The Lilas of the Sons of Shiva

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No Hindu ritual or Spiritual Exercise begins without an invocation to Lord Vighneshwara, the remover of all obstacles. Remembering Swami Kartikeya as the Deva Senapati is also equally important.

Saint Devi Vanamali is very humble and sincere. Her life is dedicated to the service of humanity in whom she sees her God. She is doing a wonderful service by adopting a village and helping the children to get educated amongst other services. I was touched by her simplicity. To go and sit in her Ashram on the banks of the beautiful Ganga in Rishikesh is always a wonderful experience for any spiritual seeker.

She has knitted this book titled "The Lilas of the Sons of Shiva" so beautifully. This is helpful for devotees who follow both, the path of Bhakti and Knowledge. She gives a deep insight into the concept of Lord Vighneshwara, Lord Kartikeya and Lord Dharma Shasta. Her work is Universal and would be helpful for people in all walks of life.

We wish long life to Devi Vanamali and may humanity be benefited by her Services.

In this book, Vanamali has given us a fascinating glimpse into the lilas of the three sons of Shiva. This is a captivating book for all those who are interested in knowing the esoteric secrets of Hindu gods.

Shiva and his sons are all aspects of the great electromagnetic forces that control life. Shiva is the source of all energies. He is the nuclear energy underlying the subatomic particles. At the very core of matter Shiva whirls in his cosmic dance as Nataraja. Ganesha is the god of gravity which is the base of all ordinary existence. Kartikeya is the power of the electromagnetic field. His spear signifies the elemental forces of thunder ad lightning. Ayyappa is the force of love as the supreme power which is capable of uniting humanity.

Ganesha symbolizes the idea of the emergence of life from earth and the unfolding of consciousness from matter. His dual form of animal and human indicates a sublime theme, which points out us us that we too can aspire to a supramental level even though we have evolved from the animal. The stories of Ganesha, Kartikeya and Shasta are all part of Puranic literature and they cater to the multifaceted intellect of the human being who craves for different expressions of the godhead.

"Vanamali has knitted this book so beautifully. This is helpful for devotees who follow both, the path of Bhakti and knowledge. She gives a deep insight into the concept of Lord Vighneshwara, Lord Kartikeya and Lord Dharma Shasta. Her work is Universal and would be helpful for people in all walks of life."

In order to understand the stories of the gods, it will be good to go into the history of the Sanatana Dharma, or the ancient law of righteousness, as the Hindu religion was known.

This most ancient religion rests upon a vast canon of Puranas, Vedas and Agamas that include both revealed scriptures as well as those, which are the result of the inspiration of the ancient sages. The Puranas belong to the second category and contain an encyclopaedia of sacred wisdom. Scientists and Western oriented philosophers are only just beginning to appreciate the deep psychological and metaphysical wisdom preserved and transmitted in the form of puranic lore and legend. This tradition maintains that there was once a period when there lived a class of highly evolved souls in India called risbis or munis, who had the gift of inner vision and were able to see the past, present and future. They could go to the realms of the gods and demons, the demigods and the titans of our mythological lore and describe the events that went on at that time or would take place at a future time.

Let us try to take a glimpse at the Age of the rishis - the Vedic Age. The Vedas are the most ancient record of human wisdom known to man. The modern age has suddenly discovered their potential and a lot of interest is now centred on them. But unfortunately very few care to find out about the life of the rishis who were the immediate cause of their coming into existence. Of course it is a fact that they did not care to reveal anything about themselves. However it is possible to glean something about their lives and ideas from the Vedas themselves. So let us try to find out their secrets as far as possible. These seers or sages or rishis were superior to the gods. They existed before the gods. In fact they were the ones who brought the gods into existence. They were the supreme creators! Vasishta, Marichi, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu and Atri were the seven great rishis - the sapta rishis - who were the mind-born sons of Brahma. Later on two more, Brighu and Daksha, were added to the list of the sons of Brahma. They are called Vedic seers because they saw the hymns of the Vedas. They were not the only ones who saw or heard the hymns of the Vedas. Many other names like Visvamitra, Gautama, Bharadvaja, Agastya,Jamadagni, Kausiki and Markandeya are found in the Vedas. These Masters were not just Indians even though they were born on the soil of India. They were Super Humans. In them, human evolution reached its zenith. The rest of the history of the human race is a decline from their superior heights. These spiritual giants strode across the Indo-Gangetic plain long before-the dawn of historic time. They were the sublime expressions of the perfect human being. They were the crown and cream of Nature's evolutionary cycle. Modern man has only recently begun to envisage the possibility that such specimens of humanity can exist. These men were really supra human, superior even to the gods. No one knows how old they were. They were ancient. They had the power to choose the hour of their departure from this world. It is said that some of them like Markandeya, continued to live in the eternal snows of the Himalayas, unseen by any human eye. In fact one of them known as Bhogarnatha still exists and we will be taking up his story in the portion on Kartikeya. It is because of the power of their tapasya (austerity), that the world continues to retain its integrity. They had extraordinary powers. They could control the elements, travel with ease in astral worlds, cover vast distances rapidly through the sky without any aircraft, catch sound and light waves in their mind and see what was happening miles away as if on a TV screen. Their look could cut through rocks and drill holes in metals and they could have anything they wanted just by formulating a wish in their minds.

Yet strangely enough these men had no desires. They did not wish to conquer or control, they were content with whatever nature provided, they did not yearn to possess more and more for the simple reason that they possessed the wish- fulfilling cow of plenty in their own minds which was capable of granting their every desire. Having found the secret of all existence they continued to live only with the one desire, which was to serve the rest of creation. Loka- samgrahamevaapi - this was their creed - "For the good of the world!" They needed no commandments to keep them to the right path for they were the very embodiments of all commandments, of dharma or the cosmic order! The age of the Vedic rishis is amazing for this one thing. They had so much of mental power that they could materialize or create anything they wished. Yet we find that they did not bother to conquer countries or control other or make palaces and edifices that would last forever. They did not seek to carve in stone or wood or make effigies or temples or in anyway try to immortalize themselves in this world even though they were perfectly competent to do so if they wished. They made themselves known exclusively through their words. They have left nothing else. They left no chronicle of their achievements, nor images that might have survived the course of time. They knew that this world was only as real as the morning mist and would melt with the rising of the sun. The sun of their consciousness was at its zenith and they did not desire the trifles of the world.

We see from the Vedas that these rishis were capable of anything that the mind could conceive. The Vedas describe fabulous palaces, gardens, divine beings and events. The rishis could travel with ase to other planets and create all sorts of fantastic things including modern devices such as aeroplanes and even atomic bombs. The only instrument they needed or used was their mind. Using mental power alone, they were able to discover many things in the field of astronomy, physics, astrology and medicine. Their predictions in the field of astronomy and astrology have been proved to be true only in the last millennium. Before that nobody could even understand what they were talking about. Only modern computers can verify their mathematical calculations. No human brain is capable of it even today.