The culture, traditions, and rituals in India have a deeper meaning in terms of their celebration. They are closely related to the divine energy which can be felt at times when we observe the festival or rituals.  The festival of Mahashivratri is one amongst them which has a tremendous significance in Hindu culture. It is the ‘Great night of Shiva’ that is the most significant event to experience the path of the spiritual voyeur.

When is it celebrated?

In Indian culture, we have different festivals to celebrate different occasions as harvesting, planting, freshening the environment, rains, summers, even all seasons have reasons for celebration. Usually, the fourteenth day of the lunar month or the day before the new moon is known as ‘Maas Shivratri’ which means ‘monthly Shivratri. It occurs twelve times a year, but the most significant one is Mahashivratri which occurs in February/ March.

Reasons to celebrate

Shivratri is symbolic of the union of ‘Shiva’ and ‘Shakti’, as legends say Shiva got married to Parvathi on this auspicious day. It is said that after the death of Sati, Shiva lived a life like a hermit, always engrossed in meditation. Sati took birth again as Parvathi and undertook hard penance for many years to win Shiva’s heart. Her devotion melted Shiva’s heart and he accepted her as his wife. The devotees perform pooja, devotional songs to celebrate the divine union of Shiva and Parvathi. People observe fast and perform Shiv-Parvathi pooja for long and blissful marital life.

In Yogic tradition, Shiva is considered as the ‘Adi Guru’ from whom the tradition of Yoga started. The spiritual seekers perform meditation to experience the unknown, mysterious world of divine ecstasy and the night of Mahashivratri is the best time to do so. Meditation takes us to another world of nothingness where one loses awareness of the materialistic world and reaches a different world of consciousness, which is called Shiva.   

 Mahashivratri has astrological significance too. When the Sun and the Moon are in a particular alignment, it affects the human mind and soul. The spiritual gurus encourage devotees to motivate their devotees to meditate. It is seen that there are few occasions in the year where meditation is very helpful for spiritual growth.

Divine union of Purusha and Prakriti Shiva and Shakti are two principles of creation. Shiva represents Purusha, the masculine power, consciousness, and stillness whereas Shakti represents Prakriti, the feminine power, the energy, movement, nature, and change. When these two come together, they manifest completeness by binding together totally different qualities. The union is complementary to each other in such a way that the absence of any one of them would lead to incompleteness. In the word Shiva, the letter ‘i’ represents Shakti that creates energy, power, and movement in Shiva which leads to the creation. Without ‘I’, the Shakti, Shiva is incomplete as the consciousness without energy is inactive and unable to create anything. Mahashivratri symbolizes the significance of two different powers.