Summary:
Nirvana Shatakam, Verse 3: In this session, we apply negation towards emotional states – desire, anger, greed, delusion, arrogance, and jealousy. They're all arising, changing, and passing as objects of awareness. Unfulfilled desire seeds anger; greed is ambition crossing into dharma violation; unhealthy pride is to compensate for insecurity; jealousy forces you to re-examine your life. Security (artha) and need for satisfaction (kama) arise from incompleteness. Ethics (dharma) ensures one doesn't destroy themselves in pursuing artha/kama. Liberation (moksha) is your own nature.
Nirvana Shatakam – Verse 3:
- न मे द्वेषः रागः न मे लोभः
- मदः न एव मे न एव मात्सर्य-भावः
- न धर्मः न च अर्थः न कामः न मोक्षः
- चित्-आनन्द-रूपः शिवः अहम् शिवः अहम्
- na me dveṣaḥ rāgaḥ na me lobhaḥ mohaḥ (I have neither dislikes nor likes; neither greed nor delusion.)
- madaḥ na eva me na eva mātsarya-bhāvaḥ (Neither pride nor jealousy.)
- na dharmaḥ na ca arthaḥ na kāmaḥ na mokṣaḥ (I have no duty to perform, nor any wealth to acquire; I have no craving for pleasures, and since the Self is never bound, I have no desire for Liberation.)
- cit-ānanda-rūpaḥ śivaḥ aham śivaḥ aham ॥ 3 ॥
I have neither dislikes nor likes, neither greed nor delusion, neither pride nor jealousy. I have no duty to perform, nor any wealth to acquire, I have no craving for pleasures and the Self is never bound, so I have no desire for Liberation. I am of the nature of pure Consciousness and Bliss, I am all auspiciousness, I am Siva.
Why Negation Is Necessary
The nirvana shatakam proceeds by negation – and negation is only necessary where there is a mistake. The error being addressed here is the habitual identification of oneself with one's emotional states.
This is demonstrated in a story below, then we'll apply it to verse 3…
The Story: The Misadventures of Motilal the Milkman
In a quiet valley in northern India lived a simple, cheerful milkman named Motilal. Every morning, Motilal’s task was to carry two clay pots of fresh milk from his village over the hill to the town store, collect his coins, and walk home enjoying the breeze. It was a simple life.
But one morning, just as he was setting out, a notorious village prankster pulled Motilal aside and whispered with grave urgency:
“Motilal, you don't know who you really are. Last night, an astrologer read the stars. You are not a milkman. You are an Exiled Royal Emperor – travelling in disguise! But the world is full of traitors, and your royal dignity is under constant attack. If you don't assert your supreme status at every single moment, your honor will be destroyed!”
A sensible man might have laughed. But Motilal had an active imagination. He took the whole thing to heart. He straightened his back, puffed out his chest, balanced the two pots of milk on his shoulders, and set off with the heavy, self-important identity of an “Insulted Emperor”.
From that very second, pure chaos began…
Ten paces down the road, a neighbor waved and called out cheerfully, “Good morning, Motilal! Nice day for walking!”
An ordinary person would have smiled and waved back. But the Emperor inside Motilal blazed/burned with fury (krodha). “Good morning Motilal?! No royal title? No prostration?! How dare this peasant address my supreme presence with such insolent/disrespectful familiarity!” Motilal sneered, lifted his chin in disgust, and refused to respond.
But because his nose was pointed high in the air with royal pride (mada), he didn't see the muddy puddle at his feet. Splash! He slipped and sloshed half the milk over his shoulders.
Further up the trail, a kind woodcutter noticed the spill and said helpfully, “Hey brother, your left pot is tilted. Level your yoke or you'll lose the rest.”
To an objective milkman, this was useful feedback. But to Motilal’s manufactured identity, it was a lethal critique: “Is this common wood-chopper criticizing the royal carriage of my shoulders?! I come from a dynasty that never tilts!”
Driven by wounded vanity, he yanked his left shoulder backward to prove his posture was flawless. Crack! The left pot banged against a branch, spilling another cup of milk.
By noon, the sun was hot. Along the path, a tired stray dog woke up and gave a routine, lazy bark. Motilal froze, veins bulging in his neck: “Even the beasts of this forest plot against my reign! You insolent hound, I will have you banished from my kingdom!” He tried to kick at the dog, lost his balance, and stumbled into a thorn bush.
Finally, sweating, scratched, soaked in sour milk, and trembling with rage – he saw a farmer resting peacefully in the cool shade of a banyan tree, sipping sugarcane juice.
Instantly, a wave of jealousy (mātsarya) seized Motilal’s heart: “Why should that lazy peasant enjoy peace and sweetness, while I, the sovereign ruler of this realm, am forced to endure this agonizing humiliation?!”
By the time he dragged himself into the town square, he was a walking nervous breakdown. He had only two inches of milk left in the bottom of one pot. He was shouting at the wind, glaring murderously at children who giggled.
An old village grandmother, known for her quiet wisdom, stopped him. She looked at his wild eyes, his sour-milk-soaked shirt, and the empty pots.
“Motilal,” she asked gently, “What on earth are you doing? Who are you fighting?“
“The world!” Motilal raged, close to tears. “They disrespect my majesty! They mock my shoulders! The dogs bark at my empire! The world refuses to bow down to who I am!“
The grandmother looked at him for a moment, burst out laughing, and gave him a firm slap on the shoulder:
“Motilal, you absolute fool! Stop the drama! You are not an emperor. You don’t have a kingdom. Nobody is insulting you, nobody is plotting against you, and that dog was just stretching its vocal cords. You are not a wounded monarch. You are just a milkman who had a job to deliver milk!”
Motilal blinked.
The word hit him like a bucket of cold water: “You are not an emperor.”
He paused. He looked down at his bare feet, his stained dhoti.
The moment he realized he was not an insulted emperor, the entire mountain of psychological drama vanished in a single breath.
The anger? Gone – because there was no royal dignity to defend.
The arrogance? Evaporated.
The paranoia about the dog? Dissolved – it was just an animal barking.
The jealousy toward the farmer under the tree? Replaced with common sense: “Wait, I can sit in the shade and have a drink too!”
Motilal exhaled, dropped his shoulders, laughed at his own absurdity, washed his face at the well, and walked on – light, free, and completely objective.
False Identity Was Source of All Molital's Problems
Look at what happened to Motilal. Every single mistake he made – every complaint, every stumble, every drop of spilled milk, every agonizing wave of jealousy and fury – did not come from the world. It came from one mistaken identity he picked up and carried onto the road.
And notice what the grandmother did: She didn't teach him anger management. She didn't give him a ten-step meditation to cure his jealousy. She applied negation: “You are not an emperor.”
Now let's undertake an inquiry to help us, who like Molital is identified with one or more emotional-identities. Let's apply neti-neti on emotions…
Na Me Dveṣa-Rāgau – I Am Neither the Liker Nor the Disliker
Problem comes when you take yourself to be a person from a point of view. Such as “In reference to a like for something, I am a liker for ___”.
EG: You have dislike for house, so you want sell. Buyer has like for it, so wants to buy. Broker has like for a high commission. All three are identified with either a liker-disliker. Or farmer is identified with liker because of rain, bride with disliker, and child is indifferent. They're all identified with “liker”, or “disliker”.
But you can’t categorically say you’re a liker/disliker – else you’d cease to exist when like converts to dislike, and vice-verse.
And there’s so many unknown things for which you have neither like, nor dislike. EG: You are indifferent towards number of stars in the sky.
You are neither liker/dislike/indifferent – else should be that all the time. For instance, if you’re a liker, then you should like everything all the time.
The Six Unhealthy Emotions – Na Me Lobha-Mohau, Mado Naiva Me, Naiva Mātsarya-Bhāvaḥ
Each of these 6 is something we deeply identify with. Each one, on examination, is revealed to be a passing experience – an object of awareness, not awareness itself.
Kāma – Desire
Desire is rāga and dveṣa in action: reaching toward what is liked and pulling away from what is disliked. It is the seed from which all other emotions follow.
Most importantly, unfulfilled desire is the direct cause of anger.
For example: Desire for protest > police blocks > anger erupts. Desire for relationship > betrayed > hurt. Desire for job > rejected > disappointment.
Generally speaking, wherever there is anger, look carefully – underneath it, there is always a desire that was not met.
Krodha – Anger
Anger arises inevitably when desire is obstructed. And wherever there is anger, there is pain – the pain of an expectation that reality has not listened to me, reality didn’t bow down to my expectations.
Anger is therefore not a primary emotion but a signal: it points back to a desire or expectation we were identified with.
Lobha – Greed
Greed is often confused with ambition, so the distinction is important. A CEO who wants to expand their company, or a beggar who aspires to a better bowl – both are exhibiting ambition.
The moment that pursuit causes one to treat another person unfairly, to disregard their dignity, their rights, or their deserved share – ambition has crossed into greed.
Greed is desire operating in violation of dharma. EG: During Covid, the “toilet paper” hoarding was classical greed. Disregarding that others too need toilet paper.
What causes that crossing? Disproportionate value placed on the object of desire. This creates pressure to accumulate fast and all of it. It redirects sense of fairness onto oneself alone. From outside, we call it “greed”. From greedy person's standpoint, it's not greed, but self-preservation – the strongest human drive. To them, that object is like air to you.
Look at a time when you were greedy. What was going on inside you when you didn't want to share that cake, or kept as much as possible for yourself?
Greed is not about the size of the want; it is about the means employed.
Moha – Confusion of Priorities (delusion)
Greed is typically rooted in moha – a confusion about what actually matters.
When a person steals a metal bowl, a bicycle, etc – they have, in that moment, valued the bowl more than their own integrity, their own dharma.
The remedy is to see clearly what is more important and what is not, in the big picture. IE: Viveka (intelligent discernment).
Mada – Arrogance
Mada is often translated as pride, but it is better understood as an unhealthy pride, or superiority complex.
Importantly, it is always a reaction to an underlying sense of smallness. One who genuinely feels whole does not need to display themselves.
The person puffed up with unhealthy pride is, at root, someone who feels insufficient/insecure and is attempting to compensate by projecting an image of superiority.
The deeper inquiry is this: when one examines what one actually has – health, intelligence, circumstance, capacity – it becomes clear that none of it was self-generated. Everything has been given.
Mātsarya – Jealousy
Jealousy arises when another person's success or good fortune produces discontent in us; as it forces you to re-examine your life, are you taking the steps to live your potential.
Antidote: rather than harbouring the discomfort, genuinely wish the other person well – or go further, and wish them even more of what they have.
It is also worth noting the very person you are jealous of may, at that same moment, be jealous of you.
The Underlying Logic of All Six Negations
In every case, the same logic applies: these emotional states are known by you. They arise, they change, and they pass. They depend on particular objects, circumstances, and conditions.
You – awareness – are present before they arise, during their appearance, and after they subside.
Negation of the Four Purushārthas – Na Dharmo Na Cārtho Na Kāmo Na Mokṣaḥ – I Am Not the Four Human Goals
Having negated identification with emotional states, the verse now negates the four purushārthas – the four human goals that constitute human seeking.
Artha and Kāma – Security and Satisfaction
Artha refers to anything that provides security – wealth, shelter, relationships, social standing.
Kāma refers to anything that provides personal satisfaction and delight.
Both are essentially means for comfort, completeness, improved sense of self.
One one hand, they advance the civilization, on the other, they arise out of incompleteness.
Dharma – The Structure That Protects the Seeker
In order to not destroy yourself while pursuing artha and kāma, they need to be done with structure and harmony.
The story of Kaikeyī and Daśaratha illustrates this precisely. Daśaratha had granted Kaikeyī two open boons. When she chose to encash them – demanding Rāma's exile and Bharata's coronation – she acted entirely in pursuit of artha and kāma, driven by personal desire with no regard for justice or consequence. The result was that she destroyed herself: she lost her husband, alienated her son Bharata, and earned the lasting sorrow of having banished Rāma.
Daśaratha, by contrast, represented dharma – that which does not waver, does not revise itself under pressure. He kept his word even as it broke him. What this story reveals is that in the presence of dharma, both wise and foolish choices remain possible. Dharma does not prevent error – but it does ensure that consequences are clearly traceable to one's choices.
Mokṣa – The End Behind All Ends
The whole life of becoming – of doubting, of being unsettled about what is what, who is right, what if – comes to an end in mokṣa.
Mokṣa arrives in the form of knowledge: cidānanda-rūpaḥ śivo'haṃ śivo'ham – I am of the nature of awareness and joy; I am Śiva [most auspicious].
Mokṣa is also a purushārtha, meaning it is an end to be accomplished. However, it is not merely one of the ends – it is the end.
You seek artha, security, for the sake of mokṣa – freedom from insecurity. Kāma, delight, is mokṣa – the momentary letting go of the notion that I am incomplete.
Dharma is mokṣa – freedom from being a disintegrated being, or feeling useless.
Mokṣa, or enlightenment, means freedom from the struggle to be happy, to have to become bigger and better, freedom from existential inadequacy.
The very freedom you are seeking must already be you – otherwise you would not be seeking it.
Therefore your svarūpa, your own nature, is mokṣa.
Mokṣa is not something you seek the way you seek kāma, artha, or dharma. It is something you are, and you are claiming it. So it is not possible to seek mokṣa – rather, you discover that you are mokṣa. You are already free.
The Maturing of the Seeker – From Four Goals to One
The more ignorant one is, the more options appear available. For the uninformed, there are four goals.
For the mature and informed seeker, there is only one.
The Woman Searching in the Light – Preyaḥ and Śreyaḥ
A story illustrates this. A woman was searching for something in the village square, and others began looking alongside her without asking why.
Eventually someone asked, “What are you looking for?” A ring.
“Where did you lose it?”
In the house.
“Then why are you searching out here?”
“Because there is no light in the hut – the light is out here.”
Like this, we all deeply know the search is for the true inner self. But since there is more light in the world and it is immediately available, we distract ourselves just a little longer to avoid the inevitable inner search. The security being sought is not outside – it is centred on the “I.”
Behind all pursuit of preyaḥ – ego satisfaction, an improved self-image, being a successful or wise person – there is really a pursuit of śreyaḥ: freedom from dependence on all of it. A man with an injured leg does not want to carry his crutches one day longer than necessary. He wants to be independent of them.
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Recorded 19 Sept, 2026