From The Garland 118-124

[Guest guest]

om namo bhagavate sri ramanaya

118

Vyakti (individuality) and sakti owe their being

To the wandering mind's conceptual power.

But in the Self's Reality

Beyond the mind's bewildering play

They have not and have never had

Existence.

119

Ascribing individual being

To realized muktas (liberated persons) is sheer folly.

Their being is universal being.

The separateness seen in that pure

Sky is but the shadow cast

By the separateness of lookers-on

Still bound.

120

In the hearts of seekers Awareness

Only stands as true, sole being

And attachment to the body

Is no more. How can we then

Declare that this one or that one is

A peerless seer? Are seers but

Bodies and so more than one?

121

Ye who go round in eager search

Of this Great Soul and that Great Soul

To look at, are not all Great Souls

Your Self to reach and know and be?

122

So long as one retains a trace

Of individuality,

One is a seeker still, and not

A true seer effort free, even though

One's penance and one's powers may be

Wonderful indeed.

123

Without Self-knowledge which transcends

All individuality,

Vain, vain are wonder-working powers.

Who would seek these maddening gifts

But those who have not known their true

Identity as the Self?

124

The seer consummate, formless, is

The sum of all the wonder-workers

That are known. His are the many

Miracles that happen, His,

Dakshinamurti's, His who stands

As witness of them all.

(Sri Muruganar's The Garland of Guru's Sayings - Trans. Prof. K. Swaminathan, Tiruvannamalai; 1996)