From: Bala Pillai <bala@tamil.net>
Cc: tamil@tamil.net

THE SIVAJNANABODHAM
("ILLUMINATION OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIVA")
BY MEKANDADEVA
The translation by J. M. Nallaswami Pillai*

Source: http://www.acusd.edu/theo/hcs-l/sjbp.html

 [Introduction to the Text]

EIGHTH SUTRA

The Way in which Souls Obtain Wisdom

 Sutra -- The Lord appearing as guru to the soul which had advanced in tapas (virtue and knowledge) instructs the soul that it has wasted itself by living among the savages of the five senses; and on this, the soul, understanding its real nature, leaves its former associates, and not being different from Him, becomes united to His Feet.

Commentary

This explains the path of attaining jnanam [knowledge], and consists of four arguments.

First Argument

Curnika – Souls will obtain wisdom from tapas.

Vartikam – Moksa cannot be obtained when performing carya [external worship], kriya [worship both external and interior], and yoga [inward practice], unless the supreme jnanam is attained by tapas effected in all previous births.

Illustrations – (a) Those who have performed tapas enjoy its fruits in the various tapa-lokas (heavens). And then they attain good births, so that they may get rid of even these desires, by eating the fruits of these desires and attain jnanam. This is what the learned in the sastra [religious treatises] say.

(b) The bliss secured by the much praised sacrificial acts will be like the pleasure derived by the hungry man after eating and who again becomes hungry. The soul will join its jnana-guru [knowledge-imparting-preceptor] when by its indestructible tapas (carya, kriya, and yoga) its good and bad karma become perfectly balanced.

Second Argument

Curnika – He who comes as the sadguru [True Teacher] of the souls is Hara.

Vartikam – It is established that the Lord appearing as guru will teach the souls, as not being separate from the souls, He shines in the light of the souls as His body.

Illustrations – (a) God imparts jnanam to vijnanakalas [souls with only one impurity: anava] as they dwell in Himself; to pralayakalas [souls with two impurities: anava and karma], He appears as guru in His divine form and imparts jnanam; and to sakalas [souls with all three impurities: anava, karma, and maya], He appears as guru, concealing Himself in human form, and imparts jnanam.

(b) The souls will not attain jnanam unless imparted by God in order. Those (pralayakala and sakala) who are instructed by the Perfect Lord of the world, receive such instructions in the second and third persons respectively. Those (vijnanakala) who do not receive such imperfect instruction, attain moksa-jnanam from God by intuition.

(c) The milk and the tears, which were invisible before, appear in the person of the well-adorned mother after the birth of the child as the result of her love. Who will therefore understand the Lord who is present in the soul, unperceived, like the akasa [space] in the water, if He did not appear in the form of the Divine Guru?

Third Argument

Curnika – The soul does not see itself when in union with the five senses.

Vartikam – The souls, being blinded by the senses, forget their real nature, as the senses do not show the soul its own nature but only put before it its own impressions, just like the colors reflected in a mirror.

Illustration – The soul which, after reflecting that the knowledge derived from the material senses is only material, like the colors reflected on a mirror, and that these color-like sensations are different from itself, and after perceiving such false knowledge as false, understands the Truth, will become the servant of God who is different from such asat [non-truth].

Fourth Argument

Curnika – The soul will know itself when it forgets the senses.

Vartikam – The soul reaches the feet of its Lord when it sees itself to be different from the senses, just as a man reaches the ground, when the rope of the swing breaks.

Illustrations – (a) The soul which becomes bound with pasam [bonds], like the river flood when stopped by an embankment, will not leave the Divine Feet of the Lord, who is unchangeable, after once attaining Them, on being
freed from the ties of the world, like the flood which reaches the sea on the embankments being destroyed.

(b) If every object is God, then nobody need attain God’s feet. If He is not everything, He is not God. Everything cannot see Him, as though the eye sees all objects, all the other senses cannot see. Understand the supremacy of eyesight in persons who recover their eyesight.
 

(c) O thou, who hast found that thou art not the five senses! The sakala who has reached the Divine Guru, after leaving the knowledge of the five senses, is yet not separated from the five senses. If the result of mala and karma again surround him, as the separated moss covers the water again a little while after the stone is thrown, let the soul remove it by
contemplating on Him who is never separate from the soul.

NOTES

After showing, in the last sutra, what the soul has to achieve, this sutra proceeds to explain the sadhanas

[spiritual practices] and the fruits of such sadhana.

To begin with, the soul, by its practice of tapas in all its past and present birth must have acquired sufficient knowledge and spirituality as to be able to attain jnanam. Tapas as here used means and includes three out of the four pathams or paths described in this school, namely, carya, kriya, and yoga. Carya and kriya include all kinds of altruistic and moral
and religious practices. All these three, which are placed in an ascending order, bring about what is called balancing of the good and bad karma, and the maturing of mala [impurity] before it can be dropped. The practice ofthese sadhanas develop in the soul, true knowledge (jnanam) and love (bhakti)--and God who is all love, appears a guru and imparts jnanam, the fourth patham, by showing the soul is true nature; and the soul attaining jnanam frees itself from asat [the false] and reaches the Feet of the Sat [the True]. Hence the four paths–carya, kriya, yoga, and jnanam–lead to four fruits or sadhya, namely, iruvinai oppu [the balancing of good and evil works], mala-paripaka [the ripening of impurity], sadguru-darsana [the vision of the True Guru], and sakti-nipata (reaching Divine Grace). The illustrations to the first argument point out that it is possible to attain a good many powers and enjoyments by the practice of tapas, none of which however will be lasting or lead on to freedom and eternal bliss. They only beget further karma and further births. The true tapasvi [ascetic] will aim at destroying all karma and reach the true Guru. And the second argument points out who the sadguru is, and illustration (c) shows how He is to be obtained. This guru cannot be any other than God and except by His touch, it is impossible to obtain jnanam. By the practice of true tapas, by intense devotion and love, it is easy to attract God to oneself as one’s guru.

The ignorant think that God and Love are different. None knows that God and Love are the same. Did all men know that God and Love are the same, They.would repose in God as Love.

– Tirumantiram

It will therefore be seen that the whole of the moral, religious, and
psychical (yoga) practices are simply preparatory acts and can never be
ends in themselves and can never be of any use, unless the true end is kept
in view.

As our Tayumanavar says:

My Lord, are not the four paths from the much-desired carya to the jnanam
like the unopened flower, the blossom, the unripe fruit, and the ripe fruit?

And the author of the Ozhivilodukkam, who is a true Siddhantin, appropriately devotes three of his chapters to carya, kriya, and yoga, in which he exposes and reviles in unmeasured terms the practices of impostors, false prophets, and Pharisees.
 

And again, the doctrine of the Divine Guru as expounded here should be particularly noted and distinguished. In fact, if one takes all the beliefs and practices of every religion and every faith all the world over, it is just possible to reduce them all to one common law and one common principle. Through sheer forgetfulness of this common principle and through
distance of time and place, the true belief and practice has been lost sight of; and if preserved, the mere shadow of them are preserved; and when people speculate on them fresh, all sorts of theories and explanations are given. And these remarks apply with very great force to the doctrines in question. So far is true, that unless God comes down as human and Guru and touches human beings with His arul or Grace, we cannot attain salvation. But when we proceed further and ask who this guru is, when and how He appears and acts, why and wherefore He appears, whom He purifies, and how He purifies, the answers are returned as each person’s fancy dictates, without any reference to God’s and Nature’s laws. The doctrine of atonement is as puerile as the belief of the villager who seeks to appease a village deity by sacrificing a cock or hen; and the doctrine of mediation, admittedly based on no higher principle than that of human agency--instances of which are the judge, prisoner and lawyer, king, subjects, viceroy, etc.–which clearly involves the impairing of the
omniscience and omnipotency of the Supreme Ruler of the universe, is equally unsatisfactory. If the guru is God, how could the guru be a mediator? God is in human beings and can appear to humans as human but cannot become human. He dwells in our hearts and understands all our wants and He meets all our wants. He knows our disease and our sufferings and He has a balm already prepared for us. Nobody need therefore tell Him, what we want, what our disease and pain are, and to crave His mercy of us, as He is all love and all mercy. There is no mediation. The touch of the guru
converts the already prepared baser metal into gold. His touch is as the surgeon’s lancet which opens out and heals an abscess fully matured. Just as the loving mother runs and takes to her breast the crying child, so God reaches us the instant we lift our voice to Him. It is also seen that it is necessary for God to appear in human form, only so far as human beings and sakalas are concerned; and that as far as other advanced souls, vijnanakalas, are concerned, He induced jnanam in them intuitively. The necessity so far as humans are concerned arises, because human beings cannot know otherwise.
 

Again for sinners to expect salvation, as they lisp, while they die, some dead names and words, is absurd, as also to expect that some dead names will produce such effects for all time to come. Tested by the truth as laid down in this sutra, the ordinary observances and beliefs of almost every religion, Saiva and other Hindu religions included, will be a mere mockery and sham; but still it will be observed, that even among Hindu religions, the Saiva religion does not tolerate hierarchy in any form.

3. The human soul is compared to the son of a king stolen by savages at his very birth and living among them, and who can never understand his identity until informed by the King himself. The soul, in its nature of pristine purity, develops itself only as its cosmic covering also evolves, and will recover itself only with the touch of the Divine Guru. The soul is again compared to a painted glass or mirror in which the identity of the mirror is lost and will not be recovered unless the paint is washed away.

4. The language of "reaching the feet of the Lord" is significant. The freed soul does not become co-extensive (if we can use the word) with God. It simply becomes imbedded in God, a mere drop in the vast ocean, a mere trace as it were. Even among Saivas, not to say of other schools of Hindu philosophers, even among commentators of this very book, there are
differences of opinion as regards the condition of the freed soul in union with God. The opinion of the author may be however taken as stated above. The soul is like the flickering lamp tossed by the wind and darkness and which loses itself completely in bright noon daylight and remains still and quiet.

There is eternal joy however in such a change and passage, and it may be compared to the great joy of the person passing from darkness to light and of the blind person recovering his eyesight.

(c) This illustration points out that the bodily infirmities or the effects do not cease altogether even after the touch of the Divine Guru. These infirmities have been so firmly rooted in the person and had become so strong that it takes even some time after sadguru-darsan [vision of the True Guru] to remove the effects of its former association completely.
During this interval, the soul becoming freed is enjoined to contemplate God, and this last injunction is what is elaborated in the next sutra.
 
 

*Source: Meykantatevar. Sivagnana Botham of Meikanda Deva. Translated with
notes by J. M. Nallaswami Pillai. Kazhagam ed. Madras: South India Saiva
Siddhanta Works Pub. Society, 1984; reprint of 1895 ed. (modified for
clarity and web-presentation by Lance Nelson).

Source: http://www.acusd.edu/theo/hcs-l/sjbm.html
 

 [Introduction to the Text]

EIGHTH SUTRA

When because of the soul’s meritorious practices (tapas) the Primal One  enlightens the soul as a guru also, saying, "Brought up among savages, the five senses, thou hast lost consciousness (of thy true estate)," the soul
leaves them and, being not other (than Hara), reaches Hara’s feet.

1. These souls obtain knowledge by austerities previously performed:

. . . for when the soul in previous births has performed carya [external
worship], kriya [worship both external and interior], and yoga [inward
practice], these meritorious practices reveal the knowledge which is the
right path, but do not themselves give deliverance.

(a) Those who have performed these practices enter the respective heaven.
In order that they may sever the attachment of desire, they are born again
in high station for the performance of such works, and [then they] attain
knowledge. So in their wisdom say those who have studied.

(b) The joy which comes from prescribed acts is like the joy of one who
being hungry eats and again hungers. When two-fold works which resemble
each other [in that both cause rebirth] are balanced [1] by these practices
of imperishable merit, the soul comes [seeking a guru] and attains knowledge.

2. The Primal One Himself teaches those souls as a guru:

. . . for, in the form of Consciousness, He is in union (with the guru).

(a) To the vijnankalas [souls with only one impurity: anava] He Himself
appears as True Knowledge. To the pralayakalas [souls with two impurities:
anava and karma] He Himself, standing before them as a guru, imparts True
Knowledge. To ignorant sakalas [souls with all three impurities: anava,
karma, and maya], He imparts it concealing Himself as a guru. Understand. [2]
 

(b) Souls do not know unless they are helped to know in the way
(appropriate to their degree). For those [namely, pralayakalas and sakalas]
which need the instruction of the Lord of the world, who Himself needs
nothing, their need’s supply appears directly or indirectly. [3] For those
[namely, vijnanakalas] which do not require the teaching that supplies such
need, understand that there is (knowledge which brings) Deliverance
(through God), within them.

( c) O scholar blessed, the richly jeweled one’s [i.e., a mother’s]
breast-milk and tears at first are not [visible], but later [when she sees
her child] arise. Even so, who could know Him who like the shadow of water
is without visible form, if He did not reveal Himself, taking visible form?

3. These souls, confused by the five senses, do not know themselves:

. . .  for the five senses reveal what they reveal like the colors in a
crystal.

(a) Like the crystal which displays many colors, the soul thinks its nature
is displayed in the sense-organs. Then perceiving that the false
sense-organs, like the (crystal’s) many colors, are different from it, the
soul sees the True and rejects the false as false; and, being different
from the non-real, it becomes dependent upon the True.

4. When this soul sees itself different from the sense-organs, then it
attains the blessed feet of the Primal One:

. . . for, if the swing-rope breaks, mother earth is our support.

(a) The soul, like a great river dammed, escaping form the restriction of
sense-knowledge, attains the everlasting feet of Hara and never returns,
just as the river bursting the dam flows into the sea and merges itself
therein.

(b) If all things are He, there is none to reach His feet. If He is other
than any, He is not Lord.

The (other) senses do not like the eye range at large [reaching things at a
distance]. When sight is regained by the blind, see the superiority of the
eye. [4]

(c) O thou who hast learnt the great truth that thou art not like the
sense-organs, the sakala soul which has put away the five senses and united
with Siva will not leave Him by again uniting with the sense organs. If
impurity and karma, dispersed like weeds growing on water, return again,
the soul meditating on Him who never forsakes the soul, can make impurity
and karma forsake it.

NOTES

1. In that the soul regards both with equanimity, neither desiring the good
effects of good deeds nor fearing the evil effects of evil deeds.
 

2. A vijnanakala is a being tainted by only one of the three malas or
impurities: anava. A pralayakala is a being tainted by two of the three
malas: anava and karma. A sakala is an ordinary embodied being tainted by
all three malas: anava, karma, and maya.

3. See the previous udaharana ["illustration"].

4. The meaning of this verse is that God is in the soul’s sense-conditioned
knowledge as well as in its grace-given knoweldge. But just as the sense of
sight is superior to the other senses, so the knowledge imparted by divine
grace is superior to knowledge imparted by the senses.

EXPOSITION

This sutra discusses what is the best sadhana, how it is acquired, and what
is attained by it.

8. S. By reason of the soul’s virtue in previous births, God, who has been
immanent in the soul making it know, now vouchsafing to take the form of a
guru, initiates the soul in the Saiva mysteries, saying, "O thou child of a
king, fallen among savages, the senses, and brought up by them, thou hast
been ignorant of thy true greatness and hast wandered in ignorance." Then
as soon as the knowledge is received, the soul, leaving the savages and
uniting inseparably with God, attains His Sacred Feet.

8.1. The sadhana is knowledge, jnana. This sadhana-jnana is knowledge of
the real, meynnana; it is described by Sivajnanayogi as "knowledge through
Siva-knowledge imparted by a guru" It is given to those who have performed
tapas in previous births, tapas consisting not of austerities, but of
carya, kriya, and yoga, the first three of the four degrees of Siva
worship. They are not the sadhana, but they lead to it.

8.1.a The purpose of this udaharana ["illustration," i.e., subsection] is
to show how these three forms of worship lead to the fourth, jnana.

S. Those who have performed carya, kriya, and yoga attain the heavenly
states of salokya [being in God’s celestial world], samipya [proximity to
God], and sarupya [having a form similar to God’s] respectively, and
experience the joys that are there, the fruits of these forms of worship.

So that , being born again into the world, they may experience, and so put
away the last desire which arose from the fate which was determining the
next deed at the time when the former body died, they appear again in a
high caste suited for the performance of religious practices. By performing
what still remains to be performed of such practices, they cut off worldly
desire so that it cannot bear fruit, and obtain knowledge of the real. So
say, in their wisdom, those who have studied and understood the scriptures
on Release.

8.1.b. This udaharana deals with the contention of Kumarila Bhatta’s
Mimamsa that knowledge of the real comes from sacrificial practice, not
from carya, kriya, and yoga.

S. When the students of the dharmasastras find sacrifices, etc., enjoined
as virtuous practices, they find them described along with the fruits
obtained through them. The joy which is the fruit of such practices is like
the joy which comes of food to the person who, having hungered and eaten,
will hunger again. Therefore virtuous practices and the reverse are similar
to each other, like fetters of gold and fetters of silver, in that they
both keep the soul in bondage and hinder its approach to knowledge.

When the two [virtue and vice], which are thus seen to resemble each other,
are made to balance each other by carya, kriya, and yoga, which do not
perish like them in the moment when their fruit is experienced, but grow
more and more, the soul on account of that development of carya, kriya, and
yoga seeks and finds the guru and obtains knowledge.

The point of this udaharana is that the practice of Vedic rites is enjoined
with a view to the blessings to be obtained thereby. Thus it does not
quench desire, but rather stimulates it, and so keeps the soul in the
bondage of samsara. It is a fetter no less than the practice of evil. The
peculiar benefit of the practice of carya and other forms of Siva-worship
is that they secure the balance of good and evil works (iruviani-oppu),
that condition of the soul in which it regards both alike without emotion,
neither performing virtue for the sake of reward, nor eschewing evil for
fear of its consequences; and thus they lead the soul to knowledge which is
the sadhana, the way of attaining release.

8.2. This knowledge--for which the soul is prepared by carya, kriya, and
yoga--is imparted by God, not, as the Samkhya and Nyaya systems hold, by
ordinary human agency, as in the case of the arts and sciences.

S. "By the fulfilment of carya, kriya, and yoga, the ripening of impurity
and the descent of Sakti [divine power, grace] are produced. Seeing this
readiness of the soul, God, who till now has been helping the soul to know
immanent [but hidden] within it, graciously appears as a guru and instructs
the soul."

Mala-paripaka, the maturing or ripening [paripaka] of impurity [mala],
signifies the removal of impurity from the soul, as of a ripe fruit from
the tree. Sakti-nipata is understood either as the descent of Grace upon
the soul, the occupation of the soul by Grace causing it to be evacuated by
impurity, or as the subjection of the soul with a view to union with God.
On the former interpretation, Sakti has its usual meaning, the gracious
power of God; on the latter, it is taken as signifying "soul."
 

The hetu [logical grounds] for these thesis has in view the criticism that
God cannot assume a perishable body consisting of evolutes of maya, and
that therefore, even if He comes in the form of a guru, He only dwells
(adhisthana) in the guru in the same way in which He dwells in everything,
being omnipresent. The Siddhanta position [however] is that God is present
in the guru by possession (avesa).

S. For He is not concealed in the guru and different from the guru, as ghee
[clarified butter] is concealed in milk; He is manifest there, as ghee is
visible in curds.

The udaharanas deal with the way in which God reveals Himself to souls–to
the vijnanakalas, souls associated with only one form of impurity, anava;
to the pralayakalas, souls associated with two impurities, anava and karma;
and to the sakalas, souls involved in all three impurities, anava, karma,
and maya.

8.2.a. S. To the vijnanakalas, God Himself gives True Knowledge, being
Himself within them, the light (of all their seeing). To the pralayakalas
He gives this knowledge by instruction, revealing Himself as a guru in his
own [divine] form as Siva, four-armed, three-eyed, black-throated, and
performing His three [cosmic] functions. To ignorant sakalas he gives this
knowledge, hiding himself as a guru whose form is like their own. Understand.

8.2.b. S. Understand that all souls know when God helps them to know, not
all in the same way, but according to their condition. The pralayakalas and
the sakalas, who learn by receiving instruction from God, whose knowledge
is not derived from another, need respectively the word of instruction
given directly by God as guru in His own form, and given indirectly by God
as a guru in human form. The vijnanakalas do not need this instruction;
they have within themselves from God the knowledge which brings release.

8.2.c. The point of this verse is that God’s coming as a guru is in the
case of the sakalas not merely a figure of speech, but as much an actual
fact as in the case of souls in the other classes.

S. O scholar blest with knowledge, a woman’s milk and tears, the visible
forms that reveal her invisible love, are not manifest before she sees her
babe; then are they seen. Similarly, He is without visible form in souls,
like the shadow of water in water. Who then would know Him if He did not
reveal Himself, appearing in the form of a guru?

8.3. The Siva-sankranta-vadins hold that it is not necessary for God to
come as a guru, because the five senses, which as organs of the soul give
knowledge of the objects of sense, the non-real, can as organs of Siva give
true knowledge, knowledge of the real. Sivajnanayogi’s paraphrase of the
hetu [however] makes the Siddhantist’s argument clear. The soul, confused
by the five senses, does not know itself; through the senses it does not
obtain knowledge of the real, "for just as the many colors in a crystal,
overpowering the color of the crystal itself, display only themselves, so
the five senses, obscuring the soul’s true nature, reveal to the soul only
their objects."

8.3.a. The purpose of the udaharana is to meet the criticism that the
senses, thus obtruding themselves, would obscure the teaching imparted to
the soul by God as a guru.

S. The soul is first aware of its phenomenal nature, which is to display as
itself the organs with which it is associated, just as the phenomenal
nature of the crystal is to display as itself the many colors with which it
is associated. Then the soul, coming to realize that the various organs
which constitute its phenomenal nature are different from it, just as it
understands that the colors are different from the crystal, discovers its
own essential nature in this rejection of the phenomenal nature as false.
This causes Absolute Spiritual Reality, different from the sense-organs,
which are non-real, to be manifest in the soul; and thus the soul becomes
the servant of that Absolute Spiritual Reality.

8.4. The Bedavada ["Doctrine of Difference"] Saivas hold that when the soul
thus realizes its own true nature, that is all; the sense-organs having
been discarded, ho further action is possible, and so the soul does not
become the servant of God. The Siddhantist position is that just as a fall
to earth follows immediately and inevitably upon the breaking of the
swing-rope, so the soul’s realization of devoted dependence on God, the
Real, follows immediately upon its recognition that it is essentially
different from the sense-organs, and its rejection of them and all the
non-real world as non-real. To abandon dependence upon the non-real and to
attain dependence upon the real are but two aspects of the same act. So no
functioning of the sense-organs is needed for this dependence upon God;
therefore it is possible, though they have been discarded.

8.4.a. This experience is final; the soul, having thus put aside the
sense-organs, does not resume them, as it does after discarding them in the
kevala, that is, the turiyatita ["transcendent," = samadhi] state.

8.4.b. This verse deals with the contention of the Sivadvaita [Siva
Nondualist] Saivas that it does not matter whether, when the souls have
come to see all things as Absolute Spirit, they unite with the sense-organs
or not.

The Siddhantist position is that, though the Divine Intelligence is at work
in both the soul’s divinely imparted knowledge and its sense-conditioned
knowledge, that fact does not make the two of equal worth.

S. If not only the soul’s (divinely imparted) knowledge but also its
sense-conditioned knowledge were Absolute Spirit, there would be no
superiority in the former, and there wold be no need to leave the sakala
state, wherein the senses function, in order to reach the Sacred Feet.
Therefore, as there would be none who would seek the Sacred Feet, it would
have to be concluded that the words, "Deliverance is the soul’s leaving
pasa (bondage) and attaining the Lord," and texts in the Vedas and Agamas
of similar meaning, are wrong. But if it be said that God has no connection
with sense-knowledge, being distinct from it, then, as He does nothing from
sense-knowledge, He would not be Lord there, and this would be derogatory
to His Godhead.

If you ask, "What then is the nature of sense-knowledge?" (the answer is
that,) although sense-conditioned knowledge, like the soul’s (divinely
imparted knowledge), is Absolute Spirit by reason of His union with it, yet
the two are not equal. Although the soul is in all the five senses alike,
four of them perceive only those of their respective objects, which come to
them where they are; they cannot pass outwards and perceive their objects
everywhere. But the eye, passing everywhere, by its light sees even an
object which is at a distance. (So, though God is in union with both forms
of knowledge, they are not of equal worth.) You may appreciate the
superiority of the eye over other organs when eyesight, having been
temporarily lost, is regained. (Similarly the superiority of the soul’s
knowledge, imparted by divine grace, over the sense-conditioned knowledge
of the soul will be appreciated when that knowledge is received by the soul.)

8.4.c. This udaharana emphasizes the point that the soul which has received
the knowledge imparted by divine grace will not return to union with the
senses. It explains what the possible cause of such return is and how it
may be abolished.

S. O scholar who has received the great word of the Siddhanta which teaches
that thou art not possessed of limited knowledge like the sense-organs, the
sakala soul which has put away the knowledge which comes through the five
senses and has attained the Sacred Feet of the Lord, like the river-water
which escapes and flows away and merges itself in the billowy ocean, will
not leave those Sacred Feet by again uniting with the sense-organs. The
weed on the river, driven back by the splash of a stone, spreads again when
left undisturbed. Similarly, anava, karma, and maya--removed by the soul’s
attainment of the Sacred Feet--may return to the soul on account of its
forgetting the Lord by reason of the lingering taint of impurity. But if
so, the soul does not by reason of this lingering taint return to the sense
organs; it rids itself of anava, karma, and maya by meditating, with the
means described hereafter, on the Lord who does not forsake the soul even
in its forgetfulness.
 
 

*Source: Meykantatevar. Siva-nana-bodham: A Manual of Saiva Religious
Doctrine. Translated by Gordon Matthews. Oxford: University Press, 1948
(modified for web-presentation and clarity by Lance Nelson).

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