Hide & Seek With The Self

Natarajasana or Dancer Pose is furrowed with narratives of Balance; like riding the wave of life and feeling balance as a dynamic process.

As we stand on one foot and catch the other behind our head in an active backbend, we are challenged to stay afoot. A beautiful metaphor for the sentient experience.

And, there is (of course) more depth to this icon of Hindu culture and Yogic practice than simply Balance. The spiritual significance of Nataraja is deep and wide. Nataraja’s Dance is called Tandava; the Dance of Creation & Destruction. It is embodied as:

1.Srishti/Creation

2.Sthiti/Preservation

3.Samhara/Destruction

4.Tirobhava/Veiling or Illusion

5.Anugraha/Divine Grace

As with anything in Yogic thought and practice, without understanding India’s worldview, we cannot interpret these concepts respectfully or appropriately in a Western worldview, as they are steeped in a particular belief about who The Self actually is.

This may be the most important understanding for any student of Yogic practice to embody. Which is the belief that The Self is not separate from nature and that The Self is fundamentally, our capacity to witness or become the objective observer. This Self is not colored by factors of identity such as our body, the roles we play out in the world, or the things that we have done that are deemed right or wrong. At the core of every individual is a higher Self, and this is the Self that is reborn back into the cosmos when we die.

Nataraja is a symbol of the Dance of playing hide and seek with our higher Self. Destruction or Samhara playing a key role in this process. To illustrate this thought from a Western worldview; I am reminded of a poem by Jarod K Anderson:

Identity

There’s a silver bell in your rib cage.

When you’re trying to fall asleep, you feel for it,

like a tongue mapping a chipped tooth.

One day,

you’ll find it and it will ring cold and clear as an autumn lake.

That sound will be who you are,

warm certainty like a belly full of hot soup,

until it fades.

Then, you’ll search again.