The Poison of Worldly Existence

In Indian mythology, the Devas are the beings of light who dwell in Swarga, their sky palace in heaven, and the Asuras are the beings of darkness who dwell in Pataloka under the earth. There is constant conflict between them. The Asuras hoard the gold, silver and jewels buried in the earth, and the Devas are always trying to draw out the precious metals and jewels. Just because the Devas are sky-dwellers doesn't make them better than the Asuras. Both are greedy, selfish and arrogant. 

The mediator between them is Maha Yogi, Lord Shiva, who is impartial, favoring neither one over the other. He is the god to both, and accepts both with forbearance toward their faults.  He grants boons to both factions when they perform acts of austerity to win his attention and favor.  However, both Devas and Asuras perfom their austerities to win boons of personal power and wealth.  Rarely ever do they request boons that benefit others or the earth and its inhabitants.  In fact, their wars harm the earth, animals, plants and human beings - often the hapless victims of their conflicts. Lord Shiva rarely ever punishes them - he gives them freedom to learn from their own mistakes.  Even though they keep making the same mistakes over and over, Shiva is infinitely patient with them.

Sometimes the Asuras take over Swarga, the abode of the Devas. Sometimes the Devas lose everything they have, including their weapons and their wives, whom they abandon to the Asuras. Ultimately, the Asuras themselves lose Swarga due to their arrogance, their pride and selfishness. 

One time the Devas and Asuras came together in a great enterprise - they decided to churn the Milky Ocean to extract the Nectar of Immortality.  Lord Vishnu changed himself into a huge tortoise, and set the great mountain Mandara upon his back to form the churning rod. The great serpent Vasuki was wrapped around the mountain and the Asuras took Vasuki's head and the Devas took the tail and began to churn the ocean.  The first thing extracted was Halahala, the terrible blue poison that would have annihilated the universe except that Lord Shiva graciously drew himself out of his meditation to catch it and swallow it. With his yogic powers he neutralized the poison and saved the universe from calamity.  It turned his throat blue, which is why he is sometimes called Neelakantha (the blue-throated One) or Shreekantha (the beautiful-throated One). 

They kept churning and began to extract wonderful things which appeared out of the Ocean: the magnificent Elephant Airavata was claimed by the King of the Devas as his vehicle; the horse Ucchaisravas was claimed by the king of the Asuras, Vishnu claimed the Goddess of Wealth, the Rishis obtained the Wish-fulfilling Cow, the Wish-fulfilling Tree and Wish-fulfilling Gem.  Only Lord Shiva, the Great Yogi, took that which no one else wanted, the terrible poison. In the end they fought over the Nectar and much of it spilled out. The Devas managed to drink it and tricked the Asuras out of their share. Lord Shiva maintained the balance of power by giving the Asura guru the power to restore life to the dead. The conflict goes ever on.

This is a story about Yoga.  Churning the Ocean is a reference to the hard work of yoga practice. At first it seems like no progress is made, or sometimes we feel like yoga ruins our life (see video).  

If you keep churning, keep practicing yoga, great things come into our life, including the ability to swallow poison and turn it into a blessing. 

That's why the Ashtanga mantra reminds us: 

I honor the teacher
the one who shows us the way to the highest good,
awakening the pure bliss of the Self.
The teacher is like the jungle doctor 
who removes the poison (halahala) of worldly existence.

That's why we practice yoga. As my teacher Pattabhi Jois once said, "to have both a great life in this world but also spiritual liberation."