Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 18
This is the eighteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.
This is the eighteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.
அகமுகமா ரந்த வமலமதி தன்னா
லகமிதுதா னெங்கெழுமென் றாய்ந்தே — யகவுருவை
நன்கறிந்து முந்நீர் நதிபோலு மோயுமே
யுன்கணரு ணாசலனே யோர்.
In an interview when you were asked “When you talk to me now, is there feeling of pure awareness?” you responded that “it is always there in the background” (because of many years of practice) even though you don’t experience it in its purity. Then you added that “the distinction between pure awareness and the awareness that we call mind or ego, the awareness of things, that distinction becomes clearer and clearer.”
When Sri Ramana translated Vivēkacūḍāmaṇi into Tamil prose, he composed a maṅgalam or ‘auspicious introductory verse’ for it.
Recently a friend asked me to translate this verse, because he was not satisfied with the translation of it on page 212 of The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, which is as follows:
Rejoice eternally! The Heart rejoices at the feet of the Lord, who is the Self, shining within as ‘I-I’ eternally, so that there is no alternation of night and day. This will result in removal of ignorance of the Self.The original Tamil verse is:
அகமெனு மூல வவித்தை யகன்றிட
வகமக மாக வல்லும் பகலற
வகமொளி ராத்ம தேவன் பதத்தினி
லகமகிழ் வாக வனிசம் ரமிக்கவே.
ahameṉu mūla vaviddai yahaṉḏṟiḍa
vahamaha māha vallum pahalaṟa
vahamoḷi rātma dēvan padattiṉi
lahamahiṙ vāha vaṉiśam ramikkavē.
I am currently preparing to upload four new e-books to the Books section of my website, namely Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai, Part Two of The Path of Sri Ramana and Sadhanai Saram, and I am drafting introductory pages for each of these. The following is an extract from the introductory page that I have drafted for Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam:
ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல ஸ்துதி பஞ்சகம் (Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam), the ‘Five Hymns to Sri Arunachala’, which is a collection of the principal devotional songs composed by Sri Ramana, is the first section of ஸ்ரீ ரமண நூற்றிரட்டு (Sri Ramana Nultirattu), the Tamil ‘Collected Works of Sri Ramana’. The following are the five main songs that comprise it:
Sri Sadhu Om spent five years in the company of Sri Ramana Maharshi and decades in the company of Sri Muruganar. Sri Sadhu Om wrote a book called The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One, which contains what has been called the most detailed teaching on the method of Self-inquiry ever written. Sri Sadhu Om points out that:However, Sri Sadhu Om never actually wrote or said that ‘Self-inquiry is only an aid to Self-Awareness; only Self-Awareness is the True Direct Path’, either in this chapter of The Path of Sri Ramana or elsewhere, and to say that he pointed out such an idea is misleading and confusing. Before explaining why this idea is misleading, however, I should first say something about the way in which Michael Langford has edited the copy of this chapter on that webpage.Self-inquiry is only an aid to Self-Awareness;
only Self-Awareness is the True Direct Path.
Pedro Rodea has translated into Spanish many English books on the teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana, including Nan Yar? (Who am I?), Upadesa Undiyar, Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam (with the commentary by Sri Sadhu Om), Guru Vachaka Kovai (from the English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me), Maharshi’s Gospel, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day by Day with Bhagavan and Be As You Are, and his translations are posted either as PDF files or as zipped Word documents on his AtivarnAshram website. Some of his translations, such as Guru Vachaka Kovai, have also been published as printed books by Ignitus Ediciones.
In a post that I wrote on 22nd August of last year, Spanish translation of Happiness and the Art of Being, I said that Pedro was also translating Happiness and the Art of Being into Spanish, and that his translation of some of the chapters was available on the AtivarnAshram website. Recently he completed this translation, and it is now available on the AtivarnAshram website as a PDF e-book, which can be opened by clicking on the following link:
Some selected passages from this Spanish translation can also be accessed through links on the Michael James page of the AtivarnAshram website.
Last updated: 7th November 2024
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