Upadēśa Undiyār
Teachings in an Undiyār Song of Thirty Verses

Introduction

LIKE UḶḶADU NĀṞPADU AND SOME of the other important Tamil works of Bhagavan Sri Ramana, Upadēśa Undiyār was composed at the request of Muruganar. In order to understand correctly what Bhagavan teaches us in this text, it is necessary for us to know the context in which he composed it.

This translation was first published on the Happiness of Being blog.

Muruganar, who was not only Bhagavan’s foremost disciple but also a great Tamil scholar and poet, first came to him in September 1923, and before coming he composed a song called Dēśika Padigam, which he offered to him on his arrival. Soon after that he composed another song entitled Tiruvembāvai, and on seeing the poetic beauty of these verses and the lofty ideas contained in them, Bhagavan remarked, ‘This is in the style of Manikkavacakar. Can you sing like Manikkavacakar?’. Muruganar was taken aback on hearing these words, and exclaimed, ‘Where is my ignorant mind, which is as blind as an owl in daylight, and which is darker than the darkness of night? And where is the self-experience (ātma-anubhuti) of Manikkavacakar, in whom the darkness of delusion had vanished and in whom true knowledge (mey-jñāna) had surged forth? To compare my base mind with his exalted experience is like comparing a fire-fly with the bright stars’. When Muruganar thus expressed his own deeply felt unworthiness, by his glance of grace Bhagavan shone forth in his heart, thereby making his mind blossom, enabling him to compose the great work Śrī Ramaṇa Sannidhi Muṟai, which in later years Bhagavan himself declared to be equal to Manikkavacakar’s Tiruvācakam.

Śrī Ramaṇa Sannidhi Muṟai is a collection of more than 120 songs composed by Muruganar in praise of Bhagavan, and many of them are sung in the same style and metres as the songs of Tiruvācakam. Among the songs in Tiruvācakam, there is one song of 20 verses called Tiruvundiyār, in which Manikkavacakar sings about some of the līlās or divine games played by Lord Siva. Therefore in 1927 when Muruganar began to compose a song called Tiruvundiyār in praise of Bhagavan, he decided to follow a similar theme, and thus he started to sing about various līlās played by several Gods, taking all those Gods to be none other than Bhagavan Ramana himself.

Once some devotees asked Sadhu Om, ‘Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri claimed that Bhagavan is an incarnation or avatāra of Subrahmanya. Other devotees say that he is an incarnation of Siva. What was Muruganar’s opinion? According to him, of which God was Bhagavan an incarnation?’, to which he replied with a smile, ‘According to Muruganar, it is the other way around. His conviction was that all Gods are incarnations or manifestations of Bhagavan’. This conviction of Muruganar’s is beautifully expressed by him in his song Tiruvundiyār.

Having attained self-knowledge by the grace of Bhagavan, Muruganar knew from his own direct experience that Bhagavan is the one unlimited supreme reality, and that all Gods and divine incarnations are truly manifestations of that same supreme reality. Although the supreme reality can manifest itself in any number of divine names and forms, the highest of all those manifestations is the name and form of the sadguru. Therefore being an exemplary disciple, Muruganar was drawn in devotion only to the name and form of his sadguru, Bhagavan Ramana, as he expresses beautifully in Śrī Ramaṇa Jñāna Bōdham, volume 3, verse 1023:

Hence, even when he had occasion to sing about the līlās of some of the different names and forms in which the supreme reality had manifested itself, he was able to sing about those names and forms only as various manifestations of his Lord and sadguru, Bhagavan Ramana.

Thus in Tiruvundiyār Muruganar sings about the līlās of Vinayaka, Subrahmanya, Vishnu and his various incarnations such as Rama and Krishna, Siva, Buddha and Jesus, taking all these Gods to be manifestations of Bhagavan Ramana. Tiruvundiyār is divided into two parts, the first part consisting of 137 verses (Sannidhi Murai, vv. 1277-1413) about the līlās of various Gods narrated in the Hindu Purāṇas, and the second part consisting of 7 verses (Sannidhi Murai, vv. 1414-1420) about Buddha upholding the dharma of compassion (vv. 1-5) and Jesus Christ suffering crucifixion to expiate the sins of others (vv. 6-7).

In the first part of Tiruvundiyār Muruganar sings about Vinayaka breaking the axle of his father’s chariot (1-2), about Subrahmanya subduing the ego of Brahma (3), giving upadēśa to Siva (4-9) and playing with Vishnu (10-11), about Vishnu killing Hiranaya (12) and bestowing grace upon Mahabali (13-16), about Rama being merciful to Ravana (17), about Krishna teaching Arjuna his duty (18), and about Siva drinking poison (19), subduing Kali by his dance (20-21), plucking off one of the heads of Brahma (22), killing Andhakasura (23), burning the Tripurasuras with a mere laugh (24-34), punishing Daksha (35-36), destroying Jalandharasura (37), flaying the elephant (38), burning Kama (39-51), kicking Yama (52-61), showing compassion to Ravana (62-66), blessing Brahma and Vishnu when they worshipped him in the form of Annamalai, having failed to reach his head and feet (67-69), and finally enlightening the ascetics in the Daruka Forest (70-137). While singing about these līlās, Muruganar sings of them as the līlās of Bhagavan Ramana, who had manifested as all these various Gods.

It was in the context of the last līlā related in the first part of Tiruvundiyār that the work Upadēśa Undiyār came into existence. Having sung in verses 70 to 102 how Bhagavan in the form of Siva had appeared in the Daruka Forest to subdue the pride of the ascetics (tapasvis) and bring them to the path of liberation, Muruganar came to the point where Siva was to give them his spiritual teachings (upadēśa). Thinking that it would not be appropriate for him to decide what teachings Siva would have given in order to uplift the ascetics from their then level of maturity, in which they were blinded by their attachment to the path of ritualistic action (karma), and to elevate their minds gradually till they would be fit to come to the direct path to liberation, Muruganar prayed to Bhagavan to reveal the essence of the teachings which he had himself given to the ascetics in those ancient days, when he had manifested in their midst in the form of Siva. Accordingly in verses 103 to 132 of the first part of Tiruvundiyār (verses 1379 to 1408 of Sannidhi Murai) Bhagavan composed the essence of the upadēśa that Siva gave to the ascetics in the Daruka Forest.

While composing these thirty verses, which he did in one sitting, Bhagavan discussed in detail with Muruganar all the ideas which were to be presented one after another in a carefully arranged and balanced sequence, and in the course of these discussions the original drafts of verses 16, 28 and 30 were composed by Muruganar and were then revised by Bhagavan. Such was the close co-operation with which they worked together.

These thirty verses form the main text (nūl) of Upadēśa Undiyār, and Bhagavan subsequently translated them into Telugu, Sanskrit and Malayalam under the title Upadēśa Saram (The Essence of Teachings). In Tamil the entire work consists of a prefatory verse (pāyiram) composed by Muruganar, six introductory verses (upōdghātam) that Bhagavan selected from Muruganar’s Tiruvundiyār in order to present the teachings in their proper context, the main text (nūl) of thirty verses, and five concluding verses of praise (vāṙttu), which are the last five verses of the first part of Tiruvundiyār.

In each of the verses of the upōdghātam, nūl and vāṙttu the final word of the second and third lines is உந்தீபற (undīpaṟa), which is a poetic elongation of the verb உந்திபற (undipaṟa), in which பற (paṟa) is the root and an imperative form of a verb that means to fly, hover, flutter or float in the air, and உந்தி (undi) seems to have been the name of an ancient game played by women, which was perhaps an early non-competitive form of what later evolved into the modern competitive sports of ball badminton and badminton, and the aim of which may have been for the group of players to keep the ball or shuttlecock flying about in the air without touching the ground for as long as possible. உந்தி (undi) may therefore have also meant the ball or shuttlecock used in such a game, in which case உந்தீ (undī) would be a vocative (or eighth case) form of it, so ‘உந்தீ பற’ (undī paṟa) may have been an exclamation that meant ‘ball, fly’ or ‘shuttlecock, fly’. The Tiruvundiyār song composed by Manikkavacakar was perhaps intended to be sung while playing this game, and hence he adopted a metre in which this word occurs at the end of the second and third lines of each verse. When these verses are translated into English, உந்தீபற (undīpaṟa) is obviously to be treated as a poetic expletive, but it is worth noting that it does lend a very joyful and playful spirit to the profound spiritual teachings that Bhagavan gives us in Upadēśa Undiyār.

In order to understand what Bhagavan is teaching us in Upadēśa Undiyār, particularly in the first fifteen verses, we need to read and carefully consider the upōdghātam and the summary of the story contained in it. Though in the Purāṇas the ascetics who were living in the Daruka Forest are described as ‘rishis’ (ṛṣis) who were performing tapas or austerities, what actually was their state of mind, what kind of tapas were they performing, and what was it that they were seeking to achieve through their tapas?

These so-called rishis were following the path of kāmya karma (ritualistic actions performed for the fulfilment of temporal desires), which is the path prescribed by the pūrva mīmāṁsā, a system of philosophy focused on the interpretation and practice of the Karma Kāṇḍa, the preliminary (and by far the largest) portion of the Vedas, which is concerned with performance of sacrifices and other ritualistic actions. Not knowing that the true goal of life is liberation, which is eradication of ego, they exhibited their ignorance by their actions such as the performance of various kinds of yāgas and yajñas (sacrificial rites), whereby they sought to attain powers, siddhis and other sources of enjoyment both in this world and the next. Being adept in the performance of such sacrificial rites and in the use of other techniques such as mantras, yantras and tantras, they had become intoxicated with conceit. Their pride in the power and efficacy of their karmas (ritualistic actions) was so great that they had even come to believe that there is no God except karma. ‘Karma alone is of foremost importance. The efforts we make in performing karmas have the power to yield their own fruit; they must yield their fruit; even God cannot prevent them from yielding fruit. So there is no need for us to be concerned about any God other than our own karmas’ – such was their arrogant attitude.

Thus, though in the Purāṇas they are politely referred to as ‘rishis’, their state of mind reveals that they were in fact only students in the first standard of the school of bhakti described in chapter two of the supplement to The Path of Sri Ramana. Can the karmas that they were performing for the fulfilment of their own selfish desires be called real tapas? As Bhagavan taught us in verse 30 of Upadēśa Undiyār, real tapas is nothing but complete cessation of ego, the false awareness ‘I am this body’, which is what gives rise to the sense of doership, ‘I am doing karma’.

Since the ascetics had thus strayed so far from the path that leads to the real goal of egolessness, it was necessary for Lord Siva, the ocean of compassion, to make them understand the error of their ways and guide them back to the proper path. Therefore he manifested in the form of a mendicant and made them understand that even their most powerful karmas were rendered powerless in front of him. Thus their pride was subdued and they prayed to him for salvation.

Knowing how gross and unrefined the minds of the ascetics had become due to their longstanding attachment to karma, Siva knew that it would not be possible to bring them immediately to the subtle path of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra), which alone is the direct path to liberation. Therefore he had to guide them towards the path of self-investigation in a gradual manner. That is why in the first fifteen verses of Upadēśa Undiyār it was necessary for Bhagavan to summarise the paths of niṣkāmya karma, bhakti and yōga, which Siva first had to teach to the ascetics in order to elevate their minds gradually to the level of maturity in which they could understand that liberation can ultimately be attained only by means of self-investigation. Only after summarising those paths and explaining how they are each intended to lead eventually to the path of self-investigation, which is the true path of jñāna, could he begin to explain this path in more detail from verse 16 onwards.

Either because they do not know the context in which he composed this work, or because they have not carefully considered the connection between the context and what he taught in it, many people wrongly assume that Upadēśa Undiyār or Upadēśa Sāram is the essence of Bhagavan Ramana’s own teachings. However, if we consider the context and what he wrote in the first fifteen verses, it should be clear that the intention with which he composed this work was to summarise not his own teachings but the teachings that Siva gave in ancient days to the ascetics in the Daruka Forest to suit their level of spiritual maturity.

As Bhagavan often used to say, whatever spiritual teachings are given must be suited to the grasping power and maturity of whomever they are given to, so many different levels of teachings and practices are necessary to suit the needs of people of many different levels of spiritual development (see for example section 107 of Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (1978 edition, page 103; 2006 edition, page 105), where it is recorded that he said that the instructions to be given ‘differ according to the temperaments of the individuals and according to the spiritual ripeness of their minds’). Since the ascetics to whom Siva gave his teachings were to be elevated by him from a very low level of spiritual maturity, it was necessary for him to begin by giving them teachings that they would be willing to accept and therefore able to grasp and put into practice, and then he had to lead them gradually from the grosser forms of spiritual practice such as pūjā, japa, dhyāna and prāṇāyāma towards the most refined, namely self-investigation, which is the simple practice of self-attentiveness.

Therefore we should not assume that all the sādhanas or spiritual practices that Bhagavan discusses in Upadēśa Undiyār are his own direct teachings. Though it is true that during his lifetime he had to give instructions concerning almost every kind of spiritual practice in order to guide those who were already following such practices and were not yet willing to come to the direct path of self-investigation, what actually was the core and essence of his teachings? Can it be said that pūjā, japa, dhyāna and prāṇāyāma are core elements of his teachings? Was it to teach such practices that he appeared on earth in our present age?

Though he acknowledged the efficacy of such practices as indirect means that, if practiced with devotion and without desire for achieving any selfish aim, would gradually purify the mind and thereby sooner or later lead one to the direct path of self-investigation (as indicated by him in verse 3 of Upadēśa Undiyār), the main reason he appeared in human form in modern times was not merely to give his approval to such indirect practices, which have already been expounded in detail in ancient texts. The principal purpose of his life was to teach us why and how to practise the simple and direct path of self-investigation, which is the only means by which we can be aware of ourself as we actually are and thereby eradicate ego. That is why his teachings were focussed on the practice of self-investigation, which bypasses the need for any other kind of spiritual practice.

In 1928, one year after he had composed Upadēśa Undiyār, Muruganar prayed to him, ‘So that we may be saved, reveal to us the nature of reality and the means by which to attain it’ (Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu pāyiram: introductory verse), in response to which Bhagavan composed Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, in which the only practice he expounded was self-investigation, and he made no more than a few indirect references to other practices. Therefore, the real essence of his teachings is only the path of self-investigation, which he has expounded in both Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu and the last fifteen verses of Upadēśa Undiyār.

Though he briefly discussed pūjā, japa, dhyāna and prāṇāyāma in the first fifteen verses of Upadēśa Undiyār, if we carefully consider what he actually says in these verses, we will see that he is explaining firstly how each of these practices can ultimately lead one to the path of self-investigation, which alone is the direct means to eradicate ego, and secondly that self-investigation is therefore the culmination of all other varieties of spiritual practice, namely niṣkāmya karma, bhakti, yōga, and jñāna, as he says in verse 10.

In the first two verses he begins by condemning kāmya karmas (actions performed for the fulfilment of temporal desires), declaring that they will not lead to liberation but will only immerse the doer deeper and deeper into the ocean of karma (action). In verse 3 he teaches that action can be conducive to the attainment of liberation only if it is done for the love of God and without any desire for its fruit, because it will then purify the mind and thereby enable one to recognise that the means to liberation is only self-investigation. In verses 4 to 7 he discusses the various kinds of desireless action (niṣkāmya karma), namely pūjā (worship or adoration of God), japa (repetition of a mantra or name of God) and dhyāna (meditation upon a name or form of God), which are done respectively by body, speech and mind, and each succeeding one of which is more efficacious in purifying the mind than the preceding one.

Then in verse 8 he says that rather than meditation upon God as other than oneself, it is better to meditate upon him as not other than oneself, and thereby he reveals how the paths of niṣkāmya pūjā, japa and dhyāna must eventually lead to the path of self-investigation, which is what he described as ananya-bhāva (meditation on what is not other), and which he said is ‘aṉaittiṉum uttamam’, ‘the best among all’, thereby implying that among all the practices of bhakti and also all other forms of spiritual practice it is the best, in the sense that it is the most effective means to purify the mind. He then says in verse 9 that to abide in one’s own true state of being, which is attained by the strength of such ananya-bhāva (self-attentiveness) and which transcends meditation (in the sense of mental activity, as opposed to self-attentiveness, which is a cessation of all such activity), is the truth of para-bhakti (supreme devotion). Thus, in verses 3 to 9 Bhagavan reveals how the paths of desireless action (niṣkāmya karma) and devotion (bhakti) lead to and culminate in the path of self-investigation, which in turn establishes one in the state of self-abidance, which is the true state of liberation. He then concludes this series of verses by saying in verse 10 that subsiding and being in one’s real nature, which is the source from which one had risen as a doer of action, is not only the essence of karma yōga and bhakti yōga, as described in the preceding verses, but is also the essence of rāja yōga and jñāna yōga, as described in the subsequent verses.

In verses 11 to 15 Bhagavan discusses the path of raja yōga. In verses 11 and 12 he explains that prāṇāyāma (breath-control) is an effective means to make the mind subside, but in verse 13 he warns that complete subsidence or dissolution of mind is of two kinds, namely laya and nāśa, the former being temporary and the latter being permanent. By prāṇāyāma only a temporary dissolution of the mind can be achieved, so in verse 14 he teaches us that the mind, which will subside only temporarily when the breath is restrained, should be directed on the one path of self-investigation, for then only will it attain manōnāśa, the state of destruction or permanent dissolution. Thus he reveals that the path of raja yōga must also lead one to the path of self-investigation if it is to enable one to achieve the final goal of liberation. He then concludes this second series of verses by saying in verse 15 that the great yōgi whose mind has thus been destroyed and who thereby abides as what alone is actually real has no more actions to do, because he has attained his natural state, thereby implying that our natural state is not one of doing anything but only one of just being, and that this is the goal we should be seeking.

Thus, though in verses 3 to 15 Bhagavan acknowledges the efficacy of niṣkāmya pūjā, japa, dhyāna and prāṇāyāma, he clearly implies that none of these sādhanas can be an adequate substitute for the direct path of self-investigation, but explains how each of them must finally lead one to self-investigation in order to enable one to attain the final goal of self-knowledge or liberation, which is manōnāśa or complete and permanent eradication of ego.

Having thus briefly summarized the paths of karma yōga, bhakti yōga and raja yōga in the first fifteen verses, showing how they must each sooner lead one to the practice of self-investigation, Bhagavan devotes the last fifteen verses to explaining the practice and goal of jñāna yōga, which he explains to be nothing other than the direct path of self-investigation, the simple practice of attending to and knowing the true nature of ‘I’.