பாரில்லேன் பார்த்தே னில்லை பாவங்கள் புரிந்தே னில்லை
பதறினேன் மனம் தளர்ந்தேன் பருகினேன் பலநூல் சாரம்
ஊரில்லேன் காணி யில்லேன் உறவுமற் றொருவ ரில்லேன்
ஊசியாம் காந்த வுச்சி ஒளியிலே கண்ணன் தன்னைக்
pārillēn pārttē nillai pāvaṅgaḷ purintē nillai
pataṟinēn maṉam taḷarntēn parukinēn palanūl cāram
ūrillēn kāṇi yillēn uṟavumaṟ ṟoruvar illēn
ūciyām kānta vucci oḷiyilē kaṇṇaṉ taṉṉaik
I have no world (or: I did not look upon the world); I did not see (it).
I did not commit sins.
I was shaken; my mind grew slack.
I drank in the essence of many books.
I have no town; I have no plot of land;
I have no kin—no other person (to call my own).
In the light at the needle-like, magnetic crown/summit,
(Krishna) Kannan—himself—(was perceived).
Detached from place, property, and family, and claiming freedom from deliberate wrongdoing, the speaker describes the turbulence and fatigue that arise in inner practice. Having extracted the ‘essence’ of many teachings, he turns from outer supports to an inward sign: at the subtle “needle-point” of the body’s magnetic summit—suggestive of the crown of the head where a concentrated light is said to appear—he encounters Kannan (Krishna) as an immediate, inner presence rather than as an external idol or doctrine.
The verse moves through a deliberate sequence that Siddhar poems often use: (1) negation of worldly anchoring, (2) negation of ethical self-incrimination, (3) confession of inner instability, (4) assimilation of textual knowledge, and (5) a culminating yogic ‘seeing’ in a locus described with technical imagery.
“Town/land/kin” are conventional markers of identity; denying them signals radical renunciation and also a metaphysical claim: the realized one no longer stands in social coordinates. Yet the admission “I trembled; my mind weakened” keeps the voice human and transitional—knowledge is not presented as effortless. “Drinking the essence of many books” treats scripture as a distillate (sāram), aligning with Siddhar habits of speaking in alchemical/medical metaphors (extract, essence, elixir) while still referring to study.
The closing image—“needle-like magnetic crown/summit light”—is dense and intentionally cryptic. On a yogic reading, “needle-point” indicates extreme subtlety (a single-pointed, bindu-like focus), “magnetic” evokes an attracting force (prāṇa’s pull, inner polarity), and “crown/summit” points to the head’s apex (often associated with the sahasrāra). The “light” then is the inner jyoti experienced in concentration when awareness gathers at that apex. “Kannan” functions as the chosen name-form of the Absolute: the inner deity is ‘seen’ not by outward eyes but within the luminous point of consciousness. On an alchemical-symbolic reading (also plausible in Siddhar diction), “magnet” can allude to the lodestone-like principle that ‘binds’ and stabilizes volatile substances—mirroring the mind’s stabilization—so that the divine presence becomes evident in the refined, concentrated ‘light’ of awareness.
Overall, the poem contrasts two kinds of possession: external holdings (place, land, relations) are refused, while the only ‘acquisition’ endorsed is the distilled essence of teaching, culminating in direct inner vision.