What is the Significance of Mahashivratri ?

Mahashivratri Significance and Importance:

What is Mahashivratri and why it is celebrated?

Mahashivratri, ”The Great Night of Shiva” is the most significant event in India’s spiritual calendar.

The Fourteenth day of every lunar month or the day before the new moon is known as Shivratri. Among all the twelve shivratris that occur in a Calendar year, Mahashivratri, the one that occurs in February- March is of the most spiritual significance. On this night, the northern hemisphere of the planet is positioned in such a way that there is a natural upsurge of energy in a human being. This is a day when nature is pushing one towards one’s spiritual peak. It is to make use of this, that in this tradition, we established a certain festival which is nightlong. To allow this natural upsurge of energies to find their way,

One of the Fundamentals of this nightlong festival is to ensure that you remain awake with your spine vertical throughout the Night.

Importance of Mahashivratri

Mahashivratri is very significant for people who are on spiritual path. It is also very significant for people who are in family situations and also for the ambitious in the world. People who live in family situations observe Mahashivratri as Shiva’s wedding anniversary.

Those with worldly ambitious see that day as the day Shiva conquered all his enemies.

But, for the ascetics, it is the day he became one with Mount kailash. He became like a mountain-absolutely still. In the yogic tradition Shiva is not worshipped as a god but considered as the Adi Guru, the first Guru from whom the science of yoga originated.

After many millennia in meditation, one day he became absolutely still. That day is Mahashivratri. All movement in him stopped and he became utterly still, so ascetics see Mahashivratri as the night of Stillness.

Spiritual Significance of Mahashivratri

Legends apart, why this day and night are held with such importance in the yogic traditions is because of the possibilities it presents to a spiritual seeker. Modern science has gone through many phases and arrived at a point today where they are out to prove to you that everything that you know as life, everything that you know as matter and existence, everything that you know as the cosmos and galaxies, is just one energy which manifests itself in million ways.

This scientific fact is an experimental reality in every yogi. The word “yogi” means one who has realized the oneness of the existence. When i say “yoga” I am not referring to any particular practice or system. All longing to know the unbounded, all longing to know the oneness in the existence is yoga. The night of Mahashivratri offers a person an opportunity to experience this.

Mahashivratri- A Night of A wakening

Mahashivratri is an opportunity and a possibility to bring yourself to that experience of the vast emptiness within every human being, which is the source of all creation. On the one hand, Shiva is known as the destroyer. On the other, he is known as the most compassionate.

He is also known to be the greatest of the givers. The yogic lore is Life with many stories about Shiva’s compassion. The ways of expression of his compassion have been incredible and astonishing at the same time.

So Mahashivratri is a special night for receiving too. It is our wish and Blessing that you must not pass this night without knowing at least a moment of the vastness of this emptiness that we call as Shiva.

Let this night not just be a night of wakefulness, let this night be a night of awakening for you.