28 January 2015 - QA 4

Gurudev, I am quite fascinated with the Ardhanareshwar (a composite form of the Hindu God Shiva and his companion Parvati) concept in India. Please explain this.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Each one of you is made up of both the mother and the father element. It is through the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg that you come into existence. So in you there is half father and half mother, or half male and half female. That is what is Ardhanareshwar.

The whole universe is the manifested and the hidden, together. It is the body and mind, together. It is the seen and the unseen, together. It is masculine and feminine, together. This makes it complete. Inside you there is both mother’s DNA and father’s DNA. It doesn’t matter whether your body is male or female.