Transcript of the video

Questioner: Namaskaram Sadhguru, I want to know ‘Kalbhiarava.’ Just throw some light on it.

Sadhguru: How to throw light on darkness? Kalabhairava means the dark one, that’s one aspect of it. We shouldn’t throw light on him. It is seen in many different ways. It is a deadly form of Shiva. When he went into a destructive mode, not of destroying this or that, of destroying time; all physical realities exist within the span of time, isn't it? If I destroy your time everything is over. See, right now your clock is ticking lup-tup, lup-tup along with your watch something else is ticking inside right? Suppose we fast forward everything. We just shhhhch. Over, isn’t it?

Shiva took the form of Kalabhairava, and it's called Bhairavi Yatana.

So, Kalabhairava means just that. Because most people do not choose to live in a great manner, they have an aspiration. At least they want to die in a great way. So, Kalabhairava is a deadly form of Shiva, it was guaranteed if you come to Kashi, you will attain to Mukti, it doesn’t matter what kind of a lousy creature you have been all your life. So, all the lousy creatures started coming because they lived badly, and they want to die gloriously, only the population of the lousy multiplied. Then Shiva said, "The place is becoming lousy, with so many lousy people." So he said, "There needs to be some check." So, he took the form of Kalabhairava, and it's called Bhairavi Yatana. That means when the moment of death comes, for all that you have been, your many, many lifetimes plays out in a moment with great intensity and whatever pleasures and sufferings and pains that need to happen to you, will all happen, it would have spread over many lifetimes, but all that will happen to you in a micro second but with the kind of intensity that you cannot hold. So, this is called as Bhairavi Yatana. You know what "Yatana" means? Yatana means ultimate suffering. It's something that happens to you in hell, he will make it happen to you here.

So, when you want to do that kind of a job you need a right kind of costume, so he comes with the right kind of costume of looking terrible. If he looks nice, that will be very evil, you know. If somebody looks pleasant and does terrible things, that would be evil. If somebody has to do terrible things, they should at least look terrible isn't it? So, Shiva put on the right kind of costume and became Kalabhairava to create Bhairavi Yatana for you. To create such phenomenal pain, that you have not imagined possible, but just for a moment so that after that nothing of the past remains in you, undoing your software, painful isn't it? But this happens, at the moment of death, you have no choice, you can’t run. Yes, you can’t run but he makes it as brief as possible. Suffering has to end quickly, we must make it super intense, then only it will end quickly. If it is mild, it goes on and on forever.