சோகந்தவிர் வேகங்கொள சோகம் மதுசோகம்
சாகம் சிவையோகம் பெரும்சோகம் சிவயோகம்
மோகந்தவிர் மோகங்கொள்வி மோகம் மதயோகம்
ஆகந்தனி லேகந்தனி யாகுஞ்சைய் யோகம்
sōkantavir vēkaṅkoḷa sōkam matusōkam
cākam civaiyōkam perumsōkam civayōkam
mōkantavir mōkaṅkoḷvi mōkam matayōkam
ākantani lēkantani yākuñcaiy yōkam
“Cast off sorrow; take up (inner) intensity/urgency.
Sorrow becomes ‘madhu-sorrow’ (nectar-sorrow / sweet sorrow).
Death becomes Śiva-yoga; great sorrow becomes Śiva-yoga.
Cast off delusion/desire; yet take up delusion/desire (in some manner).
Delusion becomes ‘mada-yoga’ (intoxication-yoga / pride-yoga).
In the inner/body (ākam) alone, in the One (ēkam) alone—do the yoga that makes (it) so.”
Renounce ordinary grief and craving, but harness their force: when the mind turns inward with intensity, sorrow ripens into a “sweet sorrow” that becomes nectar-like devotion; even the experience of death (or ego-death) turns into union with Śiva. Likewise, the energy behind desire—once purified and redirected—becomes an ecstatic yoga (a ‘drunken’ absorption) that settles in solitary oneness within the inner space of the body/self.
The verse speaks in the Siddhar idiom of transmutation: what is normally an affliction (sōkam = grief; mōkam = delusion/desire) is not merely suppressed but converted into yogic fuel.
1) “Sōkam → madhu-sōkam”: ‘Madhu’ can mean honey/nectar/liquor—Siddhar vocabulary often uses it for sweetness or for the nectar-like taste of inward absorption (and, by extension, the amṛta motif). Thus sorrow, when stripped of worldly entanglement, becomes a refined ache: longing, contrition, devotion, or a melting of the heart that is paradoxically “sweet.”
2) “Sāgam → Śiva-yogam”: ‘Sāgam’ commonly means death; in yogic reading it can also point to the dying of the ego-sense, the cessation of the old identity. When that ‘death’ is met through practice, it is reinterpreted as Śiva-yoga—union with the absolute rather than mere loss.
3) “Mōkam … mōkam koḷvi”: the cryptic pairing of “avoid desire” and “take desire” suggests a deliberate paradox. The Siddhar strategy is often: abandon craving for objects, but retain/assume a single-pointed “desire” for the Real (Śiva), or seize the raw psychic force of desire and re-channel it upward (a common yogic/alchemical move).
4) “Mōkam → mada-yogam”: ‘Mada’ can mean intoxication/ecstasy or pride/arrogance. In a positive yogic register it can indicate the ‘divine intoxication’ of samādhi-like absorption; in a cautionary register it can warn that transformed powers can harden into spiritual pride. The verse keeps both possibilities open.
5) “Ākam … ēkam …”: the closing points practice inward: the ‘inner/body-space’ (ākam) becomes the laboratory where dualities are cooked into oneness (ēkam). The goal is solitary unity—non-dual abidance—achieved by “doing” (cey) the appropriate yoga, not by external display.