Nataraja
In a recent talk on TED, John Bohannon says that the medium of dance may be better than a PowerPoint presentation in conveying complex ideas. He illustrates this by conveying ideas relating to quantum mechanics and lasers in a beautifully choreographed piece that is worth watching. This idea has now spawned a “Dance your Ph.D.” contest. Here is the 2011 winner.
Lord Shiva is a prehistoric figure and is supposed to be the first Yogi. Let us for a moment step into Shiva’s shoes. Imagine that you are in prehistoric times. Handwriting has not been invented yet and human vocabulary consists of just a few hundred words. Humans are still part-time hunter-gatherers and the age of farming is just about to dawn. One day as you sit under the starlit sky and ponder on the meaning of it all, you slide into a deep mystical state. Words cannot describe what you now understand. How would you convey your discovery to your fellow humans? Would you not prefer to dance rather than speak?
Joseph Campbell has described Lord Shiva’s dance as the “Dance of the Universe”. It was used to convey the underlying energy, intelligence, rhythm, unity, and beauty of the nature of reality. The original dance done by Siva has been lost to time but the statue depicting the dance, known as the Nataraja, conveys the majesty and power of the dance of the first yogi.
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