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Śaṁbhuḥ शंभुः
The one who bestows happiness and prosperity is Śaṁbhu. Viṣṇu is the upholder of this universe and He ensures that all the beings are happy under His regime. Saguṇa Brahman has multifarious activities. He creates, sustains, absolves, dissolves and recreates. He is in control of all the functions simultaneously. This is the difference between man and the Brahman. Man can attend to one function at a time, whereas the Brahman has to attend to all the functions at all times. If He winks for second, the universe will head for dissolution. That is why, gods are described as non-winking entities.
३८. ॐ शम्भवे नमः।
38. Om Śaṁbhuḥvey Namah
Shambhuh – He who brings
Auspiciousness- both inner goodness and outer prosperity to His devotees. Sambhuh is one of the famous names of Lord Siva. By using this term in invoking Vishnu, by its suggestion, it declares that Vishnu and Siva are not two Divine Entities, but they are both manifestations of the One Essential Reality. shambhuh / One who causes happiness to everyone by the beauty of His appearance.
‘Sham’ means joy or happiness and ‘Bhuh’ is the one who creates. Shambhu therefore means the one who creates happiness in the minds of his devotees. ‘Sham bhaktaanaam bhaavayati iti Shambhuh. One who delights the devotees’. Indeed as the famous song goes –
Adharam madhuram vadanam madhuram
nayanam madhuram hasitam madhuram
hṛdayam madhuram gamanam madhuram
madhuraadhi-pater akhilam madhuram
“His lips are delightful, His face is delightful, His eyes are delightful, His smile is delightful, His heart is delightful, His walk is delightful – Every little aspect of His is delightful”.
Shambhuh is also a popular name for Lord Shiva as Rudram puts it “Namashshambhave cha mayo bhavecha Namah shankaraya cha mayaskaraya cha. Namah Shivaya cha”.
INTERPRETATION GUIDED BY SANT VANI (WORDS OF SAINTS)
Śaṁbhuḥ
The giver of happiness.
Śaṁbhu is the one, who causes śam, gives sukha as karma-phala to the devotees, (Śaṁ
sukham bhaktānām bhāvayati iti śaṁbhuḥ)–. The real sukha is moksa, the ultimate end. By knowing the Lord, by gaining the knowledge of the Lord and by the grace of the Lord alone, one gains that śaṁ, that happiness. The grace of Īśvara helps one to get the knowledge of Īśvara.
Grace has to be earned as results of reaching out actions in line with dharma and prayer. Prayer is an action and definitely gives a result. For so called practical people, they have no logic to prove that prayer does not work. They rely on perception and inference as a means of knowledge while we see the Vedas as a means of knowledge, telling us what we cannot figure out ourselves.
The matrix of karma is hugely complex. Which pāapa standing in the account gets neutralized and which punya karma fructifies, we can never know and hence we recognise the grace of Śaṁbhu. As more duritas, impurities in the form of obstacles get neutralized, there is more sukha in one’s life.
There are two sets of situations in our relating to the Lord and for that we understand two nyāyas–mārkata-nyāya and mārjaraka-nyāya. Markāta is monkey in Sanskrit and marjara is a cat.
According to the first logic, one naturally holds on to the Lord as even a markata, a baby monkey, holds on to its mother, as she jumps from one tree to another. Despite being challenged and scared, the baby monkey has complete trust and holds on to her mother. She surrenders.
But, how can one hold on to the Lord? Even to hold on to the Lord, one needs His grace.
Therefore, He has to hold on to us as even a mārjaraka, a mother cat takes its kitten in its mouth to a safe place without hurting it. The baby kitten is totally helpless and cannot do anything. The baby surrenders. The lord lifts us from where we are to where it is safe for us. We have all been through situations where we felt totally cared for by the Lord.
Similarly, the Lord helps us to surrender to Him and to hold on to Him. Really, both these methods should go together. Surrender is born out of understanding and not so much an act of will as it is made out to be. We should try to hold on to Him and implore the Lord for His grace, so that He would always hold us. This is like the confluence of the river, where it is difficult to say, whether the river reaches out to the ocean or the ocean reaches out to the river! Both reach out to each other.
Read on to understand surrender in its true sense.
https://os.me/faith-meaning-surrender-to-divine-will/
One becomes a devotee, as an individual related to the total. Being a devotee is not being glowingly spiritual and romantic in some make believe spiritual la-la land. A devotee is highly pragmatic and objective because he recognises his relationship with the total that is Isvara. Just as an individual tree is related to the forest and sustained by the ecosystem as much as contributing to the ecosystem. The connection that we sought with people, places and situations to get over our isolation finally finds a direction as we reach out to the Lord. Hence, He is called Sambhu and by that knowledge, one becomes one with the Lord, not separated any more from the Lord.
