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VEDANTA
being is spirituality and bliss. I am Siva, the ever peaceful, perfect being.
“For me there is no death, no lear, no distinction of caste. I have no father, mother, birth, relatives, or friends. For me there is neither teacher nor pupil. I am Śiva ('the peaceful One'), whose form (rūpa) is spirituality and bliss." 238
"I am ncither male nor female, nor am I sexless. I am the Peaceful Onc, wliose form is self-effulgent, powerful radiance. I am neither a child, a young man, nor an ancient; nor am I of any caste. I do not belong to one of the four life-stages.239 I am the Blessed-Peaceful One, who is the only Cause of the origin and dissolution of the world.” 240
The grandiose monotony of these stanzas (to be repeated silently, relentlessly, in the solitary hours of meditation, as aids to the serious intent to break past the barriers of judgment; not to be read, sensitively, from some anthology) functions as a conscious, intentional challenge, directed against skepticism and worldly logic. Such a holy megalomania goes past the bounds of sense. With Sankara, the grandeur of the supreme human experience becomes intellectualized and reveals its inhuman sterility. The stanzas are to be memorized and meditated upon; one is to become imbued with the attitude that they instill. Their mind-destroying paradox, boldly stated, endlessly repeated, is an instrument of guidance to the distant shore of transcendental peace.
equally meaningless to me. Were this not so, I should still be entangled in the dynamism of the process toward the goal, still far from the state of perfect, static repose."
288 Sankara, Nirvanašatka 3 and 5.
As we have said, while instructing a pupil the teacher temporarily assumes the state of consciousness that still dwells with the pairs-ofopposites. When all the other opposites have lost their hold, this one of teacher and pupil remains Jt is the last to go.
289 Pupil, householder, hermit, wandering sage; cf. supra, pp. 155-160. 240 Sankara, Nirvanamañjari.
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