In mythical lore, Shiva is represented as being surrounded by Ganas – Ganas were essentially spiritual gremlins who were both his friends and his servants. Servants, not in a modern slavery sense, but more so because he was not separate from them. So his desires became their desires.

The Ganas are most famously referenced in the destruction of Daksha's yagna. Daksha was one of the earliest progenitors of humans. His daughter Sati was Shiva's first wife. Sati was destined to die. Shiva being Shiva knew about it. Shiva being Shiva also knew what his reaction to that in the human plane would be.

Daksha conducted a huge yagna (a sacrificial ritual) and invited everyone other than Shiva to it. To the undeveloped eye, Shiva appeared odd. Like an outcast. This is a common pattern in stories that bridge myth and history. Extremely developed spirits and beings, when they manifest in human form, appear odd, broken and outcast. Like the story of Hanuman devotee, Tulsidas, meeting Hanuman in the form of a leper. A leper, who would be the first to arrive at the local retelling of Ramayana and the last to leave. Imagine that! Sit with that! Consider that the next human, that you feel disgust towards, might be a radiant deity who is showering you with disgust so that you would leave them alone. Like what happened with Lord Rama when he started off on his exile. Everyone was hypnotically infatuated with him forcing him to go into Dandakaranya – a forest filled with ghosts and demons.

The divine Masculine knows not to respond to trauma fawning & transference. He knows that in those moments, the Fawn is not seeing him for who he truly is. Complete stillness in the midst of extreme yearning is the Masculine practice.

Shiva's wife Sati heard of her father's yagna and innocently adopted the story that her husband Shiva not being invited out of oversight.

How could it be anything but an oversight? *giggles*

She doted on her father and was devoted to her husband. Her perception was blinded by Innocent Love. Legend goes that Sati had meditated for eons on her desire for Shiva as her husband before Shiva had finally left his meditative ascetic ways of being to join her in conjugal bliss. Often when I’ve found myself caught up in anxiously chasing a woman who attracts me, I’m reminded of this story.

Complete stillness in the midst of extreme yearning.

It's a very difficult practice :)

I'll take a moment to note here that there comes a point in every tantric man's life where he starts identifying with Shiva because he longs to be Shiva. Because each of us actually long deep in our core to be one with Shiva. Because each of us carry the Feminine in us. Giving into this identification takes us further away from being Shiva.

Sati went to her father's sacrifice in spite of Shiva's attempts to convince her not to. He knew what was about to happen and as much as his divine self was at peace and acceptance with it, his human heart yearned for more with Sati.

As soon as she got there, it dawned upon her that it wasn't an oversight on Daksha's part. It was an intentional affront. Daksha did not see Shiva's radiant effulgence. He saw him as a lowly ascetic, not fit to sit with the highly Brahmins and deities. As it often happens when one is caught up in the blindfolds of Innocence, Sati bipolarized into Indignation–have you ever experienced a feminine being who seems really, inexplicably fawning on you suddenly switch to a “how dare you?”. In a moment, she decided that her father was no longer her father and decided to get rid of everything that he had given her, starting with her own body. With a single flick of the tongue of her Kundalini, the Snake roared up out through her crown, lighting her human body ablaze. Sati, the Human, was dead. Shiva, the Human, distraught. He wept and wept. As the flow of grief intensified in his Human body and his Human could no longer contain the swell of the tide, up roared the Fire. Rage, pure cleansing Rage. Embodied in him and his Unattached Companions–the Ganas. They wreaked rageful havoc on the assembly. Destroying and cleansing it all with the Fire that they spewed.

When is Fire cleansing? When is it egotistically vengeful and contributing to the cycles of karma and trauma?

These are the Ganas. Shiva’s constant companions. Not separate from him, yet not attached to him. They are depicted as gremlins. Are they gremlins?

If something creates a sensation of disgust in you, it’s only because it’s a part of you that you haven’t yet acknowledged. If something triggers you, it’s in you. Does Shiva see them as gremlins? Does he see their innocence? Can gremlins be innocent?

What is it that feels burdensome about an Unattached Burden? That it makes you do things you’d rather not do? How can anything make you do something that you’d rather not do? You can only experience something if there’s a part of you that’s yearning for that experience to be in your life.

There are two dominant lens through which one can look at life. The Victim lens and the Sovereign lens. The latter encompasses the former. In the Victim lens, there is a propensity to see life as happening to you.

They did this to me. Oh poor little me, *bats eyelids*.

One is attached to instances in the past where one was victimized. And isn’t yet ready to release how juicy it feels to have that story and be pitied. By others and by one self.

How does this keep happening to me? Poor, poor angelic me!

In the Sovereign lens, one acknowledges the simultaneous happening of life accompanied with one’s conscious choosing of all that happens to one. With the Sovereign lens, one learns how to tap into one’s conscious choice to bring forth the kind of experiences that are pleasing, relaxing, healing minus the pain of healing, blissful, all-encompassing.

Hmm, I wonder, why this keeps ‘happening’ to me? Can I predict this better? Can I step away sooner? Is this something I actually like *giggles*?

Can the spirits; that have lived in your Victim for so long, who know you so well, better perhaps than any human could; help you in creating the life of your dreams? Can an Unattached Burden be an Unattached Companion?

In the West, I am I and no one else. I have desires that I want to fulfill for my Self. I enter the arena of society and fight and grasp for My desires. Anything that seemingly gets in the way of My desires is a Burden that needs to be shed. I introspect. I meditate. I bio-hack. For My own sake. For the sake of My community, who helps Me see Me as I see My self. There is a clear separation between Me and the Other. The Other is there for their own selfish benefits. The Other is fighting too for their own sake. The Other, thereby, has to be a Burden. How could it not be a Burden? I can’t fathom a way of seeing where the Other isn’t a Burden. All Others are Burdens.