How can we celebrate Shivaratri every night?

What does 'Shivam' mean? What is the spiritual significance of Shivaratri? Is it meant to be observed only once a year, or can its essence be celebrated every day? How can we incorporate the spirit of Shivaratri into our daily lives?

In this video, Sri Sathya Sai Answers these questions...

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Video Transcription:
What do you mean by Shivam? It means auspiciousness (Mangalam).
In the worldly sense, what is the meaning of Mangalam?
We say a person is alive if he/she is breathing (inhaling and exhaling) and it is called auspicious.
If a person cannot breathe, you call him/her a corpse.
What is the difference between Shivam and Shavam?
Shivam refers to breathing (inhaling and exhaling).
How can this become auspicious?
This inhaling and exhaling is teaching about Atman.
How is it teaching about Atman?
When you are breathing, when you are inhaling, you say ‘So’, and when you are exhaling you say ‘Ham’. ‘Soham - I am That’. So it is teaching the wisdom about ‘Soham’.
‘So’ stands for ‘That’. ‘That’ means God.
‘Aham’ stands for ‘I’.
This breathing teaches you that ‘I am God, I am God, I am God’.
So this ‘I am God’ is auspiciousness.
The moment this ‘I am God’ stops, it is inauspiciousness.
When there is breathing, there is life. When breathing stops, it becomes a corpse.

That day when you chant the name of God is Shivaratri.
Shivaratri doesn’t come once in a year.
Every night is Shivaratri.
Even if you cannot chant the name of the Lord throughout the night, at least, when you go to bed, you can chant the name of God. When you wake up, you can chant the name of God. This in itself can be called Shivaratri.
You sow a seed in the earth.
When you sow the seed, you don’t think of its positioning. You simply sow the seed, you expect it to become a tree.
Similarly, when you go on chanting the name of the Lord throughout the night, in some form or the other, it will grow into a tree and yield fruits of liberation.
A father and son went to a Shiva temple during Shivaratri.
The father asked the son to fix his vision on God, observe the chanting of the Mantras, and perform Namasmarana.
The priest, after doing Puja continuously, came out drowsy.
Father slept half of the night.
But the boy was awake.
No Puja was being conducted, no Mantras were chanted. So the boy simply sat there looking around.
And there were some Puja items in the place.
A rat came.
It repeatedly started tasting the fruits which were kept there.
This boy observed this and repeatedly started thinking that food that was meant for God was being eaten away by the rat.
This rat was going away, coming back again to take food.
With every movement of the rat, this boy was only thinking that the food kept for God was being eaten by the rat.
This boy’s life was sanctified.
The priest who performed the Puja, the leader who arranged all the items for the Puja, or the people who observed all of the Puja, did not get their lives sanctified.
What is important is the reflection about God in some or the other way.
There are other people who keep their vision on worldly things.
There was a teacher who was teaching some 5 students.
This teacher had a very old house.
This teacher was teaching several things including numbers, and mathematics.
These students were carefully listening.
There was one among them.
This boy was watching the movement of a rat coming and going.
The teacher watched the boy.
This teacher asked the boy, “Boy, I’ve been teaching you many things, have you understood them?”.
But the boy who was concentrating on the movement of the rat, replied by saying that the rat had gone inside except for its tail.
When the teacher asked the boy, “Have you understood what I have told, has it entered into your head?” The boy replied that the rat had gone inside and its tail was outside.
In this way, different people will have different thoughts.
Even in spirituality, people will have different thoughts inside them.
Whatever feelings you may get, one must fix one’s concentration on the love of God.
Develop love in you.
Directing love towards God is Bhakti.
Directing it towards the world is attachment.
There is a lot of difference between attachment and love.
Without diverting your love towards God, you may turn it towards anyone else, and anything else will be termed as attachment only.
If you want to destroy your infatuation, turn your love towards God.
That is true devotion.