Without lineage, caste or creed, Shiva was considered uncouth and uncivilized, yet no one could help worshipping his intensity. Sadhguru narrates the story of Shiva’s wedding to Parvathy, explaining that Shiva is just life without pretension.

Full Transcript:

There are various stories to indicate the nature of what this is. There are so many stories as to how people always thought Shiva was so uncouth, uncivilized, uncultured, without any lineage, does not belong to any caste or creed. People thought he is no good because he doesn’t have a lineage. If you ask him who is your father, he doesn’t know and he is uncouth but they couldn’t help worshiping him because he is intense but nothing civilized about him; nothing at all. His friends were worse. He kept such friendship with all kinds of demons and goblins and distorted beings that people saw him as a very uncivilized, uncouth, uncultured man. So Parvathi fell in love with Shiva and she wants to marry him. She is a princess. Her parents have not seen him. On the day of the wedding he arrives. All the guests came, all the kings and queens and gods and goddesses, everybody arrived in procession; one more beautiful than the other, all dressed up…but then Shiva came - naked, ash smeared, inebriated. Nobody knew what he is drunk upon but he was inebriated and all his friends were inebriated. They came. Parvathi’s mother Mina, she saw and said, ‘What! You are going to marry this man?’ And she fainted. (Participants Laugh) She could not imagine handing over her daughter to this man.
And later on the wedding ceremony they sat down and at the time of… you know like in India when the wedding happens people talk about the lineage of the family. The girl has… comes from a great lineage; her father is a king; so many wonderful things were said. Then they asked, ‘What about the groom’s lineage? What is his gotram, what is his nakshatram and what's…under what star was he born?’ He simply sat silent. They asked him, ‘Please tell us; because your parents are not here you must at least tell your parents, your lineage, what family you come from, what caste, what creed, at least what star you are born under.’ They repeatedly asked him. He said nothing; simply sat; almost uninterested in the wedding. (Laughs) Then Narada came in to save the situation.
Why I am telling you this is; when we talk about Shiva we are not talking about a nice civilized man. He is as beautiful as life can be but as life is. Today it is little cloudy; tomorrow it could be pouring; day after tomorrow it could be burning; he is just like that; just like life. Not just like life, he is just life. He is not a pretension; he is not repetitive in any way, he is simply life. What are you? What are you? - What somebody taught you. Every single thought, emotion, action is the way somebody taught you. Only if you are here as life we can make you grow, we can make you blossom. If you are here as a bundle of memory that you picked up from somebody, all half baked people… (Laughs) if you are just a bundle of memory then what's there to do?