understanding or intelligence. When a foreigner tries to learn the Tamil or the Hindustani
language, he first tries to pick up some vulgar words. This is his curiosity nature. Even so, the
curious foreigner tries to find out some defects in the worship of symbols. The Linga is only the
outward symbol of the formless being, Lord Siva.
Linga means ‘mark’ in Sanskrit. It is a symbol which points to an inference. When you
see a big flood in a river, you infer that there must have been heavy rains the previous day. When
you see smoke, you infer that there must be fire. This vast world of countless forms is a Linga of
the omnipotent Lord. The Siva Linga is a symbol of Lord Siva. When you look at the Linga,
your mind is at once elevated and you begin to think of the Lord.
There is a mysterious power or indescribable Sakti in the Linga to induce concentration of
the mind. Just as the mind is focussed easily in crystal gazing, so also, it attains one-pointedness
when it looks at the Lingam. That is the reason why the ancient Rishis of India have prescribed
the Lingam for being installed in the temples of Lord Siva.
To a sincere devotee, the Linga is not a block of stone. It is all radiant Tejas or
Chaitanya. The Linga talks to him, makes him shed profuse tears, produces horripilation and
melting of the heart. It raises the devotee above body-consciousness and helps him to commune
with the Lord and attain Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Lord Rama worshipped the Siva Linga at
Rameswar. Ravana, the learned scholar, worshipped the golden Linga. What a lot of mystic
Sakti there should be in the Linga!
The light of consciousness manifesting out of Sadasiva is, in reality, the Siva Linga.
From Him all the moving and unmoving creations take their origin. He is the Linga or cause of
everything. In Him the whole world merges itself finally. The Siva Purana says: “Pitham
Ambamayam Sarvam Sivalingascha Chinmayam”. The support or Pitham of all is Prakriti or
Parvati; and the Linga is Chinmaya Purusha, the Effulgent Light which is self-luminous. The
union of Prakriti and Purusha, of Parvati and Siva Linga, is the cause of the world.
The union of Linga with Yoni is a representation of the eternal union between the static
and the dynamic aspects of the Absolute Reality. This represents the eternal spiritual
communion of the paternal and the maternal principles from which all the phenomenal diversities
have originated. This is an eternal communion of the changeless Being and the dynamic Power
or Sakti from which all changes flow.
The lower sexual propensities in the aspirants are eradicated by this sublime conception.
The spiritualization and divinization of Linga and Yoni help the aspirants to free themselves
from sexual thoughts. All base thoughts gradually vanish by entertaining this lofty idea. All
sexual relations in this world are spiritualized as the manifestations of the ultimate Creative
Principle, of the eternal self-enjoyment and self-multiplication of Lord Siva in and through His
Power or Sakti.
From "May I answer that" by Swami Sivananda (1987-1963). More Informations on Swami Sivananda: on the Website of Divine Life Society, Photographs of Swami Sivananda, German Pages on Swami Sivananda
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