The role of Lord Sadaśiva

Many worship Lord Śiva as the supreme, while others see him as just one of many demigods. In reality, both are wrong. Lord Śiva sits in the middle, above regular demigods, but subordinate to the Lord.

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Many worship Lord Śiva as the supreme, while others see him as just one of many demigods. In reality, both are wrong. Lord Śiva sits in the middle, above regular demigods, but subordinate to the Lord. He is also the supreme father, contacting the material energy to create all living entities. How to understand his mysterious position?

Originally, material nature exists in the unmanifested stage, as pradhāna. This pradhāna is impregnated by the look of Mahā-Viṣnu, which contains the time energy, as well as all the souls who will participate in the cosmic creation. The word used in the verse is “vīryam”. Srila Jiva Goswami described this vīryam as the jivakhya cit-rupa sakti, or the conditioned souls who want to participate in the material creation. These souls are part of the internal potency of the Lord, but because they have free will and can thus choose between staying in contact with the spiritual potency or coming to the material manifestation, they are called marginal.

In the word-for-word meaning for verse nineteen, Prabhupada adds another meaning to the word vīryam: “semen”, giving the analogy that the souls are like the semen of the Lord, which impregnates the material nature. The material nature is thus compared to the mother, who produces the bodies of the living entities, and the Lord is compared to the father, who puts the souls inside the womb of the mother.

Apart from containing the souls, the look itself is an expansion of the Lord, Sadāśiva, who later expands himself into all the forms of Shiva that appear inside each universe. Lord Sadāśiva, the personified look of Mahā-Viṣnu, carries all the souls and acts like a father for all living beings of the universe, constantly working for their deliverance. In Caitanya Lila, he appears as Advaita Ācārya, who takes the responsibility for bringing the Lord to our planet through his incessant prayers. Sometimes it’s said that Advaita Ācārya is the incarnation of Mahā-Viṣnu or the combined incarnation of Mahā-Viṣnu and Sadāśiva. All these explanations are valid because Sadāśiva is an incarnation of Lord Mahā-Viṣnu and is non-different from Him. Lord Sadāśiva becomes śiva-tattva when he expands himself into the many forms of Lord Śiva inside each universe. In this case, due to his association with material nature, part of his qualities are covered, and he displays just 84% of the qualities of the Lord.

Sadaśiva associates with the material nature and becomes the father of all living entities. Because of this association with the material energy, Lord Śiva is compared to yogurt, which is nothing but milk, but can’t be used in the place of milk. Sadaśiva is originally Viṣnu-tattva and has his eternal abode on the spiritual side, where he eternally glorifies the Lord. However, when he comes in contact with the material energy and expands himself in the numerous Śivas inside each material universe, part of his qualities are covered.

The relationship of Lord Śiva and the material energy is described by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Thākura in his commentary on the Brahma-samhitā:

“In the transcendental atmosphere (para-vyoma), where spiritual majesty preponderates, there is present Śrī Nārāyaṇa who is not different from Kṛṣṇa. Mahā-Sankarṣaṇa, subjective plenary facsimile of the extended personality of Śrī Nārāyaṇa, is also the divine plenary portion of the propagatory embodiment of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. By the power of His spiritual energy a plenary subjective portion of Him, eternally reposing in the neutral stream of Virajā forming the boundary between the spiritual and mundane realms, casts His glance, at creation, unto the limited shadow potency. Māyā, who is located far away from Himself. Thereupon Śambhu, lord of pradhāna embodying the substantive principle of all material entities, who is the same as Rudra, the dim reflection of the Supreme Lord’s own divine glance, consummates his intercourse with Māyā, the efficient mundane causal principle. But he can do nothing independently of the energy of Mahā-Viṣṇu representing the direct spiritual power of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, the principle of mahat, or the perverted cognitive faculty is produced only when the subjective plenary portion of Kṛṣṇa, viz., the prime divine avatāra Mahā-Viṣṇu who is the subjective portion of Sankarṣaṇa, Himself the subjective portion of Kṛṣṇa, is propitious towards the active mutual endeavors of Māyā, Śiva’s consort (śakti), and pradhāna or the principle of substantive mundane causality. Agreeably to the initiative of Mahā-Viṣṇu the consort of Śiva creates successively the mundane ego (ahankāra), the five mundane elements (bhūtas) viz., space etc., their attributes (tan-mātras) and the limited senses of the conditioned soul (jīva). The constituent particles, in the form of pencils of effulgence of Mahā-Viṣṇu, are manifest as the individual souls (jīvas).” (Brahma-samhitā 5.10 purport)

Lord Nārāyaṇa, who presides over the Vaikuṇṭha planets, is an expansion of Krsna. He expands Himself into Mahā-Sankarṣaṇa, who, although also residing on the spiritual planets, has the function of linking the spiritual and material realms. Mahā-Sankarṣaṇa expands Himself into Mahā-Viṣnu, who lies in the causal ocean (or Virajā) and initiates the material creation by casting His glance in the direction of the material energy. From this glance, emerges Śambhu (Śiva), who appears as a dim reflection of the glance of the Lord and comes in contact with the material potency, becoming the Lord of the material creation. Śambhu is extremely powerful, but he remains eternally under the full control of the Lord. From this combination come the material elements, starting from ahankāra, the false ego, the first layer of bondage of the conditioned souls, followed by the five elements, starting with ether (space).

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