OmniLight Invocations 365

An old photo of Siddhi Valaagam (சித்தி வளாகம்) or “Abode of Adepthood”, Mettukuppam, Vadalur, Tamilnadu, India. It was Ramalingam’s final residence and venue of his last talk in October 1873.

Arutperunjothi Agaval: Couplet: 60

உனுமுணர் வுணர்வா யுணர்வெலாங் கடந்த    

அநுபவா தீத வருட்பெருஞ் ஜோதி!

Constituting

Instruments

Of

Cognition

And

Transcending

Them,

The

Reality

Beyond

All

Experience,

OmniLight Of Supreme Compassion!

Notes:

The OmniLight constitutes the instruments of cognition such as mind (the instrument of awareness and thought), intellect (the instrument of reasoning), etc., to facilitate the progressive liberation of the individual soul sunk in ignorance, but it cannot be experienced or realized by the use of these ordinary instruments of cognition.

The previous couplet described the OmniLight as “Transcendental Reality-Experience”. This couplet affirms that the OmniLight is “beyond all experience”. How do we resolve this apparent contradiction?

The Tamil expression “அனுபவம்” (aṉupavam) refers to ordinary forms of experience or enjoyment marked by the separation of subject and object, or enjoyer and object of enjoyment.

But the OmniLight cannot be experienced or enjoyed in this dualistic form. It can only be experienced or enjoyed in a non-dualistic form, one in which the division between subject and object dissolves. The subject becomes one with the object.

The seeker becomes one with the OmniLight, or rather, the OmniLight abolishes the dualism of ordinary experience and enables non-dual union with itself.

This is the import of the expression “அநுபவாதீதம்” (aṉupavateetham) or “beyond all experience” in this couplet.

The Arutperunjothi Agaval is Ramalingam’s magnum opus of spiritual enlightenment poetry composed in 798 couplets in 1872.