T.N. Ramachandran

---

1. Since the world-an assemblage, which consists of three classes of beings, designated by 'he', 'she' and 'it' undergoes the three-fold operation (of creation, sustenance and absorption), it is something created and real. It is brought into existence by Odunkgi (the Lord-Absorber) by reason of the persistence of (Aanava) Malam. He that causes it to disbecome causes it to become. Thus say the sages.

2. He is one with the souls; He is apart from the souls; He is both one with and apart from the souls. He abides everlastingly in inseparable union with His Sakti to cause the souls to bet embodied and disembodied in keeping with their twyfold karma.

3. Soul is; if one says the soul is not, what is it that makes one to deny the soul? That something is indeed the soul. Since it says: “My body,” the soul verily is. (Saying “my body” necessarily implies the existence of soul. In other words, it means that the body is activised by soul.) Because there is knowledge of the five senses, there is soul (which has that knowledge). Because of the absence of feeling or activity in slumber, there is soul. Because it knows when caused to know, there is soul. (Soul is the knower.) Thus it is proved that there is soul, the indweller of body -a contraption wrought of Maya.

4. Soul is not one of the four inner faculties (namely Chittam, Manam, Aangkaaram and Buddhi). By reason of its association with the Sahaja Mala (Aanava Mala-the innate impurity), it cannot comprehend (by itself). Like a monarch associated with his cabinet of ministers, ti is linked with the inner faculties and undergoes the five states of wakeful awareness, dreaming, dreamless slumber, temporary oblivion and protracted oblivion.

5. Though body, mouth, eyes, nose (and ears) perceive distinctly their respective objects of perception with the help of soul they neither know themselves nor soul that causes them to perceive. Even so, souls that perceive by the grace of the peerless Lord, neither know themselves nor the Lord. They are like iron (activised) in the presence of magnet.

6. If the Lord is knowable, He is Asat (non-real), for that which is know by sense-conditioned knowledge is non-real. If, on the contrary, the Lord is unknowable, He is Soonya (non-existent). Therefore the wise ones affirm that He is neither of either and that He is Siva-Sat (Spiritual Reality), knowable as well as unknowable-that is, knowable by God-conferred Gnosis and unknowable by any other type of knowledge such as Pasu knowledge or Paasa knowdge.

7. In the presence of (Siva-) Sat namely Siva, all phenomena are non-est. Sat knows not, that is, reckons not phenomena (Asat). Asat is non-intelligent; so it cannot know Sat. There fore that which can know both Sat and Asat is Satasat (Sat-Asat/soul) which is neither Sat nor Asat. (Soul becomes Sat if is linked with Sat. It becomes Asat if it companies with Asat.

8. When the Supreme One makes His advent in the form of a Guru at a time when soul's former askesis fructifies, and says: Brought up by the foresters (the five senses) you-a prince, stand bewildered by nescience,” soul now made aware (of its true estate) quits them for good, and being not other than Siva, reaches His feet.

['Not other than Siva' does not mean non-difference but only non separation.]

9. May soul comprehend the Lord by divine intuition. The Lord is never comprehended by mere human consciousness. When soul forsakes all phenomena knowing them to be but fugitive mirage, the coolth of Gnosis saves it from the scalding heat of transmigration. To retina this gain, soul shall meditate on the mystic pentad (Panchaakshara as imparted to it by the Guru) and chant it in the ordained way.

10. Even as the Lord is one with soul in its fettered state, so too is soul one with the Lord in its liberated state. Consequentially when, soul attuned to the Lord, remains poised in divine servitorship, its triple malas, namely Aanava, Maya and puissant Karma cease to be.

11. Even as soul sees and causes the beholding eye to see, the Lord Himself beholds and causes soul to see. Thus in grateful and unforgetting devotion soul gets knit to the feet of Siva.

12. Cleansed of the impurity of Aanava, Karma and Maya which prevent soul from attaining the Lord's sustaining feet which are like unto ruddy lotus-flowers and blessed with the company of holy servitors, soul now standing freed from delusion, adores as Siva Himself the very habit (vetam) of Siva's devotees and His shrines.