ULLADU NARPADU ( FORTY VERSES OF REALITY)

As taught by 'Bhagwan Ramana Maharishi'   

Interpretation - Michael James

உள்ளது நாற்பது (Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu)

உள்ளது நாற்பது (Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu), the ‘Forty [Verses] on That Which Is’, is a Tamil poem that Sri Ramana composed in July and August 1928 when Sri Muruganar asked him to teach us the nature of the reality and the means by which we can attain it.

In the title of this poem, the word உள்ளது (uḷḷadu) is a verbal noun that means ‘that which is’ or ‘being’ (either in the sense of ‘existence’ or in the sense of ‘existing’), and is an important term that is often used in spiritual or philosophical literature to denote ‘reality’, ‘truth’, ‘that which is real’ or ‘that which really is’. Hence in a spiritual context the meaning clearly implied by uḷḷadu is ātman, our ‘real self’ or ‘spirit’.

Though நாற்பது (nāṟpadu) means ‘forty’, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu actually consists of a total of forty-two verses, two of which form the maṅgalam or ‘auspicious introduction’ and the remaining forty of which form the nūl or main ‘text’.

Like many of his other works, Sri Ramana composed Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu in a poetic metre called venbā, which consists of four lines, with four feet in each of the first three lines and three feet in the last line, but since devotees used to do regular pārāyaṇa or recitation of his works in his presence, he converted the forty-two verses of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu into a single verse in kalivenbā metre by lengthening the third foot of the fourth line of each verse and adding a fourth foot to it, thereby linking it to the next verse and making it easy for devotees to remember the continuity while reciting.

Since the one-and-a-half feet that he thus added to the fourth line of each verse may contain one or more words, which are usually called the ‘link words’, they not only facilitate recitation but also enrich the meaning of either the preceding or the following verse.

Since Sri Ramana formed this kalivenbā version of உள்ளது நாற்பது (Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu) by linking the forty-two verses into a single verse, the term நாற்பது (nāṟpadu) or ‘forty’ is not appropriate for it, so he renamed it உபதேசக் கலிவெண்பா (Upadēśa Kalivenbā).

An English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of this kalivenbā version of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu was published on pages 217 to 222 of the October 1981 issue of  The Mountain Path, and in May 2008 a copy of it was posted by David Godman in his  blog  under the title Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Kalivenbā.

In the first verse of the maṅgalam or ‘auspicious introduction’ to Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu (which I have discussed in more detail in the introduction to this book, Śrī Ramaṇōpadēśa Nūṉmālai, and also in a separate article, The crest-jewel of Sri Ramana’s teachings) Sri Ramana summarises in an extremely clear and powerful manner the essence of his entire teaching about the nature of the reality and the means by which we can attain it, and thus this verse is in effect both a summary of the central import of Upadēśa Undiyār and an introduction to the central theme of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu.

In the first two lines of this verse he teaches us the nature of reality, firstly by asking a rhetorical question, ‘உள்ளது அலது உள்ளவுணர்வு உள்ளதோ?’ (uḷḷadu aladu uḷḷa-v-uṇarvu uḷḷadō?), which means ‘other than being, does being-consciousness exist?’ and which implies that (as he taught us in verse 23 of Upadēśa Undiyār) our consciousness of being, ‘I am’, is not other than our being itself. In other words, our reality or being is self-conscious — that is, it itself knows its own being, not by the aid of any other thing, but simply by being itself.

In the second sentence of this verse he continues to explain the nature of reality, firstly with a subsidiary clause in which he says ‘உள்ளபொருள் உள்ளல் அற உள்ளத்தே உள்ளதால்’ (uḷḷa-poruḷ uḷḷal-aṟa uḷḷattē uḷḷadāl), which means ‘since [this] being-substance exists in [our] heart devoid of thought’, and secondly with a relative clause, ‘உள்ளம் எனும்’ (uḷḷam eṉum), which means ‘which is called heart [or ‘am’]’ and which qualifies the term உள்ளபொருள் (uḷḷa-poruḷ) or ‘being-substance’ in the main clause.

That is, the reality or true being is not only self-conscious but also devoid of thought, and it exists in our ‘heart’ (the innermost core of ourself) as our ‘heart’. In other words, the reality is our true self — our own essential being, which we always experience as ‘I am’.

After explaining that the nature of the reality is such, in the last two lines of this verse he teaches us the means by which we can experience it as it is, firstly by concluding the second sentence with the question ‘உள்ளபொருள் உள்ளல் எவன்?’ (uḷḷa-poruḷ uḷḷal evaṉ?), which means ‘how to [or who can] think of [or meditate upon] [this] being-substance?’ and secondly by answering ‘உள்ளத்தே உள்ளபடி உள்ளதே உள்ளல் உணர்’ (uḷḷattē uḷḷapaḍi uḷḷadē uḷḷal uṇar), which means ‘know that only being in [our] heart as it is [or as we are] [is] thinking [or meditating] [upon our essential being-substance]’.

The key words in this final sentence are உள்ளபடி உள்ளதே (uḷḷapaḍi uḷḷadē), which means, ‘only being as it is [or as we are]’. Here உள்ளபடி (uḷḷapaḍi), ‘as it is’ or ‘as we are’, means ‘as [our] being-substance is’, and since our ‘being-substance’ (our essential self) is self-conscious and devoid of thought, in this context these words ‘only being as it is’ clearly imply ‘only being self-conscious and devoid of thought’.

Thus in this verse Sri Ramana teaches us that we can truly meditate upon and experience the one absolute reality, which is our own self-conscious being, ‘I am’, by just being exclusively self-conscious — that is, clearly conscious of nothing other than our own essential being, ‘I am’ — and therefore free of all thoughts.

Since no thought can exist unless we think it, and since we cannot think any thought without attending to it, when our entire attention is concentrated only on ourself, no thought can exist. Therefore we can ‘be as it is [or as we are]’ simply by being keenly self-attentive and thereby excluding all thoughts of anything other than ourself. This is the simple essence of the practical teachings of Sri Ramana.

Verse 1

Whereas in the first verse of the maṅgalam Sri Ramana explains this practice of ‘just being as we [really] are’ in terms of the path of jñāna (knowledge) or ātma-vicāra (self-investigation), in the second verse of the maṅgalam he explains it in terms of the path of bhakti (devotion) or self-surrender. That is, when we are vigilantly self-attentive, we thereby exclude not only all thoughts but also the thinker of those thoughts — our thinking mind itself — so this practice ofātma-vicāra is the only truly effective means by which we can surrender our false self entirely, as Sri Ramana says in the thirteenth paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?):

Being completely absorbed in ātma-niṣṭhā [self-abidance], not giving even the slightest room to the rising of any other cintanā [thought] except ātma-cintanā [self-contemplation or self-attentiveness], alone is giving ourself to God. ...

Verse 2

In the second verse of the maṅgalam Sri Ramana says that mature people who have an intense inner fear of death will take refuge at the feet of God, who is devoid of death and birth, depending upon him as their sole protection, and that by their surrender they will experience death (the death or dissolution of their finite self). He then ends the verse by asking a rhetorical question that implies that having died to their mortal self and thereby become one with the immortal spirit, they will never be troubled again by any thought of death.

In this verse the words மரணபவமில்லா மகேசன் சரணமே சார்வர் (maraṇa-bhavam-illā mahēśaṉ caraṇamē sārvar), which literally mean ‘they will take refuge at [depend upon or surrender to] the feet of the great lord, who is devoid of death and birth’, are a graphic description of the state of complete self-surrender — that is, the state in which we surrender our false finite self in the clear light of our true infinite self.

The term மரணபவமில்லா மகேசன் (maraṇa-bhavam-illā mahēśaṉ), ‘the great lord [or God], who is devoid of death and birth’, is a poetic description of our eternal self, and his சரணம் (caranam) or ‘feet’ is our natural state of absolutely clear non-dual self-consciousness, ‘I am’. The verb சார்வர் (sārvar), ‘they will take refuge at [depend upon or surrender to]’, denotes the state in which our mind turns towards and merges in this true self-consciousness. Thus these words denote the same state of thought-free self-conscious being that he described in the previous verse as உள்ளத்தே உள்ளபடி உள்ளதே (uḷḷattē uḷḷapaḍi uḷḷadē) or ‘only being in [our] heart as it is [or as we are]’.

In the first verse of the nūl or main ‘text’ he establishes the truth that there is one absolute reality underlying the false appearance of all multiplicity and that everything is nothing other than this one reality, which is our own true self. That is, he says that because we see the world, accepting ஓர் முதல் (ōr mudal) — one primal reality, origin, source, base, substratum, ground or first cause — with a ‘power that is many’ (that is, a power that can appear as if it were many different things) is indeed certain, and that this ‘one primal reality’, which is self, is that which appears as everything: the seeing mind, the world-picture that it sees, the light of consciousness by which it sees, and the ground or underlying being that supports its seeing.

In verse 2 he says that all disputes about the nature of this one reality — whether the soul, world and God are in essence all just this one reality, or whether they are eternally three separate realities — are possible only so long as our ego exists, and that abiding in our own natural state (of pure thought-free self-conscious being) is the highest achievement.

Verse 3

In verse 3 he reiterates the same truth, asking what is the use of arguing whether the world is real or a false appearance, whether it is knowledge or ignorance, or whether it is a source of happiness or not, and pointing out the simple truth that the egoless state in which we have given up all thought of the world and known only our own essential self, thereby freeing ourself from our false ‘I’ (the mind or ego) and its thoughts about ‘one’ (non-duality) and ‘two’ (duality), is agreeable to everyone.

Verse 4

In verse 4, by asking a rhetorical question, ‘கண் அலால் காட்சி உண்டோ?’ (kaṇ alāl kātci uṇḍō?), which means ‘is the sight otherwise than the eye?’, he teaches us a subtle but very important truth, namely that the ‘sight’ (whatever is seen or experienced) cannot be otherwise than the ‘eye’ (the consciousness that sees or experiences it). Hence he says that if we are a form (a body), the world and God will be likewise, but if we are not any form, who could see their forms, or how could we see them? He then ends this verse by saying that the real eye is only our essential self, which is the ‘endless eye’ (the infinite consciousness of being, ‘I am’).

Verse 5

In verse 5 he says that the term ‘body’ denotes not only our physical body but all our ‘five sheaths’ (our physical body, the prāṇa or life that animates it, our mind, our intellect and the peaceful absence of objective knowledge that we experience in sleep), and then asks rhetorically whether the world exists in the absence of such a body (implying that it does not), or whether anyone has seen the world after separating from the body (as in sleep or death).

Verse 6

In verse 6 he says that the world is nothing other than our five kinds of sense perception (sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations), which are sensations perceived by our five senses, and then asks rhetorically whether, since our one mind knows the world though these five senses, the world exists in the absence of this mind (implying that it does not).

Verse 7

In verse 7 he reiterates this truth that the world exists only in our mind, saying that though the world and our mind — the consciousness that knows it — arise and subside (appear and disappear) simultaneously (or as one), the world ‘shines’ (appears to exist or is made known) only by our mind, and then declares that the ‘whole’ (the infinite fullness of being or consciousness), which shines without appearing or disappearing as the ground for the appearance and disappearance (of our mind and the world), alone is the பொருள் (poruḷ), the ‘substance’, ‘essence’ or ‘reality’ (of all that thus appears and disappears).

Verse 8

Having discussed the reality of our experience of this world-appearance in verses 3 to 7, in verse 8 Sri Ramana discusses the reality of ‘seeing’ or experiencing God, saying that though he is the பொருள் (poruḷ) or ‘essential reality’, which is truly devoid of name or form, it is possible to see him in name and form by worshipping him in any form, giving him any name, but that knowing one’s own உண்மை (uṇmai) — ‘truth’, ‘being’ or ‘am-ness’ — and thereby subsiding and becoming one with his உண்மை (uṇmai) is alone seeing him in truth.

Verses 9 to 13

In verses 9 to 13 Sri Ramana discusses the reality of knowledge and ignorance and establishes the nature of true knowledge.

In verse 9 he begins by teaching that all dualistic or objective knowledge depends upon ‘one’ (namely our mind, which alone experiences such knowledge), and that if we look within our mind to see what that ‘one’ is, such knowledge will cease to exist (because we will discover that our mind, upon which it depends, is itself non-existent).

In verse 10 he says that knowledge and ignorance (about objects or otherness) are interdependent, each existing only in relation to the other, and that true knowledge is only the ‘knowledge’ (or consciousness) that knows the ‘self’ (the mind or ego) to whom knowledge and ignorance appear to exist (in other words, true knowledge is only the consciousness that experiences the truth that the mind — which is the sole root, base or foundation of objective knowledge and ignorance — is itself non-existent).

In verse 11 he says that knowing otherness without knowing ourself who experiences such knowledge (of otherness) is not knowledge but only ignorance, and that when we know ourself (this unreal mind), who is the ādhāra (the support, substratum or ground) of knowledge and ignorance, they will cease to exist (since we will discover that the mind itself is non-existent).

In verse 12 he says that true knowledge is not that (our mind) which knows (otherness), but only that (our real self) which is devoid of both knowledge and ignorance (about otherness), and that our real self is not a void (even though it is devoid of both knowledge and ignorance about otherness) but true knowledge, because it shines without any otherness for it to know or to make known.

In verse 13  he  says  that  self,  which  is  jñāna  (knowledge or consciousness), alone is real;  that  manifold  knowledge (knowledge or consciousness of multiplicity) is  only  ajñāna  (ignorance); and that even such ignorance, which  is unreal, is nothing other than self (its only real substance), which is  jñāna,  just  as  all  the many ornaments, which are unreal (as  separate forms), are not other than gold (the real substance of which they are made).

Verse 14 to 16

In verses 14 to 16 Sri Ramana discusses the reality of space and time, and establishes the truth that ‘we’, who are devoid of time and space, alone are real.

In verse 14 he begins with the subject of space or ‘place’, and since in Tamil grammar the three persons are called மூவிடம் (mū-v-iḍam) or the ‘three places’, he says that if the first person, our false consciousness ‘I am this body’, exists, the second and third persons will also seem to exist, but that if we scrutinise the truth of the first person, it will cease to exist, and along with it the second and third persons will also cease to exist, and that the remaining single (non-dual) தன்மை (taṉmai) — ‘self-ness’, ‘essence’, ‘reality’, ‘first person’ or ‘state’ — alone is ‘self’, our own real state.

In the first two sentences of this verse, the word தன்மை (taṉmai) or the ‘first person’, which etymologically means ‘self-ness’, denotes ‘I’, the conscious mind or subject, which always experiences itself as being ‘here’ and ‘now’, in the present place and time; the word முன்னிலை (muṉṉilai) or the ‘second person’, which etymologically means ‘that which stands in front’, denotes the objects that the mind experiences most immediately, namely its own intimate thoughts; and the word படர்க்கை (paḍarkkai) or the ‘third person’, which etymologically means ‘that which spreads out [or expands]’, denotes the objects that the mind experiences more remotely, namely those thoughts that appear as the objects of the seemingly external world.

Since all objects — both those that we recognise as being mere thoughts (the ‘second person’ objects) and those that appear to exist in an external world (the ‘third person’ objects) — seem to exist only when they are known by our thinking mind (the ‘first person’ or subject), they will cease to exist as soon as we experience the truth that this false ‘first person’ is actually non-existent. And since space is an illusion that is created by the seeming separation between the knowing subject (the ‘first person’) and the many objects (the ‘second and third persons’) that it knows, space will cease to exist as soon as the ‘first place’ (the ‘first person’ or ‘here’) ceases to exist.

In verse 15 Sri Ramana goes on to discuss the reality of time, saying that the past and future stand clinging to the present (that is, their seeming existence depends upon the present); that while occurring they are both the present; that the present is ‘only one’ (that is, the only one time that we ever actually experience); and that trying to know the past or future without knowing the truth of the present is like trying to count without knowing ‘one’ (the basic number of which all other numbers are constituted).

In verse 16 he concludes his discussion of time and space by first asking the rhetorical question ‘நாம் அன்றி நாள் ஏது, நாடு ஏது, நாடும் கால்?’ (nām aṉḏṟi nāḷ ēdu, nāḍu ēdu, nāḍum kāl?), which means ‘when [we] scrutinise, except we, where is time [and] where is place?’ and which clearly implies that when we keenly scrutinise ourself in the precise present place and precise present moment, ‘here’ and ‘now’, we will discover that ‘we’ alone truly exist and that time and place are completely non-existent.

After asking this question, he says that if we are a body, we shall be ensnared in time and place, but then asks another rhetorical question, ‘are we [a] body?’, implying that we are not. He then concludes by saying that since we are ‘one’ (the one non-dual immutable reality), now, then and always, here, there and everywhere, that which really exists is only ‘we’, who are devoid of time and place.

Verses 17 & 18

In verses 17 and 18 he teaches us the unreality of our present experience — both of ourself as a finite body and of the world as a collection of finite forms — by contrasting it with the experience of those who have known self.

In verse 17 he says that both for those who have not known self and for those who have known it, the body is certainly ‘I’, but that the difference between them is that to those who have not known self, ‘I’ is limited to the measure of the body, whereas to those who have known self, ‘I’ shines without any limit (and hence neither the body nor anything else exists as other than it).

In verse 18 he says that both for those who have not known self and for those who have known it, the world is real, but that the difference between them is that to those who have not known self, the reality is limited to the measure of the world, whereas to those who have known self, the reality abides devoid of form as the ādhāra (the support, substratum or ground) of the world. That is, whereas we experience the multiple forms of this world as real, a person who has known self experiences only its formless ground or underlying substance as real.

Verse 19

In verse 19 he says that the dispute whether fate (vidhi) or free will (mati) prevails is of interest only to those who do not know the மூலம் (mūlam) — the root, base, foundation, origin or source — of both fate and free will (namely the mind, which misuses its free will and experiences whatever fate results therefrom), and that those who have known the truth of this mind have thereby separated themselves from fate and free will and will not hereafter become entangled with them again. In other words, fate and free will appear to exist only so long as our mind appears to exist, but when we scrutinise this mind and thereby know the truth that it does not really exist, fate and free will will also cease to exist.

Verses 20 to 22

In verses 20 to 22 he returns to the subject of ‘seeing’ God, which he had discussed earlier in verse 8 (and also in verses 24 to 26 of Upadēśa Undiyār, and once again emphasises the truth that we can experience God as he really is only by knowing our real self and thereby surrendering our false self.

In verse 20 he says seeing God without seeing oneself, who sees him, is only seeing a மனோமயமாம் காட்சி (maṉōmayam-ām kāṭci) — a ‘sight which is composed of mind’ or ‘mind-made vision’ — and that only he who sees his real self, which is the source and base of his false self, has truly seen God, because our real self, which alone remains after the destruction of our false self, which is the root (of all mental visions or experiences), is not other than God.

In verse 21 he asks how we can ‘see’ ourself, since ourself is one (and is therefore not something that we can ‘see’ as an object that is other than ourself), and how we can ‘see’ God (as an object of experience), since we cannot even ‘see’ ourself (as an object of experience), and he concludes by saying ‘ஊண் ஆதல் காண்’ (ūṇ ādal kāṇ), which means ‘becoming food [is] seeing’. That is, we can truly see God, who is our own real self, only by surrendering ourself entirely to him, allowing ourself to be consumed in his infinite light of pristine self-consciousness, ‘I am’.

In verse 22 he asks us to consider how we can meditate upon or know God by our mind, except by turning our mind back within and immersing it in God, who shines within it (as its essential self-consciousness, ‘I am’) giving it light (the light of consciousness by which it is able to know both itself and the appearance of thoughts, objects or otherness).

Verses 23 to 29

In verses 23 to 29 he discusses the rising of our false ‘I’, the mind or ego, and the means by which we can return to our natural state, in which this ‘I’ does not rise.

In verse 23 he says that this body does not say ‘I’, because it is not conscious; that no one says ‘in sleep I do not exist’ (even though our body and mind do not exist in sleep); and that after one ‘I’ (our mind or ego) rises, everything arises. Therefore he instructs us to scrutinise with a நுண் மதி (nūṇ mati) — a subtle, acute, precise and keen mind, intellect or power of discernment — where this ‘I’ rises, and in the kalivenbā version he adds that when we scrutinise it thus, it will ‘slip off’, ‘steal away’ or ‘stealthily escape’.

That is, this false ‘I’ appears to exist only so long as we do not keenly scrutinise it, and it disappears as soon as we focus our entire attention upon it (just as an imaginary snake would disappear when we look at it carefully and thereby recognise that it is only a rope). The fact that this is the nature of our mind or ego — our primal thought ‘I’ — is an extremely important truth that Sri Ramana emphasised repeatedly, because it is a vital clue that explains the unique and infallible efficacy of ātma-vicāra or self-investigation.

In all forms of spiritual practice other than ātma-vicāra, our attention is directed towards something other than our essential self — our fundamental consciousness ‘I’ — so such practices will only sustain and perpetuate the illusion of the false ‘I’ who is practising them, and hence they can never destroy it. The only means by which we can destroy this illusion is to withdraw our attention from everything else and focus it exclusively upon ‘I’, because just as we would not recognise the truth that the imaginary snake is actually nothing other than a rope unless we looked at it carefully, so we will not recognise (or truly experience) the truth that this imaginary finite ‘I’ is actually nothing other than the one real infinite ‘I’ unless we scrutinise it keenly.

In verse 24 he begins by reiterating the truth that this non-conscious body does not say ‘I’, and then he says that being-consciousness (sat-cit) does not rise (appear or come into existence), but that in between being-consciousness and this non-conscious body one ‘I’ rises as the ‘measure’ of this body (that is, a spurious consciousness ‘I’ rises as ‘I am this body’, assuming the boundaries of bodily existence, being confined within the limits of time and space). This false ‘I’, he says, is cit-jaḍa-granthi (the knot that binds together consciousness and the non-conscious), bondage, the soul, the ‘subtle body’, the ego, the mind and this saṁsāra (‘wandering’, the state of incessant activity, passing through one dream-life after another).

In verse 25 he describes this false ‘I’ as உருவற்ற பேய் அகந்தை (uru-v-aṯṟa pēy ahandai), the ‘formless ghost-ego’, and says that it comes into existence by grasping form (that is, by attaching itself to a body), endures by grasping form (that is, by attending to thoughts or perceptions of a seemingly external world), feeds and grows (flourishes or expands) abundantly by grasping form, and having left one form it grasps another form. That is, since this ego has no form (no finite and separate existence) of its own, it can seemingly come into existence and endure only when we imagine ourself to be the form of a body, and it flourishes when we attend to any form (anything that appears to be separate from ourself).

Having thus explained how this ‘I’ rises, endures and flourishes, he explains how it can be destroyed, saying தேடினால் ஓட்டம் பிடிக்கும் (tēḍiṉāl ōṭṭam piḍikkum), which literally means ‘if [we] seek [search, investigate, examine or scrutinise it], it will take flight’. That is, since this ego is a ‘formless ghost’ and since it can therefore rise and endure only by ‘grasping form’, when it tries to ‘grasp’ (or attend to) itself, which is not a form, it will subside and disappear.

Thus in this verse Sri Ramana explains more clearly the crucial truth that he had mentioned briefly in the last sentence of the kalivenbā version of verse 23 — ‘நான் எங்கு எழும்?’ என்று நுண் மதியால் எண்ண நழுவும் (‘nāṉ eṅgu eṙum?’ eṉḏṟu nūṇ matiyāl eṇṇa naṙuvum), which means ‘when [we] scrutinise with a subtle power of discernment "where does [this] I rise?", it will steal away’ — namely the truth that our mind or ego is nourished and sustained by attending to anything other than itself, and will therefore be dissolved and destroyed only by attending to itself.

As I mentioned above, this truth — which can aptly be called the ‘first law of consciousness’ or ‘first law of the science of self-knowledge’ — is a fundamental principle that we must understand if we are to recognise the unique efficacy ofātma-vicāra and the fundamental limitation of every other form of spiritual practice. It is also the key to complete self-surrender, because our false self is sustained by attending to anything other than itself, and hence we can effectively surrender it only by vigilantly scrutinising it, as Sri Ramana teaches us in the thirteenth paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?):

Being completely absorbed in ātma-niṣṭhā [self-abidance], not giving even the slightest room to the rising of any other cintanā [thought] except ātma-cintanā [self-contemplation or self-attentiveness], alone is giving ourself to God. ...

In verse 26 he states another fundamental principle of this science of self-knowledge, saying that if the ego comes into existence, everything will come into existence, and that if the ego does not exist, everything else will not exist. Therefore he declares the truth that அகந்தையே யாவும் ஆம் (ahandai-y-ē yāvum ām), which means ‘the ego indeed is everything’, and he concludes by saying ஆதலால் ‘யாது இது?’ என்று நாடலே ஓவுதல் யாவும் (ādalāl ‘yādu idu?’ eṉḏṟu nāḍal-ē ōvudal yāvum), which means ‘therefore investigating [or scrutinising] "what is this [ego]?" is indeed giving up [or renouncing] everything’. That is, since we can renounce or surrender our ego only by scrutinising it vigilantly to know what it really is, and since everything else is actually nothing other than this ego, scrutinising ‘what am I?’ is truly renouncing everything.

Thus Sri Ramana teaches us that we cannot truly renounce the world merely by becoming a monk, hermit or ascetic, but only by keenly attending to our fundamental consciousness ‘I’, thereby refraining from attending to any other thing. Therefore this practice of ātma-vicāra or self-investigation is not only complete self-surrender but also absolute renunciation of everything.

In verse 27 he teaches us that ātma-vicāra is the only means by which we can experience the truth declared in themahāvākyas or ‘great sayings’ of the Vēdas such as ahaṁ brahmāsmi, ‘I am brahman [the absolute reality]’, and tat tvam asi, ‘that [God or brahman] you are’.

In the first line he says that the state in which ‘I’ abides without rising is the state in which we abide as ‘we are that’, and then he asks how we can reach or attain this egoless state, in which ‘I’ does not rise, unless we scrutinise the source from which it rises. Here the words நான் உதிக்கும் தானம் (nāṉ udikkum [s]thānam), which literally mean the ‘place where I rises’ or the ‘rising-place of I’, denote our real self, which is the ‘place’ or source from which our false self rises (just as the rope is the ‘place’ or source from which the imaginary snake arises).

After thus implying that self-scrutiny is the only means by which we can ‘reach’ our natural state of non-rising, he asks another rhetorical question, which reiterates the truth that he stated in the first line by implying that unless we reach this egoless state, we cannot abide as ‘that’ which we really are (namely brahman, the one absolute reality).

In verse 28 he describes the practice of ātma-vicāra in a more graphic manner, saying that just as we would sink (immerse or dive) in order to find something that had fallen into the water, we should sink deep within ourself with a keenly penetrating power of discernment, thereby controlling our breath and speech, and know the ‘rising-place’ or source of our ego, which rises (as the root of all rising).

In verse 29 he teaches us that such keen self-scrutiny or ātma-vicāra — which he describes as the practice of ‘having discarded our body like a corpse and not uttering the word "I" by mouth, scrutinising with an inward-sinking mind "where does it [our mind] rise as I?"’ — alone is the path of jñāna (or true knowledge), and that other practices such as meditating upon the thoughts ‘I am not this body, I am brahman’ are only aids but are not the actual practice ofātma-vicāra.

Verse 30

In verse 30 he reiterates the truth that he stated in verse 20 of Upadēśa Undiyār and verse 2 of Āṉma-Viddai, saying that when our mind reaches our heart (the innermost core of our being) by inwardly scrutinising ‘who am I?’ and thereby dies, the one reality will ‘appear’ or ‘shine forth’ (that is, will be experienced) spontaneously as ‘I [am] I’, and then he clarifies that though it ‘appears’, it is not ‘I’ (the ego) but is the whole poruḷ (the one infinite ‘substance’, ‘essence’ or ‘reality’), the poruḷ which is self.

That is, since our real self is infinite, eternal and unchanging, it never truly ‘appears’ (or ‘shines forth’), but it is described as ‘appearing’ (or ‘shining forth’) because at the precise moment that our mind subsides into the innermost depth of our being, we will seem to experience it with an altogether new and fresh clarity. This fresh clarity of self-consciousness or self-knowledge (which is what is sometimes called aham-sphuraṇa or ātma-sphuraṇa, the ‘shining forth of I’ or ‘clear appearance of self’) will instantly destroy the last vestige of our mind, whereupon its newness will subside and we will experience it as our eternally clear and ever immutable self. 

Verse 31

In verse 31 he reiterates the truth that he stated in verse 15 of Upadēśa Undiyār, asking rhetorically what there is to do for one who enjoys the bliss of self, which rose (as ‘I [am] I’) destroying the false self (or ego) — thereby implying that our natural state of clear self-consciousness is absolutely devoid of karma or action (since the mind, the agent or ‘doer’ of all action, has ceased to exist) — and he concludes this verse with another rhetorical question, asking who can understand what this non-dual state of true self-knowledge really is, since one in this state does not know anything other than self.

Verse 32

In verse 32 he returns again to the subject of how we can experience the truth taught in mahāvākyas such as tat tvam asi or ‘that you are’ (which he had discussed in verse 27 and 29, and which he mentions again in verse 36), saying that when the Vēdas declare that ‘that you are’, we should know and be our true self by investigating ‘what am I?’, and that if instead of knowing ourself thus we just think ‘I am that [reality], not this [unreal body]’, that is due to lack of clear discrimination (or strength of conviction), because ‘that’ (the one absolute reality or God) always abides as our true self.

Verse 33

In verse 33 he clarifies the nature of true self-knowledge, which is absolutely non-dual and non-objective, teaching us that saying either ‘I do not know myself’ or ‘I have known myself’ is a ground for ridicule, because we are not two selves, one of which could be an object known by the other, since being one is the true experience of each one of us.

Verse 34

In verse 34 he teaches us that it is foolish to argue about the nature of the reality instead of abiding as it, saying that since the பொருள் (poruḷ) or ‘essential reality’ always exists as the true nature of each one of us, disputing whether it exists or does not exist, whether it is a form or formless, or whether it is one or two or neither (one nor two), instead of knowing and firmly abiding as it in our heart, where it exists (or by means of an inward merging mind), is மாயைச் சழக்கு (māyai-c-caṙakku), a fault or evil of māyā or self-deception.

Verse 35

In verse 35 he teaches us that the only worthy siddhi or ‘attainment’ is ātma-siddhi or ‘self-attainment’ and not the attainment of any supernatural power, saying that knowing and being the பொருள் (poruḷ) or ‘essential reality’, which is always attained, is the only true attainment, and that all other attainments are merely attainments experienced in a dream. He then asks whether such attainments will be real if we wake up from our present sleep of self-forgetfulness, and whether those who abide in the state of உண்மை (uṇmai), ‘reality’ or ‘being’, and who have thereby discarded unreality, will be deluded (by any such false attainment).

Verse 36

In verse 36 he again teaches us that we cannot experience ourself as the one absolute reality merely by meditating ‘I am that’, saying that if we think we are this body, thinking ‘no, we are that’ will be a useful aid in reminding us to abide as ‘that’, but then asking why we should always be thinking that ‘we are that’, since in truth we always exist as ‘that’. To illustrate the folly and futility of meditating ‘I am that’, he asks whether anyone meditates ‘I am a human being’ (implying that just as it is not necessary for a person to think ‘I am a human being’ in order to be human, so in order to be the reality that we always are we do not need to meditate ‘I am that’).

Verse 37

In verse 37 he reminds us that we are always the one non-dual reality, even when we imagine that we are seeking to experience ourself as such, saying that even the contention that ‘duality [is real] in [the state of] spiritual practice, [but] non-duality [is real] in [the state of] spiritual attainment’ is not true, and to illustrate this truth he asks who we are other than the tenth man, both when we are desperately searching (for ourself) and when we have found ourself.

As I explain in a separate article, Non-duality is the truth even when duality appears to exist (which is an extract from chapter 5 of Happiness and the Art of Being), the dasaman or ‘tenth man’ whom Sri Ramana mentions in this verse is any one of the ten dull-witted men in a well-known story, according to which they imagined that they had lost one of their companions because, after fording a river, each one of them counted his nine companions but forgot to count himself, the proverbial ‘tenth man’. Just as each of them was the missing ‘tenth man’ even when he imagined the ‘tenth man’ to be lost, so we are each the one real self even when we imagine ourself to be lacking clear knowledge of who we really are.

However, though our present self-ignorance and all its effects are a mere imagination, just as the loss of the ‘tenth man’ was a mere imagination, so long as we experience any of these effects — even the slightest trace of duality or otherness — we must make effort to know ourself and thereby dispel this illusion of self-ignorance, which is the root cause of all duality.

Verse 38

To emphasise the truth that we must certainly make effort to dispel our imaginary self-ignorance, in verse 38 Sri Ramana says that if we are the agent or ‘doer’ of actions, we will certainly experience the resulting ‘fruit’ or consequences, but that when we know ourself by investigating ‘who is the doer of action?’ our kartṛtva or sense of ‘doership’ (our feeling that ‘I am doing action’) will depart and all the ‘three karmas’ will cease to exist. This state devoid of the ‘doer’ and his or her ‘three karmas’ is, Sri Ramana says, the state of mukti or ‘liberation’, which is eternal (being without beginning, interruption or end).

As I explain in a separate article, Actions or karmas are like seeds (which is an extract from chapter 4 of Happiness and the Art of Being, the ‘three karmas’ are (1) our āgāmya karma, our present actions, which we perform by our free will under the influence of our vāsanās (the latent ‘seeds’ of our desires) and which therefore generate not only more such ‘seeds’ but also ‘fruits’ to be experienced by us later; (2) our saṁcita karma, the store of the ‘fruits’ of our past actions that are yet to be experienced by us; and (3) our prārabdha karma, our present destiny or fate, which is the set of those ‘fruits’ of our past actions that God has selected and ordained for us to experience now. These ‘three karmas’ will all appear to be real so long as we mistake ourself to be a ‘doer’ and an ‘experiencer’, that is, an individual who does actions and experiences pleasure and pain, which are the ‘fruits’ or consequences of actions that we have done in the past.

However, if we investigate ‘who am I, who now feel that I am doing actions?’ — that is, if we keenly scrutinise our own essential consciousness ‘I am’, which we now confuse with the mind, speech and body that do actions — we will discover that we are actually not a finite individual who does actions by mind, speech and body, but are only the infinite consciousness that just is. When we thus come to know ourself as we really are, we will cease to mistake ourself to be either the ‘doer’ of any action or the ‘experiencer’ of the fruit of any action. 

Verse 39

In verse 39 he emphasises once again our need to make effort to dispel our imaginary self-ignorance, saying that thoughts of bondage and liberation will exist only so long as we experience ourself as ‘I am a person in bondage’, but that when we see ourself by investigating ‘who is this person in bondage?’ our real self, which is eternally liberated, will alone stand as that which is ever attained, and then he asks whether in front (of such clear self-knowledge) the thought of liberation can stand, since the thought of bondage cannot stand.

Verse 40

Finally in verse 40 Sri Ramana answers those who say that the mukti or liberation that we can attain is of three kinds, with form, without form, or with or without form, stating emphatically that liberation is the destruction of the imaginary form of the ego, which distinguishes these kinds of liberation, with form, without form, or with or without form.

Anubandham

உள்ளது நாற்பது — அனுபந்தம் (Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham), the ‘Supplement to Forty [Verses] on That Which Is’, is a collection of forty-one Tamil verses that Sri Ramana composed at various times during the 1920’s and 1930’s.

The formation of this work began on 21st July 1928, when Sri Muruganar asked Sri Ramana to write a text to ‘reveal to us the nature of reality and the means by which we can attain it so that we may be saved’ (மெய்யின் இயல்பும் அதை மேவும் திறனும் எமக்கு உய்யும்படி ஓதுக [meyyiṉ iyalbum atai mēvum tiṟaṉum emakku uyyumpaḍi ōduka], which are words that Sri Muruganar records in his pāyiram or prefatory verse to Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu). At that time Sri Muruganar had collected twenty-one verses that Sri Ramana had composed at various times, and he suggested that these could form the basis of such a text.

Over the next two to three weeks Sri Ramana discussed many ideas with Sri Muruganar and composed about forty new verses. As he composed them, he and Sri Muruganar arranged them in order, and while doing so they decided that for one reason or another most of the previously existing twenty-one verses were not suitable to include in the text that he was writing.

In the end, they decided to include in Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu only three of the original twenty-one verses, namely verses 16, 37 and 40 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu. Of these three, verse 16 was not actually included in its original form, which Sri Ramana had composed in August 1927 (and which is now included in Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ as verse 13, a translation of which I have given on pages 408-9 of Happiness and the Art of Being), but was modified by him while he was composing and editing Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu.

The principal reason why they decided not to include the other eighteen of the original twenty-one verses was that most of them were not entirely suitable to the central aim of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, which was to teach us ‘the nature of reality and the means by which we can attain it’. In addition to these eighteen verses, they also decided not to include three of the new verses that Sri Ramana composed during the three weeks that he was composing and editing Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu.

However, since Sri Muruganar did not want the twenty-one verses that they had thus decided not to include in Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu to be forgotten or neglected, he suggested to Sri Ramana that they should arrange them in a suitable order and append them as an anubandham (an ‘appendix’ or ‘supplement’) to Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu. Therefore, when it was first published in 1928, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham consisted of only twenty-one verses, but by 1930 or 31 it contained thirty verses, in 1938 it contained thirty-seven verses, and finally in 1940 it contained forty-one verses, one of which is the maṅgalam or ‘auspicious introduction’ and the remaining forty of which form the nūl or main ‘text’.

Of these forty-one verses, only eleven are verses that Sri Ramana did not translate from any other language but composed originally in Tamil, namely verses 13 to 17, 31 to 33, 35, 36 and 38. Verses 8 and 10 are his Tamil translations of two verses that he first composed in Sanskrit. Verse 11 is his Tamil translation of a Sanskrit verse that Lakshmana Sarma (the author of Maha Yoga) composed recording a teaching that he had given orally. And though the last two lines of verse 12 are a translation by him of verse 84 of Vivēkacūḍāmaṇi, a Sanskrit text composed by Sri Adi Sankara, the first two lines are an original composition by Sri Ramana.

The other twenty-six verses of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham are translations or explanatory adaptations that he composed of verses by other authors. Verse 20 is an adaptation or paraphrase that he wrote of two verses (19.59 and 62) from a Tamil work called Prabhuliṅga Līlai (which is a verse adaptation of the original in Kannada). Nine verses, namely the maṅgalam, 21 to 24, 26, 27, 29 and 30, are translations of Sanskrit verses from Yōga Vāsiṣṭha. Verses 1, 7 and 39 are translations of Sanskrit verses by Sri Adi Sankara. Verse 5 is a translation of a Sanskrit verse fromŚrīmad Bhāgavatam (10.48.31). Verses 9 and 25 are translations of two verses (46 and 47) from Jñānācāra-Vicāra-Paḍalam, a chapter (the whole of which Sri Ramana translated separately) of a Sanskrit upāgama text calledDēvikālōttara. Verses 18 and 19 are translations of two verses from the Malayalam version of an ancient āyurvēdicmedical text called Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdayam. Verse 37 is a translation of a Sanskrit verse that was probably composed by Śrī Sadāśiva Brahmēndra. And the remaining seven verses, namely 2, 3, 4, 6, 28, 34 and 40, are translations of verses from various other Sanskrit texts.

The maṅgalam verse, which is a translation (or rather an explanatory paraphrase) of Yōga Vāsiṣṭha 5.8.12, is adhyāna ślōka or ‘verse of meditation’ upon svarūpa (our ‘own form’ or essential self), in which our svarūpa is described as the one truly existing reality, in which everything exists, whose everything is, from which everything comes into being, for which everything exists, by which everything comes to be, and which alone everything actually is.

The first five verses of the nūl or main ‘text’ are translations of Sanskrit verses about the efficacy of sat-saṅga, a term that literally means ‘clinging to [attachment to, devotion to, contact with or association with] reality [or being]’, but that by extension also means association with those who know and abide as the reality. As Sri Ramana often explained, the most perfect form of sat-saṅga is only ātma-vicāra, the practice of attending or ‘clinging’ to self, which is the only reality, but as an aid to our practice of ātma-vicāra, we can also be greatly benefited by less perfect forms of sat-saṅga such as studying and reflecting upon the teachings of those who know and abide as the reality, or simply being in their company.

Verse 1

Verse 1 is an adaptation of verse 9 of Mōha Mudgara (the ‘Hammer on Delusion’, a song by Sri Adi Sankara, which is more popularly known as Bhaja Gōvindam), ‘satsaṅgatvē nissaṅgatvaṁ; nissaṅgatvē nirmōhatvam; nirmōhatvē niścalatattvaṁ; niścalatattvē jīvanmuktiḥ’, which literally means:

In [or through] the state of sat-saṅga [attachment to being], the state of nissaṅga [non-attachment] [arises]; in the state of nissaṅga, the state of nirmōha [freedom from delusion] [arises]; in the state of nirmōha, niścala-tattva [the true state of motionless being] [arises]; in niścala-tattva, jīvanmukti [liberation in this life] [arises].

In his Tamil adaptation of this verse, Sri Ramana says that by சத்திணக்கம் (sat-t-iṇakkam) — friendship, intimacy, harmony or union with being, or with those who abide as being — attachment (to the external world) will leave us; that when such attachment leaves us, mental attachment (that is, our vāsanās, which are the subtle seeds of our desires) will be dispersed (or destroyed); that people who are thus freed from mental attachment will perish in that which is motionless; and that they will thereby attain jīvanmukti (liberation in this life). He then concludes this verse by adding ‘அவர் இணக்கம் பேண்’ (avar iṇakkam pēṇ), which means ‘cherish their friendship [or intimacy]’. In other words, he advises us that we should therefore cherish the intimate friendship and company of those who abide as sat, ‘being’ or the reality.

The key word in this Tamil adaptation is இணக்கம் (iṇakkam), which Sri Ramana used to convey the meaning of the Sanskrit word saṅga in the compound word sat-saṅga. Whereas saṅga means ‘clinging to’, ‘attachment to’, ‘devotion to’, ‘affection for’, ‘contact with’ or ‘association with’, iṇakkam means ‘friendship’, ‘intimacy’, ‘love’, ‘attachment’, ‘affection’, ‘agreement’, ‘attunement’, ‘harmony’, ‘compatibility’, ‘connection’, ‘alliance’ or ‘union’, so rather than merely meaning outward contact or company, both these words more significantly mean the subtle inward feeling of love, affection, intimacy and attunement of heart.

Therefore sat-saṅga (or sat-iṇakkam) does not merely mean living in the physical presence of a sage who abides assat, the one absolute reality, but more exactly means profound love for and intense attachment to such a sage and the state of pure being in which and as which he or she abides. Thus, even if we do not outwardly live in the company of such a sage, if we inwardly cling to him with pure love, we will always enjoy the benefit of his true sat-saṅga.

Therefore when Sri Ramana advises us to ‘cherish their iṇakkam’, he does not only mean that we should cherish their outward company, but more importantly that we should inwardly cultivate and cherish true love for them and for thesat or pure being of which they are an embodiment.

Verse 2

In verse 2 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know) he says that the supreme state (of true self-knowledge) that is attained by means of clear vicāra (self-investigation), which will arise in our heart when we take refuge in சாது உறவு (sādhu-uṟavu) — intimate friendship with or love for a sādhu (a word that literally means a person who is going or has gone straight to a goal, and that in this context means a sage who knows and abides as self, the absolute reality) — cannot be attained by listening to a preacher, by understanding the meaning of sacred texts, by virtuous deeds, or by any other means.

Verse 3

In verse 3 (which is also a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know, and which he composed for a child who wanted to observe a fast as a niyama or form of religious self-restraint) he asks a rhetorical question that implies that if we gain sahavāsa (close association or friendship) with those who are sādhus (those who know and abide as self), all these niyamas (the various forms of self-restraint prescribed for the practice of yōga or for living a virtuous life) will serve no purpose, just as there would be no benefit in holding a hand-fan when a cool southern breeze is blowing.

Verse 4

In verse 4 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse, the original source of which is not known, but which is included in a well-known collection of ‘gems of wise sayings’ called Subhāṣita Ratna Bhāṇḍāra as verse 6 of section 3) he says that heat (or mental anguish) will be removed by the cool moon, poverty by the divine wish-fulfilling tree, and sin by the river Ganga, but that all three of these will be removed merely by the precious sight of incomparable sādhus.

Verse 5

In verse 5 (which is an adaptation of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.48.31) he says that tīrthas (sacred bathing places), which are composed of water, and daivas (images of deities), which are composed of stone or earth, cannot be compared to those great souls, because they (the tīrthas and daivas) will gradually bestow purity (of mind) over a long period of time, whereas sādhus will bestow purity as soon as we see them with our eyes (or as soon as they see us with their eye of grace).

Verses 6 & 7

Verses 6 and 7 are two dialogues between a guru and a disciple that are intended to help us determine the true nature of self.

Verse 6 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know) begins with a disciple’s question, ‘Who is God?’, to which the guru replies with a counter-question, ‘Who knows the mind?’. The dialogue then continues: ‘My mind is only known by me, the soul’, ‘Therefore you are certainly God, because the śrutis [sacred texts] say that God is the one [who alone truly exists]’.

Verse 7 (which is an adaptation of Sri Adi Sankara’s Ēka Ślōki) begins with a guru’s question, ‘What is the light for you?’, and the dialogue that ensues is as follows: ‘For me, by day the sun, by night a lamp’, ‘What is the light that knows [these physical] lights?’, ‘[My] eye’, ‘What is the light that knows that [your eye]?’, ‘[That] light is [my] mind’, ‘What is the light that knows [your] mind?’, ‘That is I’, ‘[Therefore the light] that shines in [all other] lights is you’, ‘I am only that [the original light of consciousness, by means of which all other lights are known]’.

Verse 8

Verse 8 is Sri Ramana’s Tamil translation of the Sanskrit verse ‘hṛdaya-kuhara-madhyē kēvalam brahma-mātraṁ hyaham-aham-iti sākṣād-ātma-rūpēṇa bhāti | hṛdi viśa manasā svaṁ-cinvatā majjatā vā pavana-calana-rōdhād ātmaniṣṭhō bhava tvam ||’, which he had composed in 1915. Though the original Sanskrit version of this verse was completed by Sri Ramana, the first three words were composed by a devotee called Jagadisa Sastri, and when he completed it Sri Ramana signed the name ‘Jagadisan’ at the foot of it, indicating thereby that he had written in it only the ideas that Jagadisa Sastri wanted to express but was unable to do so in verse.

In the first two lines of this verse he says that in the centre of the ‘cave’ that is our heart the one brahman (the absolute reality or one true being) alone shines directly as ātman (our true self), (which always experiences itself) as ‘I [am] I’. Then in the last two lines he tells us the means by which we can experience and abide as this one non-dual reality, instructing us to enter (approach, reach or take refuge in) our heart either by our mind sinking (within) contemplating ourself, or by our mind sinking (within) with the breath (restrained), and thereby to be one who abides in ātman.

Though most of this verse accurately expresses the teachings of Sri Ramana, which Jagadisa Sastri had often heard him saying, the idea expressed in the final line by the words (in the Sanskrit original) ‘vā pavana calana rōdhāt’, which means ‘or by restraining the movement of [your] breath’, is not in tune with his teachings, because these words imply that we can enter our heart — the innermost core of our being — and abide as our real self not only by svaṁ-cinvatāor ‘self-investigation’ but also by breath-restraint.

The fact that by restraining our breath we can restrain our mind only temporarily, that breath-restraint (prāṇāyāma) will not destroy or weaken our vāsanās or latent desires, and that it is therefore only an aid to restrain our mind but will not bring about manōnāśa or ‘annihilation of mind’ is clearly taught to us by Sri Ramana in the eighth paragraph ofNāṉ Yār? (Who am I?). Therefore we should understand that the words ‘hṛdi viśa ... pavana calana rōdhāt ātmaniṣṭhō bhava tvam’ (which mean ‘enter [your] heart ... by restraining the movement of [your] breath [and thereby] be you inātma-niṣṭhā [self-abidance]’) in this verse express a belief of Jagadisa Sastri and not an actual teaching of Sri Ramana.

To clarify that the only means by which we can destroy our mind and thereby abide eternally as self is svaṁ cinvatā or ‘self-investigation’ and not pavana calana rōdha or ‘restraining the movement of the breath’, when Sri Ramana and Sri Muruganar arranged the order of verses in Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham, they placed immediately after verse 8 a Verse 9 that is a translation by Sri Ramana of verse 46 of the  Jñānācāra - Vicāra -paḍalam  of  Dēvikālōttara, which  clearly  states  the  truth that only consciousness, which is the pure and motionless ‘I’ that exists and shines in the lotus of our heart, will bestow liberation, the natural state of self, by destroying ‘I’ (our mind or ego).

Verse 10

In verse 10 (which he composed first in Sanskrit and then in Tamil), while elaborating upon the central teaching of advaita vēdānta — namely ‘dēham nāham; kōham? sōham’ — Sri Ramana explains in his own words why and how this pure consciousness ‘I’ will destroy our ego.

The four words ‘dēham nāham; kōham? sōham’, each of which is in turn the first word of each of the four lines of this verse (both in Sanskrit and in Tamil), mean ‘the body (dēham) [is] not (na) I (aham); who (kaḥ) [am] I (aham)? he (saḥ) [is] I (aham)’. The first sentence, ‘dēham nāham’ or ‘the body is not I’, denotes the initial process of self-analysis by which we gain the intellectual conviction that the body, mind and other adjuncts that we have superimposed upon ourself are not our essential self or ‘I’; the second sentence, ‘kōham?’ or ‘who am I?’, denotes the practice of ātma-vicāra or self-investigation, whereby we will actually experience what ‘I’ really is; and the third sentence, ‘sōham’ or ‘he is I’, denote the experience of true self-knowledge that we will gain by practising ātma-vicāra.

In the first two lines of this verse Sri Ramana explains the first sentence, ‘dēham nāham’, saying that the body is not ‘I’ because it is jaḍa (non-conscious) like a clay pot, because it does not have any ‘shining’ (or consciousness of itself) as ‘I’, and because our nature (or essential being) is experienced by us daily in sleep, in which this body does not exist.

In the last two lines he explains the last two sentences, ‘kōham? sōham’, saying that within the heart-cave of those who abide (as self), having known (by self-investigation) ‘who is this ego, the person who poses as I?’ (or) ‘where is he?’, the omnipresent God (aruṇagiri-śiva-vibhu) will shine forth spontaneously as the sphuraṇa (the clarity of pure self-consciousness) ‘he is I’. That is, when we investigate ‘who am I?’ we will experience the truth that ‘I’ is nothing other than the one omnipresent absolute reality, which we call ‘God’ or ‘Aruṇagiri Śiva’.

By placing this verse after verses 8 and 9, Sri Ramana clearly implied the truth that since the real nature of our fundamental consciousness ‘I’ is nothing other than the one non-dual reality, we can destroy the illusory appearance of our mind and thereby abide firmly as our real self only by keenly scrutinising and knowing this consciousness ‘I’ as it really is. 

Verse 11

Verse 11 is a Tamil translation by Sri Ramana of a Sanskrit verse in which Lakshmana Sarma recorded what he had once said, namely that the person who is truly born is only he (or she) who is born in his own source, which isbrahman (the one absolute reality), by keenly investigating ‘where was it (this mind or ego) born as I?’, and that such a person is munīśan (the lord of all sages) and is eternal and ever new and fresh.

Verse 12

In verse 12 Sri Ramana advises us to cease thinking this wretched body to be ‘I’ and to know self, which is ever-unceasing happiness, and then he adds a warning (which he adapted from verse 84 of Vivēkacūḍāmaṇi), namely that trying to know self while cherishing this perishable body is like trying to cross a river using a crocodile as a raft.

Verse 13

In verse 13 he teaches us that destroying our dēhātma-bhāva (the false attitude or imagination that ‘this body is I’) is in effect the perfect performance of all good deeds and the achievement of all virtues and happiness, such as charity (dāna), asceticism (tapas), ritual sacrifice,  dharma  (righteousness or good conduct),  yōga  (union with God), devotion (bhakti), heaven, wealth, peace (śānti), truth, grace, silence (mauna), abidance (as self), death without dying, knowledge, renunciation, liberation and bliss.

Verse 14

In verse 14 he teaches us that by practising ātma-vicāra we will achieve the true aim of all forms of spiritual practice (each of which can be classified as being a form of one of the four ‘yōgas’, namely karma, bhakti, yōga and jñāna), saying that investigating ‘to whom are  karma  (action),  vibhakti  (lack of devotion), viyōga  (separation from God) andajñāna  (ignorance of self)?’  is  itself  karma  (the path of desireless action), bhakti  (the path of devotion), yōga  (the path of union) and  jñāna  (the path of knowledge), because when we investigate ourself thus, we will discover that this ‘I’ (who does karma, lacks bhakti, feels itself to be separate from God, and is ignorant of its real self) does not really exist; that without this false ‘I’ these defects (karma, vibhakti, viyōga and ajñāna) never exist; and that the truth is therefore that we permanently exist only as the one real self.

Verses 15 to 17

In verses 15 to 17 Sri Ramana ridicules those who desire to acquire siddhis (supernatural or miraculous powers) and thereby to reform the world or rectify all its problems, and he teaches us that such desires would certainly prevent our mind subsiding in the peaceful state of absolute non-activity, in which alone we can experience ‘liberation’, which is the state of true self-knowledge.

In verse 15 he says that the buffoonery of ‘lunatics’ who do not know the truth that śakti (the one divine power) alone enables them to function, yet who exert themselves actively saying ‘we will attain siddhis’, is like the story of a cripple who said, ‘If someone raises me up [enabling me to stand], what measure are these enemies [that is, what power will they have to withstand me]?’

In verse 16 he asks a rhetorical question which implies that since absolute peace of mind alone is liberation, which is in truth always attained, people who set their mind upon siddhis, which cannot be attained without activity of mind, cannot immerse in the bliss of liberation, which is completely devoid of mental turbulence, agitation or activity.

In verse 17 he compares the ‘spurious [unreal or deceptive] soul’ who imagines that he or she is bearing the burden of the world, when in fact God is bearing it all, to the form of a gōpuram tāṅgi (one of the four plasterwork figures that stand near the top of a gōpuram [a monumental tower erected above a temple gateway] and seem to bear its cylindrical upper section on their shoulders), saying that the attitude of such a person is a mockery. In the second half of the verse he gives another analogy (one that he also used in the thirteenth paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?)), asking whose fault it is if a person who is travelling on a train, which is carrying a huge burden, suffers by carrying his own luggage on his head instead of placing it on the train.

Verses 18 to 24

Verses 18 to 24 are centred around the subject of the ‘heart’, a term that in a spiritual context means the innermost core or essence of our being — our pure, adjunct-free, non-dual self-consciousness, ‘I am’.

Though the real nature of our ‘heart’ is infinite consciousness, which transcends all forms of limitation, such as time, space or our material body, verses 18 and 19 describe it as being like a lily bud located within our chest, ‘two digits to the right’, and say that in the tiny hole inside its closed mouth the darkness (of self-ignorance) exists along with desire and other passions; that all the major nāḍis (subtle channels through which consciousness and prāṇa flow) depend upon it; and that it is the abode of the light (of consciousness), the mind and the prāṇa (life-force).

This description of the ‘heart’, which Sri Ramana translated from the Malayalam version of Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdayam (one of the three principal texts of the ancient system of medicine called āyurvēda), is obviously not the absolute truth, but is only a relative truth — a fact that appears to be true only from the limited and distorted perspective of our mind, which always experiences itself as a body. Since our mind experiences a body as ‘I’, in its finite view this ‘I’ seems to originate from and to be centred in a particular place within this body, and hence this place, which is the point ‘two digits to the right’ from the centre of the chest, is loosely described as being the ‘heart’ or centre for ‘I’ in this body.

The fact that our real ‘heart’ is actually not this or any other point in our body is clearly indicated in Upadēśa Maṅjari, in which Sri Natananandar records that — in the answer to the ninth question of the second section, ‘What is thesvarūpa [‘own form’ or essential nature] of the hṛdaya [heart or core]?’ — Sri Ramana quoted these two verses ofUḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham and explained that though some texts describe it thus:

... in absolute truth (paramārtha) the meaning of the word hṛdaya [heart] is only self (ātman). Since it is defined by the characteristics being (sat), consciousness (cit), happiness (ānanda), permanence (nitya) and wholeness (pūrṇa), for it there are not any differences such as ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ or ‘up’ and ‘down’. The motionless place [space, ground or state] in which all thoughts cease is alone called the state of self (ātman). When [we] abide knowing its svarūpa [essential nature] as it is, there will be no room there for considerations such as that it is either inside or outside the body.

Since our ‘heart’ or real self is the one infinite whole (pūrṇa), how can it be confined within any particular form or located at any particular place? It is the one unlimited consciousness in which everything is contained, and the one true substance that exists as everything, so it is both inside and outside everything, and at the same time neither inside nor outside anything.

In verse 20 (which is an adaptation of verses 59 and 62 of chapter 19 of a Tamil work called Prabhuliṅga Līlai) Sri Ramana indicates that the only means by which we can experience our ‘heart’ as it really is is to mediate upon ‘I’ with the firm conviction that God is nothing other than that, and that we should persevere in practising such self-meditation until our present illusion ‘I am this body’ is utterly destroyed. That is, he teaches us that God is that which "shines as ‘I’ in the cave of [our] heart-lotus", and that if we abide as this ‘I’ by the strength of our persistent meditation upon it, and if our abidance as it becomes established as firmly as our sense of ‘I’ is now established in our body, our avidyā (ignorance or false knowledge) ‘I am this perishable body’ will be dispersed like darkness in front of the sun.

The next four verses (which are adapted from verses 32 to 38 of chapter 78 of part 5 of Yōga Vāsiṣṭha) emphasise the truth that our real ‘heart’ is only consciousness.

In verse 21 (Yōga Vāsiṣṭha 5.78.32-3) Sri Rama asks Vasiṣṭha in which great mirror all the worlds that we see appear as a reflection (or shadow), and what is said to be the ‘heart’ of all the living beings in this world (implying that that ‘great mirror’ is the ‘heart’ of each one of us), and Vasiṣṭha replies that the heart of all beings is of two kinds.

In verse 22 (Yōga Vāsiṣṭha 5.78.34-5) Vasiṣṭha continues to describe the characteristics of these two kinds of heart, saying that one of them should be accepted and the other rejected. The physical organ called ‘heart’ that is situated in a location within the chest should be rejected (as being of no concern to us in our search for true self-knowledge, since it is just an unreal product of our mind’s imagination), whereas the ‘heart’ whose form is the one consciousness (our essential non-dual consciousness, ‘I am’) should be accepted (as being the sole reality and hence the only means by which we can know ourself as we really are). He concludes this verse by saying that this ‘heart’ that is consciousness exists both inside and outside, but is not that which exists only inside or only outside.

In verse 23 (Yōga Vāsiṣṭha 5.78.36-7) he says that only this (the ‘heart’ that is consciousness) is mukhya hṛdaya (the principal or original heart); that in it this entire world abides; that it is the mirror to everything (the ‘great mirror’ mentioned in verse 21, in which everything that we see appears as a reflection); that it alone is the abode of all wealth (prosperity or happiness); that therefore only consciousness is declared to be the heart of every living being; and that it is not a small part in a portion of the body, which is jaḍa (non-conscious) like a stone.

In verse 24 (Yōga Vāsiṣṭha 5.78.38) Vasiṣṭha concludes by saying that therefore by the sādhana (means [or more loosely, spiritual practice]) of fixing the mind in the pure heart, which is composed only of consciousness, together with the vāsanās (the propensities or desires that impel the mind to be active) the breath will automatically subside.

Verse 25

In verse 25 (which is a translation of verse 47 of the Jñānācāra-Vicāra-Paḍalam of Dēvikālōttara) Sri Ramana instructs us to banish all attachments from our mind by incessantly meditating in our heart that śivam (the auspicious reality), which is the consciousness that is devoid of all adjuncts, is ‘I’.

When Sri Ramana was asked to point out the most important or useful verses in Yōga Vāsiṣṭha, he selected verses 17 to 26 of chapter 18 of part 5, in which Vasiṣṭha teaches Sri Rama that he should know the reality in his own heart yet outwardly act according to his role in this world, as if it were real, and that he should thus be inwardly free from desire and aversion, pleasure and pain, enthusiasm, initiative, effort and action, yet outwardly appear to be bound by all of these.

Since Sri Ramana noticed that only six of these ten verses (namely 17, 18, 22, 25, 19 and 21) had been translated inJñāna Vāsiṣṭha (which is a versified Tamil adaptation of the Laghu Yōga Vāsiṣṭha, a condensed version of Yōga Vāsiṣṭhathat contains about six thousand of the thirty-two thousand verses in the full text) as verses 32 to 34 of the chapter called ‘Puṇya Pāvanar Kathai’ (The Story of Puṇya and Pāvana), he translated the other four verses (namely 20, 23, 24 and 26) as two Tamil verses in the same metre as the three verses in Jñāna Vāsiṣṭha. These two verses are now included in Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham as verses 26 and 27. 

Verse 26

In verse 26 (Yōga Vāsiṣṭha 5.18.20 and 23) Vasiṣṭha tells Sri Rama that outwardly he should play his role in this unreal world, but inwardly, having investigated all the various states, he should cling only to the one which is the ultimate state devoid of unreality (namely the state of absolutely clear self-consciousness); and that he should outwardly play his role in this world, without ever inwardly losing sight of his knowledge of that (true self) which exists in his heart as the one reality underlying all the various appearances.

Verse 27

In verse 27 (Yōga Vāsiṣṭha 5.18.24 and 26) Vasiṣṭha tells Sri Rama that he should outwardly play in this world as one who seemingly experiences enthusiasm and joy, who seemingly suffers anxiety and dislikes, and who seemingly makes effort and initiates action, but who is inwardly free of all such blemishes; and that as one who has been freed from the many bonds of delusion and who is steadfastly equanimous in all conditions, he should play in this world as he likes (or as required), outwardly doing action that is appropriate to his vēṣa (assumed appearance, disguise or role).

Having thus described in verses 26 and 27 how we should live in this world as an ātma-jñāni (one who knows self), in verses 28 to 31 and 33 Sri Ramana discusses the state of such an ātma-jñāni, and in verse 32 he teaches us the truth that though this state of self-knowledge (ātma-jñāna) is called the ‘fourth’, it is in fact the only real state.

Verse 28

In verse 28 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know) he says that a person who has ‘conquered the senses’ (that is, overcome all desire for any experience obtained through any of the five senses) by knowledge (of self) is an ātma-vid (one who knows self), who abides as true knowledge (or being-consciousness); and that he (or she) is the ‘fire of knowledge’ (jñānāgni), the wielder of the ‘thunderbolt of knowledge’ (jñāna-kuliśa), the ‘destroyer of time’ (kāla-kāla) and the hero who has killed death.

Verse 29

In verse 29 (which is an adaptation of Yōga Vāsiṣṭha 5.76.20) he says that light (inward illumination, clarity or wisdom) and power of intellect will spontaneously increase in those who ‘see reality’ (that is, those who experience the tattva, the one non-dual reality, which is our own essential self), just as trees in this world shine forth with all qualities such as beauty as soon as spring arrives.

Verse 30

In verse 30 (which is an adaptation of Yōga Vāsiṣṭha 5.56.13-4) he says that a mind from which all vāsanās(propensities, impulses or desires) have been erased (by the clear light of true self-knowledge) does not actually do anything, even though it seems to be active, just as a person who seems to be listening to a story but whose mind has gone far away does not actually hear it, whereas a mind that is saturated with vāsanās is truly active, even though it seems to be doing nothing, just like a person who climbs a hill and falls over a precipice in a dream, even though he seems to be lying motionless here (in our waking world). 

Verse 31

In verse 31 he describes a mey-jñāni (one who knows the reality) as being ‘asleep in a body of flesh’ (that is, unaware of the body or anything else other than the one reality, which is self) and says that he (or she) does not know the passing states of bodily activity, niṣṭhā (self-absorption) and sleep, just as a person who is asleep in a bullock cart does not know whether the cart is moving, stationary or unyoked.

Verse 32

In verse 32 he says that the transcendent state of ‘waking sleep’ (that is, the state of true self-knowledge, in which one is awake to self, the one reality, but asleep to the unreal mind, body and world) is called turya (the ‘fourth’ state) only for those who experience waking, dream and sleep (which are in fact unreal); and that since only turya really exists, and since the other three states do not really exist, it (turya) is turīyātīta (that which transcends the ‘fourth’).

He refers here to turīyātīta (which he calls turiya-v-atīta in Tamil) and says that turya (or turiya, as it is spelt in Tamil) itself is turīyātīta because some texts describe our natural state of ‘waking sleep’ not only as turya (the ‘fourth’) but also as turīyātīta (the ‘fourth-transcendent’), which creates the wrong impression in the minds of some people thatturīyātīta is a fifth state. The truth is that the state of ‘waking sleep’, which is our natural state of absolutely non-dual self-consciousness, is the only real state, so there is truly no difference between turya and turīyātīta. All differences or dualities appear to be real only in the imaginary perspective of our unreal mind, and hence in the clear light of true self-knowledge they will disappear along with this mind.

Verse 33

In verse 33 he teaches us the truth that though some texts say that an ātma-jñāni (one who knows self) is free ofsaṁcita (the store of one’s past actions or karmas that are yet to give fruit) and āgāmya (the actions that one does in this life by one’s own volition or free will) but that prārabdha (destiny or fate, which is the fruit of past actions that are destined to be experienced in this life) does remain to be experienced by him (or her), this is only a ‘reply that is said to the questions of others’ (that is, it is said as a concession to those who cannot understand the truth that thejñāni is not the mind or body that experiences prārabdha), and he illustrates this truth by saying that just as no wife will remain unwidowed if a husband (with three wives) dies, so none of the three karmas (āgāmya, saṁcita orprārabdha) will remain when the karta (the ‘doer’ or agent who does karmas and experiences their fruit) is destroyed (by the clarity of true self-knowledge).

Verses 34 to 37

In verses 34 to 37 Sri Ramana teaches us the truth that studying too many books can become a serious obstacle in our spiritual path, because the truth that we seek to know exists only within ourself and cannot be found in any book or sacred text. Texts that are either written by an ātma-jñāni or that record or discuss the teachings of an ātma-jñāni are truly useful to us only to the extent that they enable us to understand the truth that we can experience the reality only by turning our mind inwards and drowning it in the innermost depth of our own heart, and to the extent that they thereby motivate us to give up seeking anything outside ourself and to seek only the reality that always exists as our essential self, ‘I am’.

As Sri Ramana says in the sixteenth paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?):

Since in every [sacred] text it is said that for attaining mukti [liberation or salvation] it is necessary [for us] to restrain [our] mind, after knowing that manō-nigraha [subjugation or destruction of our mind] is the ultimate intention [or purpose] of [such] texts, there is no benefit [to be gained] by studying without limit [a countless number of] texts. For restraining [our] mind it is necessary [for us] to investigate ourself [in order to know] who [we really are], [but] instead [of doing so] how [can we know ourself by] investigating in texts? It is necessary [for us] to know ourself only by our own ‘eye of jñāna’ [that is, by the clarity of our own self-consciousness]. Does [a person called] Raman need a mirror to know himself as Raman? [Our] ‘self’ is within thepañca-kōśas [the ‘five sheaths’ with which we seem to have covered and obscured our true being], whereas texts are outside them. Therefore investigating in texts [hoping to be able thereby to know] ourself, whom we should investigate [with an inward-turned attention] having removed [set aside, abandoned or separated] all thepañca-kōśas, is useless. ...

In verse 34 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know) he says that for a person of little learning, his wife, children and other relatives form just one family, whereas in the minds of those who have vast learning there are not just one but many families in the form of books that stand as obstacles to yōga (spiritual practice or ‘union’ with God).

In verse 35 he asks what use is our learning the ‘letters’ (the words written in sacred texts) if we do not intend to erase the ‘letters’ (of destiny) by investigating where we, who have learnt these ‘letters’, were born (that is, from which source we arose as this false learning mind), and he says that those who acquire such learning without attempting to investigate and experience their own source are no better than a sound-recording machine.

In verse 36 he says that rather than those who are learned but have not subsided (surrendered their mind and become truly humble), the unlearned are saved, because they are saved from the ghost of pride that possesses those who are learned, saved from the disease of many whirling thoughts, and saved from running in search of fame (repute, respect, esteem or glory). Therefore he concludes that they are saved not just from one but from many evils.

In verse 37 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse that was probably composed by Śrī Sadāśiva Brahmēndra) he says that though they regard all the worlds as mere straw, and though they have mastered all the sacred texts, for people who have come under the sway of the wicked whore called puhaṙcci (praise, applause, appreciation, respect or fame), it is rare (or very difficult) to escape their slavery to her.

Verse 38

In verse 38, in order to teach us that praise and blame are both of no concern whatsoever to a person who experiences the one real self, he asks us three rhetorical questions, namely who there is besides ourself when we always abide unswervingly in our own true state (of clear self-knowledge), without knowing the illusory distinction between ‘self’ and ‘others’, and what it would then matter whoever may say whatever about us, because what would it matter to us if we were to talk to ourself either extolling or disparaging ourself?

Verse 39

In verse 39 (which he composed in 1938 as a translation of verse 87 of Tattvōpadēśa by Sri Adi Sankara) he says that we should always experience advaita (non-duality) in our heart, but should never attempt to express it in action, and he concludes the verse by saying rather cryptically: ‘O son, advaita is fit in the three worlds; with guru, advaita is not fit; know [thus]’. The ‘three worlds’ here means brahmalōka, vaikuṇṭha and kailāsa, the ‘worlds’ or ‘heavens’ in which each of the three principal forms of God, Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva, are said to reside, so ‘advaita is fit in the three worlds; with guru, advaita is not fit’ implies that though it may be appropriate for us to approach any of these three forms of God and claim ‘you and I are one’, we should never behave towards guru in such a manner, but should always outwardly show all due reverence towards him, even though in our heart we should experience him as our own true self.

Though the one reality that appears as the various forms of God is actually — like guru — only our own essential self, these three forms of God and their respective functions (namely the creation, sustenance and dissolution of this world-appearance) appear as such only within the unreal realm of our self-ignorance, and hence their functions are in no way comparable to the function of guru, which is to destroy the underlying self-ignorance in which the outward forms of God and guru appear to be real. Therefore the reverence that is due to guru is even greater than the reverence that is due to God.

Moreover, since the creation, sustenance and dissolution of this world are actually caused only by the rising and subsiding of our own mind, we can justifiably claim to be performing the functions that are attributed to Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva, but we can never claim to be performing the function of guru, because as the embodiment of self-ignorance, our mind can never destroy itself, just as darkness can never destroy itself. Just as darkness can be destroyed only by light, our mind and the self-ignorance that gives rise to it can only be destroyed when it subsides and merges in the clear light of pure self-consciousness, ‘I am’, from which it arose.

Therefore this verse teaches us that though we should always experience our absolute oneness with guru in our heart by subsiding and merging in our essential self-consciousness, which is his true form, we should never rise as this mind and claim ‘guru and I are one’ or behave as if we are guru.

Moreover, since all action and our outward behaviour take place only in the realm of duality, it is both meaningless and futile to try to express non-duality in action. Since we can only experience non-duality (advaita) in our own heart, this verse says, ‘Always experience non-duality in [your] heart, [but] do not ever express non-duality in action’.

Verse 40

Sri Ramana concludes Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham by declaring the ‘essence of the established conclusion of the entire vēdānta’ (akhila vēdānta siddhānta sāra) in verse 40 (which is a translation of a Sanskrit verse whose source I do not know), saying ‘அகம் செத்து அகம் அது ஆகில், அறிவு உரு ஆம் அவ்வகம் அதே மிச்சம்’ (aham settu aham adu āhil, aṟivu uru ām a-vv-aham adē miccam), which means: "If ‘I’ dies and ‘I’ becomes ‘that’, that ‘I’, which is the form of consciousness, alone is remnant". That is, if our ego dies and our real self is thereby experienced as ‘that’ (God or brahman, the one absolute reality), what will remain is only that real ‘I’, whose form is pure consciousness.