Shiva MahimnaOh, destroyer of Cupid (desire)! Oh, three-eyed one (one with the eye of non-duality)! Salutations to you—the forest-lover (a place of meditation), the nearest and the farthest, the smallest and the largest, the oldest and the youngest: Salutations to you who are everything and beyond everything! —Shiva Mahimna Stotra There is none greater than Lord Shiva, who is the non-dual ultimate reality, the point of neutrality within, and everything as well as the occurrence of everything as eternal auspiciousness. Lord Shiva is the dissolution aspect of the Absolute, freedom from the less evolved leading to creation of the more evolved. The glory of the cosmic Shiva principle can never fully be described, not even by the most talented or divine musician: Yet in the Shiva Mahimna Stotra, a hymn praising the glory of Lord Shiva to invoke his grace, we find likely the fullest and most beautiful attempt to do so. The Shiva Mahimna Stotra was said to be created by a Gandharva (divine musician) named Pushpadanta who sought to appease Lord Shiva to escape punishment from his misdeeds. When we chant the Shiva Mahimna Stotra with surrender and devotion, we can similarly detach from the limited and binding and connect to the ultimate consciousness of Shiva. 
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