Inevitably, Shiva the Conqueror of Lust and Desire is also known as the erotic ascetic! The Tantrik tradition uses the Shiva Energy very heavily and many of the texts of Tantra are lectures that Shiva gives to his spouse who may be Kali or Parvati, but actually is a representative of all the Divine Feminine energy in the world.

Shiva's sexuality inevitably brings us to the Shiva lingam, the supposedly sacred phallus. Contrary to popular perception, the Shiva lingam has a world of meaning attached to it and it is not just the obvious one of phallic symbolism. Most lingams are representations of Shiva who is never worshipped in the form of an image. Popular mythology holds that he was cursed so by an enraged rishi. The lingam is an abstract stand-in for the Howler who must never be named. The entire process is an elaborate avoidance of naming the dread name by substituting something else, which is also a creative and generative force.

Under Tantrik influence, the lingam placed in a yoni base - which means exactly what it sounds like - became a frank avowal of the ultimate origin of new life, it was fertility symbolism at its best. Educated Hindus tend to be over-apologetic about this aspect, though the average Hindu lives in a curious innocence about the nature of the Lingam. This was typically expressed in Gandhi's naïve confession that he had to read foreign authors before he realized that there might be anything sexual about the lingam.

According to Swami Vivekananda, not just the lingam but also the entire external image of Shiva is an elaborate symbolical construct. In his view, Shiva is a personification of the entire Vedic fire sacrifice. Thus the ash with which his body is smeared is the ash of the sacrifice. (Ash is also what's left when everything is destroyed and it does not decay. So too with god, what is left when everything is gone. Shiva covers himself with ash because he is the only life form in the Universe who is aware of this truth at every moment.) The white complexion of Shiva is indicative of the smoke of the sacrifice. The animals He is associated with indicate the animals tied to the sacrificial posts and so on. The Shiva linga, in Vivekananda's view is actually a feebly recalled Yupa Stambha, the Cosmic Pillar that is the center and support of the Universe, The Axis Mundi, in fact. This yupa stambha is always represented in all fire sacrifices and it is permanently installed in temples in the form of the linga.

If prayers could not be offered to images of Shiva, then the temples could be covered with depictions of scenes from his ancient life. So great was the Shiva factor in Indian art forms that it almost obscures the other gods. The temples and their sculptures run riot. Khajuraho, Ellora, Elephanta, Rameshwaram, the Chola temples, the Bhuvaneshwar and Madhya Pradesh temples, and the great dancing Shiva temple at Chidambaram, it's a universe drunk on the creative energy, fertile and fecund with originality and beauty that is not as well regarded as it should be, merely because there is too much of it. If there were only one such temple in India the world would have gone mad with appreciation. As such, you can actually overdose on beauty, the Beauty that is the transcendent state of the Truth that is Shiva, expressed in the famous formulation Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram.

The mythologies surrounding Shiva are immense. It must be remembered that the Shiva story has been going on for five thousand years now and they only too obviously reflect the concerns of people at the time they were being composed. Shiva Himself is a composite god today, involving many local area gods and little tradition mythologies into his all-embracing grasp. Shiva is more or less what you want Him to be, as in Him all contradictions casually coexist. The notion of Shiva as exclusively a Wild Man of the forests and mountains, traveling with a band of ghosts and ghouls as their leader, Bhoothnath, is a recent phase of his worship. For while He was always capable of peculiar behavior, Shiva used to live outside of society not because He had rejected it but because He had transcended it. Shiva is repeatedly described as the Supreme Master of all the Arts, and that indicates a highly socialized being, the Nagarika of ancient India, not a rustic.

To those who did not understand this aspect of the lord, to those who still had on their defensive shell of sophistication and cynicism, Shiva was Bholenath, the Simpleton God. Yet, traditionally India has regarded Shiva not as any of these roles but as Vishwanatha - the Lord of the Universe. That is why in all the old temples you find him represented as a king, decked out in lordly robes with crowns and jewels. This homeless-wanderer recent incarnation of Shiva was perhaps a reflection of a culture that had lost its moorings and was reeling under alien domination.

Yet even at this much reduced level, Shiva seems to appeal the most powerfully, of all the gods of India, to the collective unconscious. Since most Goddess worshipers also acknowledge Him as the divine spouse of the Goddess, Shiva may easily have the most devotes in sheer number alone. He is laughed at as an old man by devotees with the affection that comes only with comfort. Yet in some corner of the old limbic brain he lurks, Rudra-Shiva, the old god of India, the source of the songs of the Rig Veda.

The Mahamritunjaya Yantra
Shiva does not normally have Yantras designed round him as he is to be worshipped only in the Lingam form, not in his bodily form. Yantras are symbolic representations of the Form of the Deity, but that is prohibited in the worship of Shiva. The Mahamritunjaya Yantra is however a Yantra embodying a Mantra as well as Shiva in his Vedic form as Rudra, healer and victor over death.

The Yantra is very unusual in that it has a pentacle inscribed in the center, instead of the standard six-pointed star. The pentacle has always been the mystical symbol for the secret of life even in the European mystical tradition. The apple is a sacred fruit because if sliced transversally there is a pentacle found at its heart. The Yantra has three groups of eight petals with inscribed mantras, which are further separated by concentric triple bands. This is easily one of the most powerful Yantras ever made, and of great utility in healing as well as the spiritual discipline of dissolving accumulated karma. It is also the Yantra par excellence for ensuring longevity in good health. Utilizing the Yantra along with the Mahamritunjaya mantra is the best combination that works.

Design and Significance
The outer boundary wall of the smaller size Yantras may have large liminal gaps, [they are thresholds of potential, of awareness, or transformations].In large Yantras however there is enough space to draw a convoluted outer wall with multiple layers. This keeps the liminal gaps active but also filters the energy generated by the Yantra from rushing outwards in an uncontrolled and promiscuous manner. Within each lotus-petal is a bija mantra, that contains in 'sound-seed-form' the power of a god or attribute that influences the manifestation of desirable qualities. These are highly intricate and not all well understood, but they undeniably work. Sufficient to say that almost every god with any stature in India is represented in most Yantras so worshipping or meditating with a Yantra is to worship all the gods at once. The Yantra is a micro-cosmos and it is always directly in contact with, and influencing, the macro-cosmos or larger universe outside. Hence any worship or meditation or affirmation directed towards it finds the desired outcome being easily manifested in the larger physical reality. The Yantra is a machine too, apart from being the symbolic energy body of the god, a machine to bring about transformation by focusing your intent. The Yantra should always be treated with great respect, kept in a place of honor and moved as little as possible. Ideally only one person should handle it at all times. It is recommended that some daily meditation upon the Yantra be practiced as the patterns subtly influence and transform the thought-forms of the mind gently guiding them into habits of prosperity thinking which after all is more important than merely hoping for prosperity.

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