Rudra is one of the names of Shiva. Creation is the start of a threefold activity. It is followed by preservation of manifested forms and finally their disintegration or destruction. Each existing phenomenon is therefore going through the cycle of creation, preservation, and destruction. These three processes arc ministered by the three powers of the one Creator, who is created by none and creates all. He creates from his will the Creator (Brahma), the Preserver (Vishnu), and the Destroyer (Shiva). The three are interrelated and interdependent. Creation is the divine will, and so are preservation and destruction. Without destroying the false identity—the concept of a separate reality, the individual ego—real union is not possible. Thus Shiva makes the individual consciousness one with Cosmic Consciousness.

Rudra is the lord of the south in the phenomenal world and is the furious form of Shiva. He was known as Rudra because he took birth from the cry of the Creator, Brahma. By his grace the mortals live, enjoy the divine game, create, destroy, or pay back karmas—the physical plane or phenomenal world being the land of karma.

Shiva also means good, good for all. He is cosmic good, alchemically changing magnetic into electrical energy and sending it back to the source. This evolution of individual consciousness is completed on the plane of Rudra. Here there is only one more step to union with Cosmic Consciousness. This is the loka, where the player’s final purification takes place. This plane is beyond the manifested universe and is composed of the same element as ananda-loka, the plane of bliss.

Knowing, feeling, and doing are the three attributes of human consciousness. Knowing what? Truth. Feeling what? Beauty. And doing what? Good. For the player of the game, these three are the summum bonum of human existence. Good (being) is chit, truth is sat, beauty is ananda: satchitananda. By following the path of satyam shivam sundarum—truth, beauty, good—the player becomes satchitananda. These three aspects of consciousness are also known as bindu, bija, and nada, and they are worshipped as the three primary gods: Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra.

Doing good requires knowledge of the right. Right knowledge can lead the player to the experience of cosmic good directly from the fifth chakra. The player who reaches here offers no resistance to the flow of dharma. 1 le simply does his job, whatever the cosmic forces ask of him.

Rudra-loka is one of the three central squares of the uppermost row of the game. These spaces are the dwelling-places of the Godforces responsible for all creation, the forces with which the aspirant tries to identify. The player who seeks to identify with knowledge of the right finds himself in the abode of Shiva. Here he realizes the right, cosmic good. The essence of cosmic good is truth, while its form is beauty.