Equanimity in Tandava
दृषद्विचित्रतल्पयोर्भुजङ्गमौक्तिकस्रजोर्-
-गरिष्ठरत्नलोष्ठयोः सुहृद्विपक्षपक्षयोः ।
तृष्णारविन्दचक्षुषोः प्रजामहीमहेन्द्रयोः
समं प्रवर्तयन्मनः कदा सदाशिवं भजे ॥ 12 ॥
Be it a couch of stone, or a couch of silk and splendour;
Be it a garland of serpents, or one of radiant pearls;
Be it a priceless gem, or a clod of dust beneath the foot;
Be it the camp of friends, or that of foes declared;
Be it a blade of grass, or the tender eye of a lotus;
Be it the common man, or the sovereign of the world
When shall my mind, unmoved by all these dualities,
find its perfect balance, and rest in love for the Ever-Blissful Śiva?
This is a hymn to samatvam — equanimity born not of suppression, but of surrender.
To the devotee, perfection lies not in renouncing the world but in remaining unchanged by its opposites: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, honour and insult, life and death.
The poet prays not for detachment from life, but for the grace to see Śiva in all — in the stone and the silk, in the snake and the pearl, in the friend and the foe, in the peasant and the king alike.
It is the final stillness of bhakti — when the mind, equal in all conditions, reflects the calm of Śiva Himself.
Shiva tandava and stages Neti-Neti
प्रफुल्लनीलपङ्कजप्रपञ्चकालिमप्रभा-
-विलम्बिकण्ठकन्दलीरुचिप्रबद्धकन्धरम् ।
स्मरच्छिदं पुरच्छिदं भवच्छिदं मखच्छिदं
गजच्छिदान्धकच्छिदं तमन्तकच्छिदं भजे ॥ 9 ॥
A fully blossomed blue lily — prafula nīla paṅkaja — rests at Śiva’s throat, slender as the stem of a plantain.
The dark radiance of the cosmos seems to emanate from within Him — the very viśuddhi chakra, where poison and purity coexist.
Śiva destroys —
Smara — the demon of memory, of passion, of longing and trauma.
Pura — the three cities: the body, the mind, and the world — sources of disease, desire, and decay.
Bhava — the cycle of becoming; He is the Lord of dissolution.
Makha — the sacrifice, the transactional act of exchange.
Gaja — the elephant, symbol of pride and instinct, whom He wears as a hide.
Andhaka — the blind demon, embodiment of ignorance and despair.
Antaka — death itself.
The next śloka repeats these names — Smara, Pura, Bhava, Makha, Gaja, Andhaka, Antaka — hinting that each carries a dual meaning: outer myth and inner metaphysics.
The Inner Meaning
The yogī, symbolised by Śiva, moves inward by the method of negation — neti, neti — progressively renouncing every sheath of self-identification.
Smara — He begins by destroying memory, the storehouse of impressions (saṃskāras) and relationships. When memory dissolves, so do all relational identities — parent, lover, friend, student.
Without memory, there can be no hurt or favour, no love or enmity.
Pura — Next, He renounces identification with the body — the “city” that houses the jīva.
The metaphor is apt: the city has its governance (mind), its guards (senses), its roads (nerves), its factories (organs).
The yogī steps out of this city as a silent witness.
Bhava — Then emotions.
He neither represses nor indulges them, but lets them arise and fall, raw and unfiltered — the tāṇḍava of his subconscious.
Makha — Activity, ritual, transaction.
Makha means both “sacrifice” and “festival.”
But all yajñas — even the grandest — are but exchanges, divine business.
The yogī ceases to transact. He acts without expectation, offering each deed into the void of his own being.
When Śiva is makha-chidā, He destroys the transactional spirit — He works without “why.”
He sings because He must sing, not for joy but from joy.
He teaches not to gather followers but because knowledge itself blooms within Him.
To act thus, free of the subtlest desire for reward, is to act as the Divine acts — causelessly.
Gaja — the elephant of madha, musth — arrogance, the primal ego.
Even when pride hides under humility, the sense of “I deserve” persists:
“I am right. I am just. I control. I choose. I live.”
This ego — necessary for survival — must die for transcendence.
When the yogī slays the elephant, he becomes Paśupati, Lord of all beasts, master of instinct itself.
Andhaka — ignorance, blindness.
The yogī destroys Andhaka, not by violence but by awakening.
He conquers the tamas that drives despair and suicide.
The one who can face death willingly, not out of helplessness but out of freedom, is Andhaka-chidā — destroyer of darkness.
Antaka — the ender, Yama, Time itself.
At last, the yogī slays the slayer.
Having negated everything — memory, body, emotion, action, ego, and ignorance — he must now negate negation itself.
He must stop “stopping.”
He must dissolve even the doer who renounces.
This is antaka-chidā — the destroyer of destruction.
Here lies the final paradox:
If the yogī kills the doer, who performs this killing?
If all identification is dissolved, who remains to know?
This question — unanswerable by intellect — is the very silence of Śiva.
On Responsibility and the Illusion of Doership
When a yogī renounces all desire, his actions cease to be his.
They simply happen — causeless, effortless, spontaneous.
Who is the doer then?
Is the TV displaying an image, or is it merely being made to display?
Does the rain fall by will, or by the weight of clouds?
When a slave breaks a beaker at the master’s command, who is responsible — the hand, the brain, the man, or the master?
And who commands the master? His mind? His desire? Destiny?
Responsibility belongs, we say, to the one who chooses.
But who chooses — and who chose the chooser?
The entire edifice of morality, law, and karma rests on this fragile idea of the doer.
Without clarity on this, society still runs — as though sleepwalking through paradox.
Nature, however, has no such illusion.
In the forest, lions do not avenge; trees do not complain; spiders do not revolt.
There is no moral accounting, only unfolding.
Perhaps civilisation is the dream of the ahaṃkāra — the human need to assign doers, blame, and reward.
And spirituality is its awakening — the recognition that no one ever does,
that life simply is.
The search for the kartā — the doer — ends when the question “Who am I?” dissolves into silence.
There, in that stillness, only Śiva remains —
the Witness, the Destroyer,
the Eternal Unmoved.
Yajña as Transaction
Even a yajña is, at heart, an exchange — glorified and deified, yes, but still a transaction.
The yajamāna (host) seeks a specific phala (result) from a particular devatā who holds the “jurisdiction” or power to grant it. In return, the devatā is offered attention, praise, and āhuti — oblations that accord with the deity’s tattva/guṇa:
Indra favours soma-rasa (a mountain herb elixir),
Agni ghee,
Rudra and the Pitṛs sesame,
Kālī blood (historically, even animal/human sacrifice).
By appeasing the deity, the yajamāna seeks extraordinary, external aid — what we call luck, grace, providence, or protection — either as direct fulfilment (rainfall, unusual strength) or as removal of obstacles (a smooth programme, immunity from contagion, a stalled message in enemy camps).
Thus, yajñas are divine businesses — potent, risky, and transactional.
Modern variants — pūjā, homa, tantra, mass prayer, namāz, simran — are similar: each is an exchange. Not good or bad per se, simply transactions, and every transaction entails trade-offs.
Everyday Transactions
Friendship to gain companionship, support, networks → you “pay” with time, attention, gifts, emotional labour, and sometimes bending to group norms.
Marriage to gain intimacy, children, alliances, emotional steadiness, assets → you “pay” with time, money, energy, and mutual duty.
Work to gain money, benefits, security → you “pay” with hours, commute, routine, boredom.
Foreign education to gain status, eligibility, exposure → you “pay” with loans, homesickness, risk, and the rigours of alien laws.
We trade constantly. Naming the trade does not cheapen it — it clarifies it.
Avadhūta and Emotional Intelligence
Bhāva = feeling, emotion.
The avadhūta neither represses nor prettifies emotion; he allows unfiltered emergence without the anxiety of social approval:
Fear rises — he trembles and grieves.
Rage rises — he roars (even “kills” in metaphor: cuts off the inner enemy).
Compassion floods — he gives away his wealth.
Annoyance stings — he slaps (again, inwardly: stops the offending habit).
Guilt burns — he atones, sometimes severely.
Enthusiasm bursts — he shares it.
Dispassion comes — he withdraws.
Numbness descends — he rests.
Urge arises — he meets it without theatre.
Love deepens — he gives himself, even unto sacrifice.
When emotions are fully met, their intensity naturally exhausts. Expression without fear loosens the knot; the emotion completes its arc and liberates the yogī. This is the avadhūta — dusting off convention to live from inner truth.
Society often feels threatened by such freedom and tries to curb it. Civil orders ostracise; corrupt ones brutalise. The yogī may be pushed to the margins — or the forest.
But what of violent or harmful impulses?
Your caution is apt. My view: when the psyche is truly free and unwarped by shame or coercion, sadistic cruelty does not organically arise. Nature’s creatures do not torture for sport; the history of refined torture belongs to “civilised” man. At both extremes — the dark triad (sadism–psychopathy–Machiavellianism) and the internalised triad (depression–paranoia–masochism) — the distortions are most visible inside complex societies.
A simpler, more natural life seems to soften turbulence over time. Civilisational constraint breeds rebellion and shadow; the forest tends toward a middle way. The avadhūta models that centre.
Ego · Ignorance · Void · Desire
Andhaka = ignorance.
Is gaja-chida (elephant-slayer) a symbol of suicidal impulse? The text pairs it with andhaka-chida (destroyer of ignorance), suggesting something subtler:
suicide often springs from hopelessness — a thick tamas of inertia and despair.
The yogī may be equally ready to “drop the body,” not from helplessness but from freedom — because the doer-knot is gone.
Why should Andhaka (ignorance) breed hopelessness?
Advaita sketches a chain: Ignorance → Desire → Action.
Not ignorance of mathematics — but of oneself:
Psycho-biological: What is the ego? A code for organismic survival? Do all beings possess it?
Ethical-juridical: Who (really) acts? Who is responsible? Where does intention arise?
Theological: Who creates, sustains, withdraws? Whence evil?
Cosmological/physical: Why these laws, these constants?
Unseen answers leave a śūnyatā — a felt void. Desire rushes in to fill it — coarse desires (food, status) and the fine, interior ache we call “heart.” The Ṛgveda intuits it:
“There was the Void; then Desire — first seed of mind.”
And the Ṛgveda again: ekam sat viprā bahudhā vadanti — “Truth is one; the wise speak of it variously.”
Non-transactional Action (Makha-chida)
To call makha-chida “destroyer of sacrifice” is to say:
he has given up transactional attitude entirely.
If he acts, he acts from joy, not for joy.
If he sings, it is because singing occurs.
If he weaves, he can unravel it at once.
If he teaches, it is because knowledge blooms —
not to gather followers or harvest praise.
A test: Can I drop the action right now with minimal inner friction?
If yes, it is likely non-transactional. Transaction always needs two; the yogī desires nothing — not even secretly. Then he is makha-chida.
Who Is the Doer?
Does a TV “display,” or is displaying happening?
Do clouds “rain,” or does rain occur by weight and heat?
If a slave breaks a beaker at the master’s command, who is responsible — hand, brain, man, master, mind, cosmos?
Responsibility is usually assigned to the source of desire or choice.
But who chose the chooser?
Our legal, moral, and karmic edifices rest on this fragile notion of the doer. Yet life and society roll on without settling it.
In the jungle, the question is mostly meaningless. Lions do not litigate; trees do not complain; spiders do not revolt; volcanoes are not punished; gorillas are not decorated with medals.
Civilisation runs on unresolved clusters — subject–doer–reward–punishment.
Spirituality asks Who am I? until the doer dissolves. There, action continues — but the actor is gone.
The Forgotten Freedom
And yet, in yoga, kaivalya — the final liberation — literally means “aloneness.”
From kevala — “alone.”
Freedom, then, is not found in belonging,
but in learning to be utterly with oneself.
Perhaps that is the only cure for addiction of any kind —
not withdrawal, not substitution,
but a slow reconciliation with the self we’ve been running from.
The Paradox of Negation
As one proceeds with the neti, neti method — “killing off” layer by layer, outer to inner, external to internal — all associations of selfhood fall away until one arrives, in the traditional map, at the last veil: Void = Ignorance = Vacuum = Andhaka.
Now the yogī, the inner Śiva, must “kill the killing,” end the ending, and cease identifying even with the act of ceasing. This is spirituality’s ultimate paradox. If the yogī dissociates from body, mind, ego, and even the primordial void — who performs the dissociation? No answer is finally intelligible; the question remains, properly, a sacred riddle.
To halt this very movement of dissociation is antaka-chidā — the destroyer of destruction. Does one stop it, or is it stopped? I do not know.
When the yogī has moved through smara, pura, bhava, makha, gaja, andhaka and even antaka — negating the negation — what remains is neither transaction nor triumph, but stillness.
Here the nail goes into the coffin: relationships, bodies, emotions, actions, motion itself — everything stills. What remains?
Some name it death, some coma, some dream, some liberation; some a bubble bursting, some a black hole, some the void; some freedom, some aloneness, some Self, some salvation, some God, some Ātman. I — along with Rāvaṇa the rambler — call it Śiva.
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