Lord Neelakanth

[Shivani Devi]

Aum Namah Shivaya

Because I'm in a rather devotional mood, I wanted to make a thread about my own interpretation of Lord Shiva in this Cosmic Manifestation.

Neel (blue) and Khanth (throat) refers to a blue stain left on Lord Shiva's white throat after He drank some poison at the dawn of creation.

As the story goes, when the world was created, the forces of good and evil joined in a 'tug of war' churning an upturned mountain (Meru Danda) with a large serpent (Kundalini) until many precious things came out of the churning (I forget half of them now)...one of which was the 'sacred cow' or the Kaam Dhenu - the wish-fulfilling cow (and that's why cows are sacred in India in reply to another thread, but I digress...)

Through meditation I came to realise that the cosmic ocean was that of my heart as well (prem sagara) and the bitter poison was all the pain and hurt I had held back for so long and my tears were the antidote to that poison! Lord Shiva drank it all up anyway...my tears only sweetened it.

Thus I came to pay my respects and homage to this form of Lord Shiva and felt I would just like to share it. May He bless all and drink up all the poison of ignorance in the hearts of His devotees.

Aum Namah Shivaya

[Shivani Devi]

' churning an upturned mountain (Meru Danda) with a large serpent (Kundalini)

Yes, I forgot to mention 'and on the back of a giant turtle which was an avatar of Lord Vishnu'.

The poison of hate corrodes everything in its path. Only Shiva could swallow it and save mankind...

Also, the four limbs of the turtle represent the 4 pillars of the material universe, or the 4 dimensions grounded within this 'reality plane'.

I also forgot to mention that another of the by-products of the churning was 'Soma' or 'Bliss'.

And that whole ride from the sons of Manu right through to the sisters Diti and Adiiti and how the Asuras got talked into 'pulling the snake-rope' to begin with was a wild one.

Aum Namah Shivaya

[acorn]

Neel (blue) and Khanth (throat) refers to a blue stain left on Lord Shiva's white throat after He drank some poison at the dawn of creation...(necromancer)
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I cannot help but to interpret this line as the description of maya

the poison which was drank at the dawn of creation....the blue stain is maya..and all who incarnate must ...by the very nature of creation;...drink from this cup as soon as one is aware that they are.
As soon as I read that line this thought accompanied it.....I didn't want to sound as if what you wrote is incorrect,only that...this thought was immediate for me.

Love
acorn

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by acorn

Neel (blue) and Khanth (throat) refers to a blue stain left on Lord Shiva's white throat after He drank some poison at the dawn of creation...(necromancer)
__________________________________________________ ________
I cannot help but to interpret this line as the description of maya

the poison which was drank at the dawn of creation....the blue stain is maya..and all who incarnate must ...by the very nature of creation;...drink from this cup as soon as one is aware that they are.
As soon as I read that line this thought accompanied it.....I didn't want to sound as if what you wrote is incorrect,only that...this thought was immediate for me.

Love
acorn

Namaste.

A very astute observation.

With the poison, also came the nectar or Soma.

This is the whole dualistic nature of phenomenon. Poison/Nectar of immortality...ignorance/bliss and we need to drink both to be able to discern one from the other.

When our emotions are all churned up...the ocean of the heart...or the prem sagara...when the ocean of emotion is churned up by the forces of 'good' vs 'evil' - e,g positive and negative emotions respectively, the negative emotions or the 'forces of the Asuras' produce the poison, while the forces of the Devas or the 'good guys' produce the soma -and of course, Shiva drinks both - if He did not, He wouldn't appear as Lord Chandrashekara - wearing the moon (Soma) upon His head. It's also representative of the nadis or energy flow within the body..and of course, Lord Shiva, being Lord of the Asuras and Ghosts - Bhutnath was the only Deity who could drink the poison without effect...His system was immune to it.

Aum Namah Shivaya