Beyond the Senses
“Na casta me mata na pita na deva…
(I have no mother, nor father, nor gods…)
The first verse had severed the grossest ties, dissolving the earth, the water, the fire, the air, and the vast expanse of space. The young Shankara had untethered himself from the elemental universe. But the mind clings tenaciously. When the outer world is stripped away, it retreats into the intimate, seemingly undeniable reality of our personal bonds and our sensory experiences.
Govinda Bhagavatpada sat motionless, his silence demanding further unburdening. The question, “Who are you?”, still echoed in the damp air.
Having dismissed the physical world, Shankara now turned his razor-sharp awareness inward, addressing the profound attachments that define our human experience. He began to unweave the intricate tapestry of identity spun from relationships, heritage, and the very senses through which we perceive reality.
“Na casta me mata na pita…” I have no mother, no father.
To a boy who had left a grieving mother behind in Kalady to take the vows of renunciation, this declaration was not a denial of love, but a profound shift in perspective. The bond between parent and child is perhaps the most fundamental earthly tie. We define ourselves by our lineage; we are the sons and daughters of our ancestors, carrying their names, their traits, and their legacies.
But in the quiet of the inquiry, Shankara looked beyond the transient nature of birth. He realized that the roles of “mother” and “father” belong solely to the physical body and the societal structures we inhabit. The Atman, the eternal Self, was never born. It does not possess a lineage. It is the uncaused cause, existing before the first breath and continuing long after the body returns to dust. If the Self is unborn, it can have no parents. The agonizing grief of separation, the heavy mantle of familial duty – these belong to the temporary character playing a role on the stage of life, not to the eternal actor behind the mask.
He was not merely a son of his earthly parents; he was an expression of the Infinite.
“…na deva…” nor gods.
This was a radical assertion. Shankara was a Brahmin, raised in a world saturated with ritual, devotion, and a pantheon of deities. The gods were the arbiters of fate, the granters of boons, the beings to whom one offered prayers and sacrifices.
Yet, with this single phrase, the young ascetic bypassed the entire celestial hierarchy. He understood that the gods, however powerful and luminous, are still within the realm of form and concept. They are objects of worship, separate from the worshipper. True non-duality (Advaita) recognizes no such separation. To identify with the ultimate reality, Brahman, is to realize that the divine is not out there to be appeased, but is the very core of one’s own being.
Shankara was not becoming an atheist; he was becoming the Absolute. He recognized that the ultimate Truth is prior to the gods, the unmanifest source from which even the celestial realms emerge. The Self needs no external deity to save it, for it is already whole, complete, and divine.
He continued his inward dismantling, addressing the very mechanisms by which we interact with the world: our senses and the mind that interprets them.
We believe we are our experiences. We are the joy of seeing a sunrise, the sorrow of a painful melody, the comforting warmth of a touch. We identify so closely with our perception that we mistake the instrument for the observer.
But Shankara, deep in his inquiry, separated the seer from the seen. He realized that the eyes perceive color and form, but the Atman is not the eye. The ears perceive sound, but the Atman is not the ear. The mind processes thoughts and emotions, but the Atman is not the mind.
Imagine looking through a stained-glass window. The light that pours through is colored by the glass, but the light itself remains pure and untainted. Our senses and our minds are the stained glass, coloring our experience of reality. We become so fascinated by the dancing patterns of light that we forget the sun itself.
By declaring Neti, Neti to his relationships, his gods, and his sensory experiences, Shankara was wiping the glass clean. He was stepping back from the colorful display of the world to rest in the pure, illuminating source.
He understood that if you can observe a thought, you cannot be that thought. If you can feel an emotion, you are the vast space in which that emotion arises and fades. The true Self is the silent, unaffected witness – the Sakshi – that observes the grand play of life without ever being caught in its drama.
As the second verse resonated, the boy had moved beyond the physical and the personal. He had shed his lineage, his worldly identity, and the very apparatus of perception. He was drawing closer to the blindingly bright, indescribable core of existence.
The eyes see the world, but they cannot see the Seer. You are the silent witness hiding behind the veil of perception.
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