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The Means of achieving spiritual experience - Shaivism – 02 Suppressing Memory
Identifier
022481
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
There are many ways to suppress memory but one is to question existing beliefs
A description of the experience
Alain Danielou – Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The traditions of Shiva and Dionysus
In Shivaite tradition, the god's companions are described as a troupe of freakish, adventurous, delinquent and wild young people, who prowl in the night, shouting in the storm, singing, dancing and ceaselessly playing outrageous tricks on sages and gods.
They are called Ganas, the "Vagabonds", corresponding to the Cretan Korybantes and the Celtic Korrigans (fairies'sons). Like the Sileni and Satyrs, some of them have goats' or birds' feet. The Ganas mock the rules of ethics and social order. They personify the joy of living, courage and imagination, which are all youthful values. They live in harmony with nature and oppose the destructive ambition of the city and the deceitful moralism which both hides and expresses it.
These delinquents of heaven are always there to restore true values and to assist the "god-mad" who are persecuted and mocked by the powerful. They personify everything which is feared by and displeases bourgeois society, and which is contrary to the good morale of a well-policed city and its palliative concepts………………
…. They are perpetually over-excited, jolly fellows in quest of good fortune. They are ecstatic demons for whom eroticism is a form of expression.