Golden Lay Verses

Verse 184 (நிர் நிலை வைப்பு)

தமிழ் பாடல்

கண்ணுருகும் வெளிதனிலே கதிருருகும் வளிதனிலே

விண்ணுருகும் தெளிவினிலே வினையுருகக் கண்டேனே

Transliteration

Kaṇṇurugum veḷitanilē kathirurugum vaḷitanilē

Viṇṇurugum theḷivinilē vinaiyurugak kaṇṭēnē

Literal Translation

In the light/space where the eyes melt, in the wind where the rays (of light) melt, in the clarity where the sky melts—there I saw karma (vinai) melt away.

Interpretive Translation

In the inner expanse of luminous awareness—where sensory fixation dissolves, where the moving breath-current and its radiance subside, and where even the vast sense of “sky-like” mind melts into pure clarity—I directly witnessed the dissolution of karmic bondage.

Philosophical Explanation

The verse is built from a sequence of “meltings” (urugu): eyes → rays → wind → sky → karma. Siddhar language often uses melting to indicate dissolution of solidity—of body-sense, perception, breath-movement, and mental vastness—into a subtler, clarified state.

1) "கண்ணுருகும் வெளி" (“the expanse/light in which the eyes melt”): This can mean that ordinary seeing (sense-perception and its grasping) loses its hardness; the ‘eye’ may also stand for the outward-turning mind. In deep yogic absorption, attention no longer fixates on objects; the seer–seen divide softens.

2) "கதிருருகும் வளி" (“the wind in which the rays melt”): "வளி" is both air and prāṇa (vital wind). "கதிர்" can be physical sunlight, inner radiance, or the heat/effulgence associated with subtle energies. The line suggests that within the regulated prāṇic field, radiance itself becomes non-differentiated—an image for the pacification of energetic display (visions, heat, light phenomena) when prāṇa is absorbed.

3) "விண்ணுருகும் தெளிவு" (“the clarity in which the sky melts”): "விண்" (sky) can symbolize the vast mind-space, the sense of boundless interiority, or the element of space itself. "தெளிவு" is clarity, lucidity, purification. Even the feeling of an expansive inner ‘space’ dissolves into sheer clarity—suggesting a nondual state where neither object nor even the subtlest inner landscape remains as a thing.

4) "வினையுருக" (“karma melts”): Karma here is not merely moral accounting but the accumulated conditioning (vāsanā, saṃskāra) that compels cycles of thought, action, and rebirth. The claim "கண்டேனே" (“I saw”) indicates experiential verification: in that clarified absorption, karmic binding loses its hold—either as a gradual burning away of impressions or as a decisive loosening of identification that sustains karma.

Thus, the progression can be read as an inward alchemy: sensory perception dissolves, prāṇic activity settles, mental-space itself collapses into clarity, and the root mechanism of bondage (vinai) is experienced as melting away.

Key Concepts

  • urugu (melting/dissolution)
  • veli (space/outer expanse/luminosity)
  • kann (eye; perception; outward mind)
  • vali (air; prāṇa; vital wind)
  • kathir (ray; radiance; inner light/heat)
  • thelivu (clarity; purification; lucidity)
  • vinn (sky; space-element; mind-space)
  • vinai (karma; conditioning; bondage)
  • samādhi/absorption
  • nonduality (seer–seen softening)

Ambiguities or Multiple Readings

  • "வெளி" can mean outer space/world, inner spiritual expanse, or sheer luminosity; the line may describe either an internal meditative state or a transformed way of perceiving the outer world.
  • "கதிர்" may be physical sunlight, the yogic inner light (antar-jyoti), or the ‘heat/radiance’ of subtle energy; its ‘melting’ can imply cessation of visionary phenomena rather than literal rays dissolving.
  • "வளி" is both atmospheric wind and prāṇa; the verse can be read as breath-yoga (prāṇāyāma) language or as natural imagery used to point to inner processes.
  • "விண்" (sky) may denote the element of space, the vast mind-field, or the highest ‘space-like’ meditation object; its melting can suggest going beyond even refined states of spaciousness.
  • An alchemical/iatrochemical (siddha medicine) reading is possible: ‘melting’ of eyes/rays/wind/sky can be coded references to stages of heating, sublimation, or purification in rasavāda; the final ‘melting of karma’ would then be a deliberately double-coded claim linking bodily alchemy to spiritual liberation.
  • "வினை" can mean karma in the metaphysical sense, or more generally ‘deeds/actions’ and their consequences; “melting” could imply cessation of compulsive action, not only liberation from rebirth.