26 Feb 2025
O Learned and Devoted Servants of God
Some devotees of God Vishnu say that God Shiva is not auspicious because He is related to destruction and not to construction. This is a foolish comment based on ignorance and not on analysis. If you want to construct and establish good, are you not destroying the bad simultaneously? Merely, the word ‘Destruction’ should not be entertained because ‘Destruction of what?’ is very important. When the doctor treats the patient to get good health, the doctor uses antibiotics to kill the bacteria and virus. Without destroying the bacteria and virus, good health cannot be achieved. If the soul wants to know God, its ignorance must be destroyed. Is it not helping the spiritual aspirant in his/her spiritual effort (Saadhana)?
You may say that God Shiva is destroying the entire creation in dissolution without discriminating good and bad. Such comment is also based on ignorance because you are not understanding the meaning of the word ‘Dissolution’. In dissolution,destruction means transferring the gross state of the world into subtle state (Avyaktam). It is just like the played cinema on the screen is withdrawn at the end of the show from gross state to subtle state, which is the film reel to be played again for the next show. The show on the screen disappears, which does not mean the disappearance of the cinema from the film reel also. Final dissolution (Mahaa Pralaya) is at the end of the four yugas and the dissolution between two yugas (Pralaya) involves the same procedure of transferring the world (cinema) from gross state (show on the screen) to subtle state (picture-print on the film reel).
Suppose you are watching a devotional picture in the cinema hall. When the cinema show is completed, the picture is withdrawn from the curtain into the film reel. Will you shout at the operator that he has stopped the devotional cinema that is very much enjoyed by the devotees? In the interval, both good and bad have to be withdrawn for a break. Without destroying the hurdles in the path, how can you reach your intended goal? Therefore, such destruction of hurdles is also a part of the construction only. God is always for construction of good only and not for the destruction of good. He destroys the bad for the construction of good only. Any divine form of God may destroy any demon (the embodiment of bad), it is Lord Shiva, who is destroying that demon through that divine form. He is called as Rudra since He is furious against injustice. He makes bad souls to weep through punishments and hence, He is called as Rudra (Rodayati iti Rudraḥ). Rudra means He, who makes the bad souls weep.
Shiva means auspiciousness, which is always the construction of good helped by the destruction of bad. Had Shiva not swallowed the horrible poison (Haalaahalam) during the churning of milk-ocean, is there a trace of hope for the expression of divine nectar in the end of churning? The horrible poison would have destroyed all the souls and even the churning for divine nectar would not have continued. The personality of God Shiva is the very personality of the ultimate God. If you are trying to blame God Shiva anywhere in any angle, you are finally trying to blame the ultimate God only. The power of creation of God is God Brahma and the power of maintenance of the creation of God is God Vishnu. The power of destruction of creation (changing the gross state to subtle state) of God that gives intervals in the show of creation is God Shiva. If you are praising two actions of a person and criticizing the 3rd action of the same person, you have criticized the same person, who was praised by you earlier! Therefore, if you are criticizing God Shiva from one side, you are simultaneously criticizing God Vishnu and God Brahma also from the other side. This means that you have praised God Vishnu from one side and you have criticized the same God Vishnu from the other side.
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