Part 1 - Reality in Forty Verses (Ulladu Narpadu)

Once Bhagavan ramana composed twenty Tamil stanzas containing his important teachings. They were not written in any particular order to form a poem. Sri Muruganar therefore suggested that Bhagavan should write twenty stanzas more to make it the conventional forty. Accordingly, Bhagavan composed twenty more stanzas. Out of these forty, Kavyakanta Ganapati Muni selected two as the invocatory stanzas.

Then Bhagavan wrote two more to complete the forty. Some of the stanzas were translations from Sanskrit, but as devotees wanted all the forty verses to be original they were eliminated and new stanzas composed in their place.

The verses were all arranged in a continuous order to form a poem. Later, a
supplement consisting of a second forty verses was added. So indifferent to authorship was Bhagavan that he did not write all those supplementary verses himself. When he came upon a suitable one he used it — mostly translations from Sanskrit
— and when not, he made one. The verses eliminated from the original forty verses were included in the supplement.

These eighty verses are the most comprehensive exposition of the Maharshi’s teaching. A number of translations have been made and commentaries written on them. They have been published as separate books by the ashram under the titles Ulladu Narpadu, Sad Vidya and Truth Revealed. Bhagavan translated these verses into Telugu prose under the name of Unnadi Nalubadi and into Malayalam verse under the name of Saddarsanam.

Invocation

1. Unless Reality exists, can thought of it arise? Since,devoid of thought, Reality exists within as Heart, how to know the Reality we term the Heart? To know That is merely to be That in the Heart.

2. When those who are in dread of death seek refuge at the feet of the deathless, birthless Lord Supreme, their ego and attachments die; and they, now deathless, think no more of death.

The Text

1. Since we know the world, we must concede for both a common Source, single but with the power of seeming many.The picture of names and forms, the onlooker, the screen, the light that illumines — all these are verily He.

2. On three entities — the individual, God and the world — every creed is based. That ‘the One becomes the three’ and that ‘always the three are three’, are said only while the ego lasts. To lose the ‘I’ and in the Self to stay is the State Supreme.

3. ‘The World is true’; ‘No, it is a false appearance’;‘The World is Mind’; ‘No, it is not’; ‘The World is pleasant’;‘No, it is not’ — What avails such talk? To leave the world alone and know the Self, to go beyond all thought of ‘One’ and ‘Two’, this egoless condition is the common goal of all.

4. If Self has form, the world and God likewise have form. If Self is without form, by whom and how can form (of world and God) be seen? Without the eye, can there be sight or spectacle? The Self, the real Eye, is infinite.

5. The body is made up of the five sheaths;in the term body all the five are included. Without the body the world is not. Has one without the body ever seen the world?

6. The world is made up of the five kinds of sense perceptions and nothing else. And those perceptions are felt as objects by the five senses. Since through the senses the mind alone perceives the world, is the world other than the mind?

7. Though the world and mind rise and fade together,the world shines by the light of the mind. The ground whence the world and mind arise, and wherein they set, that Perfection rises not nor sets but ever shines. That is Reality.

8. Under whatever name or form we worship It, It leads us on to knowledge of the nameless, formless Absolute. Yet,to see one’s true Self in the Absolute, to subside into It and be one with It, this is the true Knowledge of the Truth.

9. ‘Twos’ and ‘threes’ depend upon one thing, the ego.If one asks in one’s Heart, ‘What is this ego?’ and finds it,they slip away. Only those who have found this know the Truth, and they will never be perplexed.

10. There is no knowledge without ignorance; and without knowledge ignorance cannot be. To ask, ‘Whose is this knowledge? Whose this ignorance?’ and thus to know the
primal Self, this alone is Knowledge.

11. Without knowing the Self that knows, to know all objects is not knowledge; it is only ignorance. Self, the ground of knowledge and the non-Self, being known, both knowledge and ignorance fall away.

12. True Knowledge is being devoid of knowledge as well as ignorance of objects. Knowledge of objects is not true knowledge. Since the Self shines self-luminous, with nothing else for It to know, with nothing else to know It, the Self is Knowledge. Nescience It is not.

13. The Self that is Awareness, that alone is true. The knowledge which is various is ignorance. And even ignorance,which is false, cannot exist apart from the Self. False are the many jewels, for apart from gold, which alone is true, they cannot exist.

14. ‘You’ and ‘he’ — these appear only when ‘I’ does.But when the nature of the ‘I’ is sought and the ego is destroyed, ‘you’ and ‘he’ are at an end. What shines then as
the One alone is the true Self.

15. Past and future are dependent on the present. The past was present in its time and the future will be present too.Ever-present is the present. To seek to know the future and the past, without knowing the truth of time today, is to try to count without the number ‘One’.

16. Without us there is no time nor space. If we are only bodies, we are caught up in time and space. But are we bodies? Now, then and always — here, now and everywhere — we are the same. We exist, timeless and spaceless we.