NATARAJ: Beyond Cosmic Dance

I’ve told this anecdote to far too many individuals who usually complain about their laziness and procrastination. I’m not sure if there is a permanent cure for procrastination, however in today’s distracted society, you can engage in active procrastination rather than passive one. Just engage in deliberate procrastination.

Nataraj’s tale can help us understand what is going on and why we are tired almost all the time. I enjoy different perspectives, and I am offering one of my own. Plus, I discovered it when perusing the internet. To make it non-linear, I added some of my own spices.

Source: Pinterest

Most people associate Nataraj, Shiva’s form, with dance; the cosmic dance; nevertheless, the underlying tale is even more fascinating and can be paralleled to our daily behaviours. Especially relevant to:

Procrastination.

Let us rewind to the ages of GODS and RAKSHASAS

We assume, GODS are about positivity and RAKSHASAS are about negativity. They do have powers but the effect of power can be both, i.e.; good or bad. Good for whom? Let’s leave the topic for another millennium to discuss.

ORIGIN

Apasmara was a dwarf rakshasa with two powers, aalashya(that makes anyone lazy with procrastination) and another was agyan(ignorance, making the person an idiot).

THE WIND OF AALASHYA and AGYAN

The effect of the power stormed through society, whoever it blew upon suffered intense procrastination and ignorance that the whole society came to a standstill.

You tell me, what will happen to a society where all the people are lazy and idiots?

It’s an inevitable doom of the society.

The wind reached Kailash Mountain, the abode of Shiva and Parvati. Devi Parvati was on her daily chores of cleaning the place, say, she was sweeping; but as the gush of wind of aalashya touched her, she stopped sweeping. It simply didn’t feel like doing the sweeping anymore.

Devi Parvati was puzzled as she couldn’t understand what just happened, never in her life had she felt lazy; till that moment. She pondered upon the question, what had just happened? But the answer won’t come in. Do you know why?

Because along with Aalashya, came in the Agyan.

But she had this question stuck with her, “what happened just now?”. Most people wouldn’t even come up with the question. To notice a subtle change in the emotion is very difficult to address. We are bombarded by thoughts and to be able to address a particular thought, must say OMG myself.

She reached out to Shiva and asked the question that had been bugging her from the start. Shiva described the effect and went out to take care of the mayhem that had been spreading out fast.

SHIVA DILEMMA

Cause and effect come hand in hand, no escape here. One cause can have spiralling effects creating a very long chain which can even expand time. The same dilemma popped up.

Lord Shiva, whom we all pray to, is the epitome; we even have to destroy logic to get a glimpse of him, let's not dwell on it. Everyone might have their own set of theories.

Known by another name The Destroyer, Shiva could have easily finished Apasmara; but couldn't, as doing so would set something different in motion.

If there is no Apasmara, there won’t be aalashya and ignorance; which means everyone would be super active with hyper knowledge too, without a self-effort.

But too good is bad.

If you are raising a kid and fulfill every desire of his/her; the kid is going to be spoiled. He/She would take things for granted and would never understand the value of putting in the effort. Which, we should never do.

Rather, let’s do:

THE DANCE

So, instead of wiping Apasmara, Shiva danced upon the rakshasa and this dance coined the term natraj where nat means dance. If you look for the Natraj image again, you’ll see Shiva is dancing upon something and it’s none other than the rakshasa Apasmara.

WHY THE DANCE?

Dance is a metaphor for being active.

While dancing, you need to be very active and it is not only related to dance. If you are engaged with some task, be actively engaged and then and there Shiva will be dancing on top of the rakshasa. But if you are to take things for granted the rakshasa would become overwhelming and you’d fall into procrastination. When procrastination starts, ignorance will follow; automatically.

It’s a constant tug of war, being active takes a toll too; to be constantly active requires a lot of energy. You have a task at hand, what if another thought pops up which has a higher priority? You need to be actively making priorities, but your body can’t handle that and needs to be in sleep mode time and again. If you are asleep, are you active? Where are the priorities?

You can have an active sleep, maybe; but for how long is called active sleep?

Let’s not dive into the rabbit hole for now. The theme here is simple:

WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING, DO IT ACTIVELY.

If you are doing the task at hand actively, putting aside all other thoughts; then my friend, you are The Natraj.

FOOTNOTE

And if you want to read more of my random thoughts you can check:

Passion Hunt, Haunted Supplementary Vibes, or? Attention Span Independent Writer Perspectives 36⁰⁰ Awaiting For A Savior

If you want to know me more, do check out all my writing which can be found here: Everything I had ever written on medium.com