Why Hindus Worship The Shiv Ling
By Kartik Mohan
http://www.swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/articles/readersvoice/readersvoice1.html
A guy named Philip asked me on this forum to explain
why it is that Hindus worship the Shiv Ling. I am very glad that he did , not
only because it gives me an opportunity to explain, but to expose the truth of
what so called "Christian ethics" are all about. Christianity, after
all, is hardly a religion - it has always been exactly what it started out as, a
political agenda in spiritual guise. Its ends are the imperialistic subjugation
of non-Christians, and to achieve them it has relied consistently on the
propogation of lies and the falsification of history- not to mention the
manipulation of our very notions of what is right and wrong. Unfortunately,
Christianity is so widely followed in the world today that these manipulations
have even permeated the ethics of non-Christians. Brother Hindus, we had better
beware of this, because in surrendering to it we are undermining the worldwide
spiritual legacy of an ancient civilised era of which we are the last surviving
inheritors.
First, to answer the question. Philip asks, why is it
that we worship the Shiv Ling- isn't it Shiva's penis? My reply to that is yes,
and that is exactly the reason. The Shiv Ling, depicted in consummate union with
the Yoni ( vulva ) of Shakti, is representative of the most wonderful and
miraculous feature of life itself. What distinguishes life from non-life, after
all? Above all else, the ability to reproduce its own kind. If we are to revere
the concept that life itself is sacred- which even the Christians claim to
believe- why is the most characteristic feature of life, the act of progenition,
any less sacred? It is not only sex we are talking about here. It is the
consummation of the vast and different energies of the male and female universal
prerogative, of which the Shiv Ling in union is a symbol- celebrating the fact
that humankind has two sexes, each with its unique attributes and qualities, and
when they come together, they produce a synergy, they create MORE life, they
become more than the sum of their individual parts. Many ancient civilisations
recognized the wonder of this concept- including the Chinese, who represent it
somewhat more abstractly in the symbol of Yin and Yang. It is a tribute to these
ancient and wise people that they were able to perceive true miracles, true
wonderment, in the very features of life which surround us in our everyday
existence. They did not need to have some man walk upon water to see a miracle,
nor see crippled people cured instantaneously- or, worse yet, read about it in
some book and call their blind adherence to such beliefs "faith".
Now. My friend Philip was actually horrified, appalled,
revolted by the very idea that we heathens could worship something such as a
penis. The REALLY interesting question is, WHY?
Have you ever really thought about the assumptions that
cause us to think of sex as something "unclean"? Have you ever
wondered why a joke about sex, in the English language, is referred to as a
"dirty" joke? Why is a picture of the human body in its natural state
thought of as a "dirty" picture? Why do thousands of teenagers, non
Christian and Christian alike, go through entirely unnecessary agonies of guilt
, bound by the belief that masturbation is a sin? Why does such painful
ignorance manifest itself generation after generation, all over the world? The
answer is, because we have been conditioned to think of it that way- and here is
the pervasiveness of manipulative Christian "ethics" I talked about
earlier. When Christians start schools, it is not because they want to teach us,
it is because they want to teach us their lies. And the lie that sex is evil,
sex is unclean, sex is inherently in and of itself immoral - the lie that is
brainwashed into us in spite of our knowing better since childhood- is perhaps
Christianity's oldest lie of all. And like all of its lies, it was meant, at the
time of its invention, to serve a political agenda in a spiritual guise.
The Bible never says, in so many words, that sex is a
sin. In Genesis, though, it contends that Adam and Eve were cast out from the
Garden of Eden for committing between them the "Original Sin"- and
then shortly thereafter they had a son. Later, in the New Testament, it is one
of the cardinal principles of Christianity that "Virgin Mary" was more
virtuous than any other human being, because she was "without sin"-
i.e., she was allegedly still a "virgin" when she gave birth to the
alleged "Jesus". Add to this the superstition that the entire
Christian world associates with sex, the way in which Puritanism reviles sex,
the sheer guilt that Christianity associates with anything viscerally
pleasurable ( because "Jesus died on the cross for their sins" )- and
the conclusion is obvious. The Bible may not ever have spelled out that sex is a
sin, but most of the Christian world, including my dear Philip, are hidebound to
view it that way. So that today, life is sacred but the creation of life is a
sin. A thirteen year old girl who becomes pregnant because she is too young to
know any better, is reviled by Christians as having committed the Original Sin.
Yet, if she has an abortion rather than bring a child she cannot care for into
the world, they will revile her doubly as a murderer. This is the hypocrisy of
which Christianity consists to its very core. And it all exists for a reason, as
I shall proceed to explain.
More than 4000 years ago, civilised human beings all
over the world were essentially polytheistic, essentially tolerant people. The
centre of their godhood, though, their primary deity, in almost all cases was
not male. She was the Mother Goddess, in one or another of her manifestations.
She was the Bounteous Earth, the giver of fertility and nurturance and
sustenance to all her children without asking anything in return, the source of
all life when it is created and the receiver of all things back into her womb
when they die. She was an extremely natural deity to worship- when people had no
hangups about procreation being part of the wonder of life. She had female
attributes, the wife, the mother, the giver of unconditional love, the bearer of
and caretaker of children. Her fertility was what allowed the circle of life to
go on, and it was only natural that humans all around the world worship this.
And they did.
We in India knew the Mother Goddess - there are
representations of her dating back to the Indus Valley Civilisation. Hindus know
her as Shakti, and in her manifestations as Durga / Kali / Parvati. In the
civilisation of Persia, they knew her as Ishtar. In Babylonia and Egypt, as
Astarte. In ancient Greece, as Hecate or Demeter. In Rome, as Vesta. Even in the
New World, despite no evidence of any contact between Eurasian and American
civilisations of that era- there are temples and representations of a Mother
Goddess- it is obvious there would be, because she is the natural object for
humanity to worship.
Not, however, for a tribe of desert barbarians 4000
years ago called the Israelites. They had a different kind of god altogether. A
Male God, with a Capital G. They called him Yahweh, and he is the direct
antecedent of the " Lord Our God " of the Christians, and of Allah of
the Muslims. He was not about fertility and caring at all. He was a wrathful,
vengeful, jealous , angry god, full of violent hatred and intolerance. He spoke
out of a "burning bush" and instructed Moses , saying " I Am That
I Am "- if this is unbelievable to you, don't read the Bible, watch The Ten
Commandments by Cecil B DeMille, it really is more entertaining. He told Moses,
among other things, that his followers must not worship False Gods, that HE was
the One True God, and then asked Moses to go with his staff and smite another
people who believed in false gods, the Egyptians, with the full force of His
power. And there began the first of the imperialism that Christianity embodies
today. A belief, stronger than any other, that the nonbeliever is a lesser human
being than a Christian, because he is going to hell, and if he cannot be
"saved" by being converted to Christianity, he should be killed before
he spreads his views any further. A political agenda truly unprecedented. Go
forth and multiply, and kill whatever stands in your way, because I Am That I Am
and I am on Your Side.
The
Jews never went about converting people with the rabid fervour of Christians,
but they had a political agenda, certainly. To that end, it was necessary to
revile and discredit other peoples, the neighbouring civilisations of Egypt and
Babylon , and part of this was achieved by discrediting their principal deity-
who was, of course, the Mother Goddess. How was this achieved? Through effecting
a remarkable paradigm shift. If men, physically stronger, could be made to
despise and subjugate women rather than treat them as equals- that would put an
end to the worship of any Goddess . If fertility, and procreation itself, could
be defamed as not miraculous but sinful things- though this went against all the
natural instincts human beings had followed so far- if people could be made to
feel unclean for worshipping these things, they would reject the Mother Goddess,
because she stood for fertility and the miracle of life. Hence, sex is the
Original Sin. Hence, the human body in its natural state is dirty. Hence, Philip
is horrified when we worship the act of procreation.
How was this paradigm shift effected? Very slowly, but
with the bitter doggedness of true fanatics. It began with the murder of Queen
Jezebel as described in the Old Testament. It began with the razing of the
Temple to Astarte in Jerusalem , and the building of a Temple to Yahweh by King
David in its place. It carried on for thousands of years, hand in glove with
more overt political actions, such as the conversion of Roman Emperor
Constantine I to Christianity in AD ca. 300. It was at this time that what we
know as the Bible today, was compiled and written- with a very hardcore
political agenda already in place laying its foundations. The fall of Rome
followed, and was followed by the Dark Ages, which were followed by the
Crusades, which were followed by Colonialism and the Inquisition. The faith that
had sprung from the Israelites spread like a metastizing cancer over the face of
the earth. And it holds most of the earth in its poisonous grasp today. And
still, the denigration of women in society that took hold as a result of this
agenda continues. Till early this century, Christian countries did not give
women the right to vote. Even now, in Islamic countries- where a monotheistic ,
intolerant God descended from Yahweh holds sway in his most perverse caricature-
well, we know how they treat their women.
Brothers, we all knew the Mother Goddess once. We
Hindus still know her as Shakti today. We are the only ones who are so lucky as
to have survived. Persia, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Americas- all fell
to the brutal viciousness of the Christian onslaught...and later, parts of Asia
to the Islamic onslaught. They were tolerant, civilised people, just as we are
today. That was why they could be wiped out and replaced by Christians. But we
have survived. We are heirs to the true legacy of humanism, and we must never
forget this. We must recognize the lies of the Christians for what they are, we
must recognize their activities of conversion for the imperialist evil they
represent, and we must fight these things with all our efforts to the bitter
end. One day, Christianity's mighty edifice will fall under the weight of its
own contradictions . Till then, we must bear the torch of the legacy of pagan
humanism that will ultimately prevail.
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