30 Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 will seem to us to be very difficult. If we have a sharp knife, it will be easy for us to cut the hard outer covering of a watermelon, so it should be at least as easy if not easier for us to cut the relatively soft tissues of our own throat. However, for most of us cutting our own throat would seem to be very difficult, but only because we are not willing to do so. Self-investigation is like this sharp knife. It has been given to us by Bhagavan to use like a surgeon’s scalpel to excise the cancer called ego, which is the root and foundation of all our problems and the ultimate obstacle that stands between us and our own real nature, preventing us from experiencing the infinite and eternal happiness that we actually are. However, this ego that we are to excise with the sharp scalpel of self-investigation is what we now seem to be, so in order to use this scalpel to eradicate it, we must be wholeheartedly willing to surrender ourself completely, and we will be so willing only when we have all-consuming “love” (Sa. bhakti) to know and to be what we always actually are. 22 Subsiding Deep Within Is Alone True Goodness So long as we still have any liking to experience or be aware of anything other than ourself, we do not yet have to a sufficient extent the wholehearted and all-consuming love that is required for us to surrender ourself completely, so we need to continue to patiently and persistently practise self-investigation, because the more we practise it, the more we will thereby subside back within, and the more we subside back within, the weaker our liking to rise to experience anything other than ourself will become. Therefore this path of self-investigation and self-surrender is the path of complete subsidence, which is what is otherwise called the path of nivṛtti (Sa. “returning”, “coming back” or “ceasing”), which means withdrawing back within and thereby abstaining from all pravṛtti (Sa. “outwardly directed activity”). The more we humbly subside back within instead of rising and rushing outwards as ego, the closer we thereby come to being as we actually are, as Bhagavan implies in the final paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?: If oneself rises, everything rises; if oneself subsides, everything subsides. To whatever extent sinking low we behave, to that extent there is goodness. If one is continuously subduing the mind, wherever one may be one can be. [46] “If oneself rises, everything rises” (Ta. “tāṉ eṙundāl sakalam-um eṙum”) means that if we rise as ego, everything else (namely all forms, objects or phenomena) will rise along with us, and “if oneself subsides, everything subsides” (Ta. “tāṉ aḍaṅgiṉāl sakalam-um aḍaṅgum”), in which the verb aḍaṅgu means both “subside” and “cease”, means that if we as ego subside and cease to exist, everything else will subside and cease to exist along with us. Thus what Bhagavan teaches us in these two sentences is what he also teaches us in the first two sentences of verse 26 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu: If ego comes into existence, everything comes into existence; if ego does not exist, everything does not exist. [47] In the third sentence, “To whatever extent sinking low we behave, to that extent there is goodness” (Ta. “evvaḷavukkevvaḷavu tāṙndu naḍakkiṟōmō avvaḷavukkavvaḷavu naṉmai-yuṇḍu”), the adverbial participle tāṙndu means “sinking low”, “sinking deep”, “descending”, “diminishing”, “decreasing”, “bending”, “bowing down” or “being subdued”, so it implies “being subdued and humble by subsiding back deep within ourself”; though the verb naḍa literally means “walk” or “pass by”, it is often used in the sense of “behave” or “conduct oneself”, so in this context naḍakkiṟōm means “we behave”, “we conduct ourself” or “we pass through this life”; and naṉmai literally means “goodness” but can also imply “benefit” or “virtue”. Therefore what Bhagavan implies in this sentence is that to the extent to which we humbly subside deep within ourself and live our life accordingly, to that extent there is goodness, meaning not only moral goodness but also all the happiness and other benefits that result from it, so in this context all that is good is implied in this word “goodness” (Ta. naṉmai). That is, our rising as ego is the root cause of all “badness” (Ta. tīmai), meaning not only wickedness, evil and sin but also all the suffering, misery and other bad things that result from it, so to the extent to which we rise as ego, there is badness, and hence subsiding back into the innermost depth of our own being is alone the sum total of all real goodness. The implication of this sentence is therefore the same as the implication of the final sentence of the note that he wrote for his mother, “Therefore being silent is good” (Ta. “āhaliṉ mauṉamāy irukkai naṉḏṟu”), namely that true goodness lies only in subsiding back within and thereby silently being as we always actually are. In the fourth and final sentence, “If one is continuously subduing the mind, wherever one may be one can be” (Ta. “maṉattai y-aḍakki-k-koṇḍirundāl, eṅgē y-irundālum irukkalām”), the verb aḍakku is the causative of aḍaṅgu, which is the verb he
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