Nirvana Shatakam: Verse One

I first heard the Nirvana Shatakam at my yoga class in Pure Yoga Singapore. My teacher - Mani always played shlokas during his classes and this was always the one he started with or ended with. Most people assume that Indians know Sanskrit, sadly that is not true. Sanskrit is a complex language and while I was taught to speak, read and write Sanskrit at school, I definitely can not interpret the vedas or the meaning of the shlokas only by listening to what's being sung or narrated. The beauty however is that it is all very close to Hindi, some of the root words are the same and you can roughly judge what the verses are talking about. While that interpretation might be right sometimes, it can also be either very wrong or convey a very small essence of the entire verse. So, while I loved the melody of what was played in class and did kind of guess what is being spoken about, I knew I wasn't completely understanding it. Since it was played in the beginning of the class or at the end, I either forgot it through the duration of the class or I let it go with shavasana. Every time I heard the six fold shloka at class, I'd make a mental note to remember a few words so i could Google it later. But it never happened. 

And then one day I heard it in a theatre when I had gone to watch a play - I took out my phone and immediately noted down the verse the actor was narrating. After the play, on my journey back on the bus, I spent thirty minutes reading up the Nirvana Shatakam, where it originated from and a brief history. Since then it has not left me. I started chanting it feverishly. When I didn't remember the words, I would only hum the tune. After a while, it started playing inside of me without me realising that was happening as well - kind of like a background music to life. This was when I was going through some tough times in 2017 and maybe in a way, these verses pulled me through. I remember waking up one night, sobbing and singing the shloka to console myself and calming myself down and heading back to sleep. Of all the verses one particular verse jumped out at me - verse four. We will talk about that in further posts. 

I reckon one of the things that pulled me towards the shloka was also the end of each verse with the words "shivo'ham, shivo'ham". Shiva, the adi-yogi or the first yogi, is someone I have been fascinated with for a while now - that too is a story I will share in an upcoming post. While in it's entirety, the shloka is a whole lot more than just Shiva, for me personally it also a song that connects me to him. There's many ways to describe the nirvana shatakam, but in one line, i'd say it describes the indescribable divinity of the Atman that is one with the Universe, Brahman - the core philosophy of Advaita. It showcases how putting the Atman in a box is foolish, because you can not capture the essence of the pure Atman through a quality or a character trait or a definition - everything is too limiting, for it is after all one with the infinite, everlasting, all pervasive Brahman.  We often ascribe human values, emotions and morals to all that happens around us and to ourselves and our fellow human beings - we can not do that with the Atman, and the Nirvana Shatakam tells us how. It begins by using all the words and phrases we know, and those that we use to judge or make sense of the world, and then proceeds to tell us how all of that is useless when it comes to "define" this divine energy that resides in all of us. The Nirvana Shatakam is also called the Atma Shatakam as it defines the Atman, that is always and ever in a state of nirvana and the word shatakam simply means "six verses".

It is said that when Adi Shankracharya was 8 years old he set out from his home in Kerala, in search of his guide and Guru and came to the banks of the river Narmada. In most of his biographies (known as Shankaravijaya) it is stated that he stopped the floods of the river Narmada using his water pot, to protect his Guru - Govindappa, who was meditating in a cave nearby. When the Guru came out of meditation, he asked the eight year old child who he was? And Adi Shankracharya decided to answer in this six stanza poem.

The first verse is : 

मनो बुद्ध्यहंक- ारचित्तानि- नाहम् न च श्रोत्र जिह्वे न च घ्राण नेत्रे

न च व्योम भूमिर् न तेजॊ न वायु: चिदानन्द रूप: शिवोऽहम् शिवॊऽहम् ॥

Literal translation:

Not the mind nor the intellect, or the ego, nor any memory/recollections/thoughts 

I have no ears, no tongue, neither do I have nostril nor eyes

I am not the sky/space/ether, the earth, not fire/light or the wind

I am Shiva, the supreme consciousness and pure bliss / joy

Here Adi Shankaracharya is referring to the inner workings of human life : mind, intellect, ego and thoughts - also called the Antah-Karana - the psychological process or the complete mind - the Supreme Divine is none of these things or shells, it is beyond it. The next line, goes on to describe the Five cognitive senses - hearing, tasting, smelling, seeing and touching (Jnanendriyas). Even though the sense of touch is not explicitly mentioned in the verse, it is included in the other four senses. Neither is this great energy identified with or a part of the five energies or elements that envelop us : fire, earth, space and wind, also called the Mahabhuttas in Ayurveda - again water is an element missing in the verse. In the last line, Atman speaking for itself says - I am like the auspicious Shiva, free from impurities, like the purity of Knowledge (chit) and that of Bliss (ananda) - I am the absolute of all existence, the absolute of all knowledge and the absolute of all bliss. Adi Shankracharya is saying that one can't define the Atman in gross terms - in qualities that we use to define everything that exists in the cosmos. And he continues to dissociate from the gross qualities in Verse 2 well. 

I look upon the speaker as Shiva, Consciousness, that we see manifested in the various depictions of Shiva - he for me is the essence of the Brahman - but then that is just a very personal interpretation of this gorgeous poem. I am trying in these days to link everything back to Shiva, so forgive me if in future posts you find me trying to draw inspiration from and forge a connect to his divine energy and his state of being. The self-appeared Shiva. I'll soon enough transition to talk to the energy that even Shiva himself is incomplete without, Shakti.

Namaste