Lord Brahma - 5th head (Brahma Lied)

Brahma lied that he had seen the apex of Shiva's head -- the idea being that he had seen the "end/beginning" of Truth/Time (represented by Shiva).

The Story... Brahma at one point developed a significant ego claiming that he was the 1st of the Trimurtis and should thus be worshipped above all. In discussion with his consort Sri Lakshmi, Lord Narayana laughed and said: “It is difficult enough when one head becomes full of ego; how much more difficult would it be when all four heads of Brahmas will be filled with egotistic pride?” Narayana and Shiva decide to teach Brahma a lesson. Shiva is of the opinion that Narayana is clearly the greatest, as he has the most difficult of responsibilities (sustenance is harder [requires proactive management] than either creation or dissolution). Narayana says "I have never seen the apex of Shiva's head, so Shiva is clearly the greatest of all, as he is beyond all knowledge." To resolve the dilemma, Shiva then says, let's pose a challenge that whosoever sees the apex of my head is the greatest of the three. Brahma and Narayana accept the challenge. Brahma proceeds aggressively to locate the apex of Shiva's head. Narayana parted his way saying "As we keep going higher, Shiva's head continues to go on for eternity, there is no way that we will succeed, let us give up now and accept Shiva as the greatest of all." Brahma undeterred, proud, vain, and haughty keeps going upwards with the aim of seeing the apex; Narayana returns after parting his way, and upon prompting from Saraswati Devi, He takes a different approach. He tells Saraswati, that "in this form, even I cannot see the apex" and proceeds to take the Varaha avatar (boar) to dig into the bowels of creation to find Shiva's feet -- when he locates Shiva's feet and touches them, Shiva looks down with surprise to see who touched his feet, giving Narayana the opportunity to see the top of Shiva's head -- thus, proving the point that intellectual/egotistical efforts (like Brahma's method of trying to go "upwards" to find the top) will never lead to the ultimate knowledge, as knowledge itself keeps going on and on and on (knowledge is a limitless ocean), only self-surrender at the feet of the Lord will enable you to attain that ultimate knowledge, knowing it, all become known. Here Shiva only curses Brahma that he will never be worshipped as God because he had told a lie to win the competition -- Brahma uses falsified circumstantial evidence of the flower that fell from Shiva's head to say that he had seen the apex, with a "white lie" saying "seeing the flower which fell from his head, is equivalent to seeing the apex of his head." Thus, Shiva bans the use of this flower in his worship henceforth and curses Brahma that he will never be worshipped by humans. In some versions, Shiva cuts off Brahma's 5th head because he lied with that head. On the other hand, Shiva is profoundly astonished by Narayana's clever solution that enabled him to enact a "play within a play" in order to demonstrate this tattvam (principle) to Brahma. The story also points out that mere intellectual efforts are insufficient for attaining the Supreme; one must, like a Boar, have dogged determination and intense bhakti to seek out the feet of the Supreme Lord, to attain the goal. The moral of the story being "those who speak the Truth in all circumstances are true devathas". In this, we can also see the tattvam of how Shiva worships Narayana, and how Narayana worships Shiva.

#aquilldriver #histence #mythology #puranas #lordbrahma #shiva #vishnu #hindu #abirmaheshwari