Summary:
Nirvana Shatakam, Verse 2, Part 3: The story of Śikhidhvaja reveals that true renunciation is mental, not physical – the Self was never elsewhere. Neti neti discriminates the knower from the known without destroying anything, using the kośas as stepping stones (śākhācandra-nyāya). What is negated must be brought back: the world is not separate from awareness but depends on it as pot depends on clay (satya-mithyā). Consciousness is the unchanging vivarta upādāna kāraṇam requiring no special state.
Nirvana Shatakam – Verse 2, Part 3:
The Story of Śikhidhvaja and Cūḍālā
I would like to begin with the story of King Śikhidhvaja – Śikhi-dhvaja, if dividing it into syllables helps us remember it. Śikhidhvaja was a powerful king who had experienced every pleasure available to a human being. He had wealth, authority, luxury, sensual enjoyment, a kingdom, and a queen. None of these experiences had given him the lasting freedom he was seeking.
Śikhidhvaja therefore concluded that liberation must require complete renunciation. He left his kingdom, went into the forest, and gave up almost everything. All that remained was a simple cloth, a bowl, and a walking staff. He practised austerity and subjected the body to great discipline, yet the peace he sought remained elusive.
One day, a wandering sage approached him. This sage was actually his queen, Cūḍālā, who had already gained liberation while continuing to live in the palace and participate in the responsibilities of the kingdom. She had not needed to abandon her life because her inquiry had taken place within the mind. Disguised as a sage, she asked Śikhidhvaja whether his renunciation had brought him the peace he was seeking.
He admitted that although he had given up the pleasures of the world, he had still not discovered the peace that has no end. Cūḍālā told him that perhaps he had not renounced what truly mattered. Śikhidhvaja looked around, noticed his few remaining possessions, and assumed that she must be referring to them. In frustration, he threw his bowl, clothing, and staff into the fire. Standing before her with nothing, he declared that now he was truly a renunciate.
Cūḍālā told him that this was still not it. The problem was not a physical possession but a mental conclusion. He had not renounced the idea that the Self was somewhere away from him and that he had to give up enough things, perform enough austerities, or reach some extraordinary state before he could discover it.
The truth he was seeking was the very consciousness that had illumined his life in the palace. It was the same consciousness illumining:
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- The forest
- The body undergoing penance
- His frustration at not finding liberation
- Even the thought, “I am still a seeker”
The surroundings had changed dramatically, but awareness had not changed at all.
This is the central lesson of the story. You may get rid of the carpet, the flowers, the books, the computer, the boss, the manager, the children, and practically everything else. You may stand there with nothing, but what do you still have? You still have the very same mind. It may be temporarily soothed by the new environment, but its fundamental patterns remain.
Therefore, the renunciation required for Self-knowledge is subtler than merely rearranging the external world.
What Is Neti Neti Actually Doing?
Q: What is the purpose of neti neti? Using pañcakośa-viveka, neti neti discriminates the knower from what is known. Body, breath, mind, and emotions are all objects known to me – so none can be the essential knower.
Q: Does “I am not the body or mind” mean physically separating from them? No. Neti neti is discrimination, not destruction. It does not require stopping breath, eliminating thoughts, entering extreme tapas, or waiting for the mind to go permanently silent. The body need not disappear for awareness to be recognized.
Q: How does Vedānta use the known to reveal the subtle knower? Through śākhācandra-nyāya.
Śākhācandra-Nyāya: Using the Known to Reveal the Subtle
The method of pointing out the moon through a tree's branch. Beginning with the obvious trunk, attention is guided step by step – branch, fruit, bird – until the moon is spotted just beyond the tip. Trunk and branches have nothing to do with the moon, yet they were the necessary means of getting there. The pañcakośas work the same way: stepping stones, not endpoints.
Why Must the Negated World Be Brought Back?
Q: Does the inquiry end with “I am not the body or mind”? No. Stopping there creates a new duality – Self here, not-Self there – which is still dvaita. Non-duality means not two. After distinguishing awareness from objects, the teaching must reconcile the entire world back into awareness.
Q: Why is Self/not-Self discrimination only provisional? It loosens habitual identification with objects. But if awareness is then treated as entirely separate from the world, a subtle duality remains. The final vision is that everything is the Self – so the relationship between awareness and the negated objects must be understood through the clay-pot example.
The Pot and Clay: What Is Actually Real?
A clay pot has a name, form, and function. But remove the clay and there is no pot. The pot depends entirely on clay; clay does not depend on the pot. “Pot” and “clay” are not synonyms – the pot has functional identity – yet it has no independent substance. When the pot is broken, the name and form are lost; the clay remains.
Q: How does Vedānta define satyam? Satyam is that which obtains equally in the past, present, and future – it never changes or gets displaced. Clay was present before, during, and after the pot. The pot is mithyā: dependent and functional, but without independent existence.
Satyam and Mithyā: Independence and Dependence
The satya-mithyā relationship: satyam is independent; mithyā depends on something else for its existence. A carpet depends on strands, strands on fibre, and so on. We need not be scientists – the principle of dependence is the point.
Whatever is examined resolves into its causes. Even attention fluctuates, and anything that fluctuates cannot be absolutely real.
Everything in the world has this dependent nature; the kūṭastha, consciousness, is the final substratum upon which all dependent reality rests.
Thoughts Are More Pots
The mind hears the teaching and immediately produces more concepts: “I understand this theoretically,” “I must stop thinking,” “I'll find consciousness in the future.” Each is simply another thought – another pot that came and went.
The mind is designed to think, just as seasons are designed to change. The question is not “How do I stop thoughts?” but “Because of what is this thought known?”
The Relative Knower and the One Awareness
The relative knower shifts roles constantly – thinker, bhoktā, doer, hearer, inquirer – all changing with activity. Yet throughout every changing experience, one fact remains undeniable: I was there. Call it Ātmā, Brahman, or awareness – an invariable presence persists through every role and every state. The practice: repeatedly remind yourself – “This thought is witnessed. I, awareness, have not been displaced.”
Psychological Preparation and the Strength of Mental Patterns
Self-knowledge does not automatically dissolve psychological conditioning. Repetitive thought-patterns may be deeply wired and need to be addressed directly – often by actively introducing an opposing thought until the pattern loses force.
This is where yoga is indispensable: it settles the vṛttis and prepares the mind to receive the teaching. As the second sūtra indicates – yogaścittavṛttinirodhaḥ – only to a settled mind is the true Self revealed. A quiet mind is a support, not the Self itself.
Does External Simplicity Have a Valid Place?
Yes – simplifying life reduces entanglement and creates space for inquiry. But simplification must remain intelligent: food, money, relationships, and responsibilities are still required. Even a sannyāsī depends on others. The forest reduces stimuli, but the mind travels with you wherever you go.
From Objects to the Order Behind Creation
Science stops at subatomic particles. Vedānta adds two further realities by asking: what is the organizing principle because of which atoms form cells, cells form bodies, bodies form communities – all in interconnected, purposeful order?
The same elements create a fish, a tree, a tiger, a human – each with specific and functionally connected structures.
That intelligent organizing principle is called Īśvara: not a separate entity outside the universe, but the lawful order – physical, physiological, psychological, ecological, and moral – manifest as creation itself. The laws of dharma and karma are included within this order.
Māyā and the Dream Analogy
In a dream, the mind manifests as people, sounds, space, and time – all from memory and impressions. It feels completely real, yet upon waking we recognize it was made of mind alone. In the same way, consciousness enjoys a power called māyā through which names, forms, and experiences appear. Consciousness itself does not change. The tradition distinguishes two kinds of material cause to clarify this.
Pariṇāmi Upādāna Kāraṇam: A Changing Material Cause
A material cause that actually transforms into its effect – as milk becomes cheese. You cannot retrieve milk from cheese; the original has genuinely changed. The dreaming mind works this way, reshaping itself into dream-objects. Knowledge and power within māyā similarly undergo constant modification to manifest creation's changing structures.
Vivarta Upādāna Kāraṇam: An “As Though” Transformation
A material cause that appears to change without undergoing essential transformation. Clay appears as a pot; gold appears as a ring, necklace, or bangle – yet clay remains clay, gold remains gold throughout.
Consciousness is the vivarta upādāna kāraṇam of the universe: wherever there is a thought, body, breath, or sensation, consciousness is present as that because of which it is known – not hidden behind experience, but its very substance.
Even the complaint, “I cannot find consciousness” – is illumined by consciousness.
Does Consciousness Require Samādhi?
No. If consciousness were available only in samādhi – savikalpa or nirvikalpa – it would come and go with the state and therefore be mithyā. Silence is known; a disturbing thought is also known. Awareness is no more present in silence than in agitation. A composed mind supports inquiry but does not manufacture awareness, which is present before, during, and after every state.
Sat and Cit: What Cannot Be Negated
As objects are reduced into their causes, names and forms keep dissolving – pot, clay, atom, subatomic particle – yet at every level one fact persists: it is. This invariable is-ness is sat.
Similarly, every object, thought, and state is known, and that invariable knowing cannot be removed: this is cit.
Sat-cit – existence-consciousness – is the final building block of all things. Even knowledge and power are ultimately mithyā: they appear and disappear as concepts. Sat and cit are not two separate realities but one non-dual reality appearing through māyā as the entire world – saccidānanda.
The Three States and Turīya
Waking is displaced by dream; dream by deep sleep; deep sleep by waking. Since each state comes and goes, none is satyam. Yet awareness is present throughout: waking is known, dream is known, and even deep sleep is subsequently recognized – “I slept well” – revealing that awareness persisted through its absence of content.
Turīya – “the fourth,” from Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad – is not a fourth state but the awareness because of which all three states are known. Consciousness/awareness has no levels; experiences vary, not the light by which they are known.
Movement, Experience, and the Appearance of Continuity
The mind presents reality as continuous flow – like a film made of individual frames. Experience depends on the senses, body, and mind: close the eyes, visual experience withdraws; the waking mind resolves, and the waking world disappears.
Anything dependent on conditions is mithyā. From the standpoint of sat-cit, there is no actual movement – everything remains within existence-consciousness.
Doership, Responsibility, and the Necessary Balance
Awareness illumines action but does not perform it. When the body reacts to a sudden sound, it is the nervous system, conditioning, and śakti responding.
The doer is always the body-mind instrument.
Yet even the person's choices arise from prior tendencies, conditioning, and circumstances they did not independently create. The balance: at the empirical level, acknowledge actions, learn from mistakes, and act according to dharma. At the absolute level, the essential nature is actionless awareness. Collapsing these two levels produces either excessive guilt or irresponsibility.
Ignorance as the Fundamental Distortion
“Sin” means a distortion of fact – taking something and misperceiving it. The most consequential distortion is taking oneself to be a limited body-mind and overlooking the awareness by which it is known. This is the “original sin” (ie: ignorance).
Ignorance belongs to the mind and must be removed in the mind – not from the body, not from awareness, which was never ignorant. Vedānta is ultimately mind work: it does not produce the Self; it removes the misunderstanding of the Self.
Seeing the Same Reality in Other People
It is easy to recognize “I am awareness” while sitting quietly. The test is other people – especially those who irritate us. One wave differs from another in size and force, yet every wave is water.
The provisional difference between people is real at the level of name and form, but does not divide the underlying reality.
Practice: while speaking with someone – especially in conflict – take one or two seconds to recognize, “The awareness illumining their mind is the same reality illumining mine.” One second, repeated, compounds. This does not mean abandoning boundaries or surrendering practical intelligence – dharma still applies – but it takes the edge off conflict and makes compassion possible.
The Self Is Present Wherever the World Appears
Wherever there is a picture, there is the canvas. Wherever there is a pot, there is clay. Wherever there is a thought, there is awareness. The world does not conceal consciousness – it is consciousness appearing through names and forms.
This completes neti neti: first, “I am not limited to any particular name and form”; then, “No name and form exists independently of me, awareness.”
The relationship between thoughts and awareness is satya-mithyā: thoughts depend on awareness for their revelation; awareness depends on no particular thought.
The Search Is Based Upon an Assumed Separation
Every search implies something is missing. In seeking the Self, I have already assumed it is elsewhere and must be reached in the future. Śikhidhvaja assumed the truth was unavailable in the palace but accessible in the forest – that discarding forms would reveal the formless.
Cūḍālā showed him that every experience – pleasure, renunciation, discipline, frustration – was already illumined by the very awareness he sought. The imagined distance between seeker and sought exists only as a conclusion in the mind.
Every Human Pursuit Is Ultimately a Search for Mokṣa
The next verse of Nirvāṇa Ṣaṭakam:
na me dveṣarāgau na me lobhamohau mado naiva me naiva mātsaryabhāvaḥ na dharmo na cārtho na kāmo na mokṣaḥ
“I have neither likes nor dislikes, neither greed nor delusion, neither pride nor jealousy. I have no dharma, artha, kāma, or mokṣa.”
Every human pursuit – wealth, pleasure, security, dharma – is seeking freedom from some form of limitation. There is only one underlying goal across all four puruṣārthas: mokṣa, freedom. The more ignorant the person, the more they imagine endless options out there.
As understanding deepens, only one option remains: freedom from the compulsion to keep searching. The desire for liberation is itself another thought. The Self is never bound and therefore requires no liberation – freedom is its nature.
Cidānandarūpaḥ śivo'ham śivo'ham.
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Recorded 15 Aug, 2026