Shivlinga - The consolidated Infiniteness 

Infinity is not only a word, as simple as it is spelled but it has an undeciphered depth associated with it. Concept of infinity though might be a complicated concept for the western world but it has always remained a known, accepted and simplified concept for Indian civilization. In this article, we will start talking of infiniteness in the fourth dimension that is time, It is believed that time has never stopped and will never stop. Today we know that time might bend itself but it won't stop. gradually coming to the first three dimenstions, we would talk about their infiniteness both from a maximalist and a minimalist point of view. At last we would discuss what do we mean by Bhrama, Vishnu and Mahesh(Shiva) and thereafter the symbolism of shivlinga, what does it mean and how is it associated with infinity.

Starting with a shlok of bhagwat geeta,

" न त्वेवाहं जातु नासं न त्वं नेमे जनाधिपाः।

न चैव न भविष्यामः सर्वे वयमतः परम्‌॥"

Meaning, it's not that neither me, nor you or any other human being didn't existed in any point of time in the past nor it will be the case in any time in the future. Only the human body undergo process of formation and destruction, not any of us.

Krishna, considered to be incarnation of lord vishnu who is the preserver of this universe said these words to arjun in the war fields of kurukshetra in the state of highest meditation (called param yogsthiti). Yog by defination means to gain something which is not present with one, as said by geeta. 

With the essence of this shloka, belief of a never ending cycle of birth and death can be implied. This means time is endless. It never started and will not stop, it just keeps flowing. In today's language this is what we call the fourth dimension. This infiniteness in terms of time or the fourth dimension is a well aware fact of Hindu dharm shastras.

In our history of knowledge, we can even trace the awareness of the humans of the world being infinity in the first three dimenstions, both from a minimalist and a maximalist point of view. Talking of minimalist view first,

We can trace a shloka in geeta again adhyay 4, shloka 24,

"ब्रह्मार्पणं ब्रह्म हविर्ब्रह्माग्रौ ब्रह्मणा हुतम्‌।

 ब्रह्मैव तेन गन्तव्यं ब्रह्मकर्मसमाधिना॥"

Meaning, everything that is offered in the hawan is bhrama, liquids used in the process are bhrama, one who's performing the hawan is bhrama and his action of offering is also bhrama. Fire he's offering to is also bhrama, everything is a form of god.

This implies, everything, be it solid, liquid, gas, plasma, or whatever elements that have been discovered until now, all are just a form of Bhrama, that is energy. Not only things but even the actions are Bhrama. In hindu mythology we believe that bhrama is the creator of this universe but it is essential to understand what Bhrama is. We've personified bhrama as a god over the period of time which has its own symbolism and significances but what shree krishna refered to bhrama was the immense energy that created universe. Scientifically talking, It has been already proved by a famous equation, E=mc², that means mass is a form of energy, even small mass contains an immense amount of stored energy which is the rule which we use today to generate nuclear energy. Now as science work to find a way out to prove string theory which says nothing is solid liquid or gas or anything else, everything is made of small threads of stored energy, we in hinduism already had this philosophy as stated in this shloka. 

A consideration was present at one point of time in the modern world that atom is the smallest solid element we have, but later we found out that 90% space in an atom is empty, and only 10% space is occupied by subatomic particles moving at a very high speed and frequency, thus having quite a lot of energy stored in them. Now consider these subatomic particles as the smallest element we have, just think what would be they made up of? Is it possible that they would also have some space empty? Yes it is, and we've already discovered that subatomic particles have quark in them, but are they the smallest solid thing we have? What do you think? 

With a balance of negative and positive nature has provided us with an minimalistically infinite world, as it is believed by the string theory and same has been talked about shree Krishna in the said shloka. 

Taking maximalist point of view in mind, we say universe is infinite. Is it? Again going by the theory of contradiction, lets assume it is finite. What will be at end of universe? A solid wall? Won't that wall have depth, what will be the depth of the wall and what will be behind the wall? Lets consider some more possibilities, suppose universe is a sphere just like Earth, when we travel across the earth on a ship and keep moving forward we reach the same point we started from, but that sphere must have a centre and it must have something outside it just like Earth has its core and space. Also possibility of universe not being sphere and repeating itself is null as to repeat itself without being a sphere, it has to exist in a spherical shell half made of white holes and the other half made of black holes. Basically to explain what black holes and white holes are, there is a tunnel one end which absorbs everything including light and other end emits all the absorbed things. But this tunnel is not visible, just entry and exit of it is. Also Scientists are today open to discuss a lot of possibilities like cosmic strings and stuff, which I believe was quite evident in the awareness of ancient Indian Scholors.

After finishing the conceptual points on Infiniteness of the three dimensions by explaining Bhrama, To understand shivlinga we need to know what Vishnu and Shiva are. Let's talk about Vishnu. Bhrama created the universe, Vishnu preserve it. Vishnu is inner conscience of a person. When Human civilization came into existence, we worshiped natural forces like sun, rivers, forest, mountains, planets, etc. Even when pandits of today do 'hawans' they frequently use phrases like suryadev (the sungod), vayudev (air god), vanaspatyha (forests), navgrah (nine planets), etc. As the time passed, the concept of worship of natural forces diluted and concept of tridev (Bhrama, Vishnu and Mahesh) emerged. Incarnations of Lord Vishnu, be it Ram or be it Krishna, be it Buddha or be it Kalki always taught values of inner conscience. Rama taught about moral values inculcated inside the mind and heart of a person while Krishna narrated Geeta that quite diverted worship from natural forces to forces to inner self. Teachings of Buddha can evidently seen focusing on inner self while Kalki who would incarnate in future will destroy the inner evils. Quoting shlok from Geeta again, Krishna says to Arjun,

"मत्तः परतरं नान्यत्किञ्चिदस्ति धनञ्जय ।

मयि सर्वमिदं प्रोतं सूत्रे मणिगणा इव ॥"

Meaning, I am the biggest truth, as beads are bind by the string, similarly I bind everything.

We and our environment, are bound by our inner conscience that is Vishnu. We as a living being are controlled by our inner conscience but interestingly even our environment is affected by our inner conscience. The way we think, way we speak, the way of our action decides how our environment would behave back with us. This is a well known fact of psychology too. Vishnu is personified as the preserver of this universe, and Vishnu is the string with which each and every living and non living thing is bound with. Hindu mythology or I would say "सनातन कथाएं" are mostly symbolic to something or the other, and stories related to Vishnu always suggest that inner conscience is supreme and your inner self is bigger than all the materialistic things combined. There is a story where Vishnu covered all the universe in three steps. Only Inner conscience is something that can cover miles of distance residing within you.

When we've talked about Bhrama and Vishnu, now we have to talk about Mahesh, that is Shiv. Shiv who is perceived to be god of destruction is a form of "moksha". Let's start defining "moksha". 

"Moksha" being referred to as Liberation or Salvation in English means freedom of all materialist things, your inner desieres as well as sense of your senses. The state where you neither want anything nor does anything affects your emotions. Shiv as a person always live in the ranges of kailash away from the materialist world, signifying his charecteristics of moksha. Shiv is called the destructor of the universe, but actually he's the destructor of several inner evils and desires as we can grasp from the famous mythological tales of shiv burning down kamdev by his third eye (or the power of mind) signifying an end to inner desires, or by dancing on the creature called apasmar(or forgetfulness) as seen in statue of nataraj. Moksha is nothing but an end of the desires with in as well as control on your own senses that is probably reached with the highest state of meditation.

Followers of Shiva and Vishnu are always in debate regarding whom of the two is supreme, but the fact is inner conscience and moksh is equally supreme depending on what you believe. In puranas be it shiv puran or be it garud puran or any other puran, shiv and Vishnu always worship each other.

Does moksha really mean the liberation from the cycle of life and death as interpreted in several dharmshastras? As said in Vedic astrology, Rahu and Ketu in a kundali are connected to fulfilled and unfulfilled desires of previous life, but attaining moksha means neither any desire that is fulfilled nor any desire yet to be fulfilled, This equivalent to the liberation from cycle of birth and death. 

After talking about Bhrama, Vishnu and Mahesh it would be quite easy for us to understand what does shivling that we pray actually means. First of all it is important in my opinion to take out some space to outrightly reject the concept of shivalinga as it is believed today that shivaling is a depiction of penis (linga) and vagina(yoni) . Though it is my personal opinion but I do have some reasons for it, first of which is this story of formation of shivalinga was taken from bhavishya puran, which I believe is modified several times by the invaders that came to India. Secondly this story depicts Shiva as a person who was not good to wives of sadhus and whose linga was cut by sadhus, which I am pretty sure is quite opposite to the nature of Shiva in other texts. That's true that linga has been worshiped as a sacred thing since Harrapan Valley Civilization but I don't personally believe that relating this to shivlinga by the means of such inappropriate and logicless story would be right. On the contrary, the story in shiv purana that mentions the birth of shivlinga depicts actual concept of Infinity. What that story is? This is call "Lingodbhava" which when broken down is, Ling+Uday+bhava, meaning Rise/Revealation of linga. This story says that once there was a dispute between Bhrama and Vishnu on the issue who among them is superior. A pole appeared in front of them at that time and both of them agreed on the condition that whoever will find end of the pole would be considered superior. Bhrama went to find upper end while Vishnu tried to Find lower end. When Bhrama was going towards the upper end of that pole, he saw a flower falling belonging to previous yuga from top of the pole. He realised that it will take one whole yuga to reach to the top. He cleverly took the flower to Vishnu as a proof that he found the top end. When he did this, that pole turned into Shiva and started scolding Bhrama for his unhonest behaviour. Vishnu calmed down Shiva. Now shivlinga is a representation of that infinite pole where the base represents the infinite depth and the circular top representing the infiniteness of the pole. Now this is a mythological story that contains many different symbolisms which I will talk about in my future writings but this story was just a reference to the knowledge of the concept of Infinity at the time when the text was being written. Somewhat related to this story, the actual representation of shivalinga is the tridev, that is Bhrama, Vishnu and Mahesh. The base represents deep roots or the the bhrama(energy) on which this universe is created which is also symbolised by the energetic, sudden and less thoughtful approach of bhrama in the story of Lingodbhava. Middle portion is Vishnu (inner conscience) which is evident when Vishnu calms down Shiva and the top portion that is infinite represents Shiva (moksha) whom can be seen refraining bhrama from his desire of becoming superior and subsequently make Vishnu understand that nothing or no one is superior or inferior. 

Shivlinga represents this cycle, of energy, consciousness and salvation, which we may talk more of in the probable future writings on symbolism, but this makes me quite convinced of the fact that shivlinga is represtation of Infinity. 

When we worship Shivlinga, it's not just we're worshiping shiv, it implies the worship of an infinite world which we occupy a part of.