ARUTPERUNJOTHI AGAVAL
SWAMI SARAVANAANDA
Swami Saravanaananda of Dindigul has written many explanatory note to Vallalar’s Thiru Arutpa poems. Arutperunjothi Agaval is one among the Thiru Arutpa Poem which contains 1,596 lines. Swamiji also wrote explanatory note to Arutperunjothi Agaval, long back. But the whole translation is not available. From the manuscript copy, it has been typed and presented here.
Hence, the available portion which starts from the lines (121) out of (1596) are given below.
At intervals, the remaining portions will be posted here … ..
61. The knowledge of commonness
பொது உணர்வு.
121. Podhuvnar unarum Podhalar piriththe
122. Adhuvenir thonra Arutperunjothi
121. பொதுவுணர் வுணரும் போதலாற் பிரித்தே
122. அதுவெனிற் றோன்றா அருட்பெருஞ்ஜோதி
Ex
By means of reasoning mental faculty we are able to know so many things. This knowing of something is knowledge of human mind. The knowledge of human mind is wonderful and limitless. By this knowledge man is looking in and out, to find out the true cause and effect of this universe. We see ourselves, this world and many heavenly bodies in the space above. But we are unable to imagine the remote past and the future of the universe. The mind faculty of us enables to think of the past to some extent with the help of hearsay, history and imagination; and the future is also imagined, foreseen and consequence thought of. But the one supreme thing or force which is the root cause of all is not known to us now.
By the grace of god we feel that one Eternal Almighty force is working constantly from the very beginning of all the creation and actions of the universe. If we come to know that Almighty force is working from within us, by that divine power, we may comprehend all the universal truth from top to bottom. To understand the whole is not difficult but it is easy because, the Divine Truth is eternal changeless and complete and presents everywhere expressing out multifariously. Therefore, if we realise that truth of Almighty in this bodily life, the whole will be understood very easily.
We know the first seed of our being is the soul-action which is kept aglow in our mid-head. This soul atom is nothing but the small form of god Almighty with full power for the purpose of our realisation. Therefore, this soul particle is both our 'self' and Himself. It is only one in form, and double in attribute or quality. This is the common form of god and man. Can we point out and explain the god and man separately? No; we can't. Let us see the truth; the divine soul atom is the form of god surrendered by for ever by the grace filled universe for ever. And His omigrace is working for eternity. Samething is true, when that soul-atom is taken to represent the man. He, as a soul particle, is existing eternally and surrounded by the same grace-filled-universe working for ever.
When we realise this soul is a common form of god and man, we are holding ourselves in the highest plane of grace where we and god have no different existence but one. Is this the only form commo to Him and Us? Yes; it is true to the knowledge, and at the same time He only is existing everywhere in all souls also. Therefore we too experience both the unity from here and diversity from everywhere. In common divine soul experience, no other person or thing is perceived everywhere. From material and physical plane when we look at the world we see different people, living beings, things and all. But when we perceive from the common soul-abode we see but our divine self only existing with the same gracious light formed differently for gaining practical experience
The commonness of our 'self' and god is experienced from the superconscious gracious plane only. From nowhere this truth will be seen as it is. In fact every thing is Arutperunjothi - Arul, the grace is all powerfully acting from innermost; while perunjothi is all forms of the whole universe evolved and involved by the action of the indwelling Arul as its own attributes. By this common knowledge of Arutperunjothi, we can acknowledge all are but this Arutperunjothi alone. This is the knowledge of commonness mentioned here.
Without this knowledge of commonness we cannot point out separately either ourselves or divine self. A vedanti can say himself, that a divine being is true and permanent while his body and the universe are untrue and ephimeral. His knowledge of separaism is only imaginary but not true to practical experience. He thinks there are two entities, the Atma and unatma or soul and non soul pervading the whole universe. In fact our inseparable Arutperunjothi only is existing both in soul and non soul state in the universe.
62. Immeasurable by any measurement
அளவினில் அளவாதது.
123. Ulavinil arindhal ozhiyamatr ralakkin
124. Alavinil Alava Arutperunjothi
123. உளவினில் அறிந்தால் ஒழியமற் றளக்கின்
124. அளவினில் அளவா அருட்பெருஞ் ஜோதி.
Ex
The universe is filled with different objects, different beings, different forces, energies and abstract senses, knowledge and experience of different stages. All these can be measured, demonstrated, standardised, estimated or imagined according to the nature of each one. Different measurements for measuring are in use nowadays. Length, weight, quality, quantity and grades are measured by some means. By some other means, the physical, vital, mental and spiritual abilities too are measured. The scientific computer system is now handled in many cases. Different sciences, philosophies, traditional opinions, yogic experiences and spiritual attainments are tried in measuring the divine truth which is above all these.
Spiritual religious masters by their hard penance obtained some divine power to perform some miracles, and they tried to demonstrate the truth of god but their imagination enabled them very little to do so. All their divine soul experience did not exceed the intellectual level from where they got some spiritual power to exercise some wonder and finally they passed away into the higher region and vanished. All their divine knowledge was of external speculative one. They were all unable to get in oneness of Divine self and thence to live upon this world to reveal their practical experience of Godly life.
Till this day the Divine knowledge was drawn almost from books; traditional hearsays, sayings of great men and initiations by religious and spiritual masters. These are all artificial means of acquiring outer knowledge only. Even the spiritual initiatives are not able to reach the inner truth itself. Some constant inner practice leads the man to some distance near.,the source of the divine truth. Such an aspirant reaches the inner truth at last. By its contact some power is derived and he reveals something visualised. This true knowledge also does not amount to final and practical experience. Above this stage, the man may get the truth itself only when he fully realises the gracious knowledge itself, than, there will be no egoic spirit of himself.
Therefore the complete truth of god cannot be realised by any one in his individual capacity; no knowledge, nor trick, prayer, devotion nor penance will help him to attain and live in god. By His omnigrace, the secret internal affairs of Him have come to light. By this knowledge of grace alone his actual divinity in oneness of god is learnt. Thus he is now in Him and is to live for ever. Thus through this knowledge of Omnigrace alone one can come to live in god and no other means will do. This highest divine life only is the supreme Truth's complete realisation. A superman of this higher realisation is revealing the truth through his life's demonstration; that too will not be understood by anybody, unless one knows the divine secrecy of Omnigrace. This is what is indicated in the above two lines.
63. The boon o deathlessness awarded
இரவா வரம் அளித்தது.
125. Ennaiyum panikon dirava Varamalith(thu)
126. Annail uvandha Arutperunjothi
125. என்னையும் பணிகொண்டு இரவா வரமளித்து
126. அன்னையில் உவந்த அருட்பெருஞ் ஜோதி.
Ex
It is natural that a good mother loves and feels proud and happy in the dear child she begets. Very soon she forgets all the troubles and labour pains experienced by herself before the child was born and her rejoicings are unbounded. In the coming days she gets enjoyment in the pretty form and beautiful appearance of the baby, and in the sweet prattle of the young child she rejoices very much. When the name fame and praise surround in youthful stage, the mother's heart is filled with joy and contentment. All these are known to the mankind. Similarly the God is personified as the mother of all people, and His love is considered a million fold greater than that of worldly good mother. The imagining mind of some great men fancies the rejoicing of god million fold than that of a mother. But these are all speculations of human mind. The real fact is otherwise.
God Almighty is eternally Blissful; nothing is there to be added nor anything can be subtracted from that fullness of joy. Such a Blissful god can not be expected to rejoice at any human development and action. But He alone has taken the form of every person and therefore when a mother rejoices at the child, it is indeed a very small fraction of god's Bliss itself which has come out through that mother. This form of mother and her rejoicing are only temporary and passaway in time. This will be nothing when compared to the Infinite Bliss of god. In fact the mother's happiness too is god's one expressed out in the form of the mother. This temporary form and happiness of mother will vanish soon but, god and His Bliss for eternity will remain.
Now our god Arutperunjothi, who is our real mother and father and all, has come to our knowledge in oneness of ourselves in the temple of our soul. Here we are existing in the form of gracious divine soul particle. This is our natural being, only just now known to us and this is due to be eternalised by the Omnigrace. He is commanding us to this ever lasting Blessed life and therefore we must take hold of this new life, then it will be alright. If we do not heed his commanding and change our life to soul plane, we can not retain our divine experience for long. For the purpose of offering us the immortal blissful life He has exposed the truth now.
Our Ramalinga Vallalar was chosen for Immortalisation because he was pure in heart filled with compassion and was ready to be changed into man of grace Therefore in his soul temple the Arutperunjothi god made His presence and presented the boon of deathlessness and blissful life for eternity. With this most valuable priceless award our Saint praises Lord Arutperunjothi in these lines.
By this divine boon to Arutprakasar, the existence of immortal life on this earth planet is now made known. This is also a new turning point in the expression of god Almighty Himself. Yes; until to this day, god Almighty was ruling all the universe only from the innermost without coming to full realisation of any person. But now He has come out and has been realised in the form of Arutprakasar. Thus He Himself has come to live with all His Omnigracious eternal life in this world. Assuming this Arutprakasa immortalised form, He is ruling and will be ruling the whole universe for ever. And from this time any perfect soul wherever it may be in the boundless universe is entitled to be immortalised and blessed with this Blissful Life.
64. The affinity offered by great graceful Light
உறவளித்த அருட்பெருஞ்ஜோதி
127. Odhiyo dhamal uravenak aliththa
128. Adhiir illa Arutperunjothi
127. ஓதியோ தாமல் உறவெனக் களித்த
128. ஆதியீறில்லா அருட்பெருஞ் ஜோதி.
Ex
Every one has been born in this world with some great purpose to be fulfilled. But that real purpose is not known to all. Of course, in all the lower lives other than this human life, there is no reasoning power by which only real purpose of the life can be understood. In those under developed sensuous beings some special instinct is working wonderfully. But in this human life that instinct has become reasoning knowledge by which all mystic truth can be comprehensible. And by transcending this reasoning knowledge the man is due to get the highest benefit of Divine life.
In the lower lives some affinity and attraction work for the development of their species just like the gravity and cohesion work for the formation of atoms, molecules and substances. In this human race alone sex relation, blood relation, social and national relation and above all spiritual relation work to the higher development. The mind of man is playing through all these relationships.
Man is said to be a social being. That is he is to live socially with his fellow people. Blood relation, family relation and distant relation are expanding to cover the social relationship of the one world community. Only when the unselfish social love develops, the world will prosper in peaceful life. The spiritual knowledge is the root of real social life. Because, the soul of man is really the form of god, who is only one, but He is assuming numberless soul forms for the purpose of gracious life work, to continue for ever. Therefore we are all none but one god Himself. Graciously god is providing all the bodies, lives and all things for each and every soul, we must also flow with the current by helping our fellow beings with all endowed by His law of grace. All people of the world are not in the full developed stage to know the soul and god's grace, so, the developed ones are to help the developing ones and the underdeveloped.
So far, by some study of spiritual truth, we have come to this divine social relationship in the worldly life. When this life continues to higher development we reach the supreme god head by His Omnigrace. This is not coming to us through any amount of study and learning. Without any learning and acquiring book knowledge by the grace of god we become aware of ourselves being housed in the divine soul abode. In this stage we feel we are in very close affinity, or we may say, inseparable relationship with god. Although from the very begenning of the creation, we have been in oneness of Him, it is now only we have come to know this divine relationship of ourselves. This is offered by Arutperunjothi god Himself.
All the worldly relationship with human beings and affinity towards other beings, attachment for material objects have sprung from the sensuous physical bodily level and mental plane only. Therefore this relationship won't be constant for ever, and will end with death. But the divine relationship which has been endowed to soul being will never be separated and it cannot be done so at any cost. Indeed, even death has no power to sever that relationship of ourselves with god.
The unseverable affinity of gracious god can never be compared to any affinity or close relationship with any other person or thing. Through all the past stages of our being and previous lives, the Divine affinity in us was developing beneficially and now it has ripened to make us live a blessed blissful life in oneness of Arutperunjothi for ever.
65.Invisible foot and head of god
தோற்றா அடி முடி.
129. Padiyadi vanmudi parrinum thorra
130. Adimudiyenumor Arutperunjothi
129. படியடி வான்முடி பற்றினும் தோற்றா
130. அடிமுடி யெனுமோர் அருட்பெருஞ் ஜோதி.
Ex
Our God Arutperunjothi is existing eternally in the infinite form of boundless universe. Let us imagine the vastness of the space. When a man looks at the sky, to him the earth and the sky above are bottom and top. This appearance will be the same if he sees from any other planets or stars of heaven. A man travelling in the high space sees only the space around him; he will not be able to differentiate top and bottom; he may feel the space below will be the bottom and the space above will be the top. If he tries to explore the extent of either bottom or top he can never be successful in his attempt. Even i he can travel with light speed of 1,86,000 miles or 3,00,000 Kilometers per second in any direction he may be going on all his life time, but he cannot reach the end of the space. As the light travels 1,86,000 miles per second, the distance covered in one year time will be the product of 60 x60 x 24 x 365 x 1,86,000 (This large number of) miles. This distance is called a light year; i.e. the distance travelled by light in one year. One cannot be expected to find out the end of the space even after thousands o light years away. So the top and bottom of the space cannot be determined anyhow.
When such a great expansive space is the form of god Arutperunjothi how can anybody see His feet and head? None can see them. A story to give an idea of this is found in the Hindu mythology. The story is this: Hari and Brahma took the forms of a pig and a swan respectively and went in search of the foot and head of Siva who is the light Infinite. Vishnu in Varaga or pig form boved the earth and went down deeper and deeper but unsuccessfully returned finally: Brahma too in the form of swan flew up in the sky to a very high altitude and at last returned without finding the upper end of the Divine light. From all these it is understood that inspite of all the endeavours of any man or divine being, the bottom and the top of the space or the foot and head of the god can not be fathomed at any cost. Besides, even if anybody comes to know by imagination about the top and bottom of the external universe, that space filled god's truth of His foot and head can never be known to anyone.
But, now our god Arutperunjothi Himself has come down to our gracious soul temple where by that grace we are able to understand Him without any tint of imagination. What we infer here intuitively is Arutperunjothi's true complete self. This divine light of Infinite grace is in its complete form in this soul atom as well as in all souls existing in the whole space of the limitless universe. By this Infinite grace which is itself the foot and head or beginning and ending state of the universe we are realising Him fully. Every one can realise this divine truth for himself and feel and live in it for ever but it can not be revealed or explained by words.
This much we can infer about the Thiruvadi (the divine foot) and Thirumudi (divine head) of god Arutperunjothi through our Arutprakasa Vallalar: Before the creation of the universe, in the whole of the void space, god Arutperunjothi was there filled completely without leaving a particle of the space. That is, that Arutperunjothi was one full in space continum, as well as it was completely remaining in all particles filling the whole space. Arutperunjothi is such a small particle has come to our realisation now in this life. That particular particle is indeed our soul atom enlightening us from the midhead. This Arutperunjothi soul particle is truly the first or the beginning state of divine form or it is the foot of god. Thus our soul stage is the foot of god. This truth is noted in saying that we are the sprout of the leg (கான் + முளை = கான்முளை ) or the sprout of the foot. This word 'Kanmulai' in Tamil is son meaning that we are the sons of god or the images of god Himself. Thus it is clear that our soul particle itself is the foot of god.
Next let us see what is the top or head of god Arutperunjothi. The soul atom is acknowledged as the foot of god; from this we can trace the head of god. It was begun in atomic stage in lifeless particle. After a long period of millions and millions of years, it sprouted and began to grow into inanimate and animate life beings. It has grown up and developed into a big tree of this human life. In this life it appeared as a bud in the mental plane, flowered in the spiritual plane and became unripe fruit in the gracious soul plane. We are now in this stage. At the fully ripened stage we assume three dega Siddhi stage. In this stage Arutperunjothi itself will be living with us in oneness for ever. This is the final and endless living stage of god Arutperunjothi. This is truly the head of god.
These are the foot and head of our god Arutperunjothi. These divine feet and head cannot come to the knowledge of man unless he gets the grace of god. No one can find out and realise these two divine stages, though he searches and researches for long upon this earth and heaven. If at all one wants to see this truth, he must with pure mind and heart come to the soul temple where aloe he may come across this truth. This place of soul temple is spoken of as Annamalai which is in the central head, over the upper part of our mouth. At this spot, in the mytholigical story, Hari and Brahma surrendered and got the vision of Arunahcala (mount of light). We are to realise and attain the divine life of Bliss from here.
For some enlightenment let us take and explain the famous poem of Saint minister Sekkizhar's praise of Lord Siva.
உலகெலாம் உணர்ந்து ஓதற் கரியவன்
நிலவு லாவிய நீர் மலி வேணியன்
அலகில் சோதியன் அம்பலத் தாடுவான்
மலர் சிலம்படி வாழ்த்தி வணங்குவாம்.
This may be rendered thus:
"Let us pray and worship the blooming anklet worn foot of effulgent god siva. Because, he, wearing the crescent moon and the river ganga on his head is dancing in our (soul) temple in order that the entire world may know and derive benefit thereby."
In this poem of invocation, we see the foot and head of the god in the light of grace. Left half in Siva belongs to Sakthi or grace of feminine quality. So there is seen blooming anklet on the left foot. The anklet is an ornament worn by ladies only. By the grace of Siva, we have come to perceive him dancing in our soul temple. If we pray and praise him here, he is ready to offer us the objects which he is symbolically wearing on his head. To a suddha San Margi of Arutprakasa form who is in Pranava body state the other two gnana and suddha body states also will become possessed. This gnana dega is symbolised as moon and suddha dega as pure ganga So we see the truth of the foot and head of god through this stanza. To us this poem, only enlightens us to some degree, but the Infinite grace of Arutperunjothi makes us completely transformed to live blissful life eternally.
Write a comment