Translations of the Original Writings of Bhagavan Ramana
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Upadēśa Undiyār (The Essence of Spiritual Instructions)
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Verses
- Verse 1: karma is insentient, so it gives fruit only as ordained by God
- Verse 2: karma leaves seeds so it does not give liberation
- Verse 3: action done for God purifies the mind and shows the way to liberation
- Verse 4: actions of body, speech and mind are progressively more purifying
- Verse 5: worshipping anything considering it to be God is good worship of God
- Verse 6: doing japa mentally is more purifying than otherwise
- Verse 7: meditating uninterruptedly is more purifying than otherwise
- Verse 8: meditation on nothing other than oneself is most purifying of all
- Verse 9: being in one’s real state of being by self-attentiveness is supreme devotion
- Verse 10: being in one’s source is karma, bhakti, yōga and jñāna
- Verse 11: when breath is restrained mind will subside
- Verse 12: the root of mind and breath is one
- Verse 13: dissolution of mind is of two kinds, laya and nāśa
- Verse 14: only by self-investigation will the mind die
- Verse 15: when the mind is dead, there is no action but only one’s real nature
- Verse 16: knowing nothing but awareness is real awareness
- Verse 17: when one keenly investigates it, there is no mind
- Verse 18: mind is essentially just the ego, the root of all other thoughts
- Verse 19: when one investigates from what the ego rises, it will die
- Verse 20: where the ego dies, the infinite whole will shine forth as ‘I am I’
- Verse 21: that infinite whole is always the true import of the word ‘I’
- Verse 22: the five sheaths are jaḍa and asat, so they are not ‘I’
- Verse 23: what exists is awareness, which is what we are
- Verse 24: God and soul are just one substance, but only their adjuncts differ
- Verse 25: knowing oneself without adjuncts is knowing God, because he is oneself
- Verse 26: being oneself alone is knowing oneself, because oneself is not two
- Verse 27: there is nothing to know, so real awareness is devoid of knowledge and ignorance
- Verse 28: one’s real nature is beginningless, infinite and indivisible sat-cit-ānanda
- Verse 29: abiding as supreme bliss devoid of bondage or liberation is serving God
- Verse 30: knowing what remains when the ego has ceased is tapas
Upadēśa Sāraḥ (The Sanskrit version of Upadēśa Undiyār)
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Verses
- Verse 1: karma is insentient, so it gives fruit only as ordained by God
- Verse 2: karma is caused by vāsanās, so it does not give liberation
- Verse 3: action done for God purifies the mind, so it is an indirect means for liberation
- Verse 4: actions of body, speech and mind are progressively more purifying
- Verse 5: worshipping anything considering it to be God is worship of God
- Verse 6: doing japa mentally is more purifying than otherwise
- Verse 7: meditating uninterruptedly is more purifying than otherwise
- Verse 8: meditation on nothing other than oneself is most purifying of all
- Verse 9: being in one’s real state of being by self-attentiveness is supreme devotion
- Verse 10: being in one’s source is karma, bhakti, yōga and jñāna
- Verse 11: when breath is restrained mind will subside
- Verse 12: the root of mind and breath is one
- Verse 13: dissolution of mind is of two kinds, laya and nāśa
- Verse 14: only by self-investigation will the mind die
- Verse 15: when the mind is dead, there is no action but only one’s real nature
- Verse 16: seeing nothing but awareness is seeing what is real
- Verse 17: when one keenly investigates it, there is no mind
- Verse 18: mind is essentially just the ego, the root of all other thoughts
- Verse 19: when one investigates from where the ego rises, it will die
- Verse 20: when ego is annihated, the infinite whole will shine forth as ‘I am I’
- Verse 21: that infinite whole is always the true import of the word ‘I’
- Verse 22: the five sheaths are jaḍa and asat, so they are not ‘I’
- Verse 23: what exists is awareness, which is what we are
- Verse 24: God and soul are just one substance, but only their adjuncts differ
- Verse 25: seeing oneself without adjuncts is seeing God, because he is oneself
- Verse 26: being oneself alone is seeing oneself, because oneself is not two
- Verse 27: there is nothing to know, so real awareness is devoid of knowledge and ignorance
- Verse 28: one’s real nature is imperishable unborn full awareness-happiness
- Verse 29: the divine soul experiences supreme happiness beyond bondage and liberation
- Verse 30: one’s shining devoid of ‘I’ is great tapas
Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu(Forty Verses on What Is)
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Verses
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Maṅgalam verse 1: what exists is only thought-free awareness, which is called ‘heart’, so being as it is is alone meditating on it
- Verse 1: because we see the world, it is best to accept that one fundamental, which is ourself, is what appears as all this multiplicity
- Verse 2: instead of the ego arguing whether there is just one fundamental or three fundamentals, standing in the real state of oneself by destroying the ego is best
- Verse 3: the state in which the ego has died by investigating itself, leaving aside the world and all differences and disputes, is agreeable to all
- Verse 4: if one perceives oneself as a form, one will perceive everything else as forms, but one’s real nature is infinite (hence formless) awareness, so it perceives no forms at all
- Verse 5: the body is a form consisting of five sheaths, and without such a body has anyone ever perceived any world?
- Verse 6: the world consists of nothing but the five kinds of sense-impressions, and the mind alone perceives it, so is there any world besides the mind?
- Verse 7: the world shines only by the mind, but what shines as the space for the appearing and disappearing of the world and mind is the real substance, the infinite whole
- Verse 8: worshipping in name and form is the way to see in name and form, but seeing oneself and thereby becoming one with the real substance is true seeing
- Verse 9: dyads and triads depend on one thing (the ego), so if one sees within the mind what that one thing is, they will all cease to exist and what is real will be seen
- Verse 10: knowledge and ignorance of other things are mutually dependent, but only the awareness that knows the reality of the ego, to whom they appear, is real awareness
- Verse 11: knowing anything other than oneself is ignorance, but when one knows the reality of oneself, knowledge and ignorance of everything else will cease
- Verse 12: oneself is real awareness, which shines without anything else to know, so it is devoid of both knowledge and ignorance of other things, but it is not void or nothingness
- Verse 13: oneself, who is pure awareness, alone is real, so awareness of multiplicity is ignorance and unreal, and hence it does not exist except as oneself
- Verse 14: if one investigates the reality of the first person, it will cease to exist along with all second and third persons, and what then shines as one is one’s real nature
- Verse 15: past and future depend on the present, the only time that actually exists, so trying to know the past or future without knowing the reality of the present is like trying to calculate without knowing the value of one
- Verse 16: if we are a body, we are ensnared in time and place, but if we investigate ourself, there is no time or place but only ourself, who are the same one always and everywhere
- Verse 17: for those who do not know themself and for those who do, the body is ‘I’, but for the former ‘I’ is limited to the body, whereas for the latter ‘I’ shines without limit
- Verse 18: for those who do not know themself and for those who do, the world is real, but for the former reality is limited to the world, whereas for the latter it pervades without form as the substratum of the world
- Verse 19: dispute about which prevails, fate or will, arises only for those who do not discern the ego as the root of them both, but if one knows the reality of the ego, one will thereby discard them
- Verse 20: seeing God without seeing oneself is seeing a mental vision, so only one who has seen oneself, the origin of one’s ego, is one who has seen God, because oneself is not other than God
- Verse 21: since oneself is one, how is oneself to see oneself, and how to see God, except by becoming food to him?
- Verse 22: how to know God, who shines within the mind illumining it, except by turning the mind back within and thereby immersing it in him?
- Verse 23: this body is not aware of itself as ‘I’, and ‘I’ does not cease to exist in sleep, but after something called ‘I’ rises, everything rises, so keenly discern where it rises
- Verse 24: the jaḍa body is not aware of itself as ‘I’, and sat-cit does not rise, but in between something called ‘I’ rises as the extent of the body, and this is cit-jaḍa-granthi, the ego, mind and so on
- Verse 25: grasping form the formless phantom-ego comes into existence, stands, feeds itself and flourishes, but if it seeks itself, it will take flight
- Verse 26: if the ego comes into existence, everything comes into existence, and if it does not exist, nothing exists, so investigating what it is is giving up everything
- Verse 27: the state in which the ego does not rise is the state in which we are that, but without investigating the place where it rises, how can one annihilate it and stand as that?
- Verse 28: like sinking to find something that has fallen in water, sinking within by a keenly focused mind it is necessary to know oneself, the source where the ego rises
- Verse 29: investigating by an inward sinking mind where one rises as ‘I’ alone is the path of jñāna, whereas thinking ‘I am not this, I am that’ is an aid but not vicāra
- Verse 30: as soon as the ego dies by inwardly investigating who am I, one thing appears spontaneously as ‘I am I’, which is not the ego but the infinite substance, namely oneself
- Verse 31: when the ego is destroyed by tanmayānanda, there is nothing to do, because one is not aware of anything other than oneself, so who can conceive such a state?
- Verse 32: when the Vēdas proclaim ‘That is you’, instead of knowing and being oneself by investigating what am I, thinking ‘I am that, not this’ is due to lack of strength
- Verse 33: saying ‘I do not know myself’ or ‘I have known myself’ is ridiculous, because there are not two selves for one to know the other as an object
- Verse 34: instead of merging the mind within and thereby knowing and standing firmly as the real substance, quarrelling about its existence and nature is mischief born of māyā
- Verse 35: knowing and being the ever-accomplished real substance is the real siddhi, whereas all other siddhis are unreal, like siddhis experienced in a dream
- Verse 36: if we think that we are a body, thinking ‘No, we are that’ will be just a good aid, but since we are already that, why should we always be thinking ‘We are that’?
- Verse 37: even the contention ‘Duality in spiritual practice, non-duality in attainment’ is not true, because even while one is searching for the tenth man, who is one other than him?
- Verse 38: if we are the doer of action, we will experience the resulting fruit, but when one knows oneself by investigating who is the doer, actions and their fruits will cease to exist
- Verse 39: thoughts of bondage and liberation exist only so long as one seems to be bound, but when one looks at oneself to see who is bound, one will see that one is ever liberated
- Verse 40: if it is said that liberation is with form, without form, or either with form or without form, I will reply that only destruction of the ego is liberation
Maṅgalam verse 2: by surrendering to God, who is devoid of death and birth, the ego, who fears death, will die, and what will remain is deathless
Upadēśa Kaliveṇbā (the extended version of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu)
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Verses
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Lines 1-4: extended version of the first maṅgalam verse of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 8-12: extended version of verse 1 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 12-16: extended version of verse 2 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 16-20: extended version of verse 3 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 20-24: extended version of verse 4 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 24-28: extended version of verse 5 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 28-32: extended version of verse 6 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 32-36: extended version of verse 7 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 36-40: extended version of verse 8 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 40-44: extended version of verse 9 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 44-48: extended version of verse 10 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 48-52: extended version of verse 11 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 52-56: extended version of verse 12 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 56-60: extended version of verse 13 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 60-64: extended version of verse 14 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 64-68: extended version of verse 15 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 68-72: extended version of verse 16 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 72-76: extended version of verse 17 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 76-80: extended version of verse 18 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 80-84: extended version of verse 19 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 84-88: extended version of verse 20 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 88-92: extended version of verse 21 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 92-96: extended version of verse 22 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 96-100: extended version of verse 23 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 101-104: verse 24 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 104-108: extended version of verse 25 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 108-112: extended version of verse 26 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 112-116: extended version of verse 27 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 116-120: extended version of verse 28 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 120-124: extended version of verse 29 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 124-128: extended version of verse 30 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 128-132: extended version of verse 31 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 132-136: extended version of verse 32 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 136-140: extended version of verse 33 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 140-144: extended version of verse 34 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 144-148: extended version of verse 35 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 148-152: extended version of verse 36 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 152-156: extended version of verse 37 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 156-160: extended version of verse 38 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 160-164: extended version of verse 39 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
- Lines 164-168: extended version of verse 40 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Lines 168-170: concluding lines of the kaliveṇbā
Lines 4-8: extended version of the second maṅgalam verse of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham (The Supplement to Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu)
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Verses
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Maṅgalam (benedictory verse): Let us hold in our heart that svarūpa, the existing substance in which, of which, from which, for which and by which all this arises, and which is itself all this
- Verse 1: Cherish satsaṇga, by which attachment will leave, movement will cease and liberation will be attained
- Verse 2: The exalted state is achieved by clear vicāra, which arises in the heart when one takes refuge in sādhu-association
- Verse 3: If one adheres to living with sādhus, for what are all these niyamas?
- Verse 4: Heat, poverty and sin will depart just by the great sight of peerless sādhus
- Verse 5: Sādhus give rise to purity as soon as they see by eye
- Verse 6: You, who know the mind, are actually God
- Verse 7: I am the light to all lights
- Verse 8: In the centre of the heart-cave brahman alone shines as ‘I am I’
- Verse 9: Only that awareness that is the blemishless, motionless ‘I’-form in the heart is what will give liberation by removing ‘I’
- Verse 10: The body (dēham) is not I (nāham). Who am I (kōham)? He is I (sōham)
- Verse 11: He who has been born is only he who, carefully investigating where I was born, has been born in his source, brahman
- Verse 12: Investigate yourself, who are ever-unceasing happiness, and thereby cease considering the wretched body ‘I’
- Verse 13: Destroying the awareness ‘I am this body’ is all virtues, good deeds and worthy achievements
- Verse 14: Investigating for whom are all defects is karma, bhakti, yōga and jñāna
- Verse 15: The buffoonery of lunatics who strive to acquire all siddhis, not knowing that they move by divine power
- Verse 16: Since cessation of mind alone is liberation, how will those whose mind is yoked on siddhis immerse in the bliss of liberation?
- Verse 17: When God bears the burden of the world, the spurious soul bearing it is mockery
- Verse 18: The seeming location of the heart in the body
- Verse 19: A metaphorical description of the heart
- Verse 20: By meditating ‘The Lord who shines in my heart as I alone is I’, if one remains firmly as ‘I’, the ignorance ‘I am this body’ will perish
- Verse 21: The two kinds of heart, in one of which all these phenomena appear as a reflection
- Verse 22: The organ called ‘heart’ inside the chest is to be rejected, and the heart in the form of the one omnipresent awareness is to be accepted
- Verse 23: In this principal heart the entire universe resides, so it is not a small portion in the perishable and insentient body
- Verse 24: By fixing the mind in this pure heart composed of awareness, complete dissolution of breath and vāsanās will be achieved
- Verse 25: By constant meditation ‘Awareness devoid of all adjuncts is I’, dispel every attachment
- Verse 26: Firmly holding the supreme state devoid of falsity, having known what exists in the heart as the reality for all appearances, without ever abandoning that view, play in the world, hero, as if desirous
- Verse 27: Having seeming rising, delight, agitation, aversion and effortful initiative, but being devoid of defects, freed from delusion and steadily equanimous in all circumstances, doing actions on the outside to suit your disguise, play in the world as required, hero
- Verse 28: One who has destroyed the senses by knowledge, and who is fixed firmly as existence-awareness, is a self-knower
- Verse 29: Brightness and strength of intellect automatically increase for those who have seen the reality
- Verse 30: The mind in which vāsanās have been erased is actually not doing even though doing, whereas the mind that vāsanās soak is actually doing even though not doing
- Verse 31: The knower of reality is asleep to the body’s activity, niṣṭhā and sleep
- Verse 32: For those who experience waking, dream and sleep, waking-sleep is called ‘turya’, but since that turya alone exists, it is turīyātīta.
- Verse 33: Saying ‘sañcita and āgāmya do not adhere to the jñāni; prārabdha does remain’ is a reply said to the questions of others
- Verse 34: In the heart of the learned, many book-families exist as obstacles to yōga
- Verse 35: The learned who do not intend to erase the writing of fate by investigating where they were born have acquired the nature of a sound-recording machine
- Verse 36: Rather than those who have not subsided though learned, those who are not learned are saved
- Verse 37: Those who have come under the sway of the wicked whore who is praise, escaping slavery to her is difficult
- Verse 38: When one always stands in one’s real state, who is there besides oneself? Whoever says whatever about oneself, so what?
- Verse 39: Always experience advaita in the heart, but never perform it in action, particularly not with guru
- Verse 40: The essence of the final conclusion of all vēdānta: if I dies and I become that, that I, which is awareness, alone remains
Appaḷa Pāṭṭu (The Appaḷam Song)
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Verses
- Verse 1: in the hand-mill of jñāna-vicāra, who am I, we should break and pulverise ego, the dēhābhimāna, thereby separating the body from ourself as ‘not I’
- Verse 2: together with sat-saṅga, śama, dama and uparati, we should add sat-vāsanā in the heart
- Verse 3: we should incessantly, joyfully and without inattentiveness (pramāda) face inwards, thereby seeing ourself more and more clearly as ‘I am I’
- Verse 4: in the ghee that is ourself (brahman) heated by the fire that is ourself (jñāna) in the infinite pan that is ourself (mauna), we should constantly fry the appaḷam composed of ourself, and then eat it by experiencing ourself as ‘myself alone is myself’
Āṉma-Viddai (The Science of Knowing Oneself)
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Verses
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பல்லவி (pallavi): Refrain
- Verse 1: when thought is dissolved completely, the sun of pure self-awareness will shine spontaneously and the darkness of self-ignorance will cease
- Verse 2: since the thought ‘I am this body’ alone is the one thread on which all other thoughts are strung, if one investigates from where it spreads, thoughts will cease and ātma-jñāna will shine spontaneously as ‘I am I’
- Verse 3: knowing anything else without knowing oneself is worthless, and if one knows oneself there is nothing else to know
- Verse 4: more than any other path, this path is exceedingly easy, because if one remains without even the least action of mind, speech or body, in one’s heart the light that is oneself will shine forth
- Verse 5: if one investigates within without thinking of anything else, one’s real nature, which is called Annamalai, the eye to the mind-eye, will certainly be seen
அநுபல்லவி (anupallavi): Post-refrain
In the following five articles I have written a detailed explanation of each of these five verses, and my translations along with these explanations have been compiled as a book, Āṉma-Viddai: The Science of Knowing Oneself:
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Articles
- Āṉma-Viddai verse 1: thought is what causes the appearance of the unreal body and world
- Āṉma-Viddai verse 2: the thought ‘I am this body’ is what supports all other thoughts
- Āṉma-Viddai verse 3: knowledge of all other things is caused by ignorance of ourself
- Āṉma-Viddai verse 4: self-investigation is the easiest of all paths, because it is not doing but just being
- Āṉma-Viddai verse 5: in the heart that looks within without thinking of anything else, oneself will be seen
Nāṉ Ār? (Who am I?)
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Paragraphs
- Paragraph One: to obtain infinite happiness, which is one’s own being (svabhāva), oneself knowing oneself is necessary
- Paragraph Two: awareness alone is I, and the nature of that awareness is being-consciousness-bliss (sat-cit-ānanda)
- Paragraph Three: unless perception of the world (jagad-dṛṣṭi) departs, seeing one’s own real nature (svarūpa-darśana) will not arise
- Paragraph Four: when the world appears, one’s own real nature (svarūpa) does not appear, and when svarūpa appears, the world does not appear
- Paragraph Five: without the first person (ego, the thought called ‘I’) second and third persons (all other things) do not exist
- Paragraph Six: only by the investigation who am I will the mind cease
- Paragraph Seven: what actually exists is only ātma-svarūpa (the real nature of oneself)
- Paragraph Eight: prāṇāyāma is just an aid to restrain the mind, but will not bring about manōnāśa (annihilation of the mind).
- Paragraph Nine: like prāṇāyāma, mūrti-dhyāna, mantra-japa and āhāra-niyama are only aids that restrain the mind
- Paragraph Ten: even though viṣaya-vāsanās rise in countless numbers like ocean-waves, they will all be destroyed when svarūpa-dhyāna (self-attentiveness) increases and increases
- Paragraph Eleven: as long as viṣaya-vāsanās exist within the mind, so long is the investigation who am I necessary
- Paragraph Twelve: those who have been caught in the look of guru’s grace will never be forsaken but will surely be saved by him, but it is necessary to walk unfailingly in accordance with the path that guru has shown
- Paragraph Thirteen: being ātma-niṣṭhāparaṉ, giving not even the slightest room to the rising of any other thought except ātma-cintana (self-attentiveness), alone is giving oneself to God
- Paragraph Fourteen: happiness is the real nature of oneself (ātma-svarūpa), which alone is what exists and is real
- Paragraph Fifteen: everything happens by just the special nature of the presence of God, who is devoid of volition and untouched by action
- Paragraph Sixteen: always keeping the mind on oneself is alone self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)
- Paragraph Seventeen: instead of collectively rejecting all the tattvas, which are concealing oneself, calculating that they are this many and examining their qualities is fruitless
- Paragraph Eighteen: whatever happens in dream seems at that time to be just as real as whatever happens in waking
- Paragraph Nineteen: however bad other people may appear to be, disliking them is not appropriate
- Paragraph Twenty: if oneself rises, everything rises; if oneself subsides, everything subsides
Forthcoming translations
Within the next year or so I hope to be able to refine and post on this website or my blog my translations of all the other original writings of Bhagavan, namely Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Śrī Aruṇācala Navamaṇimālai, Śrī Aruṇācala Padigam, Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam, Śrī Aruṇācala Pañcaratnam, Ēkāṉma Pañcakam and Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ.
