நாடியது நீடும் காடியது கூடும்
பாடியதும் ஆடும் ஆடியது மூடும்
சாடியதும் ஓடும் நாடி நடு நாடும்
வீடுமது தேடும் காடுதனை நாடே
Naadiyathu needum kaadiyathu koodum
Paadiyathum aadum aadiyathu moodum
Saadiyathum oodum naadi nadu naadum
Veedumathu thedum kaaduthanai naade.
What is sought will lengthen; what is shown/pointed-out will join (and gather).
What is sung will dance; what has danced will close/cover.
What is scolded/struck at will run; (so) seek—seek the middle nāḍi.
(If) seeking liberation (vīdu), seek the kāḍu.
Pursuit makes the pursued thing grow longer (desire proliferates); displaying or ‘pointing out’ draws more attachment and company.
Recitation/chanting sets an inner movement in play (‘it dances’), and that movement must be contained/closed (through restraint, secrecy, or yogic sealing).
Instead of spending force in outward blame or aggression—which only makes things scatter—turn the search inward: seek the central nāḍi (the middle channel).
If what you truly want is release, seek the kāḍu: the solitude/cremation-ground (outer or inner) where attachments are burnt and the Self is discerned.
The verse is built on compact paradox and pun.
1) External seeking multiplies bondage: “nāḍiyatu nīḍum” can be read as a psychological law—when one ‘seeks’ objects (nāḍu = to seek), the wanting extends (nīḍu = to lengthen). “kāṭiyatu kūḍum” suggests that what one shows off, exhibits, or points to (kāṭu = to show/indicate) tends to ‘join’—i.e., it attracts add-ons: attention, envy, further desires, and social entanglement.
2) Sound → movement → sealing: “pāḍiyatu āḍum” can indicate mantra/recitation producing vibration and prāṇic oscillation (the ‘dance’ of inner energy). “āḍiyatu mūḍum” then hints at closure: the need to ‘seal’ that arousal—either by bandha-like containment, by withdrawal of the senses (closing), or by keeping the experience hidden (covering), since dissipated display returns one to “kāṭiyatu kūḍum.”
3) Wordplay on nāḍi: “nāḍi naḍu nāḍum” deliberately fuses nāḍi as verb (“having sought/seek!”) with nāḍi as noun (subtle channel; also ‘pulse’ in Siddha medicine). “naḍu nāḍi” most naturally points to the central channel (suṣumṇā), the ‘middle’ path of prāṇa where siddhi and release are pursued, rather than in the side-currents of outward emotion and argument.
4) Kāḍu as the locus of transformation: “kāḍu” is not merely a forest; in Siddhar idiom it often evokes the cremation-ground (śmaśāna)—the place where death is faced, ego is ‘burnt,’ and fear/desire are confronted. It can also be interiorized: the body/mind as a wild ‘forest,’ or the inner cremation where passions are reduced to ash. Thus liberation (vīdu) is not found by extension and accumulation, but by entering the austerity of the kāḍu and stabilizing awareness in the central current.