The Silent Sage Thayumanavar

The Silent Sage Thayumanavar


"To us all towns are one, all men our kin.
Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill.
Man's pains and pains' relief are from within.
Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !."
- Tamil Poem-

In January 1742 he(Thayumanavar) withdrew into his hut and left the following message pinned to the outside of the door,just before he died;

Dear friends,

Withdraw the mind from the senses and fix it in meditation. Control the thought-current. Find out the thought-centre and fix yourself there. Then you will be conscious of the divine Self; you will see it dancing in ecstasy. Live in that delight. That delight-consciousness is the God in you. He is in every heart. You need not go anywhere to find Him. Find your own core and feel Him there. Peace, bliss, felicity, health – everything is in you. Trust in the divine in you. Entrust yourself to His Grace. Be as you are. Off with past impressions! He who lives from within an ingathered soul is a real sage, even though he may be a householder. He who allows his mind to wander with the senses is an ignoramus, though he is learned. See as a witness, without the burden of seeing. See the world just as you see a drama. See without attachment. Look within. Look at the inner light unshaken by mental impressions. Then, floods of conscious bliss shall come pouring in and around you from all directions. This is the supreme Knowledge; realise! Aum! Aum!

Thayumanavar was a distinguished Tamil poet-saint who lived in the first half of the eighteenth century, from 1705 to 1742 AD.

... when touching songs were recited or read out before him, or when he himself was reading out to us poems or passages from the lives or works of famous saints, he(Ramana Bhagavan) would be moved to tears and find it impossible to restrain them. He would be reading out and explaining some passage and when he came to a very moving part he would get so choked with emotion that he could not continue but would lay aside the book. To quote a few instances, such a thing happened when he was reading and explaining some incidents in Sundaramurti Nayanar’s life in connection with the Tiruchuzhi Mahatmyam, and also when he was reading out ‘Akarabuvanam-Chidambara Rahasyam’ in Thayumanavar’s works, and came to the twenty-fourth verse:

Conceiving you as everything from earth to space,
I shall record my thoughts on the large page of my mind,
and looking at that image ever and again, I shall cry out:
‘Lord of my life, will you not come?’
Repeatedly believing myself to be You,
I am unable to fix my attention on anything else.
Lamenting in this way, like one whose heart is wounded,
dissolving inwardly, so that tears pour down in floods,
uttering deep sighs, unaware even of my body,
I stand transfixed.

His [Bhagavan’s] eyes were so filled with tears and his throat so choked with emotion [as he read these words] that he had to put aside the book and break off his discourse.

(Day by Day with Bhagavan, 12th December 1945, afternoon session.)

‘Remain still, mind, in the face of everything!’
This truth that was taught to you,
where did you let it go?
Like wrestlers, bent upon their bout,
you raised your arguments.
Where is your judgement? Where, your wisdom?
Begone!
Bliss will arise if you remain still.
Why, little sir, this involvement still
with yoga, whose nature is delusion?
Will [this bliss] arise
through your own objective knowledge?
You need not reply, you who are addicted to ‘doing’!
You little baby, you!

The time was ripe; the Master came one day when he was meditating before the vast sea near Vedaranyam. Thayumanavar fell at his feet crying:

"Master, by Thy Grace, I am free to follow Thee. Bless me with Thy Grace. Let me enter the high plane of superconscious trance. Let my being thrill with the nectar of immortality"

The words uttered by the Master were woven into hymns and became the Philosophy of the Silent Sage.

The Master graciously looked at the ripe soul and said,

"My darling, your psychic being is ripe enough to receive that yoga.

"My son, hear from me the ancient wisdom taught by Sri Mula and Satyadarsi and sing it to humanity.

The world of manifold appearances is the multiplicity of one Divine Energy.
It is a play in five acts,
creation, preservation, destruction, self-absorption and salvation.
The play is kept going on by the Cosmic-Force,
at the Will of the Witnessing Lord God is All-in-all,
all-blissful, allcontaining and impersonal.
Grace is His personality.
He is omnipotent, omnipresent.
He is the Life of lives,
the Thinker in the brain,
the Feeler in the heart,
the Seer in the eye,
the Hearer in the ear,
the Breather in the lungs
and the Speaker in the tongue.
He does everything through His Grace
and remains an unattached Witness,
far beyond the world of modes and dualities.
He is as He is.
Just as rays spread from the Sun and give light and warmth to the world,
Grace radiates from the Divine and plays as the world.
There is no language without the first vowel A;
there is no world without God's Grace.
He is the unique One;
there is nothing to be compared with him.
He has no birth, no death.
His Grace descends into purified souls.
Such souls, are lights that lead us godward.
Embodied creatures have the taint of egoism, lust and delusion.
They are tied to the results of good and bad acts.
The mundane world emanates from the Divine Will
and evolves from the lowest inertia
to the highest superconsciousness
according to the results of acts.
The sower reaps the fruit of his seed.
The field is as it is.
Just like husk which covers rice,
dirt which stains copper,
salt which is in the sea water,
the three stains of egoism, delusion and action are in the soul.
These form an impression in the mind
and the soul departs with it to another birth.
Freedom means freedom from these triple stains.

The body is the mechanism of the Mayashakti, the illusive Force of multiplicity.
The Divine Grace, holds the Soul like a magnet which holds a piece of iron.
The soul which is conscious of the Divine Grace, enjoys peace, bliss and freedom.
The soul identifying itself with the mental-vital-material body
suffers bondage and the pangs of birth and death.
The mirror cannot reflect forms without light.
The soul cannot act without Grace.
The soul by the force of the Grace behind it,
rules as a king over the body,
with the mind, intellect, emotive mind and egoism as its ministers.
Waking, dream, deep sleep, trance, supertrance
are the five states of soul-consciousness.
In the superconscious trance, the soul feels its identity with the Divine and attains divinity.
The Jiva then enjoys Shivahood.
The sun causes seasons, day and night;
but it is quite separate from them.
Even so Atman is separate from the mind and its modifications.
The soul must feel this
and be conscious of its eternal unity with the Divine.
This conscious living in the Divine is Life Divine.

The Divine Grace transforms life into love and love into bliss.
That Grace descends in the form of Consciousness.
The ordinary physical eye cannot see the Divine.
The inner eye alone can subtly feel the Divine presence in the soul.
The mind is internalised and concentrated in meditation,
With unflagging patience, forbearance, faith and constancy
the aspirant must practise meditation.
Purity of the heart and one-pointed fixity of the mind enables meditation.
As the soul detaches itself from mental modifications, it approaches the Divine Centre.
Then Grace takes possession of the pure soul and reveals the Divine presence.
The soul must become red-hot in the Divine flame.
Then it becomes a shining gold
and at last a crown of divinity.
The first step is mental purification and concentrated devotion.
The next is constant meditation and inner fixity.
By this the soul feels its at-one-ment with the Divine, the Quintessence of its being.
Then it sees the same Divine essence in the universe of beings.
From self-consciousness, the soul widens into cosmic consciousness.

The Divine Master, then initiated the faithful disciple in superconscious trance, poured his energy into him and watched his progress for a few days before he disappeared.

He forgot himself in trance. He poured his heart's fervour into hymns of sublime wisdom.

"There is no treasure higher than Thy Grace.
I am full in Thy fullness.
Thou art the Ocean into which countless religious streams empty themselves.
O beginningless, endless Vastness,
rare for the Vedas, rare for the different warring creeds,
rare for thought and word,
Thou art felt only in Silence.
Hail Light, Hail Purity,
Power that movest all beings" !

"Every religion hails Thee as its God
Thou art beyond religious creeds
that speak in terms of I and mine.
Thou art known only when all these are silenced in the peace of trance.
Having found Thee, one finds no more religious difference.
For everything is Thy fullness and nothing exists without Thee.
All differences in the world are born of the Ego 'I'.
This ' I ' must be burnt away like a camphor hill in the flame of Thy Grace.
Then nothing shall be left in me except Thyself.
Thou hast made me realise that I am not the body,
the senses, the mind, the intellect, the modes of nature,
but that I am a crystal Consciousness.
Thy Consciousness allows no more occasion for the insurgence of any other entity.
It has left nothing behind.
It has consumed all, as fire consumes camphor.
There is neither knower nor known nor knowledge;
the trinity of separateness is no more.
Thee I love, In Thee I live
and into Thee I disappear !
Hail, Truth-Light !
Hail Supreme Grace ! "

He was now in perfect union with the Divine, immersed in That consciousness. The body was dead to him. So he willed to shed it off. He entered into his samadhi-room and closed the door, leaving a note outside on which these words were written:

"Dear friends,
withdraw the mind from the senses
and fix it in meditation.
Control the thought-current.
Find out the thought-centre and fix yourself there.
Then you will be conscious of the Divine Self;
you will see it dancing in ecstasy.
Live in that delight.
That Delight-Consciousness, is the God in you.
He is in every heart.
You need not go anywhere to find Him.
Find your own core and feel Him there.
Peace, bliss, felicity, health - everything is in you.
Trust in the Divine in you.
Entrust yourself to His Grace.
Be as you are.
Off with past impressions.
He who lives from within an ingathered soul-life
is a real Sage though he may be a householder.
He who allows his mind to wander with the senses
is an ignoramus, though he is learned.
See as a witness, without the burden of seeing.
See the world just as you see a drama.
See without attachment, Look within.
Look at the inner light unshaken by mental impressions.
Then, floods of conscious bliss
shall come pouring in and around you from all directions.
This is the supreme Knowledge;
realise ! Aum Aum ! "

The disciples read this with great joy and meditated before the door. There was no stir inside; it was very late for supper; Arulayya gently called, knocked; no response. He broke open the door. Ah, what did he see ! The body lay there; the face was smiling as usual; but the Soul that was the real sage had flown away like a bird from its cage.

It was on a full moon day in the month of January 1742 that Thayumanavar entered the final beatitude.

"To us all towns are one, all men our kin.
Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill.
Man's pains and pains' relief are from within.
Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !."
- Tamil Poem-



http://www.himalayanacademy.com/resources/books/tayumanavar/life-story.html
http://www.tamilnation.org/sathyam/east/saivaism/thayumanavar.pdf