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H I S T O R Y A N D T R A D I T I O N I N S H A I V I S M 
Motto:"The game of the universe's birth and disappearing is an act of the Supreme Being's will, which is above the substance (pradhana) or soul (purusha), above manifested (vyakta), unmanifested (avyakta), or time (kala). The time of the Supreme being is with no beginning and no end, the time and the absorption of the universes is never ending. In the moment of absorption there is no day, no night, no space, no earth, no obscurity, no darkness, no light, nothing beyond the Being Itself, nothing beyond the perceptions of the senses and the thought." (Vishnu Purana, I, 18-23) Shaivism, tradition of the old dravidiens, has remained a folk tradition along the centuries. Shaivism goes through eras, and temporal cicles. The metaphysical, cosmological and ritualistic conceptions it presents have been kept by the wandering hermits, named with great disrespect yati (wanderers), vratya (people outside any caste) or ajivika (beggars) by the invading Arians. Shaivism is not an unique, hierarchic system. It involves several traditions, great or small. In its largest sense, shaivism is life itself. According to the millenary Purana tradition, the destruction of the humankind can occur only when its reason of being is overcome, when the people have become perverted through the mingling of races and when the tradition of the occult knowledge can no longer find a recipient to be received and transmitted further on as a spiritual heritage. To the degree to which certain people will know how to reverse the tendencies of the modern world, rediscovering the ways of life and thought that are in accordance with their true nature, the apparently inevitable term can be delayed or at least several people can escape the cataclysm and be an active part in the formation of the future humankind and the new golden age that is supposed to come after the next planetary cataclysm, as the shaivism writings indicate. Consequently, it is useful for any person to try and "isolate" himself or herself from the low temptations of this world and to find again the values and virtues in which the esoteric teaching has preserved the genuine rules and principles. 
After these writings (agama), our survival as a species depends only on the rediscovery of the moral religious and social conceptions of the Shaivism, in the light of truth.The shaivism teachings are the germs of the golden era of the humankind-to-be. Just the same, a whole series of spiritual lineages come to life after a long time of slumber. Mahayana Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism got to reincorporate various philosophical, ritualistic and even erotic aspects of Shaivism, and thus it become again to a certain degree part of the ancestral tradition. Thus, it offers an alternative path. During the first centuries of the Christian era, the mystical, eliberating Christianity of the early Gnostics gradually transformed into a dogmatic, so-called puritan religion, which gradually went astray from Jesus’ teachings, just as in India for example dogmatic Vishnuism gradually took the place of the authentic Shaivism. The recent appearance of numerous texts of the Gnosis, which are very close in sense and meaning to the Shaivit conceptions and to the Gospels the Church declared apocryphal constitutes a fortunate prediction for the future. What actually happened, on a deeper level was simply the replacement of the so-called religions of acceptance with the so-called religions of denial, in this case denial and acceptance referring to the human vision on the universe and on life. Unlike the rest of the spiritual lineages, Tantrism - in which Shaivism is a peak - and to a certain extent Taoism were paths that always asserted: "Everything (the universe) is Divine Consciousness". Our present age has certain indications according to which we have reasons to believe that there is a return to the Shaivit and Dyonisical values. This fact may announce a spiritual "escape" from the brutal end of Kali Yuga. 
One of the most important phenomena of our age is the reunion of scientific research and cosmological theory, an effort to understand the nature of the world in which there is a continuity between the physical, metaphysical and spiritual levels and is opposed to the dogmatism of the religions inspired by Arihat.The end of Kali Yuga is a time particularly auspicious to seeking the genuine science. "Certain people will attain wisdom in a short time, because the merits obtained in one year of Treta Yuga can be obtained in one day of Kali Yuga" (Shiva Purana, 5.1., 40-40). "At the end of Kali Yuga, the god Shiva will manifest Himself to re-establish the just path in a secret and concealed form." (Linga Purana 1.40.12) The gate leading on the path of wisdom is opening. Will people have the right discernment and the courage to become involved and to slow down the time? |