Verses from Padamalai

1. The true form of the Guru can be known only if one realises, through the grace of the Guru, one’s own real form.

2. Do not imprison the true form of the Guru within a cage but seek inwardly and realise it to be the formless, omnipresent expanse of consciousness.

3. Only the divine grace that wells up in abundance in the form of the Guru can very easily put a stop to the dizzying whirl of the infatuated mind.

4. That which dwells within as the supreme Self is indeed that which sports before [you] as the very visible form of the Guru.

5. The form of the jnana-Guru that bestows an abundance of grace is Sivam, who abides within oneself as pure consciousness.

6. Since the divine form, the form of the Guru assumed by Iswara, is actually a physical embodiment of grace, that form is worthy of being worshipped.

Siva-jnana-yoga is remaining still through the never-diminishing grace of the Guru who bestows true jnana.

8. Grace will freely flow in a heart that, meditating upon the Guru as the true form of Lord Siva, becomes lost in adoration.

9. The greatness of noble disciples is that they obtain clear knowledge by trusting and believing in their heart that the Guru’s form is the embodiment of grace.

10. It is not ordained that noble disciples who have obtained the grace of the Guru, and who are therefore rejoicing in the Heart, shall feel fear and despair.

11. The disciple who completely surrenders himself to the Guru will attain the life of true jnana, the auspicious life.

12. If, like the goddess Uma, you offer only a half of yourself to the Guru, that will not be sufficient for attaining jnana.

13. The immaculate true jnana will only shine if you renounce the ego, the sense of individuality, leaving no remnant behind.

14. Know that the surrender of the ego is in no way commensurate with the immortal state of perfection that one then attains.

15. Attaining the Self by sacrificing the ego is like a business transaction in which one receives the true, ancient, primal essence in return for the reflection, the ego.

16. The true meaning of namaskaram is the ego bowing its head and getting destroyed at the feet of the Guru.

17. When the ego is totally destroyed at the feet of the Guru, it will then shine as the unsurpassed sea of mauna [silence].

18. Padam [Bhagavan] communicates this truth: ‘The meaning of the word ‘nama’ [obeisance] is abiding as the Self, with the ego destroyed.’

19. The excellent teaching that the primal Guru Dakshinamurti gave to the great ascetics was mauna, his own unique method.

20. That silent speech untied the chit-jada knot [the connection between the insentient body and consciousness] of the disciples and destroyed their minds that ramified with differentiating thoughts.

21. If the doubts that could not be dispelled by the many oral instructions were dispelled by that mauna, what power that mauna has!

22. No one has the ability to describe the power of the grace of the Guru abiding in mauna.

31. Padam tells and reveals: ‘Instead of knowing well by enquiry that I myself am present as your ‘I’, why do you despair?’

32. To become established as the Self within the Heart is to experience my real nature, which is pure bliss.

33. Know me as the true essence of jnana that shines uninterruptedly in your Heart. Destroy the objectifying awareness of the egomind that arrogantly cavorts as ‘I’.

34. When I am shining in your Heart as ‘I-I’, your attempt to ‘attain’ me, your own real nature, is indeed a great marvel!

35. To meditate on my swarupa, which possesses the light that is the source of life, all that is needed is your one-pointedness of mind.

36. Whether you retire to the forest or remain in the midst of everyday life, attain my swarupa in the home that is the Heart.

37. Your search to attain me is like searching all over the world, ceaselessly straining to find the necklace around one’s own neck.

38. Just as you know that the necklace is there by touching your neck, seek the treasure of the Self, your real nature, within the Heart, and know it.

39. Those who have come to my feet with love, and without delaying, are those whose birth has been graced by God. [Theirs is] an eminent and true life.

40. Through the thought of the feet of the Guru who has reigned over devotees, the intense darkness of ignorance [present in the] hearts of devotees will perish and ultimate liberation will be attained here and now.

41. Padam [Bhagavan], who possesses the munificence of grace, has given the assurance that his greatest duty is that of affording protection [to devotees].

42. Padam lovingly said: ‘It will be a duty well done if you place all your duties upon me.’

43. Like the children of an emperor, my devotees are heirs to abundant rejoicing.

44. For the cruel disease of burning samsara to end, the prescribed diet is to entrust all your burdens to me.

45. In order that your needless anxieties cease, make sure that all your burdens are placed on me through the courageous act of depending totally on grace.

46. If you completely surrender all your responsibilities to me, I will accept them as mine and manage them.

47. When bearing the entire burden remains my responsibility, why do you have any worries?

48. Why do you still retain this attachment to the mental concepts of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ when, on that day, you had offered up all those things to me, avowing them to be mine?

49. If you enquire and know me, the Self within, in that state there will be no reason for you to worry about the world.

50.taken from April 2003 'Mountain Path' Abandon the drama [of the world] and seek the Self within. Remaining within, I will protect you, [ensuring] that no harm befalls you.

50?taken from the Arunachala Ramana forum. Looking at you from within the Self, I never leave you. How can this fact be known to your externalized vision?

51. Seek my grace within the Heart. I will drive away your darkness and show you the light. This is my responsibility.

52. Splendorous Padam declares: ‘Meditating on me with no sense of difference [between us] is accepting my grace and offering yourself to me. This in itself is enough.’

53. If you worship me by meditating well on the excellence of my true nature, the greatness of your own true nature will well up in your Heart.

54. Knowing that what abides in your Heart is the Self, my true and real nature, you should search for it there. Only this can be regarded as meditating on me with devotion.

55. Padam advises: ‘Keeping one’s attention on the subtle consciousness that is experienced by the extremely subtle mind is personal service to me.’

56. The compassionate heart that flows from me to you will never fail except when you cease to have remembrance of ‘me’, who command and conduct everything.

57. You can know and experience my grace, which is my nature, if you remember me with no forgetfulness in your heart.

58. Seeking my true nature in your Heart, discovering it and rejoicing in it by bathing in the bliss of my jnana swarupa – this is union.

59. Only bhakti sadhana performed continuously with love will facilitate easily, in a gradual way, this union.

60. Enter with love the temple that is your own Heart and experience the bliss of being absorbed in my swarupa, becoming one with it.

61. I myself will command and actuate a mind that has died by the sacrifice of the ego. Childhood Days Give me your mind

62. ‘You should offer up to me the bright ruby of your mind. That is the gift that will bring me delight.’

63. ‘The sweet love I have for such a mind I do not have for anything else.’ Padam desires this.

64. Padam receives the minds of loving devotees as an offering, swallowing them through a ruby-red light.

65. Padam accepts only the mind as a fitting offering, rejecting everything else as being incompatible.

66. Padam bestows grace upon those who recite, praise and adorn him with this Padamalai, uniting them permanently with the Atma-swarupa that forever remains one with them in their hearts.

120. The golden Padam completely abolished my wandering around as a wicked one and made me shine as perfect idler.

143. Padam receives the minds of loving devotees as an offering, swallowing them through a ruby-red light.

157. Padam destroyed the power of prarabdha and firmly established me in the Heart, so that I do not lose my mind to prosperity or poverty.

199. Making my tongue a channel for hymns of grace, Padam diverted it from songs of delusion.

144. Padam tells and reveals: 'Instead of knowing with certainty by inquiry that I myself am present as your 'I' why do you despair?

200. Padam empowered me to sing as worship songs of grace in great abundance.

201. Padam gave me a tongue of ambrosial savor and sweetness, making me exclaim, 'What more could I desire other than this?'

252. Golden Padam, the source of fragrant Tamizh, ascended onto my tongue and stood there, making words of grace originate (from it) as I were possessed.

256. Even the actions I perform, believing them to be my own, are in reality the actions of Padam, the complete and absolute truth.

230. Padam lovingly said: 'It will be a duty well done if you place all your duties upon me.'

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236. If you inquire and know me, the Self within, in that state, there will be no reason for you to worry about the world.

237. Abandon the drama (of the world) and seek the Self within. Remaining within, I will protect you, ensuring that no harm befalls you.

238. Seek my grace within the Heart. I will drive away your darkness and show you the light. This is my responsibility.`

262. Splendorous Padam declares, 'Meditating on me with no sense of difference between us, is accepting my Grace and offering yourself to me. This in itself is enough.'

334. Through its glance, golden Padam, dammed up in my Heart, the ocean of Sivananada -- that which cannot be dammed up.

347. 'You should offer up to me the bright ruby of your mind. That is the gift that will bring me delight.'

348. The sweet love I love for such a mind I do not have anything else.' Padam desires this.

360. In order that your needless anxieties cease, make sure that all your burdens are placed on me through the courageous act of depending totally on grace.

367. To meditate on my Swarupa (true nature), which possesses the light that is the source of life, all that is needed is your one pointedness of mind.

368. Whether you retire to the forest or remain in the midst of everyday life, attain my Swarupa in the home that is Heart.

371. For the cruel disease of burning samsara to end, the prescribed diet is to entrust all your burdens on me.'

379. Radiant Padam destroyed my ego, demolishing it over and over again. It wore it down and down, smaller and smaller,to the size of an atom, until it became one with itself.

384. Padam made it possible for us to know the deeply subtle experience of the Self, which is to remain still.

427. Padam, routed with his lion's roar the rutting elephant of my dream, abolishing my confusion.

431. Padam made me illustrious as the Lord of Poetic Wealth, which shines through the grace of God.

450. I myself will command and control a mind that has died by the sacrifice of the ego

471. The sovereign grace of Padam completed my Sadhana with the words 'Be still'. What a wonder is this!

521. If you worship me by meditating well on the excellence of my true nature, the greatness of your true nature, will well up in your Heart.

522. Knowing that what abides in your Heart is the Self, my true and real nature, you should search for it there. Only this can be regarded as meditating on me with devotion.

523. Seeking my true nature in your Heart, discovering it and rejoicing in it by bathing in the bliss of my Jnana Swarupa -- this is union.

524. Only bhakti sadhana performed continuously with love will facilitate easily, in a gradual way, this union.

525. To become established as the Self within the Heart, is to experience my real nature, which is pure Bliss.

588. The light of mauna illumined my face, as golden Padam dispensed the grace of Jnana through His radiant gaze.

598. Why do you pointlessly find fault with me, saying that I no longer look at you?

599. If you would only fix your gaze upon me, you would know that, established in the Heart, my gaze is ever fixed upon you.

914. The compassionate heart that flows from me to you will never fail except when you cease to have remembrance of 'me' who command and conduct everything.

915. You can know and experience my grace, which is my nature, if you remember me with no forgetfulness in your heart.

916. Know me s the true essence of Jnana that shines uninterruptedly in your Heart. Destroy the objectifying awareness of the ego-mind that arrogantly cavorts as 'I'.

947. Padam, absolute oneness, presided over me, putting an end to my forgetfulness of Swarupa, making this my final birth.

978. Padam receives the minds of loving devotees as an offering, swallowing them through a ruby-red light.

994. While I am shining in your Heart as 'I-I', your own real nature, you attempt to 'attain' me is indeed a great marvel !

995. Your search to attain me is like searching all over the world, ceaselessly straining to find the necklace around your neck.

996. Just as you know that the necklace is there by feeling your neck, seek the treasure of Self, your real nature, within the Heart, and know it.

1045. If you completely surrender all your responsibilities to me, I will accept them as mine and manage them.

1222. Saying, 'Enough of dancing, now be still', Padam bestowed on me the state of true Jnana that exists forever, in my Heart, as my own nature.

1246. Manikkavacakar's Tiruvacakam expresses in words the exuberant, graceful experience of Sivam, which transcends speech.

1295. Tiruvacakam is a work that deserves to be experienced. The meaning of its sweet verses is beyond intellectual knowledge.

1302. Virtuous, golden Padam, intensified my surging desire so that my mind is naturally established totally in His feet.

1313. Padam advises: 'Keeping one's attention on the subtle consciousness that is experienced by the extremely subtle mind is personal service to me.'

1324. When asked by others about the meaning of the Tiruvacakam, the great saintly Manikkavacakar pointed at the subtle chidakasa (space of consciousness) in the Nataraja Temple and merged in it.

1325. The Tiruvacakam is a sea of divine honey expressing the God experience that puts an end to the birth misery of getting caught in a mother's womb.

1370. The grace bestowing gaze of Padam shot forth, granting me, in the form of deep absorption, the victorious sword of exalted swarupa jnana.

1486. Padam caused me to prattle, like ambrosia at a feast, child like words in precious Tamizh tongue on the greatness of His noble preeminent feet.

1565. Padam made me merge in the essence of of the Tiruvacakam (revealing it to be) the ultimate conclusion of the Vedas.

1568. Padam is that fiery third eye that dried up with his scorching heat, the desolate ocean of the long succession of births, which is so hard to cross over.

1619. When bearing the entire burden remains my responsibility, why do you have any worries?

1653. For this humble servant's consciousness there exists no sensory faculty that is doing anything other than holdiing onto Padam and singing His praises.

1656. Like the children of an emperor, my devotees are heirs to abundant rejoicing.

1661. Those who have come to my feet with love, and without delaying, are those whose birth has been graced by God. Theirs is an eminent and true life.

1662, Through the thought of the feet of Guru who has reigned over devotees, the intense darkness of ignorance, present in the hearts of devotees will perish and ultimate liberation will be attained here and now.

1696: Padam made me worship it through the Siva Puja that surges naturally in a mind in which vasanas have perished.

1810. That which is known as Padam is not something that is limited. It is complete perfection, the form of pure consciousness. (v.1810)

1844. Because it bears and sustains the whole world, the completely perfect being-consciousness is termed Padam [the feet].

1213. Padam is the true light that shines as the basis for all that is seen as sentient and insentient.

1746. Ignorant fool that I was, blinded by a mind as obdurate as a tree stump, yet did golden Padam grant me enlightenment.

2149. Padam most bounteous in His Grace, granted that I should speak in praise of nothing else whatsoever, save His glory alone.

2150. Though I was unfit to speak of His glory, Padam enabled me to praise His majesty with my own mean intellect.

2237. Through His grace filled glance, golden, bewitching Padam destroyed my infatuation with the ego-mind, scooping me up and consuming me with relish.

2251. The extremely wonderful Padam has fashioned the entire world from the clay of shining consciousness, one’s real nature.

2253. Why do you still retain attachment to the mental concepts of 'I' and 'mine' when, on that day, you had offered up all those things to me, avowing them to be mine?

2433. To make clear everything that I write in a babbling way, Padam graciously corrects (me).

2465. Having abolished the defect of the poison like delusive ego, by looking at me with his Jnana bestowing eye, Padam resides within my Heart.

2513. Due to perfect oneness of its nature, Padam, Atma Swarupam abiding in the Heart, does not desire any words of praise.

2514. I am afraid that if I say words of praise about Padam, this will create a sense of difference between us, making my praise into blashphemy.

2634. My existence craves for nought save the pure expanse of Self in which everything exists and shines as pure Sivam.

2755. The bottle gourd that Padam lovingly served up (for me) is the sweet dish of supreme bliss of liberation, not a picture of it drawn on paper. (Mere book knowledge will not help in getting liberation, like a picture of bottle gourd on paper, is useless for cooking.

2703. Bestowing upon me an understanding suffused with His grace, Padam caused me to sing His immaculate praises, making this my pastime.

2800. Padam, through the power of swarupa, the pure Being-Consciousness, totally eradicated the powerful mischief of Kama from my Heart.

2834. True Padam, the space of consciousness, abides and shines as the pure consciousness that is beyond knowledge and ignorance.

2899. Padam is the eye of grace that looked upon me in such a way that the open expanse of that grace, which cannot be contained , was confined within my very Heart.

2905. Padam, the enjoyment I have found, is experiencing, as the prasad of Siva, clarity of mind.

3048. My Lord, golden Padam, guides me well with the attitude of mind that all is God's doing.

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