Muruganar was a prolific poet and writer who attained liberation through the grace of Ramana Maharshi.
Muruganar spent years in Sri Ramana Ashram listening to Ramana answer questions from devotees. He summarized many of the answers into four line verses which were then edited by Ramana Maharshi.
Some of Muruganar’s writings have been published in two books: Guru Vachaka Kovai and Padamalai. Below are some of the passages from those books.
Guru Vachaka Kovai by Muruganar
“To the ignorant, who believe it to be real and revel in it, the world that appears before them is God’s creation, but to the steadfast jnanis, who have known the bondage-free Self by direct experience, it is merely a deluding and binding concept that is wholly mental.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 21
“Do not be confounded by this worthless samsara that appears as a dream in the deluding [sleep of] ignorance. In a mind that has an intense desire for reality — consciousness, the supreme — it is impossible for the binding mental delusion that arises in the dense darkness of ignorance to remain.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 27
“The worldly life is a dreamlike appearance, sapless and deluding, that functions through the mixture of the pairs of opposites such as desire and aversion. It appears as if real only as long as one is under the spell of the maya-sleep. It will end up being totally false when one truly wakes up into the maya-free Self.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 41
“The world that veils the Self through names and forms, and appears to be real, is only a dream-like appearance. If, instead, that very same world gets veiled by the Self and appears as consciousness alone, then, as the Self, it too is real.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 47
“All the differences that, crowding together, accumulate to form the world are in truth only the sport of grace, the power of the one consciousness. Therefore, jnani whose sole focus is the knowledge of the radiant reality will never perceive the world of many differences except as a mere appearance.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 58
“Those who have known the truth as it really is will not declare this world, which is forever undergoing destruction by the wheel of time, to be real. Only the plenitude that shins uninterruptedly at all times and in all places, transcending time and space, is the nature of reality.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 65
“Reach the Heart by clearly knowing your true nature and abide there permanently as that unattached Supreme Self, without slipping from the state of knowledge. Then, act according to the human role you have assumed, outwardly behaving as if, like all others in the world, you are experiencing joy and misery.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 81
“The Self abides motionless because of its all-pervasive fullness. Because the apparent connection between the Self and the mind-limitation seems to exist on account of ignorance — which is the jiva-perspective, the reflected consciousness that rises as ‘I’ — the Self too appears to have experienced movement through the motion of the mind. But the movement of samsara that comprises birth and death, bondage and liberation, and so on, is only for the jiva and never for the Self, the transcendental reality.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 94
“The world does not exist without the body; the body never at any time exists without the mind; the mind does not exist at all apart from consciousness; and consciousness too does not exist apart from being.”
— Muruganar, “Guru Vachaka Kovai” verse 99
“The deeper intention of the scriptures in describing the sequence of creation in different ways is not to proclaim the correct theory of creation but to promote enquiry into the Supreme Reality that is the primal source of creation. This is the real puport behind the sastras [scriptures] that describe the details of creation.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 102
“Since, through the enquiry ‘Who am I?’, the ego is destroyed in those who have known and reached the Heart that is the source of the rising ego, the dualistic pairs of opposing thoughts that exist depending on the ego, which together comprise the notion of bondage, are also totally destroyed. [Within such people] the darkness of ignorance that was the basis of the ego is also annihilated and they become the swarupa, the Supreme Self, the Heart that is eternally free of defilement. As the have attained the surging of the true and supreme bliss within themselves, at that very moment they are freed from the sorrow of birth.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 260
“This is the definitive advice for those who desire to gain redemption: like the tortoise that retracts its five [limbs], restrain and withdraw the five senses, turn your mind towards the Self, and remain absorbed in it. This alone is happiness.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 291
“Resolving that the world of names and forms, an imaginary concept, is only a dream in which not even one of the many things perceived exists apart from the perceiver, meditate on the blissful reality, the form of consciousness, without pursuing the world.”
– Muruganar, “Guru Vachaka Kovai” verse 293
“Like the one string that runs without a break through the many beads in a rosary, God runs through and sustains every religion. He is the light that shines in all the innumerable jivas, as them, and not different from them.”
– Muruganar, “Guru Vachaka Kovai” verse 339
“Just as the single element, fire, is seen as many flames by virtue of the numerous earthenware lamps, similarly, the one Self is seen as multiple beings by virtue of the many apparently existing limitations [upadhis].”
— Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 340
“Various religions that enable [the attainment of jnana] have come into existence to suit the various levels of mental maturity. The wisest course, therefore, is to have a harmonious outlook towards these religions, which deserve to be practiced.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 342
“In those who abide in the Heart that exists as the form of grace, the mind, whose nature is darkness, will completely die. In their vision, which has attained the splendor of the direct experience that overflows, assuming the form of reality, everywhere and everything is saturated with bliss.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 346
“Having become free from concepts, which are afflicting thoughts, and with the ‘I am the body’ idea completely extinguished, one ends up as the mere eye of grace, the non-dual expanse of consciousness. This is the supremely fulfilling vision of God.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 348
“Having restrained the deceitful senses, and having abandoned mental concepts, you should stand aloof in your real nature. In that state of Self-abidance in which you remain firmly established in the consciousness of the Heart, Sivam will reveal itself.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 349
“O foolish mind, you who have wallowed in suffering by desiring the trivial pleasures of this world and the next [heaven]! If you remain still without thoughts, you will certainly attain the supreme bliss of liberation that transcends both of these.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 379
“The spurious jiva that seeks its real nature by the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ will become in the end the real Self, free of the ‘I’.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 388
“The consciousness that ignores the Self, whose nature is pure consciousness, and which regards perceived objects as real, is false. It is ignorance brought about by maya. Though one may learn all that one desires, true knowledge is only the complete elimination of all such conceptual and differentiated objective knowledge and its total transformation into Self alone in the direct experience of one’s real nature, the non-dual pure consciousness.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 420
“Except for the swarupa that exists as the non-dual being-consciousness, and which is never subject to delusion, everything else, which is a dualistic appearance, is wholly made up of maya, the master of daring pretense. Therefore, those who do not clearly know by careful investigation the natural truth of swarupa will suffer through the delusion that the world and God are different from them.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 430
“All things are actually consciousness. When they are known as consciousness only and become completely subsumed in one’s Self, which is consciousness, differences are completely annihilated, and your real nature shines. You should know that this is the incomparable liberation.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 436
“Reality is only the supremely blissful consciousness that shines without any kind of difference in the focused state of a mind that has become mature by virtue of living entirely free of desires.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 464
“The worldly life is a dreamlike appearance, sapless and deluding, that functions through the mixture of the pairs of opposites such as desire and aversion. It appears as if real only as long as one is under the spell of the maya-sleep. It will end up being totally false when one truly wakes up into the maya-free Self.”
– Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 41
Padamalai by Muruganar
“Know the pure state, your own real nature, by keenly observing the interval between two thoughts.”
– Muruganar, Padamalai, verse 13
