Have people forgotten Shiva?

July 19th, 2009 admin Posted in Information, Philosophy |

Hinduism has a notion of trinity - three forces that drive the universe. The trinity consists of the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer (personified respectively by Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva). I do not claim to know the spiritual aspect of this concept. However, the applicability of this concept to the physical things in our lives is almost obvious. Everything physical comes into being, serves its purpose during its lifetime and is (or rather, should be) eventually destroyed. These three forces must guide each other in an eternal cycle, rather than in a linear progression. That which is destroyed, must contribute to the creation, and that which is created must be destroyable. This is not philosophy; this is just the principle of equilibrium and balance.

The spark of a creator’s idea, must be weighed and studied for the sustainability and fesibility of that which the idea generates. Once the creative force is assured of the sustainability and usefulness of its creation, it must also analyze the destructibility of the creation. Only when the idea passes both these tests - useful when in existence and destroyable when not useful - is the creation sustainable. To be destroyed does not mean to make it go away or vanish. Being destroyed here means to change form. The death of one is the birth of another. The death of a wine glass when it slips from your hand and shatters is the birth of a hundred pieces of glass. The death of those hundred pieces in a kiln if the birth of liquid silica, which dies to takes up another form when shaped into a glass window.

Sunstainable creation is dependent on reliable destruction, which in turn is dependent on future creation. In our lives nowadays, I wonder if the creator’s dependence on the destroyer is being slowly forgotten. Things are getting created with no concern for its destructibility (and often with no concern even for sustainability). Creation is driven by sustainability and usefulness, which is fine. However, the second part of the pre-creation analysis, destruction, is becoming only a secondary concern.

A case in point is plastics. Plastics are almost irreplaceable in certain situations. However, its usage cycle has overflowed its equilibrium bounds. The ease of creating plastics and the convenience of sustaining plastics have together overpowered the responsibility of destroying them. The durability of plastics, which is often a big positive, makes it equally hard to destroy. And when used in scenarios where such durability becomes a liability, the benefits of plastics are questionable. Wikipedia’s article on Plastics has this, somewhat scary, line. “Due to their relatively low cost, ease of manufacture, versatility, and imperviousness to water, plastics are used in an enormous and expanding range of products, from paper clips to spaceships. They have already displaced many traditional materials, such as wood; stone; horn and bone; leather; paper; metal; glass; and ceramic, in most of their former uses.” Notice that all the things that plastics have replaced are either natural or biodegradable, or both. I agree that there are some organic palstics in nature, and there are some man-made biodegradable plastics; however, the point I am trying to make is not hijacked by either of these. From wall-to-wall carpets to the teacups used by chai-wallahs in roadside dhabas, from ziploc bags to microwaveable idli-plates, plastics have slowly but surely taken over our lives. In this takeover, not only has the senseless overuse of plastics created a dangerous imbalance in the natural world, it has paralyzed us into a state of helplessness compliance. Plastics have destroyed the destroyer.

In many uses of plastics, they are certainly replaceable by other, more responsibly created, products. We, the users and sustainers of plastics, should vote down the creators’ decision to create them by reducing the use of plastics where possible (take your cloth grocery bags with you when you go shopping, use glass or steel dinner ware at home and paper or corn-based plates at picnics). When usage is not avoidable, we can restore the balance somewhat by paying due homage to the destroyer (use plastic that is recyclable and recycle the plastic that you use). A moments thought before consumption can not only help restore some balance in the cycle of creations and destruction, it can also help restore a sense of control over our destiny.

On my part, I make it a point to visit the Shiva temple of Cary once a month. It is a large, airy temple, with the added convenience of a drive-through pradakshina (the act of revenential, clockwise, walking around a Hindu temple’s central structure). Each time I go, the priest walks up to my car, greets me, and asks, “What do you have?”. Upon telling him about my problems, he points me to the correct deity to go pay my respects to. His utterance may seem strange for temple-talk, “Go to number 4″, but what he really means is, “Deity no. 4 will rid you of all your troubles and send you home free and uplifted”. The temple, for some strange secular reasons, likes to identify itself with a small, unadorned, non-ostentatious, green sign with white lettering that reads, “Cary Recycling Center”.