Destroyer and Preserver

Prof. EUGENE D’VAZ

Shiva

I dance

A thousand hands swirling in a thousand directions. Atoms collide. In me the Cosmos swirling fire does its frenzied salute to the best of memories known to the heart and mind: Lips on lips in the dark, kisses in blossomed bowers, ideas shooting in white radiance from the brow. Memories now swirling into oblivion.

Fire from my limbs strikes man-made towers.
Dance is my pleasure, my way to destruction.
I destroy chronic habits; I destroy conditioned learning;
I destroy conditioned faith.
I dance.
Dancing, I come down the Halls of Eternity,
I dance my dance to destroy false values:
Charity built on pride
Religion built on worm-eaten structures
Knowledge gone to the head
Love sighing helplessly in the cold bed.
Destruction is my game and my dance.
None may approach when I dance.

Thunders with knitted brows and flaming tongues rush from the four corners and divide the Earth into four fragments. Anxious Gravity shrieks with fear as my fire strikes at her magnetic heart.

Atoms get drunk with the freedom given by my dance and transform themselves into million-splendoured, million-miled tongues of flames.

The roar
The bursting
The crackling
The crushing
The smouldering
All heard in my song, all seen in my dance.
I am the song of the Rebel
I am the theme of Negation.

If I do not dance this dance, blood will congeal in veins, floes will drift into the plains, cold winds with expressionless faces will leave their Himalayan caves and cover all warm life with the still silent garb of Death.

My dance is a symphony,
A destruction and a delusion.
I’m Shiva
Terrible Lord of the Fire Dance.
I’m Shiva
The Lord of the Thousand-limbed Dance.
With leg lifted over the Earth I draw lightnings to its heart.
Debris scatter into the fading galaxies, into the nebulae of unheard distances.

I’m Shiva.

Hear my drums, O devotee, and bow in reverence. My drums beat the rhythm that my limbs follow. All rays of the Cosmos trace the intricate patterns of dance of my death-dealing limbs.

All forms of dance known to you are flickerings of my rage and my joy.

Close your eyes, lest you get blind.
I dance
This is my terrible Thunder Dance.
Make your last obeisance
Devotee of my Fire Dance.

The conch shell trumpets over the Earth like a herd of angry elephants. Earth trembles. Foxes come out of their holes. Lions leave their dens. The sun and moon darken. The seas churn in surging frenzy under the brooding Chaos of my command.

When I speak, no language is uttered but the rumble of destruction.

I dance
Down the steps of Creation
Down the slanting rays of the dying sun.
Darkness fills every crevice and corner. This darkness of my making is warm.
My voice crosses over worlds now trailing in clouds of ashes.
Lost hopes
Lost dreams
Lost paradises.
My voice trails into a whisper over the sleeping universe now empty and waiting.
Everything is quiet
Space sleeps
Space waits
My dance is over
My limbs, my thousand hands come to rest over the sleeping smouldering silent still spaces.
Listen, O devotee
Something in Atman waits for the next age,
Genesis has to be written anew
Search for a clean page.

Vishnu

In the beginning there was Silence
And the Silence filled the spaces
I came with the gift of Light
And drove before me the ugly hordes
Of the long dark night.
I’m Vishnu
Giver of light.
Bow before me.
I pick up ashes scattered over the sleeping spaces.
I pick up broken bits of a bygone age.
I’m Vishnu

Seated in White Radiance on the lotus spanning the lake whose waters nourish myriad moving forms, whose waters restore youth.
Once again fire will make warm memories from the kiss o lips on lips.

From the cradle the child laughs with the promise of a thousand tomorrows. From my hands the sign of protection makes all creation procreate in abundant joy, in breathless profusion.

New worlds whirl around new suns.

The nymphs of rain send amorous signals from the horizon, and crops smile, sap flushing their shy faces.
Cows low in love with the joy of giving. Their milk from swollen udders flows into the mouths of growing generations.

Voices rise from streets and alleys in rhythmical chant:

“We bow to Vishnu
Preserver of worlds
Restorer of youth
Giver of Life and Light,
Energy pulsing in life-lines,
Music trailing the course of the moving spheres,
Benign Force of all worlds,
Vishnu, we bow to you.”
I’m Vishnu.

When I open my eyes fires will be lit in homes, food will be cooked, children will play in the sun-dappled yard, butterflies will awaken from the chrysalises of their sleep and haunt flowers opening to the fresh winds of morning.

I will take the poet’s hand and write his dreams down.

I will put new fire into the hearts of my prophets.

New world will light up, and the Universe will tremble in joy with its myriad lamps lighting your path towards me. Nature will dance in the warmth of the sun. In silver garb she will watch the new moon of my making. Birds will twitter at open windows and women with fish-like eyes and full breasts will work the pulleys and haul up buckets of water. The wells will give in abundance the liweet-scented waters of my new-made Earth.

I’m Vishnu.

The thunder will laugh from its mountain heights and the lightnings will flirt with frill-skirted cloud maidens.

I’m Vishnu

The Protector of all worlds.

Listen to the timbrels, to the pipes to the drum. My devotees come from the four corners to offer the new-born calf.

I smile, and from my hands lifted in loving benediction, blossoms stream down in profusion and fill the altars of the world for my worship.

Listen to the hum of the bees.
They enter the nectar-wells of their joy.
Conch shells are blown in celebration of this new birth.
Be not afraid, devotee with folded arms. Look up to me and dance your dance of joy.   Vishnu watches over you.
From your sturdy loins the trembling Earth will be filled with new singing voices, new swaying hips, new swirling limbs.
Be not afraid, rejoice.
I shall preside over your new laws, your new rituals, your new loves, your new sunrises and sunsets.
Your new moons will weave dreams for your poets who are waiting to catch the spark from my all seeing eye.
I will send my Devas to charm your days with delights from my Hall of plaited Rainbows.

I’m Vishnu
Lord of the turning gyre
Lord of the awakening worlds.
In my hands I hold your shining destinies.
Bow before me, devotee of the new-born day.

I shall send sap into the Earth and it shall rise into the crops and course in your veins and you will dance your worship of me.
My hands rest on your shoulders.
March across these new worlds
Turn your hands in loving labour to the waiting fields of the sun.
Turn your eyes to the stars of immeasurable distances.
Spill your seed over the four corners of the world-compass. Don’t build fences round your homes.
Look towards the skies and spread your wings, I will bear you up on unseen currents of my making.
You shall see the unseeable in your dreams.
Vishnu will open the gates of new countries whose towers kiss the clouds.
Devotee, stride across the centuries. Yoke the steeds of Time and Space to your Mind-chariot and turn your wheels towards my Halls of Eternal Repose.

Cast your glance across shimmering galaxies.
Mighty is Atman within you.
I am that
You are me.
Bow before Vishnu.
Devotee, here is the road­–
Begin your pilgrimage of new wonders
I will lead you with voices
To the Shrine of the Ultimate.