Lord Shiva wants your flesh.

Yesterday we celebrated Siva Ratri here at the temple. Lord Shiva is considered the greatest devotee of Lord Krishna. He is a demigod and his jurisdiction is annihilation and destruction. In Krishna book, he is also described as the master of the three qualities of material nature, namely goodness, passion and ignorance. Prabhupada further explains that, especially in South India, there are two classes of devotees, one devoted to Lord Shiva and the other to the Supreme Lord Visnu. Lord Shiva lives as a poor man, although his devotees appear materially opulent. Whereas, while Lord Krishna or Visnu lives very opulently, His devotees appear to be poverty-stricken. Interesting, huh? The key word here is "appear." We all know that appearance can be misleading. Material wealth versus transcendental wealth, but one does not necessarily nullify the other. So don't worry Mom. Anyways, I don't know much about Shiva. He was created from the anger of Lord Brahma, and, contrary to popular belief, does not smoke marijuana. Pure devotees have no use for intoxication.

Three years ago or so, I celebrated Shiva Ratri in Palenque, Chiapas at the Rama Rama temple that used to be and may still be there. They had a really cool tree house but temple relations were shaky and there was talk of disabandonment. Anywho, I was travelling with a bunch of Neem Keroli Baba admirerors from the Hanuman Temple in Taos, New Mexico. Fifteen adults from the ages of 60 to 17, one 3-year-old girl named Sequoia, a converted veggie oil school bus and two months of spontaneous street theater in the streets of Mexico later, we pull up to this makeshift temple in the jungle surrounding the ruins of Palenque. At that time I didn't know the difference between Rama and llama, I just thought the folks were real nice and the vegetarian, communal meals were delicious. I learned how to walk on stilts in the front dirtyard of the temple and slept on the roof at night, hummed to sleep by the howler monkeys that sounded like elephants. I would wake up at sunrise and chant the Diamond Sutra mantra and Sita Rama. I was open to anything other than Christianity.

Shiva Ratri, "the night of Shiva", came around and I just watched. Basically, the ceremony started outside with a fire. I remember coconuts being cracked into a fire and a yogurt type drink being passed around. Activities moved inside and all night long, yogurt and various foodstuffs were dripped and dangledonto a phallic shaped stone found earlier that day on one of our daily waterfall exploration missions. Lots of offerings and chanting until sunrise, passing around of these offered items in one big bowl, lots and lots of yogurt, I fell asleep and I didn't have a clue what was happening.

Staying at that temple was my first exposure to no toilet paper usage in the bathroom and no use of onions or garlic in the temple kitchen. Other than that, I don't recall any sort of discipline or regulations. Nice sincere folks, really fun, really generous, but we all lacked discipline and proper spiritual authority. I used to think celebration was in and of itself the purpose of life. I was wrong.

About the Lord Shiva and flesh thing. It's not really true, but catchy, huh?