimarsha)?"

Through reading all these myths and legends, one gets a view of the Hindu Epic, the Ramayana from a whole different perspective to the schools of early Vaishnava (Vishnu -centric) interpretations of it through Goswami Tulsidas, to Madhava and Ramanuja and thus to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who started the whole Sankirtan Movement (Mantra Marg) back in the 15th Century.

So, even in the Shaivite Paranas, we get the story of Ravana and what happened to him and also, how Lord Rama (an avatar of Lord Vishnu) worshiped Lord Shiva to get His blessings to slay this great Devotee of Lord Shiva...and Ravana, as you may all recall was also an incarnation of the 'Door Keeper' of Vishnu Loka and his real name is Jaya - who was cursed by the Sanat Kumara to take human birth worshiping Lord Shiva, for denying the Ascended Masters access into 'Heaven'...Jaya's brother (the other half of Jaya) was called Vijaya and Vijaya took birth as Ravana's brother, Kumbhkarna...who was like a 50ft tall, 10 ton giant...but I digress because I just like telling this story. lol