Vishnu/Krishna’s Partnership with Shiva
Vishnu symbolizes the metaphysical principle of the Preserver. Periodically
throughout the Cycles of Time, Vishnu incarnates for the purpose of persevering
and protecting the world. He eliminates the ‘bad’ guys.
From the perspective of the soul traveling in time and space, lost in lifetime
after lifetime of our own play, the cosmic force that "preserves" the universe
is the lifeboat, the refuge.
The Preserver is revered and worshipped so that we, who are enveloped in the
appearance of separation, may achieve our dreams. We offer our prayers and
sacrifices to that energy which will bring a long healthy life, wealth and a
good family. When storms assail us, we immediately turn to whatever we believe
will protect us - in the hope that we will not be destroyed. Vishnu symbolizes
this refuge, protection, and preservation.
However from the perspective of the Oneness that manifests the universe and the
enormous variety of beings playing herein, the Preserver is the metaphysical
principle that holds the temporal illusory hologram in tact.
The Principle of Cohesion
The Preserver's job is to infuse the holographic universe with cohesion. Vishnu
is the metaphysical force that holds the temporal illusory hologram together.
The appearance of cohesion allows the creative powers of Maya to continually
weave ever more subtle and seductive webs to entrap us in increasingly dense
delusion, as the cycles of time progress into greater solidification. We cannot
play without a universe to play in!
Just as a spider can be lured into the seemingly invisible web of another spider
and find itself caught, it legs being bound until it is helpless to fend off
death - so we wander into webs of our own making in the endless quest to satisfy
the thirst of our desires, that thirst which can never be filled.
Krishna moves the universe from one cycle of time to the next
In the Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata, Krishna is the incarnation of Vishnu the
Preserver – but if we view Krishna from the perspective of the Oneness, we may
shed new light on his often-mysterious behavior. We perhaps come to understand
that Krishna's role in the grand epic tale is to bring on the next cycle of
time. Krishna appears to be facilitating the emergence of the Kali Yuga at the
end of the Dvapara Yuga. In fact, it is commonly accepted that the Kali Yuga
begins the moment Krishna leaves his body in 3603 B.C.
Krishna in the Mahabharata is aware that he is the incarnation of Vishnu, unlike
Rama in the Ramayana. Krishna refers to himself as that immutable, eternal,
imperishable Oneness which all souls must inevitably resort to. "I support this
entire universe constantly with a single fraction of Myself!” (BhG.X.42).
In Chapter XI of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna reveals his real nature to his
friend Arjuna through the astonishing ‘Vision of the Universal Form’. Krishna is
clearly all-powerful, but in the epic tale he only rarely exhibits these powers.
Krishna does not actually physically fight in the battle itself, and instead
chooses to be the driver of Arjuna's chariot.
Keep in mind that the Krishna in the Mahabharata is not the Krishna in the later
Sanskrit text the Bhagavata Purana. The delightful sweet cowherd stories of that
text are not included in the older Mahabharata. In fact Radha is never
mentioned. Krishna marries Rukmini, although he also has 16,000 other wives!
Krishna’s propitiations to Shiva
Towards the end of the Mahabharata’s Great War, we learn that it was Krishna’s
‘propiations’ to Shiva that had caused Shiva to intervene and protect the
Panchalas, led by the sons of Pandu - Arjuna, Yuddisthira, Bhima and the twins,
the side of the family that Krishna supports. In other words, the war had gone
favorably for Arjuna and his brothers thus far because of Shiva’s honoring and
respecting Krishna’s acts of austerity.
With truth (satya), purity, honesty, with renunciation, austerity (tapas) and
restraint, with forbearance, devotion, resolve, and understanding and speech,
has Krishna, whose actions are unsullied, propitiated (aradhana) me.
Therefore none is more favored by me than Krishna.
To honor that dear man and to assess you I have intervened to protect the
Panchalas and displayed multiple illusions.
- K. Crosby, The Mahabharata, Clay Sanskrit Library; 7.60-62
The Sanskrit word TAPAS is derived from the verb-root ‘to burn’ and is defined
as heat, energy, penance, austerity, and concentrated discipline. It is a bit
like a bank of acquired powers. Great beings and masters who perform such Tapas
are often described as standing on one toe in the icy Himalayas for 2000 years!
Krishna gave his armies to the enemy and became Arjuna’s charioteer because his
power to control the outcome of the war did not lie in his vast armies, but
rather in Krishna’s capacity to propitiate Shiva. These propitiations apparently
have a time limit on them, as Shiva explains:
By protecting the Panchalas it is him that I have respected.
But they are overpowered by Time.
Today their life runs out.
- Ibid.7.63
Does the same Krishna, who in the Bhagavad Gita revealed to Arjuna his
astonishing and all-powerful Universal Form, require some sort of extra power
from the god Shiva? What we are being
led to understand here by the author of the Mahabharata is the deeper
metaphysical meaning personified by these deities.
As the incarnation of Vishnu, Krishna is playing his role as the metaphysical
principle of Preservation and cohesion. Shiva’s domain is that of the Destroyer.
Krishna protects and inevitably gains victory for Arjuna’s side through the
propitiation of the Shiva principle - that powerful energy which controls the
forces of destruction.
Shiva and Krishna/Vishnu are working together to unfold the woven universe
within which the Oneness plays in Its myriad of veiled forms. They are two of
the three metaphysical principles.
Vishnu is the principle of “the cohesive, or centripetal, tendency known as the
sattva quality … while Shiva, the
centrifugal principle, means dispersion, annihilation, nonexistence, darkness.”
(A. Danielou)
The third principle, represented by Brahma, lies between the centripetal and the
centrifugal principles. “It is a balance between concentration and dispersion,
between a tendency toward existence and a tendency toward annihilation, between
light and darkness, between Vishnu and Shiva” (A. Danielou). Brahma is the great
Immensity, the Fullness envisioned as the Creator in Space and Time.
***
Krishna as Vishnu protects the universe and intervenes to allow the movement of
one cycle of time to the next. He is the sustainer of the hologram we play in.
When we are weary of our play, it is logical that we may turn to Shiva – the
metaphysical principle that is the Destroyer, the force that destroys our
delusion.
In the timeless Nataraja image of Shiva as Cosmic Dancer, he dances in waveforms
as rings of fire on the dwarf of delusion and ignorance.
As metaphysical ideas these deities are the various expressions of the One, that
That-ness, the eternal imperishable Oneness we all are - our eternal Home. While
Shiva dances on our self-created delusion, Krishna invites us to enter into his
consciousness.
Krishna promises to lift up out of eternal transmigration - the ocean of birth
and death - the one who thinks of God, whose mind is absorbed in and whose
thoughts have entered into the Supreme Self (XII.7).
Either way, we return to being that which we always are.
***
Mahabharata, Book Ten, The Sauptikaparvan, Dead of Night; translated by Kate
Crosby; The Clay Sanskrit Library; New York University Press, JJC Foundation,
2009.
The Gods of India, Hindu Polytheism, by Alain Danielou; Inner Traditions
International Ltd., New York, 1964 & 1985.
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Winthrop Sargeant; State University of New York
Press, 1994.
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