Book excerpt: Commentary by Swami Tejomayananda. Nirvana Shatkam, also known as atma shatkam, composed by Sri Adi Shankaracharya is a magnificently lucid piece of poetry, a razor-sharp distinction between reality and false identification and the product born from the very highest states of meditation. One by Shankaracharya negates all the usual identifications that we have and repeatedly insists, "chidananda roopa shivoham shivoham."