In terms of etymology Vish & Shiv are opposing forces. Shiv therefore represents the intense coalescing forces in the Universe. It is all the dark matter and its Shiv’s power that collapses the black holes to the center of each galaxy. But, closer at hand Shiva is the reservoir of the terrestrial energies. His abode metaphorically is the Mount of Kailash and he sits there with his consort Pārvati. The river Ganges entangled in Shiv’s flowing mane, at another level, stands for ‘Aakash-Ganga’ – the Sanskrit name for our galaxy ‘the Milky-way’.

Vishnu is often depicted with flames or agni emanating from Him and Shiv has snakes or nāgini around His neck. The root verb ‘ag’ means ‘a tortuous movement’ and the suffix ‘ni’ means in this context ‘to throw out’. So, agni is ‘the flickering of the flame’ that shines and spews forth energy. The opposite is na-agni or nāgini that means literally ‘a black tortuous movement’ that absorbs energy. And together their domain is called the Vishwa that is the entire visible and radiating Universe along with its ‘dark matter’[8]. Vishnu has many layers of meanings from the Supernovas, Quasars, Galaxies, billions of stars like our Sun and so on and so forth. Thus, in our myths, He has many representations like Adityā, Varun, Sūrya etc., and in fact, Mishraji has devoted an entire chapter in this book to “Vishnu and His One Thousand Names”[9]. Some are very powerful metaphysical concepts. Mishraji says, “Some of these names are masculine, some feminine and some neuter. Each opens a vista of ideas and inspires us to visualize a supraphysical factor which cannot easily be grasped by the tools of our understanding in their given state of development. Vishnu is the principle of consciousness which illuminates all experiences”.

Although Shiv has only 108 names in the Māhābhārata, the Shiv Purāna gives His thousand names. The Shiv-sūtras explain how the universal unfolding of the dimensions of Naad occurs in the I –consciousness. The best way of unfolding these as part of the karma of our daily lives is – kalā as Naṭarāj, gyān as Mātrikā and vikalpa as Yogi. And this is exactly what Mishraji means when he further explains the Āgama (quote) – “The goal of all these [lives’] activities is to discern the true nature and meaning of our [individual] existence – what we are, where we are, how we have come here and where we are going?”[10]

The expanding energies of Nād in theShiv sūtras are developed as the Mātrika Shakti or the study of the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet. A sūtra (viz. II.7) is mātrikā chakra saṁbodhaḥ. When we follow this and arrange the letters in a circle we get the Mātrikā Chakra [11] as shown. At the top where the Chakra closes the ‘ah’ sound forms and both the syllables ‘a’ and ‘h’ are kantasthah i.e. they are both uttered from the throat adjacent to each other. This ‘ah’ sound is also the bīja mantrā or ‘seed sound’ for the Sahasrār or the Crown Chakra. The ‘a’ is the ‘smallest syllable’ or the samvrt prayatna of the Aiterya Āranayaka; it is the indestructible Akshara or Brahmn. The ‘h’ is the aspirate or the sound of the exhalation of the breath. The Bindu completes the aham – and this is the I- consciousness. This Ātmā is born in the ‘sah’ world moving left and counter-clockwise around the Chakra. Clockwise[12] it is the hamsa the sound of our breath or prāna. It is not a mythical bird but rather a mantrā that we all chant compulsorily 8 to 10 crore times over a normal life time. When we die ‘yama’ transmits the hamsa to the world of ‘mara’ and while we live in ‘sah’ all the māyā unfolds in the dimensions of space-time and consciousness. The latter is the ‘yama’ reversed with lengthened svars as the extension in time. Thus, we have seen how Bindu, a unit of consciousness unfolds its Spanḍa into the metaphysical duality of Viṣh & Shiv as it itself metamorphoses to the individual I-consciousness. The Visarga[13] is the prateek of the Ātmā and also in the Sanskrit alphabet it is considered as ayogavāh, literally meaning ‘outside the harness’.

3. In this section, we look at the three Shaktīs or Goddesses Shri Lakshmi, Pārvati (Uṣhā) & Saraswatī. They have been deified respectively as the consorts of the Trinity of the Hindu pantheon viz. Vishnu, Shiv & Brahmā. But, as we shall see, they are actually deep metaphysical entities that are the key to understanding how the Ātmā experiences the infinite mysteries of life through its conscious evolvement.

But, before we proceed, I would like to quickly familiarize you with the Mātrikā Chakra. We will follow Mishraji’s advice at the beginning of his Book (quote)[14] – “The seer-scientists [rishīs] find a striking parallel between the origin and unfolding of this vast Universe and the process of development from the primal sound to the alphabet, words, sentences and, ultimately, the fully developed language. It may be compared to the evolution of a small seed into a huge banyan tree… Sanskrit meticulously follows the laws of nature in its evolution…”.

The Mātrikā Chakra consists of thirteen Vowels or Svars; twenty-five Mutes or Sparsh; four Semi-vowels called Antaḥstḥaḥ and the Sibilants or Uṣhman – the Shaktī symbols. The letters ‘sh’, ‘shh’ & ‘sa’ are the first three sibilants. The fourth is ‘h’ that, as we have seen, is the aspirate and represents the prāna.

The Svars or Vowels are the ‘pure sounds’ and derived from ‘svarna’ or gold, they are the ‘shining sounds’. The Vowels are likened to the energies of the day and the consonants to the night.[15] The ‘a’ if suppressed, and treated as the Unknown, the Unseen Brahmn it leaves us with 12 signs. These are the number of months or the sun-signs. ‘a’ is further embedded as a suffix in every mute and sibilant directly [16] and in the semi-vowels inherently – thus it constitutes every spoken word, sentence and gets integrated into the very fabric of all that shall be named in our conscious Universe.