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By Root 878 0

would really like is a God who never destroys what he has created. Or if there must be pain and death, let them be meted out by a God of righteousness, who will punish the wicked and reward the good with everlasting happiness. But in fact the good get hurt, the innocent suffer. Then let there be a God who sympathizes and brings comfort. But Nataraja only dances. His play is a play impartially of death and of life, of all evils as well as of all goods. In the uppermost of his right hands he holds the drum that summons being out of not-being. Rub-a-dub-dub—the creation tattoo, the cosmic reveille. But now look at the uppermost of his left hands. It brandishes the fire by which all that has been created is forthwith destroyed. He dances this way—what happiness! Dances that way—and oh, the pain, the hideous fear, the desolation! Then hop, skip and jump. Hop into perfect health. Skip into cancer and senility. Jump out of the fullness of life into nothingness, out of nothingness again into life. For Nataraja it’s all play, and the play is an end in itself, ever-lastingly purposeless. He dances because he dances, and the dancing is his maha-sukha, his infinite and eternal bliss. Eternal bliss,” Dr. Robert repeated and again, but questioningly, “Eternal bliss?” He shook his head. “For us there’s no bliss, only the oscillation between happiness and terror and a sense of outrage at the thought that our pains are as integral a part of Nataraja’s dance as our pleasures, our dying as our living. Let’s quietly think about that for a little while.”

The seconds passed, the silence deepened. Suddenly, startlingly, one of the girls began to sob. Vijaya left his place and, kneeling down beside her, laid a hand on her shoulder. The sobbing died down.

“Suffering and sickness,” Dr. Robert resumed at last, “old age, decrepitude, death. I show you sorrow. But that wasn’t the only thing the Buddha showed us. He also showed us the ending of sorrow.”

“Shivayanama,” the old priest cried triumphantly.

“Open your eyes again and look at Nataraja up there on the altar. Look closely. In his upper right hand, as you’ve already seen, he holds the drum that calls the world into existence and in his upper left hand he carries the destroying fire. Life and death, order and disintegration, impartially. But now look at Shiva’s other pair of hands. The lower right hand is raised and the palm is turned outwards. What does that gesture signify? It signifies, ‘Don’t be afraid; it’s All Right.’ But how can anyone in his senses fail to be afraid? How can anyone pretend that evil and suffering are all right, when it’s so obvious that they’re all wrong? Nataraja has the answer. Look now at his lower left hand. He’s using it to point down at his feet. And what are his feet doing? Look closely and you’ll see that the right foot is planted squarely on a horrible little subhuman creature—the demon, Muyalaka. A dwarf, but immensely powerful in his malignity, Muyalaka is the embodiment of ignorance, the manifestation of greedy, possessive selfhood. Stamp on him, break his back! And that’s precisely what Nataraja is doing. Trampling the little monster down under his right foot. But notice that it isn’t at this trampling right foot that he points his finger; it’s at the left foot, the foot that, as he dances, he’s in the act of raising from the ground. And why does he point at it? Why? That lifted foot, that dancing defiance of the force of gravity—it’s the symbol of release, of moksha, of liberation. Nataraja dances in all the worlds at once—in the world of physics and chemistry, in the world of ordinary, all-too-human experience, in the world finally of Suchness, of Mind, of the Clear Light…. And now,” Dr. Robert went on after a moment of silence, “I want you to look at the other statue, the image of Shiva and the Goddess. Look at them there in their little cave of light. And now shut your eyes and see them again—shining, alive, glorified. How beautiful! And in their tenderness what depths of meaning! What wisdom beyond all spoken wisdoms in that sensual experience of spiritual