Shiva is the most powerful god of the Hindu pantheon, and one of the godheads in the Hindu Trinity. Shiva, or ‘shakti’ represents power, and Shiva is the destroyer – who dissolves life, in order to create, because death is the path to a new life. But is there a scientific explanation for this symbolic deity?
According to Fritzof Capra: “every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction…without end…For the modern physicists, then Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter. As in Hindu mythology, it is a continual dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos; the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomena.”
In fact, the plaque next to the 2m statue of the dancing Shiva at CERN, the European Centre for Research and Particle Physics in Geneva, says: “Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics.”
“The source of all movement,
Shiva’s dance,
Gives rhythm to the universe.
He dances in evil places,
In sacred,
He creates and preserves,
Destroys and releases.
We are part of this dance
This eternal rhythm,
And woe to us if, blinded
By illusions,
We detach ourselves
From the dancing cosmos,
This universal harmony…”
by Ruth Peel
