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when Shiva comes back

 When Shiva Comes Back.


My relationship with Shiva has never been linear.


As a child and through my early years, I was deeply drawn to Shiva, and chanting His name felt natural and effortless, and almost like breathing, and before marriage my devotion to Shiva was steady and intimate.


After marriage life gently shifted, and I began visiting the Gurudwara more often, and the rhythm of shabad kirtan entered my days, and for some time I immersed myself in that devotion, and later I found myself chanting bhajans, and gradually my heart moved toward Lord Hanuman, and strength and surrender and protection became meaningful to me.


And yet Shiva kept returning.


Not dramatically, and not insistently, but quietly, and like an old presence that never truly leaves.


This Maha Shivratri felt like meeting Him again after a long pause.


I was not inside a temple, and I was not among a physical crowd, and I was at home watching the live celebration from the Isha Foundation, and softly chanting Om Namah Shivaya during Rishit Kaal.


And yet it did not feel distant.


At one point I felt a slight throbbing in my head, and it was not uncomfortable, and it was not overwhelming, and it was simply there, and subtle and alive, and I did not try to label it as spiritual or physiological, and I just noticed it, and continued chanting.


The mantras were serene, and the rhythm was magnetic, and even through a screen the collective devotion felt powerful, and people were dancing and immersed in celebration, and I remained seated, and inwardly I felt like dancing too.


And then came the tears.


Not tears of sadness, and not tears of longing.


But tears that made the heart lighter.


For those moments there was no chaos in me, and no mental clutter, and no analysis, and I lived every second of it, and the sound of the mantra, and the silence between repetitions, and the vibration moving gently within.


There were one or two points of complete stillness.


And strangely that stillness did not feel empty, and it felt complete, and as if nothing was missing, and nothing needed to be added.


I could not stay awake the entire night, and I slept within two hours, and the next morning despite less sleep I felt slightly energised, and clear and settled.


Chanting brought me closer to Shiva.


Later when I reflected quietly, I felt closer to myself.


Somewhere between devotion and introspection I realised something subtle, and perhaps our spiritual journeys are not about switching paths, but about circling back to what has always been ours.


Shiva did not arrive as something new.


He felt familiar.


Like coming home.


This Maha Shivratri was not about grandeur or spectacle, and it was about reconnection and remembering a presence that had quietly waited in the background of my life.


And perhaps that is the nature of certain devotions, and they do not demand, and they remain, and when the time feels right, they return.


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