Although the predominant quality of Lord Shiva is tamas, why did His Incarnation, Adi Shankara not express it?

[An online spiritual discussion was conducted on January 09, 2021, in which several devotees participated. Some of the questions of devotees answered by Swāmi are given below.]

[Shri Nikhil asked: This question is related to one of the discourses You gave in reply to Śrī Anil’s question. You said that whenever a particular quality is required to a greater extent to carry out the mission of God, the Energetic Incarnation of God having that particular quality predominantly, enters a selected human being to form the Human Incarnation. In the Energetic Incarnation, Lord Datta is already merged. So, the Human Incarnation also has Lord Datta merged in it, but it expresses the predominant quality of that Energetic Incarnation. However, Ādi Śaṅkarācarya, who was a Human Incarnation of Lord Śiva, did not express much tamas, even though tamas is the predominant quality of Lord Śiva. Instead, I feel that He mostly expressed sattvam because He gave a lot of excellent spiritual knowledge throughout His life. By His life, He justified the statement “Jñānam Maheśvarādhicchet…”, which means that Lord Śiva is the source of spiritual knowledge. Of course, Ādi Śaṅkara also composed several devotional stotras. Since devotion is an expression of tamas, we can say that He expressed some tamas, in that manner. Swami, could You please explain this point?]

Swāmi replied: The quality of tamas means rigidity and firm decision. If that rigidity leads to injustice, that tamas is bad. Rāvaṇa and Duryodhana were such examples. But tamas can also be used in the right direction. Goddess Pārvatī was very firm in doing penance to attain Lord Śiva as her husband. Such tamas is required in the final stage of the spiritual path. Ādi Śaṅkara too was very firm in taking sainthood leaving His mother in a pitiable condition. She had been abandoned by all her relatives since she had given birth to Śaṅkara as a widow. While she was pregnant, her husband had died. She was very old and was in need of some attendant. Śaṅkara was her only son. In that situation, Śaṅkara needed the extreme firmness, which is tamas, to leave her and take sainthood for the sake of propagating the right spiritual knowledge, which was necessary to bring atheists to the correct path. In any case, all the three qualities are always associated together. One quality being predominant does not mean that the other two are absent. Hence, Śaṅkara had a sufficient amount of sattvam or knowledge too. His knowledge was sattvam. But in His commentaries, you will always find firmness in His logic. This firmness of logic is tamas in sattvam (knowledge).

Keywords:

| Shri Datta Swami | Although the predominant quality of Lord Shiva is tamas, why did His Incarnation, Adi Shankara not express it? | Shiva Shankaracharya Jnanam Maheshvaradhicchet Shankara Raavana