Shiva's Caste || Acharya Prashant (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Death does not bound me, fear does not affect me, caste and its distinctions.

00:11caste is not for me and here we have an entire national debate around the caste of Shiv.

00:29Juliana Hathaway has been listening to you since quite some years now

00:34and she has been very regular with what all happens in the social spiritual domain in India

00:40and she went through the recent statements by the vice chancellor of JNU on Shiva's caste

00:47so she just sent me a query on the same that what is really meant by Shiva's caste

00:53can you please throw some light on it

00:55Juliana of course she has been a student of Vedanta since long

01:07till a few years back she used to attend the Upanishad sessions all the way from Europe

01:16so I'm glad she has made this inquiry into Shiva's caste

01:26Shiva's caste

01:30so how do we proceed it's a pretty unusual topic for me to deal with

01:39would you google for Nirvana Shatkan by Acharya Shankar and give it to me

01:44sure

01:54neither am I the mind nor intelligence or ego neither am I the organs of hearing ears that is

02:03nor the tongue the nose the eyes I am none of these I am not the sky I am not the earth I am

02:10not the fire I am not the air I am Shiva I am Shiva I am Shiva I am pure auspiciousness

02:25pure consciousness pure anand unadulterated bliss that's who Shiva is so I am not the

02:37nose I am not the eyes I am not the tongue not even the mind or the intellect

02:44then how can I be a body and if I cannot be a body then how can I have a caste

02:54I do not know how people are talking of Shiva's caste

03:01hmm Shiva cannot have a caste Shiva is not a body but we are so deeply identified with the body

03:15that we want to look at even Shiva in bodily terms and when you look at somebody in bodily

03:26terms then obviously you want to give that body that person a gender an identity a past a history

03:34you also want to think of that person's parents and birth and death and caste so it is because of

03:44our own body identification that we start thinking of even the highest as bodily whereas

03:52the great teacher here is very clearly telling us that Shiva is the one

04:02who has nothing bodily about himself the highest consciousness that is what is referred to as

04:12Shiva nothing bodily nothing material nothing that you can think of nothing that you can

04:19give a shape or form to where is the question of caste when there is

04:27not even a body in the first place how can there be caste let's see what more does

04:36Shankaracharya say Adi Shankaracharya I am not the vital breath I am not the five vital air

04:46I am not the ingredients the seven ingredients of the body I am not the five sheets of the body

04:53I am not the organ of speech not the organ of hand

05:02I am not the feet I am not the organ of excretion I am just Shiva

05:16so everything bodily is being discounted right actually there is a nice history to this

05:28little poem in six stanzas so Acharya Shankar goes to his teacher and is asked to introduce himself

05:45and he introduces himself in this way he says my real identity is not at all related to the body

05:53the body is just a product of prakriti and I am consciousness so how do I introduce myself

05:59in prakritic terms so you know Shiva is not an idea Shiva is not a figment of your imagination

06:09Shiva is not someone you can refer to in such loose terms Shiva is not someone you can think of

06:21as belonging to the same kinds of

06:33origins as a normal usual human being does but because we are bodily corporal

06:46our ego does not allow us to admit that there can be anything beyond who we are and that's

06:53what Juliana is also the cause of all human suffering right go back to your Vedant lessons

07:03this is Vedant 101 body identification is the root cause of all human suffering remember that

07:10so that's the reason why the young Shankar introduces himself to his teacher

07:21in these terms this is all that can be material or bodily or sensual

07:30or related to time space form mentation ideation that I am not

07:37it's a poem in negation in the great tradition of the Upanishads the tradition of neti neti

07:44negate negate negate once you have negated everything what is left is Shiva and that's

07:49who I am Shivoham Shivoham then I don't have hatred I have no attachment I have no greed

07:59infatuation I have no passion or feelings of envy and jealousy why because they are all related to

08:05the body when I am not even the body how can I have these feelings and such things so all these

08:13products of the glands all these things of the hormones I don't identify with I am clearly

08:20negating them I'm not even bounded by morality or righteousness earth or calm which is

08:33possessions and desires and I'm not someone who is in any kind of bondage because all that

08:44belongs to the domain of physical nature that's where all the bondages are my true identity is

08:49beyond all limitations and bondages that's who I am and that's how I am Shiva Shivoham Shivoham

09:01Shivoham Shivoham Shiv is another name for the highest truth that Vidhan has to teach us Atma

09:12and Atma is another name for Brahm and both of these are synonyms of truth or Satya

09:18Shiv is Satya Satyam Shivam Sundaram so Shiv is Atma that's why Acharya Shankar here is saying

09:26I am I am I am Shiv so Atma is who you are Atma means the self so the self is Shiv

09:38so Shiv is Self Shiv is Atma and Atma is Brahm Brahm is Satya Shiv is Satya

09:46therefore Satyam Shivam Sundaram and there is such great beauty when you realize and articulate it

09:55thus then

10:02I'm not bound by Punya or Paap, virtue and vice, merits and sins

10:09worldly pleasures and sorrows do not confine me or attract me or are too important to me

10:15Mantras, Teerthas, Shastra, Yagya

10:27the sacred verses, the sacred places, the sacred scriptures, the sacred sacrifices

10:34all these are for the ones who are products of Prakriti and are therefore

10:40in great slavery, in deep bondage, so therefore they need all these means of

10:47liberation, none of these are for me, I am already liberated, I am Shiv, that's who Shiv is

10:54and here we are trying to assign a caste to Shiv, can we be more ignorant than that and

11:03and

11:06it interests me, it's highly intriguing such a thing is coming from

11:16a person at a very high place in an established university setup

11:26so yeah

11:28death does not bound me, fear does not affect me, caste and its distinctions are not for me

11:49caste is not for me and here we have an entire national debate

11:53around the caste of Shiv and the debate has spilled over to Europe

12:05to our Juliana and she's feeling interested, Acharyaji tell me about Shiva's caste and here

12:15one of the greatest teachers India has had, the world has had is teaching us

12:19I am not a body, how can I be affected by the fear of obliteration or death, reduction, annihilation

12:34none of these thoughts are for me, any kind of distinction, not necessarily related only to caste

12:42any kind of distinction, gender, economic class, young, old, thought, ideology, shape, size, whatsoever

12:55you can think of as a criteria for distinction is simply inapplicable to me, that's who I am

13:02Shivoham, Shivoham, no caste for Shiva because no body for Shiva, bodies are for us ignorant people

13:13who do not know who they are, Vedanta is all about knowing who you are in the first place, right

13:21so I am without any variation, I am without any distinctions, all this diversity does not

13:29hold any meaning to me and I am without any form, I am present everywhere as the underlying

13:40substratum of everything, I am not perceptible through any sense organ because I am beyond

13:50all sense organs, I am beyond all sense organs, that's who I am Shivoham, Shivoham

13:57I do not get attached to anything nor do I ever get freed from anything

14:04I am Shiva, the supreme auspiciousness, pure consciousness, absolutely auspicious

14:17Anandith ever

14:21Chidananda Rupa

14:27We have brought down the highest to the level where we stand, that's how the

14:38good old primitive ego functions, no, it does not want to rise, it does not want to leave its

14:45own place, instead it brings down the highest possible, it drags it down

14:51to its own level and then claims that there exists nothing called the highest

14:57what kind of self-destructive thought and behavior is this

15:05but then that's what the ego is

15:09but Acharya ji, just as we are the ego, it wants to get identified with something or the other and

15:18caste is one way of doing that and here in Nirvana Shatakam, he is again and again negating all the

15:25identities that one can have, but maybe even the master or the teacher knows in some way that the

15:32ego wants to stick to something or the other, so the other identity in some way that he has given

15:38is Shivoham, Shivoham, because you want to have a word to hold, if the ego does not get

15:48something to hold on to, it starts feeling lonely, it starts feeling suffocated and empty, therefore

15:56a particular auspicious word was coined Shiva, you could as well say that my statement

16:04stops at negation, I'm negating and that's it

16:11I'm not the body, I'm not the sense organs, I'm not wise, I'm not virtue, I'm not happiness, I'm not sorrow

16:19I'm not bondage, I'm not liberation and I'll stop at that, I don't need to say anything

16:24beyond that, but then that won't suffice for most people because we look for positive

16:30affirmations, we say if I'm not all this, then do I not exist at all, give me some name at least

16:40something that I can live with, else I'll feel that I do not exist at all, so

16:46Shivoham, I am Shiva, but remember the negation comes first, the negation comes first

17:00and once all the nonsense has been negated, then you can say that the pure emptiness,

17:07the clean nothingness that remains is Shiv, do not try to

17:14color the name Shiv with your imaginations

17:22but even in that statement or even like the way Shiv has been quoted or even in the popular

17:30culture, the way he is termed as a yogi or a person, so he's always personified

17:37but what you are saying is something not really confined to a body, any personification of Shiv

17:45is not good, not proper, but then personifications are needed because the common man cannot live

17:55without that personification, the common man is so strongly tied to his sense of body and his

18:03usual sense of identity that he needs a picture, an image in front of him, so that's the reason

18:13why you have that popular image of Shiv but that image must be remembered as

18:25an approximation, it is an image and it must be known as an image, it is not the real thing

18:33the real thing is so vast that it cannot be captured in an image

18:40so all the story and the myth that you have around the name of Shiv, I'm saying it has to

18:54be understood as exactly that, it is a story, it is a good story, probably even a great story

19:01it's a useful story if understood rightly but it's a story, the Shiv

19:12truth is formless beyond imagination, beyond picturization, beyond fictionalization

19:24you cannot weave a lot of stories that there is Shiv, there is the family of Shiv, no no no no

19:32please, if you go to the highest scriptures that the Sanatan tradition has had, Shiv is simply

19:41the name for formless, imageless, birthless, deathless, companyless, non-dual truth

20:03that's who Shiv is, all else is just story making, those stories can be useful

20:12if seen in perspective, if understood in the light of Vedanta, otherwise those stories

20:20can be very very harmful and I will say that India has been deeply harmed by those stories

20:29because we have ignored Vedanta and indulged ourselves more with stories and that does not help

20:41anybody, it has not helped us at all, so be very cautious when you find

20:51storytelling going on in the name of Shiv, somebody talking of Shiva's parents, somebody

21:00talking of this and that, human emotions, human thoughts, human actions, human intentions they are

21:11for humans, they are not for Atma, they are not for pure self, they are not for pure consciousness

21:21so let's not desecrate the highest with our lowly or at best mediocre selves, let's be very careful

21:36when we utter the word Shiv, it must be with the highest degree of understanding and responsibility

21:43and only then can there be the kind of surrender that uplifts the self,

21:51the ego self that is, one has to be very careful

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