Sat-Darshana Bhashya

1
Without something that exists, can there be notions of existence?
Free of thoughts, it is there, the Inner Being, named the Heart.
How then to conceive it is the question—it the one inconceivable.
To conceive it is but to be it, in the Heart.

2
Those lose at once their selves who from fear of death
Seek refuge in the Lord, Conqueror of death.
Then by nature immortals are they.
How then is thought of death to them?

3
Of myself and the world
All the cause admit—a Lord of limitless power,
In this world-picture, the canvas, the light,
The seer and the seen—all are He, the One.

4
God, world and soul,
From this triple truth, all religions proceed.
While the ego reigns, the three are apart.
Transcending all states is the poise of Self where ego is lost.

5
“All this is the Real, the Conscient, the Delight.”
“No, it is the reverse.” Such are quarrels vain.
Agreeable to all, from uncertainty aloof, is the state exalted,
Where the ego lives not, nor the world is seen.

6
To him who holds the self as having form
God has form and so has the world.
But who is there to see in the formless self?
Itself is the Eye—limitless, one and full.

7
Fivefold is the bodily sheath.
Apart from it, the world appears not. Can it?
Without the five-fold body,
Where are they that cognize the world?

8
Sound and form, smell, touch and taste, these make up the world.
Upon these the senses let the light.
In mind’s domain the senses move.
Hence the world is but the mind.

9
Thought and world together rise and together set.
Still by thought the world is lit.
In Existence Real, thought and world are formed and lost.
One and perfect, unborn is That, unending too.

10
For perception of the Truth, worship of the Supreme
In name and form is means indeed.
But the state of being that is natural poise of Self,
That alone is perception true.

11
Dualities and Trinities on something do hang.
Supportless never appear they.
That searched, these loosen and fall.
There is the Truth. Who sees that never wavers.

12
If ignorance were not, how can knowledge be?
If knowledge were not, how can ignorance be?
Searching close the source of both,
Settled state there is knowledge true.

13
The knower knowing himself not,
Can knowledge such be awakening true?
The self being seen, the support of both,
Dissolves the duality of knower and known.

14
Insensibility is no knowledge, nor is apprehension of objects seen.
Nothing is seen in awareness supreme.
Different from both is consciousness there.
No void is that—the knowledge, luminous and true.

15
Consciousness, the self alone is real.
Manifold is its form indeed.
Can they be real from the one apart?
Separate are not the ornamental forms from gold, their Reality. Can they be?

16
The notions “He” and “Thou” are bound with “I.”
In the realized root of “I” vanishes the “I.”
In the inborn luminous state of self, the Real “I,”
Free of the notions “He,” “Thou” and “I.”

17
Past was present when that was current.
The future coming will then be present.
Unaware of the present in threefold time,
Vain to discourse on future and past,
Canst thou the numbers count, without the number one?

18
Where is space without me and where is time?
The body exists in space and time, but no body am I.
Nowhere I am, in no time I am.
Yet am I everywhere in all time.

19
Body is Self to the wise and the ignorant alike.
To the body is limited the ignorant one’s self.
The self effulgent in the Heart of the wise,
Possesses the body and the world around,
And stands limitless and perfect.

20
To the ignorant and the wise alike the world exists.
To the former, the world observed alone is real.
To the wise, the formless source of the visible
Is the one world, Real and Perfect.

21
On Fate and Effort They are given to talk,
That know not whence come forth the two.
Those that know the source of both,
Beyond the twain are they, by Fate untouched and by Effort too.

22
To see the Lord without seeing the seer,
That is but seeing with the mind.
Separate from the seer, the Supreme is not.
Real sight is the poise supreme of the self in the deep.

23
“See thyself and see the Lord.”
That is the revealed word and hard is its sense indeed.
For the seeing self is not to be seen.
How then is sight of the Lord?
To be food unto Him, that indeed is to see Him.

24
The supreme gives the light to thought.
Within it, Himself hidden, He shines.
Hence to turn in the thought to unite within,
That is to see the Lord. How else to see?

25
No one says “the body is self,”
Nor asserts “I was not in the deeper sleep.”
The “I” rising, rises all.
With thy keen eye discern that I.

26
The body is blind, unborn is the Real self.
The twain between, within the body’s limit,
There a something else appears.
That is the knot of matter and spirit, the Mind, the living soul, the body subtle, the ego-self.
That is Samsara the revolving wheel (of life and death).

27
Born of form, rooted in forms,
Living on forms, ever changing its forms.
Itself formless, flitting when questioned,
Such is the ego-ghost.

28
With the ego-self rising, all appear.
On its setting, they disappear.
Hence is all this but the ego’s form.
The quest for it is the way to conquest.

29
That is the Real state, where the ego lives not.
Its birthplace sought, the ego dissolves.
No wise else can one attain
The supreme state of one’s own Self.

30
As in a well of water deep,
Dive deep with Reason cleaving sharp.
With speech, mind and breath restrained,
Exploring thus mayest thou discover the real source of ego-self.

31
The mind through calm in deep plunge enquires.
That alone is real quest for the self.
“This I am” “mine is not this,”
Ideas such help forward the quest.

32
Get at the Heart within by search.
The ego bows its head and falls.
Then flashes forth another “I,”
Not the ego that, but the Self, Supreme, Perfect.

33
What remains there for him to do
Who swallows the ego and shineth forth?
Separate from the self, there is nought to him.
His condition to conceive, who is there so bold?

34
“That Thou art,” the scripture asserts clear.
Yet missing the poise in supreme Self,
Recurring discussion is but weakness of thought,
Luminous is That always, as one’s own self.

35
The statements “I know not” “no, I do,”
Discussions such ridicule invite.
Is there a two-fold self, seeing and seen?
The Self is one. That is the experience of all.

36
Unsettled in the Heart, in one’s own being,
The unmade abode of the Real,
To wrangle “Real or unreal” “formed or formless” “many or one”—
All this verbal fight is but Maya’s play.

37
Attainment of the Real, that alone is Siddhi true.
Other achievements are like dreams, impermanent,
Can dreams be to the wakened real?
Who is stable in Truth, can such relapse into Maya?

38
To those who think that the body is self,
The meditation “I am He” is help indeed in the supreme search.
Futile is that in the realized state of the Self,
Needless as man’s statement “I am man.”

39
“In the wakening, non-duality (Adwaita) is the Truth.
Prior to it duality (Dwaita) is true.”
To reason thus is to reason wrong.
For truth is truth, whether known or not.
Uncounted in the parable the tenth man was.
Was he then lost and was the number nine?

40
He is bound to reap the fruit
Who is fixed in the I-do-thought.
The sense of doer lost by the search in the Heart,
Triple karma dies—and that is Release.

41
Thought of liberation is bound with sense of bond.
Attempts to know whose is the bond
Lead to the unborn Self, one’s own, eternally free.
Where then can arise thoughts of freedom and bond?

42
“In Release form is not,” “Form is really there in release,”
“Formless and formful both it is.” Thus the wise declare.
Discriminating the three-fold Release, the ego broods.
Loss of that is Release Real.

43
In the Tamil tongue, the great Seer Ramana,
Delivered Sat-Darshana, the treatise pure.
Of this poem sublime, Vasishtha, the sage,
Has given this version in the language of the gods.

44
Thus shines forth the Muni’s speech.
The essence of truth it gives you with ease.
Delight it gives to piners for release.
For the rays of the trans-human words of Ramana great,
Functioning as the wall reflecting,
Thus shines the Muni’s voice.