மெய்யான மைசொல்வேன் பொய்யே யில்லை
மேலான திடமிதற்கே யைய மில்லை
உய்யென்றே உய்விக்கும் மையே கண்டீர் உலகையெலாம் வசமாக்கு முண்மை கண்டீர்
நெய்யாகும் வெண்ணையது மறைந்தா லன்றோ
நெறியாகும் தனைமறந்து நின்றா லன்றேர்
பொய்யான உலகுண்மை புதைந்தா லன்றோ
பொய்மெய்ம்மை வாய்மையுடன் போக உண்மை
Meyyaanai maisolven poyye yillai
Melaana thidamitharke yaiya millai.
Uyyendre uyvikkum maiye kandeer
Ulagaiyelam vasamaakku munmai kandeer
Neyyaagum vennaiyathu maraindhaa landro
Neriyaagum thanaimarandhu nindraa landrer
Poyyaanai ulagunmai pudhaindhaa landro
Poymeymmai vaaymaiyudan poga unmai.
I will speak of the true “mai”; there is no lie (in it).
For this higher firmness/steadfastness, there is no doubt.
Behold that “mai” which, by making one cry “let me be saved!”, brings about salvation;
Behold that truth which brings the whole world under one’s control.
Is it not when the butter is hidden/vanishes that it becomes ghee?
Is it not when one stands forgetting oneself that it becomes the Path?
Is it not when the world’s false “truth” is buried/covered that (it is so)?
When falsity, ‘true/false’ (as a mixed notion), and mere truthfulness of speech depart—Truth remains/goes on (as Truth).
I speak of a “true māyā/mai”—not a deception but a real principle.
In that higher steadiness there is no room for doubt.
See the very power that first makes you yearn for liberation and then carries you into it;
see the truth that, when mastered, renders the whole world compliant (as experience and as siddhi).
When the gross ‘butter’ of ordinary mind/essence is made to disappear into its hidden fire, it clarifies into ‘ghee’—a subtler, lasting essence.
Likewise, when the sense of “I” is forgotten and one stands as pure awareness, that very standing becomes the path.
When the so‑called reality of the worldly life is seen through and sinks away, what remains is not an argument about true vs. false.
When the categories of lie and truth, and even the virtue of “truthful speech,” fall silent, the Real stands by itself.
The verse is built around a deliberate paradox: “மெய்யான மை” (“true mai”) yokes ‘truth’ to a term that can signify darkness/ink, intoxication, or (by sound and sense) māyā—appearance-power. Siddhar language often treats māyā not as a mere falsehood but as a functional potency: the same force that binds can, when understood, become the means of release.
The second image—butter becoming ghee when it “hides/vanishes”—points to an inner alchemy: when the coarse, perishable form is subjected to a concealed heat (discipline, tapas, inner fire), it yields a clarified essence. This can be read yogically (mind/emotion clarified into steady awareness), medically/alchemically (essence refined into a more potent, stable substance), or sexually-energetically in Siddhar idiom (gross vitality refined into subtle power).
“Standing forgetting oneself” presents the path as egoless abidance: when the self-image and doer-identity are relinquished, the ‘stance’ itself is liberation-practice. The last lines press further: ultimate Truth is not the conventional opposition of lie vs. truth, nor even the moral category of ‘speaking truth’ (வாய்மை). When conceptual dualities and verbal correctness dissolve, what remains is the non-dual Real that Siddhars indicate indirectly.
Thus the verse moves: (1) from proclaiming a paradoxical “true māyā/mai,” (2) to the mastery of experience/world (inner sovereignty and possible siddhis), (3) to refinement/clarification imagery, and (4) to a culmination beyond linguistic and ethical binaries—Truth as direct being rather than statement.