Upadesa Undiyar - tr: Sadhu Om and Michael James

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Upadesa Undiyar

 

 

 

Upadesa Undiyar is a thirty-verse philosophical poem composed by Ramana Maharshi

in 1927. The original was in Tamil, but Bhagavan later wrote other versions in

Telugu, Sanskrit and Malayalam.

 

Sadhu Om and Michael James made a word-for-word translation of the Tamil

text in the 1980s and added a long introduction and a commentary on each verse.

This work (Upadesa Undiyar of Bhagavan Sri Ramana) was published by Sri Ramana

Kshetra but it has been out of print for many years. Since it is not likely to

be published again in the near future, I sought and received Michael's

permission to post the whole work on this site.

 

I am also posting Muruganar's prose rendering of Upadesa Undiyar,

translated from Ramana Jnana Bodham, volume nine. Bhagavan asked Muruganar to do

this work and checked the final version himself. This is the first time that

this work has appeared in English.

 

 

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verse 18:

 

 

 

 

 

The mind is only [the multitude of] thoughts. Of all [these thoughts], the

thought 'I' [the feeling 'I am the body'] alone is the root. [Therefore]what is

called mind is [this root-thought] 'I'.

 

 

 

Note: The term 'mind' is generally used as a collective name for the multitude

of thoughts. Of all thoughts, the thought 'I am the body' alone is the root,

since it is the one thread on which all other thoughts are strung (as stated by

Sri Bhagavan in verse 2 of Atma-Vidya Kirtanam) and since no other thought can

exist in its absence. Therefore what is commonly called mind is reduced on

analysis to this root-thought 'I am the body'.

 

It is important here to note the difference between this thought 'I', which is

the mixed feeling 'I am the body', and the real 'I', which is the pure existence

consciousness 'I am'. When 'I am this' or 'I am that', it is the mind or ego.

Refer here to Maharshi's Gospel, Book One, chapter six.

 

The thought 'I' is the knowing subject, whereas all other thoughts are objects

known by it. Hence, though other thoughts come and go, the thought 'I' always

remains as the background upon which they depend, and when the thought 'I'

subsides, all other thoughts must subside along with it. Thus the thought 'I' is

the one and only essential characteristic of the mind. Therefore, the ultimate

truth about the mind can be discovered on when one scrutinizes the truth of this

first person thought 'I'. Hence, when Sri Bhagavan says in the previous verse,

'When one scrutinizes the form of the mind...' we should understand that He

means, 'When one scrutinizes the nature of the thought 'I'...', because only

when the nature of the thought 'I' is thus scrutinized will the ultimate truth

that the mind has no existence whatsoever be realized. This point will be

explained in more detail in the forthcoming third edition of The Path of Sri

Ramana Part One, chapter seven.

 

 

 

http://www.davidgodman.org/rteach/upadesa_undiyar.shtml