In the yogic tradition, Shiva is not worshipped as a God but is seen as Adiyogi - the first yogi, and as the Adi Guru, the first Guru from whom the yogic sciences originated. When Shiva imparted yoga, he spoke different languages which have bred lots of confusion in people’s minds as to which is which.
His first disciple was Parvati, his wife. When he wanted to impart enlightenment to her, he taught yoga in one way. Parvati asked Shiva, "What is the way?" She was eager to learn and she sat before him like a disciple - she wanted to do complex processes. He laughed at her and said, “Leave all that. You just come and sit on my lap.”
This may sound like a man's trick to get a woman onto his lap, but he did not just take her in his lap, he made her a part of himself. If you have to make someone a part of yourself, you must shed a part of yourself, otherwise it will not happen.
You cannot stay intact and make someone a part of yourself. So Shiva made Parvati a part of himself, and she attained. But when the seven disciples who are today celebrated as the Saptarishis came, Shiva spoke as if the ultimate truth was a million miles away. Intricate practices and various types of sadhana, a whole phenomenon was revealed.
When Shiva’s close friends - the ganas - came, he neither asked them to sit in his lap nor did he teach them sadhana. He just told them, "Let us just drink together." They drank and became so intoxicated that they just danced and lived together, and that was the yoga. The same teacher, on one level, is saying that there is no distance between you and truth, "It is right here, just sit in my lap, that's it."
To another set of people, he is speaking as if truth is a million miles away. With somebody else he is offering socially unacceptable spirituality. So when Shiva imparted yoga, he spoke different languages because yoga never addresses the Ultimate, yoga only addresses the person who is sitting here now.
Because God need not be addressed. It is you who needs to be addressed because it is you who has the problem. It is you who has the possibility of making every simple aspect of your life into great misery or great joy both are possible.
With just a small twist, the same actions can make a huge difference in your experience. Whatever you consider as a very wonderful love affair, if you bring a little bit of unwillingness into you, it becomes a horrible rape. So it is you who needs to be addressed, not the Ultimate.
That is why you do not have to look up, you just have to look inwards. Yoga is a process and a system to enhance the human being in an overall way and to manipulate one's energies so that individual human beings can find their highest possible potential within themselves. In is the only way out.
(The writer is a yogi, mystic, visionary and a bestselling author. He was conferred the Padma Vibhushan in 2017. He can be reached at Isha.sadhguru.org)