Shiva's Caste
Questioner: Acharya Ji, Juliana Hathovic has been listening to you for quite some years now and she has been very regular with what happens in the socio-spiritual domain in India.
She went through the recent statements by the Vice-chancellor of JNU on Shiva's caste. She just sent me a query on the same, what is really meant by Shiva’s caste? Can you please throw some light on it?
Acharya Prashant: Juliana, Of course, she has been a student of Vedant for long.
Till a few years back, she used to attend the Upanishad sessions all the way from Europe.
So I'm glad that she has made this inquiry into Shiva's caste. Shiva’s caste, (Laughter)
So how do we proceed? It's a pretty unusual topic for me to deal with. Would you google Nirvana Shatakam by Acharya Shankar and give it to me? {Stanza 1}
Neither am I the mind nor intelligence or ego, Neither am I the organs of hearing (ears) nor that of tasting (tongue), smelling (nose), or seeing (eyes), Neither am I the sky, nor the earth, neither the fire nor the air, I am Shiva, the supreme auspiciousness of the nature of consciousness-bliss.
I am (Shiva) pure auspiciousness.
Acharya Prashant: Neither am I the mind nor intelligence or ego, Neither am I the organs of hearing (ears) that is, nor the tongue (tongue), the nose, the eyes, none of these, I am not the sky, nor the earth, neither the fire nor the air, I am Shiva, I am Shiva, the supreme auspiciousness of the nature of consciousness-bliss. I am (Shiva) pure auspiciousness.
Cidānanda rūpaḥ Śivōhaṃ Śivōhaṃ
Shiva is pure consciousness, pure ananda, unadulterated bliss, that's who Shiva is. So I am not the nose, I am not the eyes, I'm not the tongue, not even the mind or the intellect, then how can I be a body? And if I cannot be a body, then how can I have a caste? I do not know how people are talking about Shiva's caste. Shiva cannot have a caste.
Shiva is not a body, but we are so deeply identified with the body, that we want to look at even Shiv in bodily terms and when you look at somebody in bodily terms, then obviously, you want to give that body, that person, a gender, an identity, a past, a history, you also want to think of that person's parents and birth and death and caste.
So it is because of our own body identification that we start thinking of even the highest as bodily. Whereas, the great teacher here is very clearly telling us that Shiv is the one who has nothing bodily about himself. The highest consciousness is what is referred to as Shiva. Nothing bodily, nothing material, nothing that you can think of, nothing that you can give a shape or form to. Where is the question of caste, when there is not even a body in the first place? How can there be caste?
Let's see what more does Adi Shankaracharya say,
{Stanza 2}
Neither am I the vital breath, nor the five vital air, Neither am I the seven ingredients (of the body), nor the five sheaths (of the body), Neither am I the organ of speech, nor the organs for holding (hand), movement (feet), or excretion, I am the ever pure blissful consciousness; I am Shiva, I am Shiva, The ever pure blissful consciousness.
Acharya Prashant: I'm not the vital breath, I am not the five vital airs, I'm not the seven ingredients of the body, I'm not the five sheaths of the body, I am not the organ of speech, not the organ of hand, I am not the feet, I am not the organ of excretion, I am just Shiv.
Cidānanda rūpaḥ Śivōhaṃ Śivōhaṃ
So everything bodily is being discounted, right? Actually, there is a nice history to this little poem in six stanzas. So, Achara Shankar goes to his teacher and is asked to introduce himself and he introduces himself in this way; he says, “My real identity is not at all related to the body, the body is just a product of Prakriti and I am consciousness, so how do I introduce myself in Prakritik terms?’ So, you know, Shiv is not an idea, Shiv is not a fragment of your imagination. Shiv is not someone you can refer to in such loose terms. Shiv is not someone you can think of, as belonging to the same kinds of origins as a normal, usual human being does.
But because we are bodily, corporal, our ego does not allow us to admit that there can be anything beyond who we are. And that's why Juliana, is also the cause of all human suffering, right? Go back to your vedant lessons, this is vedant 101, body identification is the root cause of all human suffering, remember that? So that's the reason why the young Shankar introduces himself to his teacher in these terms.
He says all that can be material or bodily or sensual or related to time, space, form, mentation, ideation, that I am not. It's a poem in negation, in the great tradition of the Upanishads, the tradition of neti neti. Negate negate negate, once you have negated everything, what is left is Shiva and that's who I am, Śivōhaṃ Śivōhaṃ.
{Stanza 3}
Neither do I have hatred, nor attachment, neither greed nor infatuation, Neither do I have passion, nor feelings of envy and jealousy, I am not within the bounds of dharma (righteousness), artha (wealth), kama (desire) and moksha (liberation) (the four purusharthas of life), I am Shiva, the supreme auspiciousness of the nature of consciousness-bliss. I am (Shiva) the auspiciousness.
Acharya Prashant: Then, I don't have hatred, I have no attachment, I have no greed, infatuation. I have no passion or feelings of envy and jealousy, why? Because they are all related to the body, when I am not even the body, how can I have these feelings and such things? So all these products of the glands, all these things of the hormones, I don't identify with. I am clearly negating them.
I am not even bound by morality or righteousness. Artha or Kaama, which is possessions and desires and I'm not someone who is in any kind of bondage because all that belongs to the domain of physical nature, that's where all the bondages are. My true identity is beyond all limitations and bondages, that's who I am and that's how I am Shiva. Śivōhaṃ Śivōhaṃ Śivōhaṃ Śivōhaṃ.
Shiv is another name for the highest Truth that Vedant has to teach us, Aatma and Aatma is another name for Brahman and both of these are synonyms of Truth or Satya. Shiv is Sathya.
Sathyam Shivam Sundaram.
Shiv is Aatma, That's why Acharya Shankar here is saying,” I am Shiv.”
Aatm is who you are, Aatm means the Self. So the Self is Shiv.
So, Shiv is Self, Shiv is Aatm and Aatm is Brahman, and Brahman in Sathya, Shiv is Sathya, Therefore, Sathyam Shivam Sundaram.
And there is such great beauty when you realize and articulate it thus.
{Stanza 4}
Neither am I bound by merits nor sins, neither by worldly joys nor by sorrows, Neither am I bound by sacred hymns nor by sacred places, neither by sacred scriptures nor by sacrifices, I am neither enjoyment (experience), nor an object to be enjoyed (experienced), nor the enjoyer (experiencer), I am Shiva, the supreme auspiciousness of the nature of consciousness-bliss. I am (Shiva) the auspiciousness.
Acharya Prashant: I'm not bound by punya or paap, virtue, and vice, merits and sins. Worldly pleasures and sorrows do not confine me or attract me or are too important to me. Mantras, Teerthas, Shasthras, Yagnas- the sacred verses, the sacred places, the sacred scriptures, the sacred sacrifices, all these are for the ones who are products of Prakriti and are therefore in great slavery, in deep bondage so, therefore, they need all these means of liberation. None of these are for me, I am already liberated, I am Shiv.
That's who Shiv is and here we are trying to assign a caste to Shiv. Can we be more ignorant than that? And it interests me, it's highly intriguing, that such a thing is coming from a person at a very high place in an established university setup.
{Stanza 5}
Neither am I bound by death and its fear, nor by the rules of caste and its distinctions, Neither do I have father and mother, nor do I have birth, Neither do I have relations nor friends, neither spiritual teacher nor disciple, I am Shiva, the supreme auspiciousness of the nature of consciousness-bliss. I am (Shiva) the auspiciousness.
Acharya Prashant: Death does not bind me, fear does not affect me, caste and its distinctions are not for me.
na mṛtyurna śaṅkā na me jātibhedaḥ na mrityurna shanka na me jatibhedah
na me jātibhedaḥ, na me jātibhedaḥ, na me jātibhedaḥ (laughter) caste is not for me and here we have an entire national debate around the caste of Shiv and the debate has spilled over to Europe, to our Juliana and she is feeling interested ‘Acharya ji, Tell me about Shiva’s caste.’ And here, one of the greatest teachers India had, the world has had, is teaching us na me jātibhedaḥ, na me mṛtyurna śaṅkā , I'm not a body, how can I be affected by the fear of obliteration or death, reduction, annihilation none of these thoughts are for me.
Any kind of distinction not necessarily related only to caste, any kind of distinction, gender, economic class, young, old, thought, ideology, shape, size, whatsoever you can think of as a criterion for distinction, is simply inapplicable to me. That's who I am, Śivōhaṃ Śivōhaṃ. No caste for Shiva because no body for Shiva.
Bodies are for us ignorant people, who do not know who they are. Vedant is all about knowing who you are in the first place, right?
{Stanza 6}
I am without any variation, and without any form, I am present everywhere as the underlying substratum of everything, and behind all sense organs, Neither do I get attached to anything, nor get freed from anything, I am Shiva, the supreme auspiciousness of the nature of consciousness-bliss. I am (Shiva) the auspiciousness.
Acharya Prashant: I'm without any variation, I'm without any distinctions, all this diversity does not hold any meaning to me. I'm without any form, I am present everywhere as the underlying substratum of everything. I am not perceptible through any sense organ because I am beyond all sense organs. I am beyond all sense organs, that's who I am Śivōhaṃ Śivōhaṃ.
I do not get attached to anything nor do I ever get freed from anything. I am Shiva, the supreme auspiciousness, pure consciousness, absolutely auspicious. Aandith ever, Cidānanda rūpaḥ . You know, we have brought down the highest to the level where we stand, that's how the good old primitive ego functions. It does not want to rise, it does not want to leave its own place, instead, it brings down the highest possible, drags it down to its own level, and then claims that there exists nothing called the highest. What kind of self-destructive thought and behavior is this? But then that's what the ego is.
Questioner: Acharya ji, just as we are, the ego wants to get identified with something or the other and caste is one way of doing that. And here in Nirvana Shatakam, he's again and again negating all the identities that one can have but maybe even the master or the teacher knows in some way that the ego wants to stick to something or the other, so the other identity in some way that he has given is, Śivōhaṃ Śivōhaṃ.
Acharya Prashant: Because you want to have a word to hold, if the ego does not get something to hold on to, it starts feeling lonely, it starts feeling suffocated and empty. Therefore, a particular auspicious word was coined, “Shiv,” “Shiva.” You could as well say that my statement stops at negation, I'm negating and that's it. I'm not the body, I'm not the sense organs. I'm not vice, I'm not a virtue. I'm not happiness, I'm not sorrow. I'm not bondage, I'm not liberation. And I'll stop at that, I don't need to say anything beyond that, right? But then that won't suffice for most people, because we look for positive affirmations, we say, ‘If I'm not all this, then do I not exist at all? Give me, give me some name at least.’ right? Something that I can live with, or else I'll feel that I do not exist at all. So Śivōhaṃ, I am Shiva.
But remember the negation comes first, the negation comes first and once all the nonsense has been negated, then you can say that the pure emptiness, the clean nothingness that remains is Shiv, right? Do not try to color the name Shiv with your imagination.
Questioner: But even in that statement or even like the way Shiv has been quoted or even in the popular culture, the way he is, you know, termed as a yogi or a person. So he's always personified but what you are saying is something not really confined to a body.
Acharya Prashant: Any personification of Shiv is not good, not proper, right? But then, personifications are needed because the common man cannot live without that personification. The common man is so strongly tied to his sense of body and his usual sense of identity, that he needs a picture and image in front of him. So, that's the reason why you have that popular image of Shiv but that image must be remembered as an approximation, right?
It is an image and it must be known as an image, it is not the real thing. The real thing is so vast that it cannot be captured in an image, right? So, all the story and the myth that you have around the name of Shiv, I am saying it has to be understood as exactly that, it is a story, it is a good story, probably, even a great story. It's a useful story, if understood rightly but it's a story. The Shiv, Truth, is formless, beyond imagination, beyond picturization, beyond fictionalization. You cannot weave a lot of stories that there is Shiv, there is the family of Shiv, no no no no, please.
If you go to the highest scriptures that the Sanatana tradition has had, Shiv is simply the name for formless, imageless, birthless, deathless, company-less, non-dual truth, that's who Shiv is. All else is just story making, those stories can be useful if seen in perspective, if understood in the light of Vedanta, otherwise, those stories can be very very harmful and I will say that India has been deeply harmed by those stories because we have ignored Vedanta and indulged ourselves more with stories and that does not help anybody. It has not helped us at all.
So, be very cautious when you find storytelling going on in the name of Shiv. Somebody talking of Shiva's parents, somebody talking of this and that, human emotions, human thoughts, human actions, human intentions they are for humans, they are not for Aatma, they are not for pure Self, they are not for pure Consciousness.
So let's not desecrate the highest with our lowly or at best mediocre selves, right? Let's be very careful. When we utter the word, Shiv, it must be with the highest degree of understanding and responsibility and only then can there be the kind of surrender that uplifts the self, the ego self that is, right? One has to be very careful.
