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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….chanting His name felt natural and effortless, almost like breathing. Before l got married ,my devotion to Shiva was steady and intimate.


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


And yet Shiva kept returning.


Not dramatically, and not insistently, but quietly, 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. I was not among a physical crowd. I was at home watching the live celebration from the Isha Foundation, and softly chanting Om Namah Shivaya during Rishit Kaal.


yet it did not feel distant.


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


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


then came the tears.


Not tears of sadness or 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. 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, it felt complete 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. 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, but 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 as they do not demand, they remain. And when the time feels right, they return.


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