Kedarnath Jyotirlinga Temple’s Powerful Connection to Shiva

When we say “Shiva,” it is not about creating one more idol or god that we can ask for more prosperity or better things in life. The word “Shiva” means “that which is not.” Today, modern science is proving to us that everything comes from nothing and goes back to nothing. The basis of existence and the fundamental quality of the cosmos is vast nothingness. The galaxies are just a small happening – a sprinkling. The rest is all vast empty space, which is referred to as Shiva.

There is a legend that after the Kurukshetra war, the Pandavas were very affected because they had killed their own kinsmen – their own brothers and relatives. This was called Gothravadha. They felt guilty and soiled by this act and were looking for a way to absolve themselves of it. So they went looking for Shiva. 

Shiva did not want to give them the pleasure of suddenly becoming free from this horrible act, so he converted himself into the form of a bull and tried to escape. But they followed him to try and catch him. Shiva went into the ground and when he came up, different parts of the body came up in different places. The hump of the bull is Kedarnath, the two forelegs are Tunganath, which is on the way to Kedar. The navel appeared in a place in the Indian part of the Himalaya called Madhya-Maheshwar which is a very powerful Manipuraka linga, and the matted locks of Shiva appeared in what is called Kalpnath. Like this, different parts of the body appeared in different places.   

This description of body parts has something to do with the seven chakras. These temples were established as a human body. It was a great experiment – trying to create a huge body. One such body happened in the direction of the Indian Himalayas. Another such body flowed towards the western direction where they tried to convert Nepal itself into a body.

Kedarnath is a very heady mixture of energies. This is a place that has witnessed thousands of Yogis and mystics of every kind. When I say every kind, you cannot imagine those kinds. These are people who made no attempt to teach anything to anyone. Their way of making an offering to the world was by leaving their energies, their path, their work – everything – in a certain way in these spaces. 

When you think of someone on the spiritual path, you would probably think of them within a certain kind of framework in terms of a certain kind of behavior, dress or speech. But this is not a land of just that kind of spiritual person. The kind that fits into your ways of understanding has been here. But there have been many more who are utterly wild, whom you can never recognize as spiritual. But these are people who have touched the very peaks of existence. When we say “a Yogi,” we do not mean someone of a certain behavior or morality. A Yogi is perfectly in tune with life. So tuned in that he can dismantle life and put it back together again. The fundamental life that is you, if you can dismantle that completely and put it back, only then you are a Yogi. There have been many such incredible human beings. 

For a person who is seeking some kind of spiritual uplift, Kedarnath is a boon whose proportions you cannot imagine. It is very difficult to explain what it means. After all, it is just an outcrop of rock. But what makes an enormous difference is what has been done to the space by the type of people who lived here for thousands of years. This is the place where so many Yogis shed their bodies. It is something you must experience. After being born in India, before you are too old and no good for anything, you must make it once to the Himalayas. 

Adi Shankara was an intellectual giant, a genius of linguistics. In the brief span of his life, he walked the length and breadth of this nation. Shankara came from a village called Kaladi, which literally means “beneath the feet.” In the South, we are at the feet of Bharat Mata. Bharat means we always learnt how to be at the feet of the Divine. By being at the feet of the Divine, we evolved and blossomed. This is not a culture of pumped up pomp, but a culture of natural piety.

Adi Shankara said, “Everything is maya.” Maya means an illusion, in the sense that you are not seeing it the way it is. Here you are with this seemingly solid body, but with the food that you eat, the water that you drink, and the air that you breathe, the cells of your body are being exchanged on a daily basis. This means after some time, you have a completely new body. But in your experience, it looks like it is the same thing – this is maya. Similarly, the way you perceive existence through the five senses, is completely off the mark – this is the illusion, the maya, that Shankara talked about.

There is a story how once in Kashi, Shankara was entering a temple in the early morning after his bath. Then a chandala came in his way. Chandalas were a particular caste who maintained the cremation grounds. They were considered the lowest of the lowest and inauspicious. There was a belief that if you see a chandala, death will come. No one wanted anything to do with them and they were shunned.

So when this man came in front of him, Shankara said, “Move away.” That man remained standing there and asked, “Who should move away – me or my body?” This just hit Shankara so hard. He had gone about teaching everybody, “This body is not you, this is all maya.” Now when this man asked this question, it struck him. After that, he never uttered a word again, never gave a teaching. He just walked off into Himalayas. In Kedarnath, even today there is a monument for him – just his hand and staff carved in marble, jutting out of a wall. That is the last place where he was seen. The story goes that he walked up and merged with Shiva.

This is the fundamental nature of our nation and culture –we don’t rise by elbowing our way – we rise by bowing down. Whether it is a god, a man, a woman, a child, an animal, a tree, or a rock – we learnt to bow down to everything. This has been our strength, this has been our way, this has been the process and the method of our evolution and realization.

Badrinath is a magnificent place at around 13700 feet in the Himalayas. There is a legend about Badrinath. This is where Shiva and Parvati lived. One day, Shiva and Parvati took a walk. When they came back, at the entrance of their home a little baby was crying. Looking at this child crying his heart out, Parvati’s maternal instincts came up and she wanted to go pick up the child. Shiva stopped her and said, “Don’t touch that child.” Parvati replied, “How cruel. How can you say that?”

Shiva said, “This is not a good baby. Why does he land up at our doorstep by himself? There is no one around, no footprints of parents in the snow. This is not a child.” But Parvati said, “Nothing doing! The mother in me will not allow me to let the child be like this,” and she took the baby into the house. The child was very comfortable, sitting on her lap, looking very gleefully at Shiva. Shiva knew the consequence of this but he said, “Okay, let’s see what happens.”

Parvati comforted and fed the child, left him at home and went with Shiva for a bath in the nearby hot water springs. When they came back, they found the doors were locked from the inside. Parvati was aghast. “Who has closed the door?” Shiva said, “I told you, don’t pick up this child. You brought the child into the house and now he has locked the door.”

Parvati said, “What shall we do?”

Shiva had two options: one was to burn up everything in front of him. Another was to just find another way and go. So he said, “Let’s go somewhere else. Because it’s your beloved baby, I cannot touch it.”

This is how Shiva lost his own home and Shiva and Parvati became “illegal aliens”! They walked around, looking for an ideal place to live and finally settled down in Kedarnath. Did he not know, you may ask. You know many things, but you still allow them to happen.

Shiva is always seen as a very powerful being, at the same time as not so crafty with the world. So one form of Shiva is known as Bholenath, because he is childlike. Not that he is stupid, but he does not care to use intelligence in all those petty ways.

It is only shrewd, low level intelligence which is constantly thinking how to get the better of someone. Intelligence and street-smart guile are two different things. Being smart is always in comparison with someone else. Being intelligent is not in comparison with anyone else, it is just by its own nature. Intelligence is significant because intelligence is never in competition, it is simply an expression of life.

The legend goes that Shiva and Parvati lived on the banks of Kantisarovar, and in Kedar, there lived many Yogis whom they would visit. Kantisarovar is the lake that burst out and came to Kedar during the 2013 floods. Today, it is being called Gandhi Sarovar. It is actually Kantisarovar. Kanti means grace, sarovar means a lake. It is a lake of grace. In the Yogic culture, Shiva is not seen as a God. He was a being who walked this land and is the very source of the Yogic traditions. He is the Adiyogi or the first Yogi, and also the Adi Guru, the first Guru. This first transmission of Yogic sciences happened on the banks of Kantisarovar, where Adiyogi began a systematic exposition of this inner technology to his first seven disciples, celebrated today as the Saptarishis.

Many years ago, I used to travel alone for a month or two every year in the Himalayas. At that time I just went by myself, by the local bus. Generally I sat on top of the bus and went because I didn’t want to miss the mountains. These were crazy buses! They started at 4 or 4:30 in the morning from Hardwar and went straight to either Gaurikund or Badrinath. They didn't stop anywhere except to pick up and drop people – not even for food. They used to be called Bhook Hartal buses, which means “hunger strike” buses. The driver would have his rolled up chapatti which he eats as he is driving while you sit there wondering about lunch!

When I got to Kedar after a long trek from Gaurikund, I heard about Kantisarovar, so one afternoon, I set forth around 2 or 2:30 p.m. and got there in little more than an hour’s time. There was the lake and snow-capped mountains around it. In terms of nature, it is fantastic – this huge lake of absolutely still water, no vegetation and all the snow-covered peaks reflecting in the totally still water. It was an incredible place.

I just sat there, and the serenity, silence and purity penetrated my consciousness. The climb, the altitude and the desolate beauty of that place left me breathless. I sat in that stillness on a small rock with my eyes open, imbibing every form around me. The surroundings gradually lost their form and only nada – sound – existed. The mountain, the lake and the whole surroundings, including my body, did not exist in their usual form. Everything was just sound. Within me a song arose: “Nada brahma vishwa swaroopa.”

I am somebody who always avoided learning the Sanskrit language. Though I like the language very much and I know the depth of the language, I avoided learning it because the moment you learn Sanskrit, you will invariably end up reading the scriptures. My own vision has never failed me in anything even for one moment, so I did not want to clutter myself with scriptures and all these traditions. So I avoided Sanskrit.

While I was sitting there, my mouth was definitely closed and my eyes open, and I heard this song in a big way, in my voice. It was my voice singing, and it was a Sanskrit song. I heard it clearly, loudly. So loud, it was like the whole mountain was singing. In my experience, everything had turned into sound. That is when I perceived this song. I didn’t make it up, I didn’t write it – it just descended upon me. The whole song flowed out in Sanskrit. The experience was overpowering.

Slowly, after some time, everything fell back into its earlier form. The fall of my consciousness – the fall from nada to rupa – filled my eyes with tears.

Nada Brahma simply means experiencing the world as a sound, not as a form. Modern science also says that every sound has a form attached to it, and every form has a sound attached to it. This is a scientific reality. And today we also know that there is no such thing as matter anymore as far as science is concerned. Where there is a vibration, there is bound to be a sound. So in Yoga, we say the whole of existence is sound. 

If you just give yourself to that song, there is a kind of power to it. It has a power to dissolve a person, if you really throw yourself into it.