According to the Shiva Purana, Daksha-Prajapati sought worthy grooms for his many daughters, men of substance, gods who helped life on earth, like Indra, the rain-god or Agni, the fire-god.
He was quite horrified therefore when his youngest daughter, Sati, of her own free will, chose a hermit as a husband, a naked, ashsmeared ascetic called Shiva who had dogs and ghosts as his companions and who lived atop a snow-clad mountain. Upset that his daughter had married against his will, and that too to a person so unconventional, he broke all relations with her. When he decided to perform a grand yagna, he invited all his daughters and sons-inlaw to the ceremony, but not Shiva and Sati.
Many of us in the corporate world are Daksha-Prajapatis , who in our eagerness to create collaborative working environments that work towards the corporate goal, include in our teams only appropriate grooms, people whose energies match ours and who align to our way of working. We do not willingly let in a Shiva, the maverick, the one who thinks differently, who seems condescending.
Daksha-Prajapati rejected Shiva because he did not fit his definition of a god. Shiva can easily be misunderstood for a contrarian, a rebel , someone who thinks he is too good to align with an existing way of being. The fact is, a Shiva simply marches to the beat of a different drummer. When he walks around smeared with ash, he is not mocking the gold-bedecked , silk-clad Shri Vishnu. He is indifferent to worldly parameters of appropriateness.
When Daksha-Prajapati refused to invite Shiva to his yagna, Sati flew into such a rage that she burnt herself to death in protest and disrupted the entire ceremony. Daksha-Prajpati and his guests saw the fury and power of Shiva. An uneasy peace was finally restored, with Daksha-Prajapati begging for forgiveness and Shiva withdrawing into his cave.
It is only in crisis that the value of a Shiva is realised. Crisis emerges when conventional ways of working fail to deliver. When problems turn out to be out of the ordinary, we need unconventional thinking: we need a Shiva. A Shiva is the kind of person who can bring a fresh perspective!!
