THE DANCE OF CREATION

Tell me, what is this dance they speak of?
The one performed by the Lord of Silence, in Chidambaram?

You speak of the Tandava,
the dance of the One who is stillness in motion —
Shiva, the Nataraja.

Why does He dance?
Is it to entertain the gods? To frighten the world?

No. He dances not for the gaze of others.
He dances because the universe moves through Him.
His dance is not performance — it is principle.
He is not a dancer among stars;
He is the axis around which the stars themselves turn.

What does this dance mean?
What do His hands speak of?

Look closely. His four arms are scripture.
In one hand, He holds the damaru,
the drum that speaks without tongue.
Its beat is the first sound, AUM —
the birth-cry of creation.

Another hand holds fire —
not to destroy in anger, but to transform.
Fire is not death; it is renewal.

A third hand blesses — abhaya mudra —
saying, “Fear not. The dance may shake the earth,
but the soul remains untouched.”

The fourth hand points to His lifted foot —
grace, liberation, the door out of illusion.

And the foot He presses down?

That is Apasmara,
the demon of forgetfulness,
the ego that binds the soul to shadow.
Shiva does not kill him —
He dances upon him,
reminding us that illusion must be held beneath, not above.

Why does He dance in fire?

Because truth is never cold.
Because the cosmos is forged in flame.
Because the soul must burn to awaken.

Why in Chidambaram?

Because Chidambaram is not a place.
It is the heart-space — the chid-akasha —
where all thought dissolves into pure presence.
Shiva dances there,
not in a temple of stone,
but in the temple of your silence.

What happens to those who see the dance?

They forget themselves.
They forget the world.
And in that forgetting, they remember.
They see the rhythm behind all things —
birth, breath, death, return.
They see that destruction is not the end,
but the interval between songs.

So Shiva is time?



No.
Time dances within Shiva.
And so do you.