Nataraja Love

A special post for Mahashivaratri

I clearly remember the first time I walked into what is now the living room of our home. We had come to see the house for the very first time, and weren't even sure if we would consider buying it because it had initially seemed out of our budget. But the moment I walked into this empty room with a thick teakwood shelf all along one wall of the room floating just about three feet below the ceiling, I knew. I knew that if this room ever became mine, what or rather who would occupy the central place on that beautifully polished shelf. 

I could see in my mind's eye a beautiful Bronze Nataraja, the One that expresses "the rapture of the cosmic dance with the profundities behind of the unmoved eternal and infinite bliss." **

Two and a half years later, that vision came true. 

I found that Nataraja, my Nataraja, in this old shop in Kumbakonam. Obviously, He came home with me, and now sits majestically in His spot. Nobody else could have occupied that place. No one. It was always His Home, it was patiently waiting for the Lord. 

The Lord was waiting too. The Lord always waits...we are the ones who aren't ready to call Him or receive Him. 

Today, on this Mahashivaratri, I pray to Lord Shiva to bless me with a greater inner readiness, an intenser aspiration and a wider receptivity. 

Calling Him to come to my inner, truer home...

** The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, Volume 20, p. 282

Image: mine