On Shiva: Why I Chant Har Har Mahadev Before Every Workout

My dear Avyaansh,

Before every workout — every single one, without exception — I close my eyes, press my palms together, and say three words: Har Har Mahadev. I have done this for years. In Navy gyms. On ship decks in the middle of the ocean. In parks at five in the morning when the world was still sleeping. In our living room when the only equipment I had was the floor and my own bodyweight.

I want to tell you why. Not to convert you to anything. Not to lecture you about religion. Your relationship with God — whatever form that takes, whatever name you use, or even if you choose no name at all — is between you and the infinite. I will never force that. But I owe you the truth about what Mahadev means to me, because it is woven into everything I am.

I did not grow up especially devout. We were a Hindu family in a small town, which meant we went to the temple on festivals, said our prayers before exams, and did not think much about it the rest of the time. God was a cultural habit, not a personal relationship. I carried that casual faith into the Navy, where it mostly collected dust.

Then something happened. I cannot point to a single moment — it was more like a tide coming in. Slowly. Over years. The more I trained my body, the more I became aware of something beyond the body. The more I pushed against my physical limits, the more I felt a presence at those limits that was not me. A stillness beneath the shaking. A calm beneath the pain. Something holding me up when my strength ran out.

I started reading about Shiva. Not the calendar art Shiva with the blue skin and the trident, though I love that image. The philosophical Shiva. The destroyer and the creator. The god who sits in meditation on a mountain, unmoved by the chaos of the universe, and yet dances the Tandava that creates and destroys worlds. The god who wears ashes on his body — a reminder that everything returns to dust — and yet represents the most alive, most vital energy in existence.

That paradox captured me, Avyaansh. A god who is perfectly still and infinitely powerful. A god who destroys not to harm but to make space for new creation. A god who lives in cremation grounds, who embraces what others find terrifying, who turns poison into a blue throat and keeps going.

Shiva taught me that destruction and creation are the same act. That every ending is a beginning wearing a different face. When my Navy career ended, I was devastated. But that destruction made space for everything I am building now. The ashes of the old life became the soil for the new one.

When I chant Har Har Mahadev before training, something changes. I cannot explain it in scientific terms, and I will not try. Something in my chest opens. Something in my mind quiets. The ego — the part of me that wants to show off, that trains for the mirror, that cares about what others think — that part steps back. And what remains is cleaner. Simpler. Truer. I train not to impress anyone, but as an offering. The sweat becomes sacred. The effort becomes prayer.

There is a book I read years ago called Power vs Force. It changed how I think about strength. The author writes about how real power — the kind that moves mountains — comes not from aggression or domination but from love, truth, and positive energy. Force is loud and temporary. Power is quiet and permanent. Every time I chant before training, I am choosing power over force. I am grounding myself in something larger than my own ambition.

I have felt Mahadev's presence in the strangest moments. In the Navy, standing watch at two in the morning, when the sea was so dark it merged with the sky and I felt like I was floating in infinite space — He was there. In my worst month as a civilian, when I stood on the balcony and felt the floor falling away — He was there. In the hospital when you were born and I held you for the first time and the world cracked open with a joy I did not know existed — He was there.

Temples call us, Avyaansh. That is something I believe with every cell. When you are ready — truly ready, not performing readiness for someone else — the call comes. It does not shout. It whispers. And if you are quiet enough, if you have trained yourself to listen beneath the noise of the world, you will hear it. The call came to me slowly, over years of training and failing and starting over. It came not when I was looking for God but when I stopped looking and simply lived with honesty and discipline and an open heart.

Spirituality is not weakness. It is the oldest form of strength. The strongest men I have known — the ones who were calm in chaos, steady in crisis, generous in victory — all had something they answered to that was bigger than themselves. Call it God. Call it the universe. Call it the silence beneath everything. Whatever you call it, make space for it in your life.

I do not need you to chant what I chant or believe what I believe. I need you to know that there is something beyond the visible world, and connecting to it is not a retreat from strength — it is the source of it. Your father, the Marine who does backflips and trains in the cold and built a platform from nothing — that man begins every single day with his palms pressed together and three words on his lips.

Har Har Mahadev. It means: every name is the name of God. Everyone is Shiva. You are Shiva. I am Shiva. The universe is Shiva. And in that recognition, there is a power that no amount of physical training, financial success, or technical skill can match.

Find your anchor, Avyaansh. It does not have to be mine. But find one. And hold on to it when the storms come. They always come. And the anchor always holds.

— Your Dad

Har Har Mahadev 🔱