“I Am Shiva, Shiva Is the Best”

Toward the end of the Siddha Yoga satsang in honor of Mahashivaratri, just before the live video stream concluded, Gurumayi gave everyone a beautiful instruction. She told us to experience the teaching, “I am Shiva, Shiva is the best.”

It was one of those phrases that stood out to me immediately as being so representative of Gurumayi and how she teaches. It was like a sutra—intriguing, mysterious, replete with wisdom, and complete unto itself. I was reminded, yet again, of all that we have to be grateful for on the Siddha Yoga path. We have a living Guru, who is always imparting her teachings to us. Even a single phrase, when uttered by our Guru, has the power to transform our approach to life. It is up to us, then, to honor what we have been given, to contemplate the Guru’s teachings, and to put the knowledge we gain into practice.

So I have been thinking, ever since the satsang on Mahashivaratri, about this teaching from Gurumayi. What does it mean that Lord Shiva is the best? What does it mean to say, “I am Shiva, Shiva is the best”? Why is it so beneficial to hold these words in our awareness—to experience their truth?

What first came to my mind was Lord Shiva’s many names, some of which I have shared before in “Meditation on Gurumayi’s Words.” A sizable portion of the thousand-plus epithets for Lord Shiva has to do with his being, quite simply, the best. He is Maheshvara, the great Lord, the Lord of all. He is Parameshvara, the supreme Lord, the greatest of deities. He is Vishvanatha, the master of the universe, and Ishana, the great ruler, the lord who presides over all knowledge. He is Shivatara, more auspicious than all that is auspicious.

These names are invoked by devotees of Lord Shiva to praise him, to pray to him, to seek his blessings. So to some degree, this language—of Lord Shiva being the best, of his being greater and more auspicious than all the rest—is an expression of people’s devotion. If Lord Shiva is your chosen deity, then of course you would think he is the best!

As I was contemplating, though, I thought it would also be helpful to take a broader view of the matter—to consider, from a more philosophical standpoint, what the superlative best might signify when it comes to Lord Shiva. According to the scriptures of India, Lord Shiva is the embodiment of supreme Consciousness. He is the absolute Reality. There is nothing and no one other than him, so by definition, there can be nothing greater than him. He is the pure essence of all that is, was, and will be.

The more I’ve thought about this, the more I’ve actively had to stop my jaw from dropping. It is a mind-stopping truth, literally cosmic in its scope. That’s one reason why I’ve been so drawn to Gurumayi’s phrasing—“I am Shiva, Shiva is the best.” Gurumayi brings the point down to earth, as it were. She makes it accessible, comprehensible, something we can engage with. To describe someone or something as “the best” is to apply an endearingly colloquial descriptor to them. In my own experience, whenever I’ve used this phrase in reference to a person I know, it’s accompanied by a rush of affection for them, and a visceral feeling of closeness. They’re just the best. No other words suffice. No other words do justice to who they are and what they mean to me.

When Gurumayi says, “Shiva is the best,” I feel that she is showing us how we can bridge these two complementary realities. Lord Shiva is the greatest, the highest, the supreme Reality. He is also the best to us, for us, as near and dear to us as our own inner Self.

And that brings me to the other part of the phrase that Gurumayi gave in satsang. “I am Shiva, Shiva is the best.” I almost see these words, and the practice of bringing them to mind, as a kind of friendly challenge. What if we were to see in ourselves the same attributes that we extol in Lord Shiva? Or what if we at least believed that we are capable of cultivating and exhibiting these attributes? What if we felt for ourselves the same fondness and respect that we do for those we readily describe as being “the best”?

I can’t help but think that if we all collectively did this, we would be making good on the central teaching of the satsang. We would be magnifying auspiciousness. Peace, as we have learned from Gurumayi, begins with us, with the kind of environment we nurture within ourselves. If we can believe the best of ourselves—if we can see the truth of who we are in and amidst our unique dispositions, our fluctuating emotions, our personal histories, our particular ways of thinking and of doing things—then it’s that much easier to believe the best of those around us. It is that much more possible to glimpse the indwelling Lord pervading our outer world as well.

As we sing in the Om Purnamadah Mantras:

Om. That is perfect. This is perfect.
From the perfect springs the perfect.
If the perfect is taken from the perfect,
the perfect remains.

Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!

Now that we have invoked Lord Shiva in his most transcendent form, I wish to ask you: What steps have you consciously taken to magnify auspiciousness in your day-to-day life? Have you made time in your day, especially since the satsang with Gurumayi in honor of Mahashivaratri, to cultivate the awareness, “I am Shiva”?

If so, how has this noble endeavor transformed your sadhana? Have the people in your life noticed something different about you? Have they expressed to you how enriching they find it to be in your company?