சிந்தித்தா லதுபாவம் சிணுங்கி னாலோ
சேருவது காமமடா தங்கித் தங்கிச்
சந்தித்தால் சங்கமடா சங்க மத்தில்
சாருமடா சங்கடங்கள் சங்கிப் பங்கி
வந்தித்தால் வாதமடா வீண்வி வாதம்
வாகான மோகமடா மங்கிப் பொங்கி
நிந்தித்தால் நாசமடா நினைவுப் புந்தி
நிலையமடா மாயையதன் மயக்குத் தானே
sindhiththaa lathupaavam siNungi naalO
sErvathu kaamamadaa thangith thangich
sandhiththaal sangamadaa sanga maththil
saarumadaa sangadangaL sangip pangi
vandhiththaal vaadhamadaa veeNvi vaadham
vaagaana mOgamadaa mangip pongi
nindhiththaal naasamadaa ninaivup pundhi
nilaiyamadaa maayaiyathan mayakkuth thaanE.
“If you think of it, it becomes sin; if you keep whining/longing,
what you ‘join’ with is lust—staying on and on.
If you meet, it is ‘union’; and within that union,
troubles come and attach themselves, crowding in and sharing out.
If you salute/praise, it becomes disputation—useless argument.
(It is) the vehicle of infatuation, fading away and swelling up.
If you blame/denounce, it becomes ruin—for the mind’s remembering intellect.
It is indeed the ‘abode/state’ of Māyā—its very intoxication/delusion.”
Any engagement with the tempting object—first as thought, then as attachment, then as contact—slides into desire and culminates in entangling “union,” where sufferings multiply. Even opposite responses do not free one: praising becomes sterile debate, and condemning becomes inner ruin. In every case, the mind becomes the seat in which Māyā’s dizziness (delusive intoxication) operates.
The verse is structured as a sequence of conditional moves (“if you… then…”), showing how bondage forms through the psyche.
1) From thought to sin: “Thinking” here is not mere reflection but brooding, fantasy, repetitive mental tasting. In Siddhar ethics, the first bondage is subtle—mental assent—before outer action.
2) From attachment to lust: “Joining/staying” suggests lingering with the object (physically or inwardly). Prolonged association ripens into kāmam (lust), i.e., craving that seeks completion through possession or experience.
3) From meeting to ‘union’ to suffering: “Meeting” (sense-contact) becomes “sangamam” (union), a word that can mean sexual union, merger, or consummation. The Siddhar voice is deliberately blunt: in the very act of consummation, “sangadangal” (distresses/obstructions) accrue—social, karmic, bodily, and psychological—‘crowding’ around the doer.
4) Praise and blame as twin snares: The verse then turns from attraction to the subtler bind of opinion. “Vandiththal” (saluting/praising) becomes vātham/vivātham—argumentation, doctrinal wrangling, justification, rationalization. “Nindiththal” (blaming) becomes nāsam—ruin—because aversion also agitates and corrodes the “ninaivu–buddhi” (memory-intellect), the inner faculty that should be stabilized for yogic clarity.
5) Māyā’s ‘seat’: Calling it the “nilayam” (abode/station) of Māyā implies that the entire oscillation—craving, consummation, debate, aversion—is not liberation but Māyā’s operating mode. The “mangip pongi” (“fading and swelling”) portrays the mind’s wave-like fluctuations: desire subsides, rises again, and keeps carrying the person as a “vāhanam” (vehicle) for delusion.
Overall, the Siddhar point is not simply moralism but a yogic diagnosis: both attraction and repulsion, and even the intellect’s argumentative posturing, keep consciousness unstable. Freedom requires a third stance—non-clinging clarity—where neither craving nor condemnation is allowed to commandeer the mind.