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Shiva, King of Dancers (Nataraja)

When the mind inquires into the existence of the world, it answers itself in terms of; causality, quoting a primary cause. The myths of man speak of the creation of the world as the dance of God.

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Shiva Nataraja, Lord of the Dance, sends pulsating waves of awakening sound through matter, thereby seducing it to life from lethargy. And matter dances, appearing round about him as an aureole of fiery emanations. Dancing, he creates and sustains the manifold phenomena of the universe; dancing he destroys by fire all forms and names and gives new rest:

His form is everywhere, all pervading. ...
Everywhere is Shiva's gracious dance made manifest.....
He dances with Water , Fire, Wind and Ether.
Thus our Lord dances ever in the court.

Dance, as an expression of man being moved by the transcendent power is the earliest art form; before man experiences his experience of life through materials he does so with his own body, Early man dances on every occasion: for joy, grief, love, fear; of his experience. In his dancing, the imitation of sound and movement observed around him, and especially the involuntary expression of motion through sound and gestures, precedes any consciously articulated sound and dance formation. Before the dance develops into a deliberate religious rite, it is a rhythmic release of energy, an ecstatic act. Only very gradually, under the influence of established cults, is the dance transformed from a spontaneous expression of movement to a fixed pattern of steps, gestures and poses. Yet, in whatever form the dance presents itself, it always aims at approaching the god. As an act of sacrifice, as man giving himself to his god, the dance is total surrender.

The creator is seen as the 'unmoved mover' behind events in the cosmos, the still point round which everything must turn, simply because it holds its peace, encompassing both movement and perfect immobility. Rhythmic sound, in cosmogonic myths, is at the root of all creation; and the gods are -or God is -the formulated power through which the life-force manifests itself. Truth, being beyond sound and rhythm, is the invisible divine center round which all creation dances.