22 Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 uḷḷu, which means “to think”, “meditate” or “investigate”, so in this sense uḷḷa-v-uṇarvu means “awareness to think”, “awareness to meditate” or “awareness to investigate”. Since the awareness that thinks, meditates or investigates is ego or mind, the implication of this third interpretation is that what seems to be ego or mind is actually nothing other than “what exists” (Ta. uḷḷadu), so it can never meditate upon what exists (namely brahman) as an object, and hence it can truly meditate on it only by subsiding back within and thereby being as it is, as Bhagavan says in the third sentence of this verse. What he refers to in the second sentence as “the existing substance” (Ta. uḷḷa-poruḷ) is what he referred to in the first sentence as “what exists” (Ta. uḷḷadu), namely brahman, which is the one “existing awareness” (Ta. uḷḷa-v-uṇarvu), namely our fundamental awareness of our own existence, “I am”. In the first clause of this sentence he says, “Since the existing substance exists in the heart without thought” (Ta. “uḷḷa-poruḷ uḷḷal aṟa uḷḷattē uḷḷadāl”), in which “heart” (Ta. uḷḷam) means the very core or centre of ourself and all other things, but then he goes on to say “the existing substance, which is called heart” (Ta. “uḷḷam eṉum uḷḷa-poruḷ”), thereby indicating that it is not only in the heart but is the heart itself. What does this mean? Since “heart” means centre or innermost core, if anything other than the heart were in the heart, that other thing would be the heart of the heart, but since the “existing substance” (Ta. uḷḷa-poruḷ) is the ultimate heart, the heart of all other hearts, what is inside it is only itself and nothing else. This is why Bhagavan addresses God in the form of Arunachala in verse 2 of Śrī Aruṇācala Pañcaratnam saying: Red Hill, all this, which is a picture, arises, stands and subsides only in you. Since you dance eternally in the heart as ‘I’, they say your name itself is heart. [33] Since God alone is what exists and shines eternally in the heart as “I” (meaning “I” in its pure form, bereft of all adjuncts), “I” is the ultimate heart, so it is not only in the heart but is itself the heart, as Bhagavan implies by saying “Since you dance eternally in the heart as I, they say your name itself is heart” (Ta. “nittiyamum nāṉ eṉḏṟu idayam naḍittiḍuvaiyāl, uṉ pēr tāṉ idayam eṉḏṟiḍuvar tām”). As the heart, God is the centre of all things, meaning that he is the ultimate reality or substance residing deep within each and every thing, but he is not only present within everything, but is also the infinite whole in which everything appears and disappears, as Bhagavan implies by saying “Red Hill, all this, which is a picture, arises, stands and subsides only in you” (Ta. “cittiram ām iḵdu ellām, sem malaiyē, niṉbālē uttidamāy niṉḏṟē oḍuṅgiḍum āl”), in which “Red Hill” (Ta. “sem malaiyē”) is a form of address to Arunachala, and “all this, which is a picture” (Ta. “cittiram ām iḵdu ellām”) means this entire world-appearance, which is a mental picture, a series of images or impressions that appear and disappear in the mind. The pure “I”, which is the “real form” (Sa. svarūpa) of both God and ourself, is not only that which exists within everything as its heart, but also that in which everything seems to exist and is therefore contained, because it is pure “being-awareness” (Sa. sat-cit), other than which nothing could exist or shine. In other words, it alone is what actually exists, and as such, therefore, it is the one “substance” (Ta. poruḷ or Sa. vastu) of which everything is composed, and hence in this first maṅgalam verse of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Bhagavan refers to it as uḷḷa-poruḷ, the “existing substance” or “real substance”, which exists in the heart as the heart. He also says that it exists “without thought” (Ta. uḷḷal aṟa), because “thought” or “thinking” (Ta. uḷḷal) appears only when we rise as ego, thereby going out from the heart, albeit only seemingly, and therefore disappears when we subside back into the heart. In other words, thoughts seem to exist only in the view of the outward-facing mind, so they cease to exist when we turn back to face inwards (meaning towards ourself alone) and thereby sink deep in the heart, which is the source from which we rose, so they are like waves that seem to exist only on the surface of the mind and not in the innermost depths of the heart. Therefore in this second sentence he asks: “Since the existing substance exists in the heart without thought, how to think of the existing substance, which is called heart?” (Ta. “uḷḷa-poruḷ uḷḷal aṟa uḷḷattē uḷḷadāl, uḷḷam eṉum uḷḷa-poruḷ uḷḷal evaṉ?”), in which the final uḷḷal means “thinking”, “meditating” or “investigating” and evaṉ is both an interrogative adverb that means “how?” or “in what way?” and an interrogative pronoun that means “which person?” or “who?”. That is, so long as we are thinking or meditating, our mind is facing outwards, away from ourself, so whatever we are thinking of or meditating upon is something other than the “existing substance” (Ta. uḷḷa-poruḷ), which is what we actually are, our very being, and which therefore cannot be reached by any amount of thinking, meditating or mental activity. If we cannot know brahman, the “existing substance” (Ta. uḷḷa-poruḷ), by any amount of thinking or meditating in the sense of mental activity, how can we meditate on it or investigate it in order to know it as it actually is? The answer is given in the next sentence: “Being in the heart as it is alone is thinking” (Ta. “uḷḷattē uḷḷapaḍi uḷḷadē uḷḷal”). That is,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjkyNzgx